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Saturday, October 13, 2007

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Outlook Connector - Keep your Outlook Data In Sync Using Live Hotmail

- Rob Bushway

We get a lot of questions about keeping Outlook data in sync between computers. Previously, those questions were always answered with "get a hosted Exchange" account. Well, with the new version of Windows Live Hotmail comes a new sync option: Microsoft Office Outlook Connector

The free version gives sync access to email and contacts. A paid subscription for Windows Live Hotmail Plus enables additional syncing services:

Manage, share, and sync Windows Live Calendar in Outlook
Access to Tasks and Notes
Plus
- 10 GB of storage
- No account expiration*
- No graphical ads—no clutter, just your mail
- File attachments up to 20 MB—send more photos, more documents, or almost anything you want

A paid subscription costs $19.95 per year

I played with it a few weeks back and it worked quite well. In fact, I think I'm going to upgrade to the Plus account, and begin forwarding all of my email to Hotmail instead.

This gives Windows Live Hotmail users something Google doesn't offer: full, seamless sync between calendar, contacts, tasks, and email to a local client, while also getting one-stop access to the same data over the internet.

Worth checking out for those with multiple computers like desktops, Tablet PCs, UMPCs, etc.

Technorati Tags: Outlook Connector, Windows Live Hotmal, Synchronization

Mobile | Outlook

10/13/2007 1:24 PM MST

Outlook Connector - Keep your Outlook Data In Sync Using Live Hotmail Comments [13] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Saturday, October 13, 2007 5:22:27 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Music to my ears! I'm going to have to read a little more about this, but this sounds like a very student friendly solution to keeping things in sync.

Yonatan

Sunday, October 14, 2007 7:44:02 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Even the non-subscription model gives you [packrats, lol] additional storage.

I went with the subscription route to have access to the calendar and not have to deal with ads when I'm in the web interface, but the larger attachment sizes comes in handy too.

GoodThings2Life

Sunday, October 14, 2007 8:27:41 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Rob:

What does Outlook Connector do that you cannot already do with Outlook and a Hotmail account? Without using Outlook Connector you can set up a Hotmail account in Outlook and it will sync all of your mail folders using WebDAV to the Hotmail server while keeping a local message store on your PC. I've been doing this for years.

With the web-based Hotmail client you can even import your Outlook contacts into the Hotmail address book. So what is gained by using Outlook Connector? Only automatic sync of contacts? (And calendar with the paid subscription?) I'm having a hard time understanding just what's added by Outlook Connector.

Mark (K0LO)

Sunday, October 14, 2007 1:17:30 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Mark -

The outlook connector adds the contacts syncing ( not just the ability to do an import ), with the paid subscription adding in calendar items and tasks ( + notes, too ) for syncing, too.

The outlook connector basically gives you the ability to automatically sync those items rather than having to mess with import.

Rob

Sunday, October 14, 2007 6:23:31 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Rob:

Thanks. I had also read that Outlook Connector uses a newer synchronization technology and is much improved over WebDAV. The information from Microsoft does a really poor job of explaining just what this add-on does.

Mark (K0LO)

Monday, October 15, 2007 4:38:56 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Hi Rob;

Thanks for the tip but it doesn't say anywhere that Calender and Task (plus Notes) are included when I visited the $19.95 sign up page.

Where did you see that listed?

I would think that is something significant in terms of the big shift for Microsoft. We all know that they never let you sync/fetch Hotmail from Outlook before unless you paid for it.

The free service of finally being able to synce Hotmail in Outlook is a big deal, but, if it as you say and you can synce tasks, notes, calendar, then Microsoft seems to just have created their own Hosted Exchange type service (albeit not for the corporate market).

Aaron J. Walker

Monday, October 15, 2007 4:42:57 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Aaron:

It is right here on the download page:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7aad7e6a-931e-438a-950c-5e9ea66322d4&displaylang=en

With a paid subscription, Outlook Connector enables these additional features:

* Manage, share, and synchronize your Windows Live Calendar in Outlook.
* Access your Tasks and Notes.

and

For Calendar Tasks and Notes Functionality

* A paid subscription-based e-mail account from MSN Hotmail, Windows Live Hotmail or Office Live

Rob

Monday, October 15, 2007 5:36:07 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Thanks Rob;

I am at work and therefore didn't click through to the download page.

Our IT guys really frown on downloading anything without their expressed prior permission even to your own personal UMPC sharing the WiFi.

I'll check it out when I get home.

Aaron J. Walker

Monday, October 15, 2007 7:06:13 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I purchased a subscription, but ran into a brick wall with the calendar syncing. I get the following error message: Error in Calendar
Outlook Connector is available only to subscribers.

I am of course a subscriber now.

Big thumbs down for lack of a telephone option for technical support. I emailed tech support yesterday, and waited 26 hours for their "24 response time" which just passed the buck to another department, the Outlook Connector department. Of course, sending them an email is impossible, so I'm not waiting for the Hotmail tech support to get back to me. It's very frustrating paying for a service, and being prohibited from calling a phone to speak with a customer service representative!

Yonatan

Monday, October 15, 2007 8:11:26 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Not to rain on this parade, but I gave Outlook Connector a try and was very disappointed. The new sync technology was no faster than the older WebDAV technology. With WebDAV you could simply click on a Hotmail folder and it would immediately update. The new sync mechanism only updates when you fetch mail. The additional junk added to the Outlook GUI was disorganized, confusing, and constrictive. I was unable to rename the account, for example. The sync of contacts was only between the Hotmail server and a new folder in Outlook and not to the main Outlook contacts folder. To make a long story short, I didn't like Outlook Connector at all and uninstalled it.

Mark (K0LO)

Tuesday, October 16, 2007 1:09:25 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

When you use outlook connector your hotmail contacts, tasks, calendar are seprate from Outlook's main folders...because of this the hotmail stuff does not sync with my mobile phone...is there a workaround for this?

Ryan

Tuesday, October 16, 2007 1:35:09 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I'm not sure of the workaround for that.

Rob

Sunday, October 21, 2007 10:59:13 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I ran in to the same wall as Yonatan, i can not sync my calendar with only a hotmail plus membership.

Elmstrom

Comments are closed.