Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 – It’s Not Just About E-mail

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 is a scalable solution to a company’s information dissemination and collaboration needs. In an age when messaging has become an integral part of a company’s daily grind, the importance of all members of your team to get connected and stay connected cannot be overemphasized. Microsoft Exchange Server provides you with a comprehensive solution that can also bring down the Total Cost of Ownership, infrastructure, and administration that such needs entail.

So while other vendors claim that their messaging and collaboration services have MS Office and MS Outlook integration, you should start asking: To what extent is the integration?

• Can it support basic e-mail using SMTP, POP, and IMAP?
• How about the MAPI protocol for e-mail and collaboration?
• Or optimized synchronization to reduce bandwidth requirements?
• Or complete support for Outlook contacts, tasks, and notes?
• Built-in folders for discussions and information sharing?
• Offline folder support for e-mail, calendar, contacts, and discussions?
• Or even MS Pocket Outlook for Windows-based mobile devices?

The thing is, the abovementioned are only some of the basic features that an enterprise messaging and collaboration service should provide. If all that a particular solution practically does is deliver an e-mail message into your Outlook Inbox, then maybe you should start looking for a better one. Surely you would want to avail of services that can provide for example:

• The capability of a single application, say Outlook, to allow you to check on an employee’s availability, schedule an appointment, or reserve a conference room for an important meeting, all in the comfort of your terminal.
• Mobile device access to e-mail, calendar and contacts through Microsoft Pocket Outlook. This means employees equipped with mobile devices running Microsoft Pocket PC Phone Edition and Microsoft Windows Mobile can be updated with the either the latest change in a meeting’s schedule or a newly arranged appointment.
• The ability to have offline access to Outlook e-mail, schedules, contacts, tasks, and collaboration folders, which can be synchronized seamlessly the moment you go back online.

So if you think the only important feature in a messaging and collaboration service is e-mail, think again. You probably haven’t heard of Microsoft Exchange Server.

Getting the Best Deals in a Beijing Market

Getting the Best Deals in a Beijing Market

The 2008 Beijing Olympics came and concluded with a loud bang. New records were made, not only in athletic feats, but also in the grandiose architectural wonders and technical innovations created in this great city. People flocked to Beijing not only for the Olympic event itself, but also to taste some of the city’s wonders and delights. Topping these visitors lists are the markets where everyone would love to explore and sample what Beijing had to offer. For travelers who would want to return to Beijing, or will be going there for the first time, the markets are one of the places everyone is looking forward to.

For travelers who want to get the best deals in any market around the world, haggling is still the best way to do it, particularly in markets around Beijing. In order to get leverage to haggling in Beijing, it pays to have good English to Chinese translation of words that the traveler will use in achieving that great buy. The following are ways on how you could actually do that.

To get good Chinese to English translation while being engrossed in shopping, having a reliable Chinese interpreter with you will give you an advantage over other buyers. Before embarking on a journey to Beijing, the traveler should do some research on how to get the services of a Chinese translator, without being scammed. A lot of certified companies are available that provide personal tourist guides who doubles as a Chinese interpreter.

Get feedback from people who have gone to Beijing and explored these services. Great information as well as insider tips and advice can also be obtained from travel forums, particularly for previous travelers to Beijing. It would be great if you could get hold of a guide that is not only an excellent Chinese to English translator, but is also a good source of information on where to get the best bargains and deals from the Beijing market.

If your travel to Beijing is a spur-of-the-moment thing, or was an unexpected gift from a boss or a friend, and you don’t have time to prepare and get the services of a Chinese interpreter – there’s no need to worry. Alternatives abound with this sort of thing. Instead of a live Chinese translator who would accompany you in person, you could employ the services of a Chinese telephone interpreter. These services offer Chinese to English translation and vice versa, through the phone or mobile. They can even do teleconferencing, should you need a translation from English to Chinese while talking with a Chinese counterpart on the phone. The great thing here is that you could get their services from anywhere, even while you’re already in Beijing!

Of course, self-study and research always pays off, particularly for Caucasians and African-Americans. They are most vulnerable and who almost always are the targets of marketers with ridiculous mark-ups on their products. Get prepared by writing English to Chinese translation of key “haggling” words in index cards. There are a lot of sources and websites that offer free translation from English to Chinese, including proper pronunciation and characters. You could also record phrases and snippets in MP3 players which you can pull out anytime in preparation for that great buy.

So, if you’re planning to go on that once-in-lifetime journey to this wonderful, ancient city that you’ve only seen in magazines, the news and Jet Li movie reruns, be prepared in the area of communication. Make the choice as to which English to Chinese translation services you’ll need that will suit your lifestyle, and budget. Doing so would help you on the road of getting those best deals from the Beijing market, and from your vacation as a whole.

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