Mission Impossible

My mission, and I chose to accept it, was to use my Pocket PC to keep in touch with the world and to conduct business while on an extended road trip around the United States, Canada, and Mexico. I’ve been tempted in the past to leave my heavy laptop at home while on a business trip or giving a presentation, but I have never been quite brave enough to depend completely on my Pocket PC. I brought along two Dell Axim X5 Pocket PCs, the primary one with the newer Windows Mobile 2003 software and the backup with the Pocket PC 2002 OS and software.

Pre-trip planning

I’m a big believer in planning ahead, and here are some of the equipment and services I acquired before leaving on the trip.

Presentation and graphics software and equipment

I’d be attending a conference during the trip and would be giving a PowerPoint presentation. I purchased a Voyager VGA CF card from Colorgraphics (http://www.colorgraphic.net) to connect my Axim to a presentation projector. I’d load the presentation file on a 256 MB SD storage card. I would use Pocket Slides from Conduits (http://www.conduits) to run the slide show. Of course, I couldn’t visit my grandkids without some kind of camera, so I packed my Veo PhotoTraveler (http://www.veoproducts.com), a digital camera that slips into the X5’s CF slot. I also installed Pocket Album (http://www.conduits.com) and Picture Perfect (http://www.applian.com) on my Pocket PC, and put together a grandpa’s brag book of grandkid shots.

The Veo Photo Traveler, shown here with its carrying case, was one of the many Pocket PC accessories I brought with me on my trip.

Mobile Internet: hardware and services

I decided that the simplest way to deal with communications was to connect to the Internet from my hotel room, and I was hoping for wireless broadband connections because I would bring along my Belkin 802.11b Wireless PDA Network Card (http://www.belkin.com). In case I couldn’t find one, I packed my Pretec Compact 56K Modem (http://www.pretec.com).

It was unrealistic to expect I’d find a wireless hookup in every motel room, so I decided to also subscribe to a nationwide dial-up service as backup. I ruled out MSN because they do not answer the phone after regular business hours. AOL seems to want your business more because they are available for support 24/7. The good news is that they recently released AOL 2.0 for Pocket PC 2002. It’s available on Handango (http://www.handango.com) for $19.95. It is a nice little program that comes complete with Instant Messenger and many of the other AOL services. But I don’t think they should be charging for a product that lets you use their service. AOL also has a voice mail service that picks up your phone calls and puts them into your e-mail. Even though it costs an extra $5.95 per month, I jumped at this service because it is not only cheaper than my voice mail from my phone company, but it lets me access my voice mail without having to make a long-distance phone call to pick up messages.

Although I selected AOL, I also looked at Earthlink. They have a support team that is knowledgeable about the Pocket PC and ready to help you 24/7. Earthlink e-mail is POP3-based, so it’s easy to access your regular e-mail accounts via Earthlink. Unfortunately, e-mail with both AOL and MSN is Web-based, and though it’s possible to connect to your POP3 email accounts using these ISPs, it’s a bit more complicated