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Offline access to public and shared folders

We've had a lot of requests for the ability to access public folders and shared folders while working offline in Outlook when using Softalk Share Server.

Look out for the next version of Softalk Share Server (v1.3.2), coming soon, which will allow you to do exactly that, regardless of whether Outlook is configured with a default Softalk Share Server store, or a public folders only store.

Thes means, for instance, you can access a colleague's mail folder while offline, something that you can't do in Exchange.

If you've not yet discovered Softalk Share Server and you want to share Outlook folders, take a look at the Softalk Share Server product page. It gives you full native sharing of personal and public Outlook folders, without the cost and complexity of an Exchange Server.

Long-dead ORDB starts producing false positives

If you are still using ORDB as an anti-spam service you need to take action now. As of noon on March 25^th 2008, the long dead ORDB anti-spam service started returning false positives as a way to get sleeping users to remove the ORDB query from their spam filters. For more information, see http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/25/2124224&from=rss.

Old friends re-united by Softalk Mail Server

As a company we enjoy helping our customers to achieve solutions to their technical problems through our software products, but recently we managed to help someone in a completely unexpected way.

We received a phone call from a lady who had received an email from a long lost childhood friend that she met in an orphanage when she was a young girl. She had read the email but had accidentally deleted it, thereby losing the email address of her old friend.

What she did remember was that the message contained a disclaimer saying that it had been sent by Softalk Mail Server. She looked us up, and contacted us. We confirmed that her old friend was one of our customers and sent her message to him on her behalf. They are now back in touch.

Softalk Organizer in beta

Softalk Organizer 2.0 is now in beta and can be downloaded from here. Alternatively, why not try out Softalk Organizer online at http://www.softalkltd.com/organizer. Just enter the username guest with no password.

When we release the final version 2.0 of Softalk Organizer, it will work seamlessly with Softalk Share Server. This means that you will have access to your live Outlook data from within Softalk Organizer.

For example, if you send an email or add an appointment or change a contact from within Softalk Organizer, the change will instantly show up in Outlook, and vice versa. This includes any changes you make to colleagues folders or public folders that you have access to.

Softalk Share Server reviewed in Personal Computer World

Softalk Share Server has been recommended by the editors at Personal Computer World. It received an overall 4/5. For more details, see www.pcw.co.uk/personal-computer-world/software/2202379/softalk-share-server-3443671.

New Softalk Organizer imminent

We've been working hard on a new version of Softalk Organizer and are currently testing what is looking to be a nice version update. We've included come of the features you've been asking for, such as:

• Drag & drop
• Updated user interface based on AJAX
• Option to avoid popup windows

See below for a few screenshots of the new version. We anticipate this will be available within a couple of weeks.

Great Outlook add-ins

OK you're now using Softalk Share Server to share your Outlook folders across the team, but what other Outlook add-ins and utilities do you find useful? I've just come across a great, free one via Lifehacker. Outlook on the Desktop pins your Outlook calendar on your desktop as a semi-transparent layer. It's not just the calendar as you can also set it to display tasks, contacts, inbox or notes.

Technorati tags: Microsoft Outlook, calendaring, Softalk Share Server, Lifehacker

Office managers are the real VIPs

Some interesting research by Staples in the US confirms what many of us already knew - that in small businesses many office managers are very important people indeed. Far from being simply responsible for stationery and clerical work, many play a decisive role in areas such as human resources and information technology.

Office managers are definitely important in choosing small business software for collaboration and email, such as OfficeTalk and WorkgroupShare. They can also be some of the biggest beneficiaries as they are relieved of the burden of managing team diaries and multiple contact lists.

via Anita Campbell at Small Business Trends.

Technorati tags: small business, SME, SMB, office manager, Staples, IT, information technology, collaboration, diaries, calendars, email, contacts

Recruitment difficulties

Boy are we finding it hard to recruit the right candidate for a support position that has become available in Softalk! It certainly seems to be an employee's market currently. In times like these, good candidates are few and far between, with the best ones being snapped up before we get a chance to interview them. And it seems recruitment companies are taking advantage of the shortage of good candidates by charging up to 40% of annual salary. This makes it incredibly difficult for smaller companies to get the best candidates and ironically it is the smaller companies that have the most to lose by recruiting the wrong staff.

I'm interested to hear from other small to medium sized businesses. How are you finding the current recruitment climate? How do you find the best staff in times like these?

Softalk Share Server beta going well

Softalk Share Server, our latest Exchange alternative product for sharing Outlook folders, has now been in beta for about four weeks and testing seems to be going very well.

The remaining piece of functionality to add is a comprehensive backup and restore mechanism. This will allow administators to make both full and incremental backups of the data store and then subsequently restore data down to the user or folder level. This is something that Exchange Server simply cannot do. If any data in the Exchange data store is lost or corrupted there is no alternative but to perform a full restore of the entire store from backup. Surprising really, that a product used by so many organizations is so light in this area of functionality.

We're still keen to hear from anyone that is interested to evaluate the beta version of Softalk Share Server. For more information and to download the beta, please go to http://www.softalkltd.com/products/softalkshareserver/beta.asp. All things going well, we're planning a release candidate by the end of April 2007.