[pmmail-list] Share Address Book

[Dr Graham Norton FRACP Neurologist]

At present what I have worked out is to make one secretary responsible f=
or 
updating the address book and then every night , copy/backup this  TOOLS=
 
directory to the server and then copy this across the LAN to the other W=
orkstations 
using a batch file and  an OS2 schedule programme!  seems to work althou=
gh 
obviously not ideal!!



>> >So, again, a network version would be nice - or just as nice to me w=
ould be a 
SEMI-NETWORK version: allow us to tell where the TOOL directory is and S=
HARE 
it ONLY would be sufficient. Perhaps this would be easy enough to do to =
make it 
happen? What cha think Trevor?
>> 
>> I think it is unlikely that this will be implemented in the next few
>> months. *I* am not a programmer but I suspect that network
>> cooperation would not be a trivial undertaking.
>
>  You are right. 
>
>  And I have some ideas on what could be done _today_ with the
>versions as they are: 
>
>  1) Use LDAP. 
>  
>   I have a customer where I have installed VPOP3 as the LAN
>eMail-server which has a central address book managed by an LDAP
>server (http://www.pscs.co.uk). VPOP3 collects mail from various POP3
>mailboxes on the outside net and offers it for the LAN clients to
>retrieve via POP3, IMAP or Webmail. 
> 
>   PMMail has an LDAP client. This client is not too sophisticated,
>so to speak, but can be used to search the central address book. 
>
>   2) Synchronize with a central address book via logon script. 
>
>   The logon script (I have recently implemented one in VBS using the
>Windows Scripting Host) could call a procedure which sorts, compares,
>and updates the local address book and maybe also the central address
>book. 
>
>   I would implement such a procedure in PERL as the easiest to use
>(splitting up the address book line with an arbitrary delimiter is
>one function in PERL while REXX can only separate WORDS based on
>blanks as the delimiter). 
>
>   The difficult decisions are the one on the update rules -- which
>version is the most authoritative? how are deletes being handled? --
>and variations in various fields of the address book -- differences
>in the alias, home address, business address, remarks. 
>
>   One solution could be to use the LDAP database as the
>authoritative source and to update the clients address book with the
>contents of the LDAP database. 
>
>   One more technical problem is that the collection of the PMMAIL
>address books is actually one big file with the individual entries
>and pointers to the list of address books. So both private and public
>or common address books are contained in one file. Such a script
>based update process as I have described should update only those
>addresses in the common address book, not the private entries. 
>
>   3) Use VCARD. 
>
>   Updates to the client address books might be distributed as VCARD
>attachments; PMMail can transfer the VCARD contents into the address
>book. 
>
>Yours, 
>
>   
>
>
>L=81ko Willms 
>Frankfurt/Main 
>/ Lueko.Willms@T-Online.de 
>
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>

Graham Norton FRACP
Neurologist

Smart Road Specialist Centre
Modbury SA 5092

61 8 8265 4022  (Voice)
61 8 8386 1795 (Fax)
gn@smart-road.com.au

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