Access your work e-mail and schedule from home

With the prevalence of computers and Internet connections at home, you may have wondered how you can access your work e-mail and schedule in Outlook 2002 from your home computer, handheld PC, or Pocket PC.
With Outlook, you can send and receive e-mail messages and share other information from your office, from home, and from the road. At the office, you typically connect to a server on a local network. At home or on the road, you can manage your e-mail messages and other items on your work computer in one of the following ways:
• From a desktop or laptop computer using the Remote Mail or Offline Folder feature in Outlook.
• From a mobile device, such as a Pocket PC or handheld PC.
This article gives you an overview of how each option works and tells you where to get more information and provide Outlook Support.
Using a Pocket PC or handheld PC
The Pocket PC and handheld PCs are types of mobile devices, that is, information appliances that are more similar to a TV than to a desktop computer. Both devices offer a version of Outlook that runs on the device, as well as the ability to synchronize the information on the device with your office and/or home computer. You can view your e-mail on your Pocket PC or handheld PC online. Messages that you receive through your regular ISP (such as MSN® and AOL), your corporate network, and your Internet-based e-mail (such as MSN® Hotmail®) can show up in your Inbox on your Pocket PC or handheld PC.
By using Microsoft ActiveSync® on your Microsoft Windows®-based computer, you can synchronize your Pocket PC or handheld PC with your desktop PC over both direct and remote connections. These devices connect to your desktop or laptop computer for synchronization using a USB (Universal Serial Bus) cable or a serial cable, or infrared connection. You can also connect using a modem (with network Remote Access Service, or RAS, server access), or you can connect to a LAN using a network (Ethernet) card. For details about Pocket PC functionality, visit the Pocket PC Web page. For details about handheld PC functionality, visit the Handheld PC Features: Hardware Web page.