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November 17, 2005
Staff Dev Nov 17, 2005
Today I spent the day researching options for over the air syncing, email, calendar, contacts etc..
We've been evaluating a tool called NotifyLink which seems to be working quite well. The device it seems to work best with is the Blackberry.
We do have it working with the palms as well. And it works okay there.
I can't find anything else out there that will work with our calendar system.
Posted by knabet at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)
Blank Mail issues Specifically MAC Mail
Messages sent from Communications Express at times will show up blank for users using MAC Mail. The quick and dirty fix on the Mac Mail side is to view the message as plain text.
Each email received has "Full Headers" which are hidden to the user because most people don't know what they mean, or care. I started looking at the Full Headers of the emails that were reported to show up blank. I found something. One part of the full header is:Content-type: multipart/alternative;
If the portion of the header looks like this: multipart/mixed; then the messages show up.
The odd thing is _ALL_ the messages coming through have the multipart/alternative; boundary since a patch was installed in Sept.
Email servers have to conform to rules called RFCs. I did a search for multipart/alternative; I pasted the portion of the RFC relating to multiplart/alternative; into the extended entry if you'd like to read on.
To summarize I will say this. Sun is in 100% compliance. The issue is on the client. I have been told Sun tries to accomodate clients who do not adhere to the RFC's so we'll wait and see.
As a side note. Here is a link to a Microsoft knowledge base explaining how their product ( Outlook ) was sending out messages that showed up blank in certain email readers.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;842937
UCS has not seen problems using Outlook as the email client and messages being sent blank to Mac Mail users. UCS supports Outlook and I encourage you to call 8-8925 and ask for a tech to come set Outlook up for you, if you desire.
From home you can still use Communications Express, or you can use a 3rd party email client. Here's a link to Bill's blog regarding this. Click Here
7.2.3 The Multipart/alternative subtype
The multipart/alternative type is syntactically identical to multipart/mixed, but the semantics are different. In particular, each of the parts is an "alternative" version of the same information. User agents should recognize that the content of the various parts are interchangeable. The user agent should either choose the "best" type based on the user's environment and preferences, or offer the user the available alternatives. In general, choosing the best type means displaying only the LAST part that can be displayed. This may be used, for example, to send mail in a fancy text format in such a way that it can easily be displayed anywhere:
From: Nathaniel Borenstein
To: Ned Freed
Subject: Formatted text mail
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=boundary42
--boundary42
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
...plain text version of message goes here....
--boundary42
Content-Type: text/richtext
.... richtext version of same message goes here ...
--boundary42
Content-Type: text/x-whatever
.... fanciest formatted version of same message goes here
...
--boundary42--
In this example, users whose mail system understood the "text/x-whatever" format would see only the fancy version, while other users would see only the richtext or plain text version, depending on the capabilities of their system.
In general, user agents that compose multipart/alternative entities should place the body parts in increasing order of preference, that is, with the preferred format last. For fancy text, the sending user agent should put the plainest format first and the richest format last. Receiving user agents should pick and display the last format they are capable of displaying. In the case where one of the alternatives is itself of type "multipart" and contains unrecognized sub-parts, the user agent may choose either to show that alternative, an earlier alternative, or both.
NOTE: From an implementor's perspective, it might seem more sensible to reverse this ordering, and have the plainest alternative last. However, placing the plainest alternative first is the friendliest possible option when mutlipart/alternative entities are viewed using a non-MIME- compliant mail reader. While this approach does impose some burden on compliant mail readers, interoperability with older mail readers was deemed to be more important in this case.
It may be the case that some user agents, if they can recognize more than one of the formats, will prefer to offer the user the choice of which format to view. This makes sense, for example, if mail includes both a nicely-formatted image version and an easily-edited text version. What is most critical, however, is that the user not automatically be shown multiple versions of the same data. Either the user should be shown the last recognized version or should explicitly be given the choice.
Posted by knabet at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)
November 14, 2005
NotifyLink
NotifyLink is a piece of software UCS has been evaluating. What it does for us is act like a traffic manager for syncs between your palm devices, and Communications Express. ( mail, calendar/tasks, and contacts ) The way the app works is it connects to your palm device over the network. For those who carry blackberry, or a treo, or other internet capable device, it will sync the above mentioned info over the internet. For those using a cabled device such as a palm zire etc.. it will use the network connection of the PC to sync the software.
it works great. No more using outlook as the conduit.
Now for the downside. Its spendy. UCS is looking at ways to help minimize the hit to the user, but again the software is spendy :)
But hey it works.
Posted by knabet at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2005
Secure Global Desktop
Its been awhile since I've written much. Lately I've been working on Secure Global Desktop.
This software package is a great tool for the user who works from home or remotely. What I can do is publish applications for people to run from the internet. One of the these applications can and is a full windows desktop.
I can restrict access, or publish specific applications to users based on LDAP attributes. More to come soon.
Posted by knabet at 08:35 AM | Comments (0)