Making it Easier: Traveling with laptop

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve
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Steve

One of the things I've never quite figured out is how to use my laptop
effeciently for both business and personal use. I have always had a desktop
at my business connected to a domain and my laptop is setup for a workgroup
at home. I had my laptop setup to check all my email accounts and found
that I would use it at work too because it would have copies of sent items
that I sent from home. But my business network always had the files I
needed. I have used Remote Desktop Connections regulary but I'm don't
always have an internet connection. I recently purchased SBS2003 for work
and I'm looking forward some new features. I now have an exchange server.
This seems even more cumbersome than before but I'm sure there are some ways
to use it I'm not aware of. I'm wondering if I should just add the laptop
to the domain and leave it that way. I don't know how I would print at
home? Or use a shared drive on my wifes system? Although I'm aware that I
can log into multiple machines at work I'm not sure what happens if I'm
using my desktop and then log into my laptop while in the conference room.
Is there an easy way to have access to EVERYTHING on both machines? Any
suggestions or links?

TIA
Steve
 
Steve said:
One of the things I've never quite figured out is how to use my laptop
effeciently for both business and personal use. I have always had a
desktop at my business connected to a domain and my laptop is setup
for a workgroup at home. I had my laptop setup to check all my email
accounts and found that I would use it at work too because it would
have copies of sent items that I sent from home. But my business
network always had the files I needed. I have used Remote Desktop
Connections regulary but I'm don't always have an internet
connection. I recently purchased SBS2003 for work and I'm looking
forward some new features. I now have an exchange server. This seems
even more cumbersome than before but I'm sure there are some ways to
use it I'm not aware of. I'm wondering if I should just add the
laptop to the domain and leave it that way. I don't know how I would
print at home? Or use a shared drive on my wifes system? Although
I'm aware that I can log into multiple machines at work I'm not sure
what happens if I'm using my desktop and then log into my laptop
while in the conference room. Is there an easy way to have access to
EVERYTHING on both machines? Any suggestions or links?

TIA
Steve
Click to expand...

This is probably better posted in m.p.windows.server.sbs

Add the computer to the domain - log in as the domain user, set up your
profile. Set up an Outlook profile that connects to the Exchange server,
with an OST file or in cached mode (if OL2003). Make sure you drag any
public folders you want to sync offline to Public Folder\Favorites so you
can sync them. Make sure it's set to download the Offline Address Book
(tools, send receive options, etc). This is for OLXP:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;286038&Product=ol2002

For your data, you have a couple of options: In SBS2003 you can use Remote
Web Workplace to connect to an (idle) WinXP Pro computer in the office via
Remote Desktop. You can also point My Documents at a folder you define, such
as c:\data (I never like to use the default profile folders; for desktops as
opposed to laptops I'd redirect My Documents to the home directory on the
server) and see www.centered.com (SecondCopy 2000, much nicer than offline
files in my view).

Always log into the domain, even when you're not on the network. You can do
this with cached credentials.

You can either work offline, or connect to the server via VPN if that's an
option, or you can use RWW as mentioned above. You can use Outlook Web
Access to access your Exchange mailbox, public folders, etc. from nearly
anywhere on the Internet.

Don't use POP mail anywhere (or PST files) - have Exchange handle all your
mail directly, both internal and Internet, as per
http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/MF002.html (but you'll need to do this
via the CEICW on the SBS box).

You can still connect to resources on your home network, even when logged
into the domain offline - as long as you have an IP address on your home
network, and can ping the other computers, you can access resources shared
on them if you provide the correct credentials. For example, in a command
prompt:

net use x: \\computername\sharename /user:computername\username

Once authenticated, you can use a printer on computername as well, etc.

Although I am a big fan of roaming profiles, I tend to not use them on
laptops as there are settings I want to keep specific to the laptop, such as
Outlook's offline file, etc. Once logged in with a roaming profile for the
first time, you can go to control panel, system, advanced, settings, and
change your profile from roaming to local. That way you won't upload any
changes on the laptop, but can still log in to desktops with your roaming
profile on the server.

You have a lot of options now!
 
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