I am in Terminal C of the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. This airport has WLAN connectivity provided by Wayport. To see what type of connection I could get I plugged in a Socket WLAN card into my IPAQ and changed the SSID to "any." The card found four access points and very good signal strength.
The next step is to fire up Internet Explorer, which brings up web page for connecting to the network. The page is very poorly created because it has blue links sitting on blue backgrounds. I had to tap around to discover what the links loaded.
It gets worse. I found a link for a page to pay by credit card, but whenever I tap on the link I get a "page not found message." Another page is invested with so many frames that Internet Explorer gives up and displays an error.
So it appears that DFW is hot but that Wayport is not functional. Furthermore, Wayport has designed its pages so that they are not friendly to handheld devices.
posted by Frank McPherson 2:09 PM |
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I have run into a bug with Pocket Blog that caused duplicate posts, and I cannot delete them. So I apologize for wasting pixels but I cannot fix this until I can get to a desktop.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:49 PM |
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Anyone who has used a Pocket PC for a while finds that time zones affect appointments. Appointments are specific to the time zone that the Pocket PC is currently set to, and if you use the Pocket PC clock to change the time zone, appointment times will change so that the time is always the same for the time in which it was created.
This is bad enough for an appointment that you creat at 1 PM eastern time that becomes 12 PM when you switch to central time, but its worse for all day events. All day events switch by one entire day when you switch to a time zone that is less than the zone of the original appointment. This is because all day events start at 12:00 AM, which is why reminders for all day events fire during the middle of the night while you are probably in bed.
So, if it seems that you are missing all day events, check the previous day. If you switch time zones like I just did, an all day event for Tuesday will now appear on Monday.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:07 PM |
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I've read Rich Hall's introduction to Pocket PC Phone Edition in the latest Pocket PC Magazine, and I think he made a mistake in his information about the HP Jornada 928.
In the article Rich suggests that the 928 only has Texas Instrument's OMAP710 processor and that this will mean problems with the availability of third party programs. Rather, I think the 928 has two processors, a Pocket PC-standard StrongArm and the OMAP710. I will have to check this out when I get time.
I believe the OMAP710 is a special DSP-like processor used for providing the phone functions of the 928, while the StrongArm is used for regular PPC functions. That may or may not mean that the 928 will perform better at simultaneous functions like running Pocket Word and handling a voice phone call.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:07 PM |
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I am on the road this week, so entries here might be lighter than usual. Right now I am writing this at the airport using my ipaq, Pocket Blog and my Sierra wireless aircard. I am only traveling with my Pocket PC and we will see how that works.
Airport security in Detroit isn't too concerned with handhelds. If I had a notebook I would have to turn it on. That was not the case for handhelds or cell phones.
In fact, while travelers are recommended to get to the airport 3 hours before departure and I don't know why. I got to the gate very quickly and there are not many people here.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:42 AM |
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Silicon Alley News: Microsoft Annoints Vindigo in Alliance Ironically, Vindigo was one of the "killer app-like" apps for Palm OS handhelds. Now they are getting cozy with Microsoft.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:42 PM |
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News: ARM claws at 1GHz barrier for handhelds Time to add a new term for the category of handheld processors. You probably have heard of X-Scale, which will be the next generation of ARM processors that will start appearing in devices later this year. Now ARM Holdings has announced a generation of handheld processors they are calling Jaguar, or ARM11. Reports are this processor will exceed speeds of 1GHz. I wonder how they handle the heat dicipation problems these faster processors present?
posted by Frank McPherson 10:46 AM |
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Sony's new Clie bring a new twist to the world of PDAs Steve Bush has written a review of the Sony PEG-NR70 and NR70V, which is the cool looking Sony with the portrait screen, keyboard, and camera. Personally, I am not too thrilled by the direction of thumb keyboards. So far the only ones that I have found to work for me are the actual RIM pagers. I find that a thumb keyboard add-on to a Pocket PC is difficult to use because it is awkward to hold the Pocket PC and keyboard. Likewise, I think the Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 is difficult to type with. I also played with a Handspring Treo over the weekend, I it also feels too big. The problem that I have is with the height and weight of these devices. For me the best interface for a handheld has always been a stylus, with full-size keyboard add-ons when touch typing is needed.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:41 AM |
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