Forwarding mail from OL2003 to hotmail(more info required)

Hi, My first post here, so here goes,

I am going on annual leave soon (unfortunately at the same time as my co worker) therefor neither of us will be in the office to attend to our emails, I have tried unsuccessfully to forward my mail from OL 2003 to my hotmail account (so i can pick it up when on holiday either from internet cafe or mobile device).
using the rules and alerts function as instructed in otherposts on this site (ie check all messages/forward or redirect to people distribution group/ etc) I have tried three options 1) typing in the name@hotmail.com in the recipients box - didn't work! 2) created myself a contact in my OL 2003, complete with hotmail email address - didn't work!! 3) Our IT guy created a contact in Active Directory (within Exchange) and i tried forwarding it to this - didn't work!!!

Our system is as follows My PC is running OL 2003 it sits on a LAN connected to a server running Microsoft Windows Server 2003 For Small Business Server SP 1 and uses Microsoft Exchange. My OL runs 24/7.

Our IT guy is self employed and only works for us part time he has assisted me slightly regarding this but says he doesn't have the resources to spend a lot of time on it - he has said that if I can find out what is required to be done he will implement it when he is next at our offices or even remotely if possible.

I only want to view my mails and if i could respond to them this would just be a bonus, it doesnt even need to be through hotmail as i have noticed in a few posts most people are using Gmail - maybe this would work? I dont mind creating a gmail account purely for this function if that is what is necessary.

Sorry it is a long post but what seems to be a simple task has got me stumped!

Thanks in advance.

 

Owa!!!!????

Aha the dreaded OWA!!

Yes, Steve this is true and this would be the perfect option especially as my co-worker runs a OWA enabled Windows mobile device and I myself have an iphone that has OWA enabled on it too, however as I said the IT guy is part time and he reckons setting this up is time consuming (I get the impression that he's not too knowledgable about the OWA side of things, as the server was initially setup by a third party, however he seems perfectly able to change settings etc so maybe I'm selling him a bit short!)

If someone could detail a step by step account of what is required and how it needs to be set up (in exchange etc) I'm sure if I gave him the info he'd get it up and running in quick time. If I'm honest I think he's trying to avoid the old 'trial and error' approach as I know this obviously eats up time.

Again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Stu