Like Outlook, Evolution is an email client (which can work with Exchange server, cool!), calendar, task list and memo manager. Unlike Outlook, Evolution does not look at all like a native Windows app. Windows users looking for an alternative to an expensive Outlook license would do well to check out Evolution, but brace yourself for the beautiful open source ugliness.

The Win version of Evolution is for Windows XP only.

One way to think of it: You’ve got some really old potato salad in back of your fridge that you finally get around to relocating to your kitchen garbage can. It then sits in your kitchen garbage can, festering, until you take it out to the curbside trash.

Here’s how to take out the festering trash in Outlook:
1. Open Outlook. Go to the Tools menu and select the Empty Deleted Items Folder option.
2. You will be prompted to confirm that you want to permanently delete all the items in your Deleted Items folder. Click Yes.

Bonus Round:
Automatically Empty the Trash every time you exit Outlook:
1. Open Outlook. Go to the Tools menu and select Options.
2. Click on the Other tab
3. Check the “Empty Deleted Items Folder upon exiting” box. Click on “Advanced Options” button.
4. Check or uncheck the “Warn before permanently deleting items” box. If you leave this box checked, Outlook will prompt you to confirm the deletion every time you close outlook.
5. Click OK.

“Since the old Daylight Savings Time (up to 2006) started on the first Sunday in April, and the first Sunday in April in 2007 is April 1, and the new Daylight Savings Time from 2007 starts on the second Sunday in in March, and the second Sunday in March in 2007 is March 11, and since Entourage 2004 was released back in 2003 before these changes were passed into law, it stands to reason that precisely March 11 to March 31 (day before April 1) will be off by an hour. How can you be surprised now that you know about the changes? I think that you can expect that sometime before March 11 (my guess: sometime between Macworld SF in early January and March 1) an Office 2004 update will fix it. Just enter the time you want and don’t worry about it until March 1.”

Evolution is a popular Linux app, and the default client for Ubuntu. Evolution connects to the OWA giving you a new look to a familiar experience. You’ve got access to mail, calendar, tasks, and ZCoB address book. It’s pretty cool, and an understandable favorite.

When I was using it I noticed that, since it doesn’t connect directly to the mail server, there’s a slight lag in updating. I also missed some of the full-functionality of Outlook and Entourage, like browsing the GAL and opening shared calendars. These weren’t enough to throw Evolution out, but I wanted a client on par with Outlook or Entourage or that at least had some of these advanced features.

Using the OWA in Internet Explorer is a somewhat comparable experience to using Outlook. IE is only for Windows, though. Enter IE4Linux. IE4Linux runs on WINE and allows users to run IE on most Linux distros. This provides the same experience of using the OWA on a Windows machine: it’s good, but it could be better.

I learned a lot and had fun installing/configuring WINE and IE4Linux, but, man, it was a lot of work! (I spent a couple days playing with WINE (see below), and another couple hours installing IE). The pre-installed Evolution at least had the look and feel of a native client, but the OWA in IE on Linux…it was a stranger in a strange land.

Pressing ahead, Elph tipped me off to CrossOver, a derivative of WINE that “re-implements the WIN32 API, allowing applications to run as if natively on [Linux].” This meant that I could install Outlook* on Ubuntu with all the functionality I was looking for.

*This, technically, can also be done with WINE, but I spent 3 days trying to configure WINE to run the installation files, and even after “successfully installing” I couldn’t get Outlook to Launch.

Installing CrossOver was painless thanks to good documentation, and it installed and launched Outlook just as easily. It even added Windows apps to Unbuntu’s program menus (in WINE you usually launch through the terminal). Outlook in CrossOver was impressive; we all got the same silly look on our faces when we saw MS Outlook basically running natively in Ubuntu. Outlook consistently hung on closing, which was probably fixable (and even happens in Windows occasionally), but I was willing to put up with it to have a full-functioning client running in Ubuntu.

Of the three clients I tried, CrossOver is a clear winner…kinda. CrossOver costs $50, which I have a hard time paying while living in the open source freedom of Linux. But that’s a reasonable price, especially when running a free OS. The other downer is that CrossOver doesn’t support Outlook 2003 yet, only Outlook 2000. Outlook 2k was cool, but we spent a lot of time and money upgrading to Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003. Running the old Outlook felt like a step back.

Turn off junk email filter under the tools menu.

For Ari:
Install Entourage and configure it to look as AOL-y as possible to ease him in.

On Nupu
Configure Retrospect
Change setting on exchange server to fix root error at entourage startup.

Automate the Outlook 2003 upgrade.
more to come…

Ron
Jenny
Maggie
Erica
Billie
Pete
Raul

Currently using Outlook 2001:

Lynn Yates
Paul Saginaw
Mo
Brad
Stas’
Maggie (iBook)
Ann Agler
Nicole
Ian
Phoebe
Hannah?

Using other IMAP clients:
Paul Metler
Gauri

FAQ:
I heard that my password is going to change. Is this true? and if so, why?, when?, how?, what?
Yes, it’s true.
It is a safe guard against intruders, including viruses from outside of our network. It will also bring us closer to meeting Visa compliance.
This will go into place the end of May and the beginning of June depending on your business.
When you login to the PC after the upgrade has taken place, you will be prompted for a new password.
There are some minimal requirements for the password: It must be at least 8 characters long and should include 2 of the 3 characters:
1) An uppercase
2) a symbol
3) a number
For example, you can convert the password “chicken” into a strong password: “ch1ckeN!” –It’s now 8 characters long and uses all 3 of the character requirements (remember you only need 2 of the 3 of the character requirements).
Will there be any network outages?
There will. It is difficult to estimate how long the upgrade at each location will take. Roughly, we’re looking at it taking one evening per location: Roadhouse is one, Bakehouse/Creamery another, Deli/ATS/Zhaus another, and Mail order another.
How will email be different?
It will be faster, and more reliable. While Outlook from the work PCs will look and act the same, Web mail will be dramatically improved, and will have all of the collaboration features of the outlook clients. Mac users will also see a dramatic improvement with all of the collaboration features enabled in Entourage.
What about training?
The IT staff will available for one-on-one instruction and onsite demonstrations.

Timeline:
-FAQ created May 15
-Microcosm during the week of May 15th. Each member of the IT department will give a brief overview of the project, ask who else needs to know and how should we tell them during each onsite and during the Spring Huddle.
-Spring Huddle Announcement on May 16
-Workin article due May 19
-ZCOB-DC built by May 19
-Deli-DC, MO-DC, RH-DC, BH-DC, Zh-GC built by May 26
-First AD migration on May 29th – RH
-Second AD migration on May 31st – BH / CR
-Third AD migration on June 3rd – Deli / ATS / Zhaus
-Fourth AD migration on June 6th – MO
-Exchange server rebuilt by June 19th.
-OWA configured and running on June 20th.
-Migrate select mailboxes on June 21st.
-Migrate all users on Saturday, June 24th.