September 29, 2005

Importing Address Book into OS X Mail

Well as some may know, UCS supports three email clients. Both Mac and PC users have access to Communications Express. On the PC side you can use (and very tightly integrate with Communications Express) Microsoft Outlook. Mac's have OS X Mail.

One of the Downsides of using the OS X mail is that you do not have access to you Address Book or Calendar. Calendar access is still only done through the web (Communications Express). I have, however, found a decent method of getting your Addresses imported.

Step 1:Login to Communications Express

Step 2: Click the Address Book Tab

Step 3: Click the Import/Export Button. Make sure to choose "Microsoft Outlook CSV" as the format for export.

Step 4: Note the Filename and Save to a spot that you can find again (maybe the desktop) Close Communications Express.

Step 5: Open the Application "Address Book." If you don't know where it's located click here to see how to get to it.

Step 6: Import the file you saved Here's a picture of the menus you need to choose to do so...

Posted by crowej at 5:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 2, 2005

We're gonna do what?!!??!

We'll be moving all users to Communications Express, the new email system. Appropriately enough, the new link for this is:http://www.wou.edu/newmail. Once we get all of WOU migrated, then we'll point /wouemail to this location as well. My personal opinion is that this change is pretty decent. The new calendar (which is in the same web page) simply rocks. The email client is faster. Having migrated a number of users to this new email I can say that the address book still stinks. However...

UCS Supports Outlook

As stated in Bill's Blog UCS is now supporting Microsoft Outlook 2003 in addition to Communications Express. We feel that the latest Outlook offering from Microsoft is mature enough to be secure. It also snych super-well with the web Communications Express. It is because of very poor security track records that we remain unable to support prior iterations of Outlook. If you or your department wish to use this program and do not have Office 2003, then you will need to buy a license (approx $50). Once we have the PC side settled down, I'll dink around with a Mac client (entourage).

It is my sincere hope that these two applications will offer users the flexibility to stretch their digital wings.

Outlook synchs with the Communications Express app via a conduit (think plug-in like software). Outlook actually receives and writes to the web-based app. There are several advantages for WOU and UCS to this.

1. Access to the same data whether on campus or on the road.
2. Easy to set up Palms, Pocket PC's etc. LaRon Tolley, until today, was never able to get his PocketPC to synch to the calendar. It now works and took one of my student workers 15 minutes to get fully functional. This student, Myron Hoeckle, had never set up a PIM device to synch to Outlook before.
3. Allows for user flexibility and choice (Some may say that two choices isn't much of a choice...we're kind of like the American political system. No matter which app you use, you get the same message).
4. Allows low-end users the opportunity to use more features in an easy-to-see GUI.

Posted by crowej at 10:14 PM | Comments (3)