With the prevalence of computers and Internet connections at home, you may have wondered how you can access your work e-mail and schedule in Outlook 2002 from your home computer, handheld PC, or Pocket PC.

With Outlook, you can send and receive e-mail messages and share other information from your office, from home, and from the road. At the office, you typically connect to a server on a local network. At home or on the road, you can manage your e-mail messages and other items on your work computer in one of the following ways:

• From a desktop or laptop computer using the Remote Mail or Offline Folder feature in Outlook.
• From a mobile device, such as a Pocket PC or handheld PC.

This article gives you an overview of how each option works and tells you where to get more information.

Using a desktop or laptop computer

To access your work e-mail and schedule from a desktop or laptop computer at home, you can use the Remote Mail or Offline Folder features in Outlook. Remote Mail allows you to connect to your mail server and then download content including message headers, full messages, and/or attachments. Offline folder files (.ost) allow you to work offline whenever you're not connected to your mail server. Then when you're online, the data on your mail server is synchronized with the data in the .ost file.

When to use Remote Mail

If you need to download messages from your Inbox only, use the Remote Mail feature. Remote Mail makes it possible for you to screen out the messages you don't want to download by first downloading the message headers and then downloading the complete messages that you select.

Use Remote Mail when:

• You want to retrieve items from your Inbox only.
• You want to minimize time spent on the phone.
• You have another computer with a slow connection.
• You connect from a hotel or airport where the cost of connectivity is high.

When to use Offline Folders

The Offline Folder feature provides the greatest flexibility. You can synchronize your Inbox, Calendar, Tasks, and any other folder from your remote location to make the contents identical to the contents of the same folders on the server. You can also download all of the items in a folder in one step.

Use the Offline Folder feature when:

• You want to synchronize the contents of any folder, including Calendar and Contacts, with another computer.
• You don't need to worry about the cost of connectivity.
• You have high speed broadband access (DSL, cable modem, T1, or greater).

For more information about setting up Remote Mail or using the Offline Folder feature, see Outlook Help.

Connecting to your e-mail server

To use Remote Mail, you must set up your home computer to connect with your work e-mail server. You can do this by using either a local area network (LAN), a dial-up networking connection with a traditional (such as a 28.8 or 56K) modem, or your own dialing program with a modem.

Through a LAN   Your organization must either provide external access to the Internet through an Internet gateway or use an Internet mail server that is already on a LAN. When you connect to the Internet through a LAN, your Internet e-mail server automatically checks for and delivers new messages at preset intervals. You can also specify a dial-up networking connection to use when the LAN is not available.

Through a dial-up networking connection   If you are using dial-up networking to work with offline folders from a remote location, you must first set up your computer with a modem, a telephone line, and dial-up networking software. Your Internet service provider (ISP) can provide you with the phone number, modem settings, and required network protocols for connecting through dial-up networking.

Using another dialing program   If you would rather set times when you want your incoming and outgoing mail to be delivered, you can use another dialing program to connect to the server manually. For example, you might want to connect manually if you have a slow connection to your e-mail server using a dial-up networking connection and you don't want to wait for the server to connect automatically.

Note  DSL and cable modems are considered LAN connections because they generally maintain a constant connection and do not require a connection to be manually established.

For those of you who are using (or who want to explore the option of using) a mobile device, there's another option for accessing your work e-mail and schedule from home (or anywhere).

Using a Pocket PC or handheld PC

The Pocket PC and handheld PCs are types of mobile devices, that is, information appliances that are more similar to a TV than to a desktop computer. Both devices offer a version of Outlook that runs on the device, as well as the ability to synchronize the information on the device with your office and/or home computer. You can view your e-mail on your Pocket PC or handheld PC online. Messages that you receive through your regular ISP (such as MSN® and AOL), your corporate network, and your Internet-based e-mail (such as MSN® Hotmail®) can show up in your Inbox on your Pocket PC or handheld PC.

By using Microsoft ActiveSync® on your Microsoft Windows®-based computer, you can synchronize your Pocket PC or handheld PC with your desktop PC over both direct and remote connections. These devices connect to your desktop or laptop computer for synchronization using a USB (Universal Serial Bus) cable or a serial cable, or infrared connection. You can also connect using a modem (with network Remote Access Service, or RAS, server access), or you can connect to a LAN using a network (Ethernet) card. For details about Pocket PC functionality, visit the Pocket PC Web page. For details about handheld PC functionality, visit the Handheld PC Features: Hardware Web page.

About ActiveSync

Microsoft ActiveSync is synchronization software that ships with every Windows-powered mobile device. It allows you to always have the same information on your Pocket PC or handheld PC as on your office and/or home computer. ActiveSync makes it possible for your Pocket PC or handheld PC to synchronize quickly, continuously, and automatically with your office or home computer. You can synchronize your Outlook schedule and e-mail messages, and you can even select specific calendar dates or e-mail messages to synchronize.

ActiveSync comes with every handheld PC. You can synchronize a handheld PC with up to two Windows-based computers such as your office and home computers. Or, you can synchronize one Windows-based computer with multiple handheld PCs, such as a central office computer with several handheld PCs in the field.