One Shot Design

After a long and thorough assessment of the market, I set on purchasing an GPS-enabled Windows Mobile PDA from Airis T620 in December of 2007. The device lived up to being a good value for the money.

My main requirement was the GPS. But instead of purchasing a device dedicated to GPS only, I wanted an OS on which I could run a port of Keepass, the encrypted database application I use to store all of my important personal information. This would allow me to safely carry around informations about bank account, credit card number, sessions passwords and PIN codes. Even if the media gets lost or stolen, I have the peace of mind of knowing that virtually noboy is capable of decypher the database.

First created for MS Windows, Keepass has been ported on PocketPC (Windows Mobile), Linux, MacOS X, J2ME (Symbian), BlackBerry and PalmOS . At the time of my purchase, only the Windows Mobile PDA’s and some Nokia devices featured a GPS receiver.

The T620, distributed by Spanish-based company Airis counted amongst the GPS-enabled PDA’s. It was one of the cheapest, but it was also one of the oldest. Released in 2006, it features Windows Media 5 (version 7 is under development), WiFi, Bluetooth and a Secure Digital slot. Some review mislead me into thinking that it also featured an IrDA port, which might have allowed me to turn it into a universal remote control. However, the specifications were sufficient enough to match my requirements.

Windows Mobile is a consistent piece of software. There is a broad base of applications, either sold under license or distributed as shareware or freeware. Unlike for embedded Linux, Windows Media applications can usually be packed within a single executable file, although most recent applications might need a .NET extension. I was very pleased with the Address Book application, which has filters for exporting and importing vCards.

Bluetooth is another feature I was very pleased with. For the first time, I was actually able to pass around appointments between the Airis T620, my Nokia 6021 and my laptop (running under Vista). I know there is a lot of talk about convergence at the moment, but there is no point unless the devices are able to seamlessly pass information around.

Besides Web browsers such as Opera Mini and Minimo, I also installed a multi-protocol chat application and Skype. It turns out that both the speaker and the microphone of the T620 do work quite well, allowing me to use it as a WiFi Skype phone. Talk time only ranges to half-an-hour though, and this goes to three quarters of an hour when browsing the Web on WiFi.

The Airis T620 comes with Route 66, which has to be installed from a supplied 2Gb SD card and activated from the Web site. The PDA comes with a mounting kit for your vehicle.

Overall I git it a three stars.

Tags: pdaairis t620 gps wifi skype keepass

After six weeks of use, I must confess being rather dissapointed by the SMC WiFi phone, which sells for a little bit more than US$ 100 and is now endorsed by Skype itself. This product was released as one of the very first WiFi phones supposedly allowing to make phone calls using a Skype account, and all that without the need for a personal computer.

The SMC phone runs a Skype OS which behaves exactly like the desktop application, with the exception of the chat feature. The application is a bit slow to load when switch on, but the color screen adds to the ease of use. Overall, the interface and the menus are well designed and it is pretty much straightforward to use.Compared to mobile telephones, my item showed a particularly short battery autonomy. Talk time hardly goes beyond 45 minutes and stand-by barely reaches 48 hours. This is solved by keeping the device plugged to a mini-USB port most of the time.

Iit is my understanding that the application doesn’t allow to create an account nor to process credit card data to purchase talk time, so a personal computer (or at most a PDA) is still required to complement this device.

Still, with the earphone plugged in and the device being kept under charge through the USB cable, the WiFi phone can be used for a long time, saving one loads of cash on international calls. For example, calling a fixed line in Belgium costs around €0,013 , a flat rate no carrier in Europe can compete with. The application automatically pick up WiFi networks and allows to enter the key for connection. In my tests, the signal dropped from time to time, but the problem was coming from the WiFi rooter.

If you are looking to purchase a WiFi phone, holding on until more sophisticated products do come on the market might be worth the wait. Otherwise, it you are desperately looking at saving on the phone bill, then this could be your solutions, albeit with the aforementioned drawbacks.

Overall, I give it a two star. There is a lot of room for improvement.

Kudos to Mr. Bill Gates: on Sunday January 6th 2008, the Microsoft Corporation co-founder announced his early retirement. Mr. Gates will still hold a position on the corporation board, but he will now work full time for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which he set up with wife Melinda in 2000. Mr. Gates has commited to donating 95% of his fortune to the foundation, which is involved in education programs in the USA and global problems that are ignored by governments and other organizations, such as global health programs and global development programs.

Mr. Gates probably came to the understanding that neither he, nor his three children would live long enough to spend the estimated US$ 60 billion of his fortune, which is slightly less than the reserve of foreing exchange and gold of a country like the USA.

People have to memorize so many numbers and passwords (social security, home phone, mobile phone, license plate, PIN code, login) that it seems mandatory to keep a trace should one forget a password. The problem is that by keeping it on a piece of paper or a file, one is increasing the chances of eyesdropping.

Fortunately, there are applications such as KeePass, that use highly secure encryption methods to store all that critical information in cross-platform files. Based on the Qt library, KeePass has been ported to no less than 8 different operation systems:

• Apple OSX
• Blackberry
• GNU/Linux
• J2ME (Symbian)
• Microsoft PocketPC
• Microsoft Windows
• PalmOS
• U3 Devices