PDA's in our work

Specification & Product Discussions Computers, the Internet and Networking
1

I have had a PDA (personal digital assistant) for a couple years now and it has been handy - but not essential, I use it mostly for scheduling my work and for handy calendar references and keeping handy all my contact information for all business contacts I have dealt with.

In short, a nice luxury.

Now though, it could provide a very reasonable tool for specifiers - especially if you have to go to meeting and don’t want to lug along the laptop or you only need your master or project manual for reference.

That is because of 2 things.

They are more powerful now, and they also can connect to wireless (802.11b) networks.

I can put my whole master on a single chip as well project manuals for a variety of projects, open them up for reference, review, or even making notes or actual modifications.

But I can also go out on the web, answer my email, send attachments anywhere I happen to come across an 802.11b wireless node…and those are becoming really common. And they are also small enough that if I was visiting someone I could simply take my own base station node with me.

The PDA even has Acrobate reader software on it, so I can read pdf files as well as read pdf files that open up on the web.

I chose to stay away from the more expensive and more powerful sized windows based operating system and went with a true Palm OS device, this one is a Tungeston C - fairly new model that with no additional costs includes the wireless connectivity, the ability to read, edit and create Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, and Acrobat and a web browser. Its in color, very nice and sharp.

It also comes with a printer utility for printing to any printer. At home I have a small printer that is shared out to wireless from my desktop. It printed to that just fine.

It is NOT a cellphone unit, I did not want it to also be a cellphone.

How hard was it to set up for my wireless connection? I turned it on, opened the wireless setup, it automatically searched and displayed several public open base stations. I selected other, entered the name and password for my base station, and I was online with the equivalent of a T2 speed connection (cable modem at my house).

Now, I don’t advocate taking one of these some place where I need to do any significant editing, but if I need a reference to my master and any project, that’s easy enough to load up in a few seconds.

The system has 64 megs in it, and I can add 128 megs more on a card, so it will hold quite a bit of reference material.

Just some thoughts for the well connected specifier.

William

2

William,
You really are way ahead of your time. The vast majority just isn’t there. All it takes is an imagination!

I agree that a PDA could open things up. With the reader, I can take drawings, specs and all to the project site or a meeting in the palm of my hand. I started out with an Apple Newton and did meeting reports with that. I wrote on it and that evening would hook up a keyboard to edit and finish the draft for the next day. I was even able to email it to my Admin Assistant and have her format it and finish it so that I could return to sign it and get it out. FYI, that was ten years ago. The palm now has turn into what the Newton did. I miss my Newton, but not the size of it.

3

Alan:
I have a Dell Axim, with 64 megs, and two additional 256 mg cards for storage. The Dell is in the $200 range for the cheap one, and about $300 for the more expensive one. It runs on Windows CE, and is seamlessly compatible with Windows programs and Outlook. I don’t download email on it, but we have people in our office (we have about 4 people in the office who have this device) who have downloaded a "Pocket PC project punch-out program, and also take their appropriate email and cad files with them to meetings. I do all my scheduling on mine, and have downloaded a power point presentation for editing (you can’t put together power point, but you can certainly mess around with one in there) I also download a summary of the New York Times every morning from my computer at home ( to listen to on the bus) and have downloaded 6 CDs and 2 books for use when I travel. I got an additional battery, but this one lasts about 8 hours without recharging. You can contact me for more information…

4

Alan,

Yes, the Newton is still actually ahead of most PDAs for many things, it would be interesting to see where it would have been by now, but, it just never had enough sales.

I am still a Mac person though - G4 desktop, G4 Powerbook, OSX. I just plop my Powerbook down on our office NT Server network and seamlessly integrate with everything.

Anne,

I have stayed away from the Windows CE based systems - Microsoft abandoned its users of it once before and then revived. Even now the Documents to Go word/excel/powerpoint is more seamless if you edit on the PDA than the Windows CE product from Microsoft.

The Palm will play books and music, but I don’t use it for that. I have an iPod. The iPod is so versital, I have a 10 gig model that will hold about 4000 songs. I have my collection of music that numbers 900+ songs on it.

The iPod also synchronizes with my calendar, and my addressbook. It does not take input, its read only on that - but then it is a 7200 rpm firewire drive that can be plugged in and take any other files I might wish to transfer. It is actually smaller than the Palm device. And the fidelity of the songs or books is fantastic. You get to control the recording quality of the MP3 file you make - I do mine at a very high quality level - can’t tell the difference with CDs.

For long trips in the car, I put a book on it and play it through the car’s audio system - or just listen to my favorite tunes.

iPods are available in PC versions as well.

William

5

In Seattle, nearly every architectural firm in town has done work for Microsoft, so the entire industry here is standardized on Windows-based products; our office has standardized on them for nearly every application, and the senior Project Managers use Windows CE based PDAs in their work. I know that Mac users are uncommonly loyal to their products, but for work product in this area, there really isn’t any option, and it does allow all of our offices to use the same devices.
My comment was primarily to illustrate that there is a Windows CE device that is almost infinitely expandable, is in a good price point, and is seamless in synching with the Windows suite of software, which was my continual problem with the Palm OS system.

6

I’m surprised that architects haven’t made better use of the available tools. A few years ago, when NetMeeting and similar programs were introduced, I thought that we would be among the first to see the opportunities and put them to use.

At that time I envisioned a CA out at the site with a webcam, notebook computer, and cell phone, sending images back to the office to explain that crazy detail that just didn’t work in the field. So much easier than saying, “There’s a duct running just to the right of the door on the west end of the auditorium; you know, the one a few feet from the third column to the left…”

But it just didn’t happen. Today you can do it with your cell phone! All CA people - make that all people away from the office - should have visual and data communication with the office. There just isn’t any excuse anymore.

7

Sheldon,

Nice comment, but we all know how long it takes for some things to actually start happening.

I have come to look at how quickly new technology makes it into business as a culture based ‘thing’. Different cultures adopt or transition to new technology very differently.

Here in the US, new technology seems to make it into the culture via personal use. Hi tech at home and for hobbies - later when people are starting to use them all the time, business turns around and starts to use it.

Even there, our culture does not pick up on personal use nearly so fast as some others such as Japan and Korea.

Anne,

Apparently MS has a highly progress brain washing group in Seattle too. Integration is not a problem with Macs - Not for many years now. Since OS 10 came out, I don’t even need any 3rd party applications to just come in, plug my mac into any network and sit down and work very seamlessly with it. No one needs to do anything to accomodate a Mac, and I don’t need to do anything special to be in their enviornment. Even to the point of peer to peer direct file sharing. I can just enable file sharing and you could drop files directly on my system, or vv. Not only that, but I don’t even have to understand the ‘alien’ network enviornment to connect. I just connect, tell the system to automatically configure, and there I am. Takes maybe 60 seconds if I want to save the configuration for the next visit. After that, it takes about 3 seconds to switch from my home configuration to my office or anywhere else I have saved.

Windows CE based units actually have some problems with formatting if you edit some word and excel files with particular formats to them. Some things are lost. You can correct that by getting 3rd party products that do it better than MS - and the primary one for Palm OS based handhelds does it cleaner than any other product out there.

One thing that many forget is that the entire Office Suite started life and was for several years ONLY a Mac OS based product. Word, Excel, Powerpoint were all ported over to the Windows environment. To this day, there is seamless exchange of documents from these applications between Mac and Win systems. There are some things that one system excels at over the other. Win systems do better at production based CAD systems - Mac systems do better with graphical art and photography type systems.

I know lots of people with Palm OS systems that have no synch problems with Win systems…in fact, it seems to excel at that. My wife is an exclusive Win based user due to her work environment as an analyst/developer in human resources and payroll type products. She has used a Palm OS PDA for years for both work and personal use and has never had an issue with it. In fact, she just got a new one when I got mine. In her office the CE users she talked to mostly recommended that she stay with the Palm OS

Everyone has their own experiences - everyone’s own personal computer, regardless of OS is so different from anyone elses that the variety of conflicts that could occur is overwhelming.

William

8

William:

Yes, the Newton was and in some ways still ahead of it’s time. I, too, am a Mac person. I just got back from the AIA convention and was surprised by the Mac presence. I have to use Windoze (humorous jab) at work, however, I do use my 667 Tibook when I am on the road. I have written many a spec on American Airlines using it. I also find that interesting that you also use the iPod. I have been considering it and plan to get one when I upgrade my Tibook to the new 17" Powerbook soon. I am eliminating my use of a desktop since I feel that the laptop is edging out the desktop and that I really don’t need the desktop as much. I have had a Visor Prism for two years and I am fixing to upgrade it to either the Sony TG50 or the new Palm Tungsten C. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. I am just now weighing the differences and will decide soon. I have used my Visor for everything, it still could not do what my Newton could with such an ease of use. Oh well, maybe someday someone will bring back that technology and shake up that market again.

Anne,

It is nice to see others that are getting into the use of new technologies. I really don’t care what platform anyone uses. While I like and perfer my Mac, I understand others like different platforms. It is the choice that I love. I am hoping that standards that are coming in the near future will eliminate the “compatibility” thing that everyone loves to talk about. I never really had that much of a problem as everyone loves to use as an excuse. I recently sold an old laptop of mine to someone here in my office and he is now trying to figure out how to sell all three of his PCs. He says that there is a world of difference. I really find that more people enjoy switching to Macs than the other way. Just my observation.

On another note, I saw a great presentation my one of your colleagues (I think it was) at the convention. I really enjoyed that presentation. I actually think it was one of the best sessions that I went to.

Sheldon,

I actually find it quite ironic that architects are always so far behind the times. We are suppose to be creative, but so many of them are not personally. Shoot, so many of them live in a tract home instead of using their own talent, that they sweated and toiled over to get, to design their own home. I guess it is because architects spend so much of their creativity on architecture and not on their businesses (yes, I am an Architect, so I can and do include myself in this broad statement) Ah, the irony of it all.

Alan

9

Alan,

I too have a Powerbook Ti, 667. I got mine before they made the upgrade to the super drive, so mine is just a DVD/CD read. I did not bother to get the upgrade when it was available. I just don’t have a need to do that with the portable. I use a PCMCIA card with a 256 meg chip in it for exchanging information with someone should I need to. I could use a USB memory stick or a firewire hard drive, but not all Win user have those.

I have a desktop system at home, but if I were to replace it, I would just get a more powerful portable. What I would do would be get a nice screen like the 20 inch flat panel of Apple a USB hub and a firewire hub, additional keyboard and mouse and then a high rpm firewire hard drive. Use the Powerbook as the core of the home system, but restart using the firewire hard drive as start up drive, it runs so much faster than a portable’s 5400 rpm internal drive.

I really like my Palm Tungsten C, very clean, very nice. I had a Handspring Visor that I had been using. I found that moving to the true Palm OS rather than the Handspring variant was good - Handspring modifies it, and I was always waiting around for Handspring to update the destkop software.

We seem to share a number of similarities in the systems we have chosen - great minds much think alike on some things anyway -grin!

I would not go with the 17 inch Powerbook - too big for me. And like I said above, just get a really nice screen for being at home. But, if you actually end up doing a lot of work with it, a 17 might be worth it. I just don’t do all that much where the 17’s large size is worth it.

iPods are very neat - you can put your entire addressbook/calendar on it. You can’t use it actively (you can’t edit or add) but you can read it if you need to. It also does alarms. And its a fast firewire device for file exchange too.

William

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William,

I decided that the 17 PB was for me due to what was already on the machine and since I write specs for the office, I still do some homes and other small projects on my own. I could use the larger screen when I meet with the clients. The newer PBs also offer a faster architecture and provide faster Ram than the current 15 inch models. I would like to use a new 15, or even a 12, but getting it with the features that I would like is tough. The 12 inch is also only 800+mhz and I want a minimum of 1ghz for the desktop/laptop system. I am planning to go with the 20 screen and keyboard at home.

The iPod interests me since it can do books along with music. I am even considering dumping the stereo and going iPod all the way. Just a set of speakers to plug it into. I can use the books on a road trip to Vegas, etc.

The Tungsten C is probably the way I want to go, since I currently use a WiFi/Airport network at home with my DSL connection. The better half uses a PC so we have a router/switcher for her. Her laptop has a wireless PC card to allow her to work from the couch while watching the lastest “The Practice”. We have discussed getting rid of her desktop and going with just her laptop and a flat screen.

I would agree that great minds think alike (hee, hee)! I also think that Mac users tend to “think outside the box”. We think of better ways to do things, since we do use the easiest computer to use. I know. I have to deal with the better half’s computer every other week!