From The Naked PC issue #5.06...

Outlook in a Browser

by T.J. Lee
March 14, 2002

If you have one of the freebie email accounts like Hotmail then you've used your browser to access email. Some ISPs will allow you to use a Web browser interface to access your email account as well.

Email in a browser window can be a truly wonderful convenience. It allows you to check your email from any computer with an Internet connection. You don't need to be running a particular email client and you don't have to configure anything on the computer you're using that would retain your email account information. You pop up the browser, access the URL that points to your email account, type in your credentials when prompted and bang! You're in your inbox and can read, reply, and send mail.

But when it comes to accessing your email at work, convenience can be a very different story. Often times the only remote access to an email client like Outlook is to a have virtual private network (VPN) tunnel access to your company network. This requires a VPN client be set up on the PC that you'll use to access your company network and can be a bit complicated to set up and use. You need access through the company firewall as well.

Or you might have to resort to a remote control program like PC Anywhere which means you need a phone line into your PC at work, that PC has to be left running and accessible by phone, and you have to have the same access software on the system you're using to access your office computer. Oh, and this method is guaranteed to give your network administrator heart palpitations because of the security risk it represents.

The good news (I'll bet you figured some good news was coming, no?) is that if your office uses a version of Microsoft Exchange that supports Outlook Web Access (OWA) you can use a browser to access Outlook remotely from any PC connected to the Internet. Just as the name implies you gain access to Outlook via the World Wide Web.

The primary issue with OWA is getting the network admin people where you work to enable it. They usually don't like to do this because of the security risk this type of access represents to the network. However, they may not be aware that OWA can often be configured to use the secure socket layer (SSL) protocol thereby providing additional security to protect the network. In my opinion SSL is the only reasonable way to set up OWA, otherwise it does represent too much of a risk.

Then you have to know how to access Exchange via the Web. You type in the URL that points to your company's domain and Exchange server. For example, it may look something like this:

https://mail.domain_name.com/exchange/

Where "domain_name.com" is the company domain. Once you connect to the network server running Exchange you'll be prompted for your login credentials, username, password, and the domain name that relates to your network. Once you've logged on you can access Outlook's Calendar, Inbox, public folders, pretty much whatever you have access to when at work is available via OWA.

I've seen networks where OWA was enabled because a VIP wanted to be able to check his email from home and the IT staff just never mentioned to anyone else that it was available. So you might check to see if your Exchange server has OWA and is accessible.

You can reach T.J. Lee at:
mailto:tj_lee@TheNakedPC.com

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