I spent a few hours this morning working with the server again. I still have not been able to get past the network hardware issue, or the systems inability to recognize it. I guess I need someone with a bit more expertise to walk me through installing drivers after the basic system is up and running. I did download the drivers from both Broadcom and Dell and they are versioned the same.

Submitted and article: http://www.debian-administration.org/article/How_should_I_allow_mail_calendar_and_contact_syncs on the subject of what exchange type software was best and have received a lot of comments. One stated that Google Apps would solve all my email, and contacts syncing issues. There were a few posts back and forth on the point until I decided to check it out. Well it did indeed appear to be exactly what I was looking for, although setting it up was a big pain. However it was not until I get to the point of setting up the desktop workstation so it would also sync when I am told to do this I needed to pay for the premium service. Thanks a lot Google for letting me spend hours getting it going and tell me this at the last step. However I am not going to fall into the trap of well I went this far I might as well pay. So I cancelled the whole service and went back to my research for a way to run such services on my personal server.

Linux is one of those things where you just have to keep asking questions and reading until you hit upon the resolution to your issue.