Teknovis

I regularly use my PDA to access Vodafone‘s Irish website (www.vodafone.ie). I normally do this using a WiFi connection, and I often do it while I am abroad. The main reason I access the web site is to send free text messages.

However, accessing the website on my PDA is really awkward! Indeed, it is one of the worst web sites that I have ever experienced on my PDA! This is particularly surprising when you consider that Vodafone is in the mobile market!

My reasons for disliking the web site, and in particular the My Vodafone portal, are:

• The layout of the web pages is not suitable for narrow screens.
• Some of the web pages rely on JavaScript to provide the functionality.
• Images are used for navigation and functionality, and no alternatives are provided.
• Popups are used! Even on a desktop this is problematic since so many browsers now block popups!

Ideally, it would be nice if Vodafone developed a mobile version of its portal! This could be used as a value added service to drive data revenues!

Tags: Ireland, JavaScript, Vodafone, WiFi

I was delighted to read that the EU states set to agree to cap cost of texting from abroad. Under this proposed legislation the maximum cost of sending a text message while roaming within the EU will be capped at 11c! That is significantly lower than my current rate!

The proposed legislation also includes a cap of 1€ per MB of data while roaming within the EU. I think that this would benefit a lot of business travellers. However, it would not be of any use to me, because I am always able to use WiFi when I am abroad.

In general I feel that the telcos have not yet embraced the concept of the single European market, and they are still charging their customers extremely heavily for intra-EU services. It is unfortunate that it requires legislation to force the telcos to reduce their charges, but if that is what is required then it must be done!

Tags: SMS, WiFi

I have always been a very organised person for most aspects of my life, regardless of whether these aspects are real-world or digital. Unfortunately, I am also quite a forgetful person :( So notebooks and diaries were always a big part of my life! These ingenious tools enabled me to know where I was supposed to be, when I was supposed to be there, and what I was supposed to be doing there!

So it made perfect sense for me to buy a PDA when they first became available. That was so long ago that I cannot even remember what make and model it was! I am probably one of the few people who had a PDA before I had a mobile phone! Since then I have had several, but I usually use each one for a few years. I normally wait until there is a significant technological advantage to me in having a new one. So the technological advantages that have caused me to upgrade to date are:

• The introduction of a colour screen (even if it was only 256 colours!)
• The ability to use the PDA as a mobile phone (and carry one less device)
• The ability to use WiFi (I cannot live without it now!)

Finally, I suspect the next technological advantage that will cause me to upgrade will be a touch-screen, mainly because it will only require one of my hands. The fact that they look so slick is an added bonus :)

So what do I currently use? A black HTC P3600 (otherwise known as the Trinity) running Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0. HTC actually make a lot of the branded PDAs for other well known manufacturers. This is what it looks like:

HTC P3600

I am not going to write a full review here, because there are already plenty of reviews online. Also, I do not think that it is still available to buy! Instead, what I will do is write about the features that I use most often, the useful applications that I have installed, and the bugs I have found in it that are not well documented anywhere else on the Internet!

Perhaps the single questions that I am asked most frequently about it is “Should I get one?“. My answer to this is always “Yes, if you are the sort of person that currently makes lists on paper and keeps a diary“.

In general, mobile phones and PDAs are devices that I have a strong personal interest in, and I have worked with them in the past in a professional capacity. So I expect to write about them a lot on this blog!

Tags: HTC, Microsoft, Mobile Phone, PDA, WiFi, Windows Mobile 5.0