I'm looking for a solution like an exchange server for email, calendar, contacts, etc. I would prefer to use a open source solution. Any suggestions?
The client PCs are using Mac/Unix and Windows, so the server must be accessible from all platforms. I prefer to used a non-Web-based solution, but i'm open to web-based suggestions if they provide all the needed functions (email, calendar, contacts).
It's not open source, but Kerio MailServer is a good, cross platform alternative to Exchange, particularly for smaller businesses.
You can install a set of services like ldap, caldav, postfix and glue all them with horde.
Look into Funambol. It is open source. Not sure it does everything but it may be a good start.
Related
I recently started working at an IT company as a support agent and one of the things we do is managing the backup of our clients' servers.
It's all working nicely, but one part is just terrible, which is the backup log. The backup log is a excel file with a list of all the clients and for each of them a list of dates and whether or not the backup has succeeded on that date. The data in that document comes from emails rapports that are automatically sent when the backup finishes.
But here comes the bad part: Once in a week there is an employee who checks ALL THE EMAILS and manually fills the backup log. This was too much for me, especially knowing that we only have about 5 employees.
Solution: Make a script that does it for you. Yeah, I know and I think I'm capable of doing that, but there's a few things that I'm not sure about and I hope you guys could help me with it:
The mails are all in a different folders in an inbox that I had to add to my outlook manually and I don't know how I can programmatically reach it.
I don't know in what language I should use for this. I'm able to do it in a lot of languages, but I don't know which one suits this best
These are the only two things that I don't know and I would really appreciate it if you could help me with this.
EDIT:
The server is an exchange server with IMAP enabled. I eat java for breakfast and I've used JavaMail before, so I think I'll go with that, thanks
This is a pretty open-ended question....
You should pick a language that you're comfortable with and that has a good email support library, e.g., JavaMail for Java.
If the messages are in an Exchange server that has enabled IMAP support, you should be able to read the messages using JavaMail or any other library that support IMAP. If the server only supports the Microsoft proprietary protocol, you have fewer choices.
We really need to know more about the mail server you're using to offer much more guidance.
Pidgin has an option to Insert Image, but when I use XMPP this feature is not available
Has anyone solved this problem?
Although XMPP supports images it's up to the plugins to have the protocol-specific code written for each:
The only protocols that support the "Insert Image" function in Pidgin are GG, ICQ, MXit, MySpace, Sametime, SILC and AIM. Other protocols, including IRC, Bonjour, Yahoo Messenger, MSN and XMPP, support file transfers but not direct image transfers.
People have asked about this in the past, but it looked like only AIM's plugin had support.
For a time it seemed this was going to be rectified, but ostensibly nothing's been done with this ticket in 17months..
Just looking for some help/suggestions with this. I require my own server for an upcoming project that will be hosting users websites. I want to build a control panel the user can log into and modify their website which will be stored elsewhere on the server. This all seems easy enough, It's just managing domains and emails that confuse me.
What should I look for to manage domain names and point them to the correct website and also what would be the best way to manage email accounts/set up new ones etc. I want to avoid cPanel/WHM if possible, I'm looking to control most things through the control panel I will be building. So any suggestions on this would be useful as well, as I will be wanting to add email accounts through php (Can be done using a shell I assume?).
I will also be wanting to measure bandwidth used on the websites contained in each users directory, any suggestions on making this possible?
I'm really looking for some suggestions on what software to use to set this up, any advice would be really helpful!
Thanks,
Graeme
It sounds like you've got a lot of creative room. May I suggest a web framework? Django. With it you can build out a nice control panel, it's template system is clean and concise. It's also based on Python and thats why I suggest it. If there is a python module for it, you can use it in Django... so things like altering, creating, etc. local data/files is a breeze. you simply us Python (you can even forget it's "django"), crunch your data and then spit it out (into django... out to templates.. to display to the user).
You'll likely want AJAXY biznazz, their is a nice Django App for that, Dajax. Django has a rich and helpful community and tons of resources. Just hop on GitHub.com and search for Django, You'll find tons of stuff.
Im building a DNS Control Panel with it. Which sounds like a minimal version of what you're doing.
I'm new to programming, and my only area of expertise is web design/simple development on platforms like wordpress/expression engine. (Yea, you guys can laugh).
I have a new client who currently receives medical faxes through an online form (the user fills out a form concerning their prescriptions and once submitted, it faxes the info).
I'm completely redesigning their site, and I'm not sure how online faxing works.
Has anybody dealt with internet faxing? How does it work? Does/can it go through email?
And is it possible to send a fax through a form with javascript/php or route it through email?
Don't pay for it! All you need is a modem on the server and a standard phone line. Then set up a fax print driver under your os (you can do it on windows and unix).
The unix way is mgetty/sendfax : http://mgetty.greenie.net/doc/mgetty_3.html#SEC3
The Windows way : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306657
There are other ways but unless you can't get a phone line you'd be mad to pay fees for it.
Would it not be helpful to look at how it is currently being done, that way you can learn a thing or two about the process before trying to go do it again? That way you can find if it is using any special libraries or techniques or services to send the fax and you can then either duplicate the code or use it as a template to get started on your own solution.
All of what your asking is possible. I would recommend finding a service provider who can send the fax for you. They all have different interfaces requirements and pricing. I used to use DataOnCall which is now called Fax.com
They had a web service which we would post the document to be faxed plus additional information. They were a preety reasonable service. This was several years ago so I can't speak how they currently fair.
Take a look at eFax's SDK. I haven't used it, but it looks like it might be useful to you.
Yes, you can send faxes via email through several services; this link seems to have some useful information. I worked at a company previously that did this same sort of thing, and while I don't recall the exact service we used, most of them are very similar, and they work reasonably well.
I would like to write a plug-in that will allow a custom written CRM to read and write to their local Outlook client. I know that this poses a security concern. But, my clients are asking that their CRM "be connected" to Outlook. They would like to be able to do the following:
A) When a contact sends them an email (reply or free standing email), they'd like the details of this email to go INTO the CRM. Yep. They would like me to save the body, time and date it was sent, etc.
B) They want to be able to send new emails (or replies to existing emails) from within the CRM itself. Basically, "a form that looks like Outlook's send/reply email form".
C) Want the ability to search for contacts and the related emails with a search for tags/keywords facility. (i.e. if a product name or code appears in an email then they want the email returned in the search).
D) Having performed a search of many contacts, they will want to prepare a mailer and shoot out some sort of email announcement to their qualified leads. This could be 50, 100, or more persons. So its got to be able to allow bulk mailing.
E) Given a list of new prospects, that arent currently contacts in the CRM, they will want to do the same and if they get replies from this mailer to the prospects, the will want the replies to be saved in the DB and contacts be inserted into the DB.
F) They would like to be able to utilize the calendar and task list facilities of Outlook from the CRM, as well.
More or less, they want this pretty basic (as it is today) CRM that I created to integrate with Outlook and have it do so seamlessly as if it was an add-on to the CRM. A plug-in is what I am thinking...
But, I dont know where to begin. My environment is Windows XP/Vista and is going to be ASP.NET and I am going to use the VB.NET language to accomplish this. What do I need? Are there resources out there that can describe how to build a plug-in to Outlook as I have been asked to? This is not Exchange, none of the clients use exchange (not so far). They all run Outlook. Mostly 2003. Most clients are XP right now but some are upgrading to Vista.
For some reason I cant seem to wrap my head around this. I think the whole security issue is thwarting my ability to see past what is probably a simple thing. The client doesnt want to be prompted by any security messages asking them if they are sure they want to send 382 emails to their contacts. Not once and certainly not 382 times.
Where do I begin? I've searched the internet for similar but mainly what I found are already-written products and I've got to write this from scratch.
I was part of the team that created the original Outlook Plug-In for Frankley Covey time management tools. It was quite an adventure!
The first thing I would do is make your client pick a version of Outlook, and stick with it. DO NOT let the client add support for additional Outlook versions, unless they are willing to pay for it, and willing to have the delivery time pushed back to a reasonable date.
The team I was with swore by the Slipstick website. There are several solutions to the Outlook security prompts in there.
If you can, talk to Microsoft and see if they can get you the object model for the specific version of Outlook you will be working with. We had this model printed on a large scale color printer and put it on a large wall. IIRC, it was something like 7'x5' object map. This helped tons.
You might end up creating specific classifications/namespaces for your Outlook code. It's been a while, but I remember something about a dot notation like .Email, .Task, and several others. I had to create a couple new dot namespaces for the Outlook Task object.
As razorfish noted, look up the new Visual Studio For Office Tools. This has made some stuff a lot easier.
Talk to your client and find out if they will need to connect to Exchange servers. There were two distinct ways of building Plug-ins. One mode only worked with Outlook itself, while the other talked with Exchange. This is very important to your development efforts. The models are VERY different and will cost you extra time if you pick the wrong one.
EDIT: There are a couple books that were helpful with this. The books are for Outlook 2000, so you might want to see if there are updated versions.
Building Applications with Microsoft Outlook 2000 Technical Reference
Building Applications using Outlook 2000, CDO, Exchange, and Visual Basic
Both have a lot of information on how to do deep integrations with Outlook.
You should take a look at the Visual Studio for Office Tools. You can easily create add-ins for Outlook, Word, Excel ... pretty much the entire Microsoft Office family of products.
You can also take a look at Add-In Express, but I didn't have much luck with their controls, and the VSTO for 2008 is extremely easy to use.
Check out Kayxo Insight. It's a framework for creating the kind of solution you are describing.
Check out www.softomate.com they offer plugins and integration solutions for various projects.