Monthly Archive for September, 2003

MSN to Begin Charging for Hotmail Wireless Access

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on September 17, 2003
in Blog
. 0 Comments

MSN to Begin Charging for Hotmail Wireless Access
I’ve been waiting to see what the details of “Pocket MSN” would be. The main feature being mobile wireless access to Hotmail via the Inbox on my Pocket PC Phone Edition.

I recently decided to make Hotmail my primary personal email address, since I have had it for about 5 years. However, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to access Hotmail on my PPCPE. There’s the MSN Mobile web portal, formatted for the Pocket PC screen, with a version of Hotmail that works great on the PPC screen, when it works. I have about a 10% success rate when checking my Hotmail in Pocket IE over GPRS. Usually, there’s some kind of timeout during the Passport authentication process. I’m told this happens with all Windows Mobile 2003 devices.

I also bought a little program called Pocket Hotmail. It is supposed to add Hotmail as an account type in Pocket Inbox (along with POP3 and IMAP), so you can add your Hotmail account in Inbox, and access mail message that way. Unfortunately, it says on the author’s page that it doesn’t work with T-Mobile GPRS (why?). And, I discovered, it doesn’t work at all under Windows Mobile 2003. So that was a dead end.

Currently, I’ve set up MSN Alerts to send an SMS notification to my PPCPE when I get a new message in my Inbox. However, because of the aforementioned problems, if I want to actually read or respond to the message, I have to do it on a PC.

I kept hearing about how Pocket MSN was coming, and was going to provide wireless access and synchronization with Hotmail on the Pocket PC. I’m very excited about this possibility, because anything would be better than what I have now.

As far as whether they should charge for it, well… I’m not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, if they provide full, seamless synchronization with Hotmail on the Pocket PC, they have a right to charge for that service. On the other hand, I already pay $19.99 a year for Extra Storage, and I pay for MSN on my PC as part of my Verizon DSL package. I don’t want to pay an extra $19.99 a year just to be able to use my Hotmail effectively on my Pocket PC, but I have a feeling that if it comes down to it, I probably would.

Here’s to hoping that I won’t have to pay a third time (Extra Storage + MSN + Pocket MSN/mobile Hotmail) for access to my “free” Hotmail account…


Dave Beauvais’ Web Site

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on September 17, 2003
in Blog
. 1 Comment

Dave Beauvais’ Web Site
I ran across Dave’s site from a link to his Pocket Internet Explorer Start Page v3.0. I’ve tried several different custom “default.htm” replacements for the PIE home page on my Pocket PC Phone Edition. His is by far the nicest looking, with extensive use of CSS and lots of customization potential. He’s working on making the source code available for others (like me) to use.

I also like the design and content of the rest of his site. I’ve been wanting to start my own “real” site for a while, complete with forums, etc. His site is still a work in progress, but it’s pretty much what I have in mind for my own site when I get around to it.

Oh, and I also have the honor of being the first person to register and post in his forum (in a thread about his PIE default page) that he doesn’t personally know. One day, when we both have fancy, popular geek/gadget sites and lots of readers, we can look back to today, and remember how we “met”.


Sony Clie PEG-UX50

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on September 16, 2003
in Blog
. 0 Comments

SonyStyle USA - PEG-UX50
I’m normally a Pocket PC kind of guy, but this is an intriguing form factor for a handheld:

I love the fact that is has a built-in keyboard - that’s the one thing I miss from my Danger Hiptop/T-Mobile Sidekick after I traded up to a Pocket PC Phone Edition. The keyboard really makes messaging (email, IM, SMS, etc.) easy.

Bluetooth and 802.11b are nice, but it would be great if this device had some kind of WAN/cellular connectivity, so I could use it anywhere, instead of just at hotspots. Although I guess a Bluetooth phone would accomplish the same thing, but I’m trying to get to where I only carry one gadget on my person.

I already get enough snickers and harassment about all the gadgets I carry as it is…


When is “official” official?

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on September 16, 2003
in Blog
. 0 Comments

msmobiles.com - “XDA II officially announced” 2.5 months after official announcement
While I agree with the sentiment being expressed here (this really is old news), I think that the blame probably lies with O2 “announcing” something again that they “announced” months ago. I don’t think Infosync is at fault for publishing this news, as it was likely released from O2 as “new” information.

Sometimes it feels, through the tone and voice of the writing at msmobiles.com that the author(s) don’t have a very good relationship with other PDA sites. Once, Jason Dunn at Pocket PC Thoughts linked to the Google cached version of a story that msmobiles.com was running, rather than link to the story directly. I asked in the article discussion why he didn’t just link it directly, and he practically snapped “nevermind that, just talk about the content of the article.” This is not unique to msmobiles.com, or even the Pocket PC community, but for the most part, I’ve always been impressed at how much the Pocket PC world online feels like a community, rather than a rat race. Jason, Dale, Wes, Steve - can’t we all just get along?

Now, what I’m really waiting for is T-Mobile USA’s announcement of MDA II availability in the US! I’m so excited for this device!


Intro

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on September 16, 2003
in Blog
. 2 Comments

I love gagdets. Pocket PCs and other handhelds, cell phones and wireless devices, GPS navigation, videogame consoles, PCs, ebooks, etc. You name it - if it’s gadgety in nature, I’m probably all over it.