I've been tinkering with wireless connectivity on a new Palm TX and a loaner Siemens SX66 Windows Mobile 2003 PDA.
I've found the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) functions work just fine on the SX66 without having the cell phone (Cingular) portion turned on. This is fine because the SX66 is a loaner from Cingular to my friend.
I provide computer support for the dean in the College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State. He purchased a Treo 650 PDA cell phone with the idea that he could leave his laptop behind while traveling. The Treo uses the Palm OS and I've been working with Palm PDAs pretty much since 1996. Even so, the Treo 650 is a slightly different beast and we ran into some major issues with it, mainly that our network calendar would not synchronize between the Mac and the Treo.
Before I found a solution for the Treo 650, I started looking at how well a Windows Mobile PDA can connect with a Mac and borrowed the SX66. This then led into looking at wireless connectivity, as opposed to a cell phone connection to the internet and then an evaluation of the new Palm TX with built-in wireless support.
Both PDAs offer built-in 802.11b wireless internet connectivity. The faster wireless protocols would be nice but a battery drain. The coolness with a wireless PDA is that things really open up in terms of personal computing.
Imagine driving around all day taking care of errands. For relief, you walk into the local Starbucks and load up on some espresso latte thingamajigger concoction (can you tell I don't drink coffee?) and sit down to enjoy whatever CD is spinning on the PA system. Just pull out the Palm or Pocket PC (as the hardware end of the Windows Mobile stuff is called), turn on WiFi and connect with Starbucks' wireless internet. From there, you can grab email, send a message to someone check college football BCS standings or log on to AOL Instant Messenger.
The world is your oyster.
Wireless internet is becoming more prevalent. Hotel lobbies have wireless internet in addition to Ethernet jacks in the rooms (kiss telephone access and worries goodbye!). McDonald's has wireless in some locations (buy a Big Mac, get access).
Locally, I can get free wireless internet access at Wegman's Grocery Store (they have a nice café, Denny's, the Honda dealership, Barnes & Noble and a couple other cafés.
I installed a program on the Palm TX called NetChaser. It is designed to continuously scan for wireless networks as one walks or drives down the road When it finds a network, it will log its name and information (the name and whether or not it is locked from anonymous log ons).
On the way home from the grocery store last night, I turned NetChaser on and drove the two or so miles to my house. As I drove through the neighborhood, NetChaser picked up well over 15 different wireless networks. To make matters worse, all but five or so of the listed networks allowed for anonymous connections.
This means I could stand outside someone's home and use their internet connection with my wireless Palm PDA, Windows Mobile PDA or laptop, gratis. Of course, this is very much against the law. The courts here in the United States pretty much treat that as illegal trespass and there have been convictions.
Aside from legality, we should all be working to keep the hackers and snoops out of home computer networks.
My own wireless setup is far more secure. I don't broadcast my network name (known as SSID), require a password to connect and only allow computers with certain IDs (known as MAC address) to connect to my network. All is not perfect though, I really need to get a new router that allows for a certain type of encrypted password.
So my advice to you, ensure your wireless network is locked down. Don't worry Mom and Dad, I definitely locked down your wireless router.
In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy a nice Saturday afternoon at Wegman's with some hot tea, a good book (currently reading "To the Last Man" by Jeff Shaara) and occasionally logging onto the internet to check email, without my PowerBook. The world is my oyster (I've said it before, this is a favorite saying these days).
