I hadnt considered that. I have Exchange at work, which I need to use. How would a hosted Exchange service interact with that? Could it mirror it or something?

I think I'm in the same boat as you, OP. I'm not using Outlook with Exchange Server, and appointments don't dominate my calendar, so a peek into my free/busy situation isn't very useful.

This isn't a great solution but it's what I've been doing lately so my SP (Sweet Pea) knows what's on my calendar: before I go on a trip or begin somthing calendar-intensive, I print the month's Outlook calendar to a PDF file, save it somewhere in the Shared Documents directory, and send him an email telling him there's a new version of my Outlook calendar in that directory. That way if he does want to see my calendar while I'm gone he can refer to the email and see where I posted the latest version.

It is a bite that Outlook doesn't allow calendar sharing for users who aren't using Exchange Server. If anyone knows of a better workaround than my PDF approach described above, I'm all ears.

There's two solutions:

1) Third party products (yahoo, google calender, etc).

2) - Proper - Exchange server. Hosted or microsoft small business server. Same calendar, everywhere. Mobile devices, pcs, and webmail.

Google and Yahoo dont seem to work and the Exchange server is a problem when they are at different places it would seem. The above posts explain some of the difficulties. Do you know ways to get around these limitations? Love to hear it if you do.

This is in fact the basic delimma facing travelling executives. Our company used to use an Appointment Book placing in front of the secretary. If anyone in the office wants to take a look at who is doing what, they can just walk to the front desk and peek over the Book. This simple tool is in fact one of the most important things that keeps the business going.

The perfect solution would be: in the office setting, each one has his own calendar and then share the event out, or put them into private, accessable in the web, phone or PDA. Initially, we had developed a PC based program, run on the network, for everyone to see. Using it for two years. Then we upgraded the platform to web based system and gradually adding all the functions, like messaging system through the internal display, email and SMS, customers files, prospective clients tracking, on-line file cabinet, alarms, assignment, time reports.... You see, all these are coming out from that tiny little Appointment Book. Now, I can use my cell phone to manage the office activities, viewing the live cam, and knowing who do what and when. So, the OP's question is fact the basic question facing all of our Frequent flyers, how to keep in touch with the office and manage it using just the phone.

I onced standing in the field in central rural China with no car or anyone in sign and to use my cell phone to view my office live, received messages, watch the company's news and checking on who is doing what. Just my little phone....