Summary

In this chapter, we have considered the question "How can you access the intranet when not in the office?". We have found three ways to provide access.

First, we looked at external access to the intranet, from home or from a client site. We discussed VPNs, SSL, and dial-up access.

Then, we looked at providing offline access to the intranet, using Internet Explorer's offline synchronization, Active Channels, and Lotus Notes replication. We didn't evaluate the offline access solutions provided by other CMS systems, but we did discuss what to look for in a CMS that provides offline access.

Last, we looked at accessing the intranet from a handheld device, such as a Palm or Pocket PC. We discussed downloading the intranet to a Palm, and how to use Plucker to do this. We also considered using Mobile Favorites on the Pocket PC to do the same thing, and discussed web browsers for the Palm and Pocket PC allowing online access to the intranet. We went on to talk about making the intranet readable on a handheld device, and the technologies that should be avoided. Finally, we discussed accessing the intranet via a mobile phone, using WAP and VoiceXML.