Outlook and other programs

[RollTide]

I am going to purchase an iMac for college after finding out that I really do not need a laptop, because of the computer lab at school. I am going to buy Windows Xp and put it on there. I was wondering since my mail account with my school is windows outlook, would I be able to open my mail, read papers I mailed to myself etc. throught OSX? I will not be using the internet through windows, can I use a jetdisc to save papers in OSX and open in windows, or is there a much easier way?

I am new to the whole bootcamp thing and I have office 2003 for windows and don't want to purchase it for OSX, so is there a quick/easy way to send it from one OS to the other OS?

Thanks for help and I'm sorry for ignorance.

 

[plinden]

I am going to purchase an iMac for college after finding out that I really do not need a laptop, because of the computer lab at school. I am going to buy Windows Xp and put it on there. I was wondering since my mail account with my school is windows outlook ...

Outlook is just the client. Do you mean the mail account is on an Exchange server? This shouldn't make any difference to how you access your mail.

... would I be able to open my mail, read papers I mailed to myself etc. throught OSX? I will not be using the internet through windows, can I use a jetdisc to save papers in OSX and open in windows, or is there a much easier way?

If all you're doing is accessing an email account, any IMAP client, like the built in Mail.app client in Mac OS X, will handle this ok. Or you can use Thunderbird. Actually, I would suggest you try that out on your current windows machine ... download Thunderbird and see if you can set up an account to view your email. If it works with TB on Windows, it'll work with any mail client on Mac OS X.

I am new to the whole bootcamp thing and I have office 2003 for windows and don't want to purchase it for OSX, so is there a quick/easy way to send it from one OS to the other OS?

Hmm, you mean you want to use Office for Windows on the Mac? There are only two ways of doing this (at the moment), Boot Camp and Parallels. Boot Camp is free but requires rebooting, Parallels is currently $40 if you preorder it before release, but you can run most Windows programs in a virtual machine and don't have to reboot. Although, I haven't tried Office on it. I might do that tonight.

 

[balamw]

Outlook is just the client. Do you mean the mail account is on an Exchange server? This shouldn't make any difference to how you access your mail.

It sure would if they only have MAPI enabled and no OWA, POP3 or IMAP4. (Even Entourage wouldn't be able to connect!) Fortunately these setups are few and far between. You should be able to find the account settings in Outlook and replicate them in Mail.app or Thunderbird.

Note also the Crossover Office has enered alpha testing, once complete, it will allow you to run Office without running Windows in Parallels or Boot Camp. Hopefully it'll be release before the beginning of the school year...

B

 

[clayj]

One thing you might want to make note of: If the mail system is Microsoft Exchange, they DO have the ability to restrict access of a mailbox to specific versions of Outlook. In other words, they can require you to use Outlook 2003 (or some other version of Outlook), or they can prevent you from using non-Outlook programs to access your mailbox.

I'd recommend you talk to the university about what technical requirements they have before you make a big software purchase of any sort.

 

[RollTide]

Thanks for the input guys. This is why I will be buying in July, so I will have PLENTY of time to figure stuff out. My current laptop Has a very outdated form of outlook, but works fine. Any computer I access my mail from works great. Would page 2 help me out(iwork 06)?

 

[RollTide]

I read where pages 2 can open up word programs pretty well, then I can move them to word via jet disc if there is no other way. Oh well can't wait to get my imac.