|
Greetings! Welcome to Vol. 8, No. 6, 10 Jul 2003, of Exchange Messaging
Outlook, a biweekly newsletter about Microsoft Exchange and
Microsoft Outlook.
Today's highlights:
- Exchange 2003 RTM
- OWA vulnerable to cross-site scripting?
- Outlook 2003 Beta 2 Technical Refresh
- Outlook 2003 name resolution
- Open source server + paid MAPI provider = Outlook
collaboration
- New Outlook developer tools
- Team Folders resurfaces
- Exchange a factor in Army's huge Microsoft order
Regular features:
- New utilities
- Updated utilities
- Other resources
Exchange 2003 RTM
Microsoft announced last week that Exchange 2003 has been
released to manufacturing. As usual, the main Exchange page at
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/ has details on the new
product itself and on different options for evaluating it. Not only
can you download a 120-day trial version, but you can also sign up
for a free 7-day trial of the new Outlook Web Access, which comes
closer than any previous version of OWA to duplicating the Outlook
desktop interface and functionality.
OWA vulnerable to cross-site scripting?
An article posted this week at
http://www.net-security.org/vuln.php?id=2806 suggests that
Outlook Web Access in Exchange 2000 may be susceptible to a
"cross-site scripting" attack in which a user's domain credentials
could be stolen through a browser vulnerability.
For more information on the concept of cross-site scripting, see
http://www.net-security.org/article.php?id=113 for a paper from
security intelligence firm iDEFENSE Labs.
Outlook 2003 Beta 2 Technical Refresh
Office 2003 beta testers can download the "technical refresh" for
Beta 2 (B2TR) at
http://officebeta.microsoft.com/officeupdate/default.aspx?CTT=6.
You can either choose to have your system checked for available
updates or just download the refresh directly. You must already have
Beta 2 installed on your system.
Business Contact Manager (BCM) for Outlook 2003 is a separate
download that includes the full product, not just a patch. If you
have been using BCM from Beta 2, you will need to remove it first
through Control Panel | Add/Remove Programs, before you install the
B2TR version of BCM. (Install Office 2003 B2TR first, then BCM
B2TR.) IMPORTANT: The BCM B2TR
database is not compatible with the Beta 2 data structure. Before
upgrading, export your Accounts and Business Contacts so that you
can import them later into B2TR. The beta provides no way to migrate
history and opportunities.
Outlook 2003 name resolution
Outlook 2003 answers the frequent request for name resolution
that works more like Outlook Express -- specifically an
"auto-complete" feature that allows you to type in one or two
characters and have Outlook suggest recipients that you've used
recently. Most of the time, this feature works well, although
sometimes it may suggest an old address that's now invalid. In that
case, you can clear the name from the auto-complete list by
selecting it and pressing the Del key.
Using my Tablet PC, I discovered another nice twist to the
auto-complete feature. When I tap in the To box with the Tablet PC
stylus, Outlook 2003 pops up a list of people I have recently sent
messages to. It appears to be either the most recent or the most
frequently used recipients. (Often those overlap, so it's hard to
tell.) I have not found an equivalent feature for non-Tablet users
yet.
One warning goes with this feature, though: I found that I had
selected the wrong recipient on two messages. Let that be a lesson
that picking recipients might not be such a good thing if you're
doing email in the passenger seat of your car with the sun's glare
making the Tablet PC screen difficult to read.
Open source server + paid MAPI provider = Outlook
collaboration
OGo (http://www.opengroupware.org/)
joins the list of Outlook-compatible collaboration solutions aiming
to provide an alternative to Exchange. It is an open source server
providing contact, calendar, tasks, and document sharing and other
collaboration features (not including mail) to Outlook and other
clients. Outlook support is via the ZideLook MAPI store provider
from
http://developer.skyrix.com, which uses MAPI over WebDAV.
New Outlook developer tools
Outlook developers can check out two new tools designed to
produce better Outlook applications. Outlook Plus Events (http://www.asm-soft.com/Products/outlook_plus_events.htm)
tweaks the events that fire when an item or folder is added,
removed, or changed. Of particular interest is the ability to get a
remove event that passes the EntryID of the item or folder being
removed.
The second new tool, from
http://www.bizboxsoftware.com/, is called Outlook Architect. You
can apply to the beta at the company's web site. It provides a
toolkit for creating web pages that can function either as Outlook
folder home pages or in Internet Explorer. The tool provides a
variety of common user interface elements, including a search
control and toolbars. You can also use them in Visual Basic projects
related to Outlook. As with the old Team Folders Kit, Outlook
Architect allows you to create one folder home page that can be
shared across several different folders in an application. It has
some time-saving features, like automatically displaying tabs for
switching among multiple folders on the same level in the folder
hierarchy.
Team Folders resurfaces
The download for the Team Folders Kit, although no longer
supported by Microsoft, has resurfaced at
http://download.microsoft.com/download/exch55/team/2000/WIN98/EN-US/oltfKit.exe.
Get it before it disappears again.
Team Folders, for the uninitiated, is a free tool for creating
public folders with attractive, functional Outlook folder home
pages. If you're using Outlook 2002, make sure you are up-to-date on
service packs, since the initial release of Outlook 2002 included an
insecure version of the Outlook View Control that Team Folders uses.
For more information on Team Folders, see
http://www.slipstick.com/dev/teamfolders.htm.
Exchange a factor in Army's huge Microsoft order
Large account reseller Softmart has landed what may be the
largest order ever for Microsoft products -- $78 million the first
year, with five one-year options, valuing the total contract at
between $450 and 478 million dollars, according to various press
reports. In addition to software for 494,000 desktop computers, the
Army will obtain licenses for 5,000 Exchange servers.
|
RSS
