Amazon.co.uk Review
Microsoft books exist in a world where Microsoft software is the best and only option. Rizzo's book on creating collaborative apps using Exchange Server 5.5 (and 2000), Outlook 2000 and IE as application platforms with VBScript for glue shows how simple it can be to meet common business needs via dialogue boxes and standard forms without traditional programming.
Rizzo breaks collaborative apps into five categories: messaging, tracking, workflow, real-time and knowledge management; though an app may have elements from each. Naturally, there are gotchas even in MS programming paradise. For example, Rizzo explains how Outlook 2000 implements a cut down IE for HTML display, but to fully implement security in frames you have to force it to use IE itself--which then means you can't access some of Outlook's enhancements.
ASP features large, for example, to convert Outlook forms to HTML. This throws up more gotchas as Outlook's forms have more features than are available in HTML. There's a discussion of the new Digital Dashboards in Chapter 11 which use ActiveX objects, details on new and improved features of Exchange 5.5, such as the Event Scripting Agent and naturally the obligatory chapter on XML and XSL. But this is a book about using the results of such technologies rather than programming with them.
Rizzo had access to the Outlook and Exchange developers so the book feels authoritative, with example apps and code, all of it on the accompanying CD. But Microsoft's hand lies humourless and heavy. In places the book reads more like a press release. Still, anyone building collaborative apps using Outlook and Exchange will benefit from this book, just don't count the evangelising. -- Steve Patient
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Create rich, collaborative messaging solutions for your businessand extend them to corporate Web portalswith code and instruction straight from the source. This classic referencenow in its third editionshows how to exploit the enhanced collaborative capabilities in Outlook 2003 and Exchange Server 2003, including knowledge management, information publishing, and search capabilities. Author Thomas Rizzo, a veteran of the Microsoft Exchange and Outlook teams, shares a wealth of practical, how-to examples for crafting collaborative business applications. To extend your learning, the companion Web site features 500+ pages of bonus material on Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server, as well as the books entire cache of codedownloadable for use in your own applications.Discover how to: Manipulate Outlook objects using the Outlook Object Model Write your own COM add-ins to extend Outlook functionality Create smart tags and smart documents to link actions to content, customize the UI, and track interactions Use Collaboration Data Objects (CDO) to develop Web-based messaging and collaboration applications Help protect your network applications with Outlook Security Update and Microsoft ASP.NET authentication Increase your control over Exchange Server with the CDO library and ADSIBetter manage the Exchange infrastructure via CDO for Exchange Management (EMO) and Microsoft Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)Develop real-time collaboration solutions using the Exchange Conferencing Server and Instant Messaging