The “groups” work really well too. Being a young professional, you often are friend requested by people you meet at networking events, etc. on facebook BEFORE linkedin. Sure, I want to keep in touch with these folks and no, i’m not celebrity enough to create a brand page for myself. Somehow I’ve ended up with 800+ friends while i only had ~120 guests at my bar mitzvah (but that was 1995 and I’m much more social now).

As a result, it’s easier to keep non-close friends in the “professional group”. I set it up to have less access to photos, personal info, etc. If we become friends then they can always join my mainstream group which is fully baked.

Originally posted as a comment by scottshapiro on A VC using Disqus.

However, in the business world, desktop e-mail is owned by Microsoft Exchange.  Of all the software that Microsoft sells, the Outlook/Exchange combination is probably the most well-done (which isn’t saying much).

I had been using Outlook 2003 on the PC for a number of years in an Exchange environment, but that all broke once I switched to Mac.

I had assumed there was a version of Outlook for the Mac, but to my surprise a program called Entourage was suddenly the only option that worked with Exchange.  Apparently, Entourage was built on an entirely separate code base from Outlook.

Some features work well, some don’t, but below is a list of features that have been lost.

• Calendars
  • Can’t view shared calendars side by side.
    • The group that I work with is constantly sharing calendars and planning meetings, so it’s crucial to see when everybody’s free.  This is a pain with Entourage.

• Mail
  • Can’t view one-line in the when splitting pane vertically
    • This is so simple - why couldn’t they add this feature?
  • Signature is always applied to replies, not just new messages
    • Again, Outlook was smart enough to only put your signature on new messages.
  • Outlook PST files are incompatible as they need to be in the .mbox format for Mac.
    • This is the biggest problem.  I have to run Outlook 2007 in Parallels to read the 3GB of archive e-mail I’ve collected.  It works fine with X1 to search, but definitely a waste of resources to have to run WinXP all the time for this.  I also have to autoarchive my e-mail there.
  • Required to have a mail folder “My computer” which is the default folder for POP and rules
    • This doesn’t make any sense.  Why would I want a local folder?  Why can’t this just have the same workflow as Outlook?
• Notes & Tasks Not downloaded from exchange
  • Yes! That’s right, you can’t read or write notes or tasks from Exchange.  You can create tasks locally on Entourage, but those won’t show up in your PDA.  Luckily, I can still see my old notes and tasks in my Treo.

Overall Entourage has been pleasurable, mainly due to the Mac OS.

• Searching with spotlight is quick
• Keyboard shortcuts are friendly
• Flagging / following up works well

However, it still feels half baked at times.

Feel free to comment with tips / other complaints!