Archive for February 3rd, 2008
My PDA’s new home life
Standalone PDAs, Personal Digital Assistants, are out of favor. These days, quite a few phones come with mobile email and PIM, Personal Information Management software which can handle your contact list, calendar and appointments. As a result, you just need to take one mobile device with you.
My HP iPaq 2215 is a Pocket PC running Windows Mobile 2003, which has been seating idle for quite a few years, as it has been replaced by smartphones, such as the Samsung SGH-i607 with Windows Mobile 5.0
Interestingly enough, the iPaq is in perfect working condition. It is hooked up to my home WiFi network thanks to a SDIO card from SanDisk. So, the question is what to do with this PDA. My options appear to be: recycling, selling on eBay, donating, or giving it a new purpose.
When looking at Wigetstation and Chumby, I figured that my iPaq could fulfill similar roles. So, the purpose of this post is to share that it is no longer a “pocket” device, but an always-on Internet gadget that stays at home. The following are screenshots of the applications I happen to be running on it.
I have installed Mundu Radio to listen to Internet radio, featuring some 1000 stations, and PocketMusic to play music files.
The iPaq can be switched on and off quite quickly. Having it running frees my laptop from having to allocate resources to these kind of multimedia services.
As you can see in the above picture, my former PDA is connected to loudspeakers and is in a cradle getting electricity from a wall power outlet.
I have also installed Microsoft’s Live Search that comes in handy when looking up maps, directions and traffic status among quite a few other things. This application updates the traffic information every two minutes.
I check the local weather forecast using Plusmo, a news reader subsidized by advertisement. For a more detailed forecast I go to Weatherunderground’s mobile site. I have also added PDA.CeoExpress to my favorites on Explorer.
In case you wonder, I tried Skype long ago but the iPaq 2215 did not have enough processing power to handle whatever version was available at the time. I just installed Skype’s 2.2. version for Windows Mobile. It’s apparently running fine, but I have not had the chance to test it at the time of uploading this post.
At this point, my main goal is to make the most of the iPaq’s remaining life without having to spend any money. I’m also thinking I might end up moving it from my home office to the dinning area in the kitchen. We’ll see.
| J. de Francisco |  |
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| Chicago, 3 February 08 |  |
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