Using a Mac Desktop and PC Laptop?

[jekite]

I want to purchase a mac desktop given that I already have a windows pc laptop for school. I use this mainly to take notes on/to keep organized through outlook with the calendar. I want to use a mac desktop in conjunction with this setup and want to be able to check email, maintain contacts, and a calendar on the mac desktop which ultimately are "in sync" with the pc laptop using outlook to organize all of those above mentioned items. What are the best solutions to addressing this problem/ using a a pc and mac simultaneously.

I have considered using a .mac account to sync files (ie notes taken in word between the two machines, and use ical through .mac to keep my calendar consistent on both machines)-just wondering if this is the only, or even best option available to me currently.

If I can't find a good solution I guess using a mac laptop for everything would have to be my solution.

 

[nplima]

hi

While sharing email boxes across platforms is easy, by using a POP or IMAP client, sharing the calendar is trickier. AFAIK Outlook will only use calendars stored on MS Exchange servers. Those can only be hosted on Windows NT servers.

Assuming you're a regular user, not someone who can afford to buy Exchange for home use, your best bets are:

a) host your own free calendar/groupware solution on a unix-like server. Both Outlook and some Mac-based client software would access this server. Since Outlook does not comply 100% with industry standards, there is a chance you'd need to use Outlook on your PC and use a web frontend to your server on other computers. You'd need to keep your server visible on the internet.

b) use someone else's server for calendar and groupware. Google Calendar comes to mind, but I understand that Outlook requires 3rd party add-ons to be able to read and write to Google Calendar. Since Google Desktop is available for Mac and Windows, I'd suggest having your calendars and notes hosted on your Google account and losing Outlook altogether.

I'm familiar with Google services, but I'm sure that other IT giants like AOL, MSN and Yahoo have worthwhile alternatives. In fact, if any company hosts Exchange mail and calendars for people to use via the web and via Outlook, that should be MSN.

Good luck

Nuno

 

[grafikat]

I would highly recommend using Gmail. I have notifier which prompts me on calendars, keeps contacts, has great email service, and of course, is Free! Using Entourage (The MS email client for mac) is probably overkill. As our company uses outlook for all meetings, email and such, I can't get away from it, but at home I use gmail.

Until recently, I had a similar situation. I have a G5, and got a windows laptop to test websites. I now have a MB, which I run parallels and gave the Windows machine to my DH!