IBM’s just released Lotus Notes 7.0.2 has a cool new feature that IBM’s been touting all over the place – Notes on a stick. It lets you copy your Notes Desktop on a USB stick (or other such devices, including an iPod. Hint: Justification for writing off that iPod as a business expense… it’s a storage device.. :).
You can take the USB drive or similar device to another computer running Windows and plug it in – you get your Notes Desktop. You don’t need to install any software on the destination computer. While not connected to your network, you have a complete offline copy to work with, and it serves as a connected Notes Desktop with full functionality when you do have access to your vpn.
I’m hoping folks in Outlook/Exchange groups are watching this development and planning something similar.
It would be a great idea to have a complete Outlook environment – including Microsoft Outlook client and your entire mailbox, including your Outlook rules – on a USB drive that you could simply plug into any computer and access your email – offline and online – without having to install Outlook, creating a profile, or copying a PST. When you unplug the USB drive, there are no files or traces left on the destination computer.
As a sidenote, Exchange Server 2007 does have an AutoDiscover feature that automatically configures the Outlook profile – it requires Outlook 2007 client.
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Hey, I’d buy an Outlook version that fully runs on a stick …
Thunderbird already does this and there is even a version out there that uses one profile for the Windows and MacOSX version of Thunderbird … add Linux to that and you have a truely portable email client … just too bad that the calendar functionality is rather poor …
It would be a great idea, the ability to sync with your home or office laptop/desktop Outlook version would be so cool.