MobileTechRoundup
If it’s tech and it moves…it's Mobile Tech!

MobileTechRoundup 19

9 Comments

1. 

   Hi guys! First, thanks for the great podcast! I was actually having withdrawal during CES week!

   To answer your questions “What mobile devices do you use?”, I have a few that I am using on a daily basis. My main device is my HP TC1100. As a teacher there is definitely no device like it! it allows me to go wireless online to use my online gradebook and keeps all of my curriculum and student notes in a secure place. I have also begun to use it (specifically OneNote) to show any material for my “direct teaching” lessons on it. This allows my students and I to interact with data using the pen. At the end of the lesson I can save the work to HTML and post it on the website so that parents can view the “whiteboard notes” from the lesson. Major appls: OneNote, Pen Commander, Easygrade Pro, Gradebook Wizard (online – trying to decide between a gradebook on the tablet or an online one), Office with voice recognition.

   My other daily device is the HP6320. The first review that I read was Dave’s. Of course as time went by there were many people having difficulty with the device. I decided to purchase the device in November for $499 CDN. Immediately I added SPB PocketPlus (to keep the memory in check) and made sure to install all of my applications to SD card. I’m happy to report that I just have no problems at all with this device. The speed amazes me for a 160 MHz processor. The phone hangs onto a signal better than my Treo 600. Today, I downloaded Styletap to be able to run some of my freeware Palm stuff. What an amazing application!! I’m going to head over to order it! Applications Used: Caligrapher with Pen Commander, Reader, eReader, Listpro, Messenger (works great with Wifi and the clipon keyboard), Styletap, and Missing Sync (to sync with my Mac Mini).

   I’ve started at blog: teachinggadgets.blogspot.com to try and journal my journey as a teacher with a tablet and other mobile devices.

   Thanks, again, for your great podcast! Keep up the great work!

   Comment by Brad — January 15, 2006 @ 3:37 pm

2. 

   Guys can you please for the love of all things geek, address the lingering question about whether the cPC has wifi and/or bluetooth radios in it? The last responses to this I read were James your incredulous and surprisingly deferent reponse to Chris De Herrera (and who is he?)who rather confidently asserted in a post on your blog and I quote “…just to be perfectly clear there is no built in networking(wi-fi,bluetooth,ethernet or cellular(GSM OR CDMA). These functions can be added using the CompactFlash slot or USB ports.” And Dave in a response to a question about bluetooth on your site you stated “it supports bluetooth”. Alas this is beginning to seem like Syd Finch after all…….Gentlemen please allay my concern if you can?

   Comment by JFL — January 15, 2006 @ 11:42 pm

3. 

   Hi guys. Great job as usual. I am a regular listener and enjoy your podcasts.

   I am using a Imate K-JAM and has really opened up my world as far as being connected at all times. I am PDA veteran starting out with Handspring Visors in ’99, 2000, then making the leap over to Pocket PC’s. With every generation of PPC, I have looked forward to the time where the convergence of phone and PDA was one of conveinience and ability. That time has definately arrived.

   The K-JAM is my first converged device and it has been such an enjoyable experience. It is a perhaps one of the most compact and feature-ridden devices on the market now. It is one of the smallest PPC phone devices that offers a full 320 x 240 screen, full slide out keyboard, Dual wireless (wifi and BT), and a mini-sd slot.

   The K-JAM has assisted in my professional and personal life. I am an IT professional and have used the K-JAM to log into my company’s web portal which allows my to remotely connect to my work PC. On the flip side, I have used it also to connect to my home PC via the Logmein service. I am a Cingular EDGE user and find the speeds to be just fine for most of the things I need to do. That doesn’t mean, of course, I am not looking forward to the widespread adoption of HSPDA, Cingular’s 3G network. Once that is in place, Verizon won’t be the only game in town (don’t get me started on Verizon).

   I now have my K-JAM for full one handed operation on my today screen. I use Sbp Pocket Plus using the Today Launcher, battey bar, and task manager (I think Magic Button 2.0 was causing some problems – as others have also mentioned). I also use SBSH’s Pocket and Contact Breeze which allows me to quickly see my week’s appointments and events, in addition to quickly looking up contacts and dialing using just the d-pad.

   Since I am a mass transit commuter, I have plenty of time to use my K-JAM as an entertainment device. Of course, most PDA’s nowaday are able to play multimedia and games. However, what distinguishes the K-JAM from others is the battery life. No other Pocket PC that I have owned (and I have owned a few!) comes close. Many have lamented over HTC’s decision to use the OMAP 850 dual processor in the devices like the K-JAM, but I would have to say that it is an excellent balence of efficiency and performance. Is my K-JAM a speed demon like my HP 2750? No. But it most certainly does the job with aplomb.

   I also use my Moto HS850 BT headset paired with MS Voice Command. It’s a great combination. The only caveat is that in order to voice dial when the device is in suspend mode, you need to initiate a call-redial from the headset and then cancel the call (which turns the device on so a regular VC can be issued). A pain, yes, but this might be taken care of in subsequent ROM updates.

   On a final note, I am diabetic and also use my portable devices to monitor my blood glucose levels. I am using an application called siDiary by Sinovo which allow entry and graphing capabilities of various blood tests. I can then sync with my pc to export to excel, etc and provide that information to my doctor. I have used this software on several of my past PPC’s and find it invaluable to my daily diabetic care related tasks.

   Just as a side note, some apps that I use frequently that I highly recommend to most PPC users are: MemMaid (Dinarsoft), SkTools, and the ever-famous Tweaks2k2.net.

   Thanks for “listening” and keep up the great work.

   Jerry

   Comment by Jerry — January 16, 2006 @ 10:37 am

4. 

   Excellent start for 2006 guys!

   As for my mobile devices, I’m a student and hence I’m using the Acer C300 (convertible) Tablet PC. It’s bigger and heavier that the TC1100, but the full-size screen fits “right-on” as an 8.5″ x 11″ screen. I’m heavily in laptop-mode while I’m in the lab, but I’ll use the slate-mode during classes and to make notes to my various DNA gels that I run. My program for note taking is OneNote 2003, and I use the Office 2003 suite for spreadsheets, word processing and PowerPoint.

   When I’m around campus, I usually take my iPAQ h6315 with me. Since my school offers free WiFi (802.11 g/b) to all its students, I have no need for EVDO/GPRS connections. That way, I can access my calendar, listen to music and still get a phone call without any extra devices.

   My commute from school to home is only about 10 mins, so it isn’t enough time for me to even worry about using a device on the bus/car. When I’m home, I have a DSL broadband connection with 802.11 g/b connectivity. My wife prefers larger (desktop) computers and hence she uses our main PC for her work, while I use the Tablet PC to print over our home network, access the internet and access other files on my main hard drive.

   Comment by Virgil McCarthy — January 16, 2006 @ 11:19 am

5. 

   Just a few comments on the iTunes / V-Cast pricing discussion:

   Apple is not keeping those prices arbitrarily high. Their cost is around 70 cents per song to resell, so their percentage is relatively modest.

   They’ve also been fighting to keep fixed pricing at 99 cents. The labels want variable pricing, charging a premium for “hot” music and less for back catalog stuff, to keep their leverage over the market. As it stands, this power sits with Apple based on whether they choose to “feature” it.

   More details in this article, free membership required.

   It is also important to note that while Apple controls a significant majority of the digital music sales, that is – at least right now – a drop in the bucket for OVERALL music sales. Of course, that’s inevitably going to change in the future, but Apple is not yet a Wal-Mart.

   Comment by Tim Marman — January 17, 2006 @ 12:29 pm

6. 

   StyleTap Inc. now supports the Treo 700w in its latest version (0.9.108) which is now available on our website (www.styletap.com). Users can now run thousands of programs originally written for Palm OS on their Treo 700ws.

   BTW, I would recommend that anyone using it on a Treo 700w, should be sure to read the release notes http://www.styletap.com/index.php?page=release_notes.html.

   I think that it interesting to note that a lot of WM applications do not run properly or are awkward to use on square screen WM 5 devices, but Palm applications are a perfect fit.

   Regards,

   Robert Chew
   StyleTap Inc.

   Comment by Robert Chew — February 6, 2006 @ 3:46 pm

7. 

   Guys, I had to share this with you. I am a Mortgage Banker with a major lender based out of Irvine, CA. You’ve seen our commercials all over the place. I work with a lot of clients. Some are able to quickly grasp the benefit of doing a refinance or equity loan, while others need a lot more time to process it all. One thing I’ve always found is that if I have an opportunity to sit with a borrower and write out my proposal in front of them, they tend to see the picture more clearly.

   Enter the TC1100 Tablet PC.

   Today I had the opportunity to work with a borrower and his wife as they worked through the rather difficult financial decisions that they face right now. To make a long story short, it’s take out some equity or declare bankruptcy. As is typical for most non-prime borrowers, their first challenge was to come to grips with the reality of their situation ie. their debt load and payment history. Not a pretty sight. Husband had no idea what wife had been doing, and vice versa. Job #1 for me was to lay it out in a way that both could understand. Out came the tablet and pen, and away we went listing everything out for them debt-by-debt. The tablet really came in handy. Then came the job of explaining the new loan and comparing it to what they’re currently doing. Again, the tablet was a great way to illustrate the differences and the benefits. Then we mapped out a plan for their post-refinance financial life. We highlighted accounts that would be closed, wrote out a schedule of payments on accounts not being paid off in the loan, and we worked out a bi-weekly payment schedule for the new loan payments that reduced their 30 year term to 20. I was able to give the pen to the borrower so that they could make their own notations, which really impressed them. Once I had their commitment to move forward, I pulled up the Rate Lock Agreement and Borrower’s Authorization, and they signed both right on the tablet screen. I printed them copies of our notes and the signed agreements, and off they went, happy with their experience and on much more solid financial ground. The IT guy in my building was watching the whole thing, and he asked me to present my experience to the IT general team in a month.

   It’s not often that I get to meet with clients in person, but when I do, my Tablet PC is coming with me. Now I need to find a way to do a “net meeting” using ink. I can’t imagine how powerful a presentation that will be.

   Comment by Matt Smtih — February 11, 2006 @ 1:29 am

8. 

   Great use of ink Matt. For a shared desktop approach using the tablet, you could try GoToMeeting, which is a paid service at $49 a month last I checked. Your desktop can be shared by all in the virtual meeting and you can even record the desktop session for later. If you prefer the free methods (like we do), try sharing your desktop over MSN Messenger.

   Comment by Kevin — February 11, 2006 @ 8:41 am

9. 

   Great suggestion Kevin. Thanks!

   Comment by Matt Smtih — February 11, 2006 @ 11:13 am

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