VPN or not - synchronising data

[nicnacs]

hello
A mate of mine has asked me to work out how he can manage his data better. He's got a PC at home, a laptop and works in at least two different offices. He's always having to email himself stuff and can't remember where things are.

His email set up is also daft: he can access his emails at home, but once downloaded, they're wiped from the server and he then has no record of them at work. So he emails himself his emails again once he's dealt with them!

How daft is that?!

My thinking is that he sets up a VPN at his main office. Everything lives there and he then accesses it through VPN software set up at home, on his laptop and at his other office.

Does that sound logical? Are there other solutions? His main office is at a university and I'm concerned that he'll have problems getting through the paperwork so if there's another solution he might need to consider it.

Any thoughts would be great!

Thanks

 

[MarkhP]

If using outlook express and there isnt a mailbox size issue with his mail host, how about (on both pcs)...

From the Tools menu, select Accounts.
Highlight the account and click the Properties button on the right side of the window.
In the Properties window, select the Advanced tab.
Set "Leave a copy of messages on server".
Click the OK buttons to close the windows.

 

[nicnacs]

Thanks for your thoughts. The email thing is an option, but it's not his only problem. He needs access to documents too - sorry should have made that clearer! he could set up an internet based email account. Can you make it look like you're replying from somewhere else though? I mean if he receives an email sent to his university and he replies through a gmail account it might look a bit odd unless he can mask the email address. Is that possible? I can guess how to do it in outlook (change the settings for the reply email address or something) but on a web-based system?

And is there any other way to access documents other than via VPN? He could buy a large capacity drive and just use that but he's worried about security and losing it! Whatever he ends up with has to be very secure....very very secure!

 

[MarkhP]

You could send mail as whom ever you want I am sure. I dont know if this the kind of thing you are after?. It looks like an interesting product (and free for non-pro ver!) and gives strong security by the looks.

http://secure.logmein.com/dmcq/051/security.asp