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View Full Version : Mail2Web Offers Free Exchange Email with Direct Push


Mike Temporale
04-21-2006, 01:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://live.mail2web.com' target='_blank'>http://live.mail2web.com</a><br /><br /></div>Mail2Web has been offering free web and mobile access to your email for a long time. They've come along way from the early days. They now offer a free Exchange account with access via OWA and OMA. Recently they added support for Direct Push while still keeping the price at the incredible low level of <i>nothing!</i> <br /><br />I was pretty skeptical when we received this news, so I setup an account myself and within a 10 minutes I'm doing free Direct Push email on my Smartphone. I had a little problems getting things setup, but it was totally worth the effort for the price. ;) If you're interested, all you need to do is head on over to <a href="http://live.mail2web.com/">Mail2Web Live</a> and setup an account. Once you have your account setup, log into the <a href="https://support.mail2web.com/">Control Panel</a> and under the Free Services tab, click on the last left menu item called "Mail2Web Live" and then "ActiveSync Settings". Make note of all this information, especially the domain. Now, grab your MSFP enabled Smartphone, launch the ActiveSync Client and press Menu/Configure Server and follow the prompts. <br /><br />It may not be as feature rich as a true hosted Exchange account like the ones you would get from <a href="http://www.4smartphone.net/affiliates.aspx?go=referal&amp;ref=JD10726">4smartphone.net</a> but I can handle that considering that Mail2Web is free.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> Just wanted to clarify a couple things. First, Mail2Web also offers a full range of hosted Exchange services for a monthly fee, just like 4Smartphone. However, they're the only place offering free Direct Push email. And second, You need a Smartphone with AKU2 (with MSFP) installed on it for Direct Push to work. The only Smartphones with AKU2 at this moment are Qtek and i-mate. :)

Pete Paxton
04-21-2006, 03:43 PM
OK, I just set up an account. What settings did you use for the direct push. Right now I have everything being pushed every 5 min but when I asked it to push immediately, it wanted some device sms address. Is that text messaging? Where do I find that info? Oh, and it works great syncing my contacts and appts. I love it. Thanks.

Mike Temporale
04-21-2006, 04:14 PM
That sounds like you're using the old method. Go into Active Sync on your phone and setup the connection there. All the information you need is on that page in the control panel.

Bushrod
04-21-2006, 04:21 PM
I"m guessing that he needs AKU2 for his USA T-Mo SDA!

Mike Temporale
04-21-2006, 04:23 PM
I"m guessing that he needs AKU2 for his USA T-Mo SDA!

Good point. You'll need AKU2 (with MSFP) installed on the phone. To date, only i-mate and Qtek have released this for the Smartphone. We're watching T-Mo and Cingular and we'll let you know as soon as we see news on it.

Pete Paxton
04-21-2006, 04:33 PM
Yep, I thought of that right after leaving the post. I can still get my emails every 5 mins. I love being able to sync over the air. Thanks for pointing this out. Great service.

Rocco Augusto
04-21-2006, 06:17 PM
i was tempted to move over to this but i think ill keep my 4smartphone.net account :)

Foxbat121
04-21-2006, 07:05 PM
Yep, I thought of that right after leaving the post. I can still get my emails every 5 mins. I love being able to sync over the air. Thanks for pointing this out. Great service.

Or you can use the AUTD method on your phone by providing your SMS email address if T-Mobile does not charge you too much for the SMS. I use this method right now with my Cingular phone (no SMS charges for me). It beats 5-minute polling method.

Pete Paxton
04-21-2006, 09:33 PM
Can I ask a dumb question? My pc is on the blink right now and I have a new laptop coming. Once I get it, can I configure Outlook to automatically sync with my mail2web outlook exchange server?

Mike Temporale
04-21-2006, 09:48 PM
Can I ask a dumb question? My pc is on the blink right now and I have a new laptop coming. Once I get it, can I configure Outlook to automatically sync with my mail2web outlook exchange server?

Yes, but that's not one of the free services. ;)

craigrens
04-22-2006, 02:12 AM
Yep, I thought of that right after leaving the post. I can still get my emails every 5 mins. I love being able to sync over the air. Thanks for pointing this out. Great service.

Or you can use the AUTD method on your phone by providing your SMS email address if T-Mobile does not charge you too much for the SMS. I use this method right now with my Cingular phone (no SMS charges for me). It beats 5-minute polling method.

Correctamundo. The direct push works for my T-Mobile SDA US version. I should add that I HAD to have the device address include the '1' (e.g. [email protected]) in order to get the direct push to work properly.

Prior to this, I was still using my old 'free' I-Mate Exchange Server account (from when I used my Imate SP3i) with its lowly 10mb storage max until I saw this article. Now it appears that this service offers over a gigabyte of storage for free! I hope that lasts beyond the beta period.

Nice find!

Jeff Song
04-22-2006, 09:05 AM
I just wish I could change the "Reply To" address in mail2web so every email i reply to would show my gmail account. Right now, I don't think its possible with mail2web.

Mike Temporale
04-22-2006, 01:09 PM
I just wish I could change the "Reply To" address in mail2web so every email i reply to would show my gmail account. Right now, I don't think its possible with mail2web.

That's one of the limitations of the free service. You can do it if you upgrade, or so I'm told.

sooby77
04-24-2006, 09:13 PM
I just wish I could change the "Reply To" address in mail2web so every email i reply to would show my gmail account. Right now, I don't think its possible with mail2web.

That's one of the limitations of the free service. You can do it if you upgrade, or so I'm told.

That is not correct. I have asked them on the live chat and was told it is a limitation of Exchange. Even with paid services, it is still not possible. Someone at howardforums explained this to me once. I will quote him directly:

---------------------------------------------
If you send through the Exchange server, which is what Outlook Mobile does for that mail account (and pretty much every other mail client that actually uses Exchange protocols), than the Exchange server sets the From address. It may be possible to set up a second account just for sending SMTP mail, but that would probably be a real pain and I'm not sure that you could do that and still have the items appear in your "Sent Items" folder.

-----------------------------

The thread is here: http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=885881&amp;page=1&amp;highlight=mail2web

Mike Temporale
04-24-2006, 09:34 PM
Sorry Sooby, but your source is plain wrong. Having a hosted exchange service can be 100% transparent. You're reply email address can be set on the non-free account. I know people using both 4Smartphone and Mail2Web and both of these services can do this.

If you're concerned about this, contact the companies before you sign up for anything. ;)

sooby77
04-25-2006, 03:28 AM
Sorry Sooby, but your source is plain wrong. Having a hosted exchange service can be 100% transparent. You're reply email address can be set on the non-free account. I know people using both 4Smartphone and Mail2Web and both of these services can do this.

If you're concerned about this, contact the companies before you sign up for anything. ;)

Oh, I am NOT concerned at all. In fact, I am grateful for this free service. I don't claim to be an expert, but AFAIK, it is only possible if their domain is also hosted by the exchange service provider. Do your friends have their say, yahoo, or gmail account collected through exchange and still able to change their "reply-to" address? I bet you not.

I have chatted live with mail2web CS twice, and on both occassions, they told me that I can only change my reply-to address to a domain hosted by them. I encourage you to email them about this issue. You will probably get the same response as I did. I SPECIFICALLY asked "What if I opted for the paid service" The answer is the still the SAME.

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=46735&amp;start=10&amp;sid=8f3e008742bff12d5ce36f97effc1f7f

Do a google. This topic has been asked ad nauseum. Your search will reveal that there's no answer or easy way to do this.

I have no wish to sound cocky, but your response was so confident and certain, when the fact is that you did not mention whether you even attempted to find out the answer straight from the hosted exchange server providers.

I would absolutely like to be proven wrong since I am also looking for solutions to this particular problem.

ctmagnus
04-25-2006, 03:48 AM
Apparently it can be done, but you'll need to contact the company to get it set up. Or at least that's the case with 4Smartphone.net.

Mike Temporale
04-25-2006, 04:05 AM
they told me that I can only change my reply-to address to a domain hosted by them.

Wait, so now you're agreeing with me - it can be done? All I said is that this feature can be done and it is part of the paid service. I didn't write a full review of all of their services detailing the inner workings. The post was about free Direct Push. While they offer more robust features, those are part of their paid services. ;)

sooby77
04-25-2006, 04:47 AM
they told me that I can only change my reply-to address to a domain hosted by them.

Wait, so now you're agreeing with me - it can be done? All I said is that this feature can be done and it is part of the paid service. I didn't write a full review of all of their services detailing the inner workings. The post was about free Direct Push. While they offer more robust features, those are part of their paid services. ;)

I apologize if my initial post gave the impression that it absolutely cannot be done. What I had wanted to convey is that, you cannot simply set it to anything you like. It can only be set to the domain hosted by the same exchange server company. The same condition applies even if you go for the paid service. No matter how much you pay them, they cannot set it to simply anything, not yahoo, gmail, or your other email (again, unless they host your domain name). At least that is my understanding. Now none of us would get a domain name so that we can set the 'reply-to' address. That would be counter-productive.

In that sense, yes, it cannot be done. So it is essentially useless if you have say, 5 different email accounts going to Exchange and you would like it to automatically set the 'reply-to' address to each specific email account's original address. That is what most people would like it to be able to do.

Someone DO prove me wrong. I would like to have the solution too! :)

sooby77
04-25-2006, 04:49 AM
Apparently it can be done, but you'll need to contact the company to get it set up. Or at least that's the case with 4Smartphone.net.


ctmagnus,

Were you able to do it yourself by contacting them? See my link to pocketpcthoughts.com's on my earlier post. Someone from 4smartphone.com responded to a support email saying that it cannot be done...

ctmagnus
04-25-2006, 05:32 AM
Apparently it can be done, but you'll need to contact the company to get it set up. Or at least that's the case with 4Smartphone.net.

ctmagnus,

Were you able to do it yourself by contacting them? See my link to pocketpcthoughts.com's on my earlier post. Someone from 4smartphone.com responded to a support email saying that it cannot be done...

From a bit further along the same Pocket PC Thoughts thread (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=395733#395733):

With OWA you're 100% stuck with responding with the 4smartphone account. You can get them to change your reply-to address to be whatever you want, but you can't change it on the fly.

So the reply address can be changed. ;)

I hope that's what you're asking, because that's how I read it. ;)

I don't know firsthand if it works, as I don't use my 4SmartPhone account for much email.

sooby77
04-25-2006, 03:51 PM
Thanks for pointing it out. However, in essence, we still can't do what we would like it to, ie. change it on the fly in WM5's mailbox. Hence this is still not a solution. :(

Mike Temporale
04-25-2006, 04:01 PM
Thanks for pointing it out. However, in essence, we still can't do what we would like it to, ie. change it on the fly in WM5's mailbox. Hence this is still not a solution. :(

What you're looking at doing isn't supported in Windows Mobile. It has nothing to do with the service these companies are offering. Windows Mobile doesn't allow you to switch the reply address in your messages on the fly. You can get around this by creating multiple email accounts. However, you can only have 1 Exchange account.

Direct Push is aimed at getting your most important email to you in a timely fashion. I would say that a large majority of people only need 1 email account to be setup in a live fashion. For most people they have a work email and a home email. Chances are, the work email is the only one they need pushed out to them in an always on fashion.

The rest of us that have multiple accounts are in the minority and it's a small number of us that would like to have multiple accounts connected via Direct Push.