.FLYINGHEAD GOING MOBILE
.TITLE A day in the life of a woman and her mobile devices
.AUTHOR Denise Watkins
.SUMMARY Denise Watkins has managed to integrate mobile devices into every part of her life. From the moment she wakes up, to the time she fades away to dreamland in the evening, and most of the time in-between, Denise is truly plugged into the Computing Unplugged lifestyle.
I own a variety of electronic and mobile devices. People — Luddites in my opinion — often ask, "Do you really need all of those things?"
I really don’t carry all that much gear. On a daily, Monday through Friday basis, I carry a Sony CLIE SJ33. Between the time I started this article and final editing, the SJ33 has been discontinued. Typical Sony; it often seems to me that in the time that you buy a CLIE and get it home to charge up, Sony will most likely have a new model and discontinue yours.
My CLIE’s various accoutrements include a Memory Stick camera and a folding headset. I also carry three 128MB Memory Sticks, one of which stays in the CLIE unless exchanged for a Memory Stick with MP3 files. The CLIE itself lives inside a Proporta aluminum case and sits inside a Levenger case designed for a PDA and phone. As I hate Velcro on my handheld, I put Velcro on the outside of the case and attach it to the inside of the Levenger case.
Also in my bag: A Motorola A720 phone and a BD Latitude Glucose Monitor. I also carry a Compaq iPaq 3950 with an expansion sleeve and Sprint wireless PC card housed in green leather Vaja case.
On the weekends I usually only carry only the CLIE and the phone. However during the week these devices are an essential part of my day and so I present…a day in the life of a woman and her mobile devices.
.H1 5:45AM
The alarm goes off on my Sony CLIE. Yes, I take it to bed with me. Or rather I take it into the bedroom with me. Actually more often than not I am reading a book before bedtime and it could just as easily be electronic, audio (in MP3 format) or print. I take a blood sugar reading–I’m a Type II diabetic–and reach for my CLIE. The first thing that happens after I clear the alarm is the daily Dilbert cartoon appears on the screen.
After looking at the cartoon, I tap the MegaLauncher tab that has health related programs on it and open GlucoPilot and log my blood sugar. I have 65 third-party programs loaded internally and on a Memory Stick. Quick access and organization is a necessity and I get that from MegaLauncher, shown in Figure A.
.FIG A My MegaLauncher screen helps me get to my programs quickly.
Hey Sony, I have an idea. Instead of a video recorder to record TV on Memory Stick, partner with a medical devices company and give us a Memory Stick-based glucose meter. The same could be suggested to Palm; either an SD meter or a device that attached to the HotSync connector would be helpful.
.BREAK_EMAIL For the rest of Denise’ handheld-enabled day, click here.
Health officials say, unfortunately, Type II diabetes is increasing, so there is a market for such a device. I know someone who recently bought a Handspring Visor with the FreeStyle Tracker Diabetes Management System. It’s an older technology Handspring Springboard module, but he loves the convenience of being able to pare down devices.
.H1 6:00AM
The alarm goes of again; this time its just a couple of beeps from On-Time-RX reminding me to take my allergy medicine.
.H1 6:25AM
Another alarm in DateBk5 goes off. I head out to my car for the five-minute drive to the gym. I love the cute little DateBk5 icon with the person on the treadmill. You can sort of see it if you look closely at Figure B.
.FIG B DateBk5 lets me set nice icons for my various activities.
.H1 7:15AM
Back in the house. Thank heavens for Curves; I’ve never liked exercise but for 30 minutes I can stand anything. Time to take another blood sugar feeding, log it into GlucoPilot, and log the workout into the diary feature of Calorie King, shown in Figure C.
.FIG C Calorie King helps me keep track of my health.
.H1 7:20AM
I check my CLIE and open up Checklist. It lists what I’m planning to wear today, as you can see in Figure D.
.FIG D I’m prepared because I know what I’m going to wear.
I usually plan for two weeks at a time. Okay, I’ll admit it, the term anal-retentive has been bandied about by some family and friends on occasion. The way I see see it, though, is since I’m not a morning person, I don’t want to waste time or energy on the morning trying to decide what to wear. That would take an additional 10-15 minutes of sleep I’d prefer to spend sleeping. I’d rather know that there is a clean outfit, including accessories ready to wear.
On Saturday or Sunday, I look at my schedule and see what events or appointments are coming up on the calendar, check the wardrobe application to see when I last wore an item, and whether it’s in the cleaners or needs to be mended, altered, or whatever.
.H1 8:15AM
I’m in the car. Before starting the car, I take out my mobile phone and put on my headset. My mother, sister, and college-age daughters know this is often the best time to get in touch with me at the start of the day.
.H1 8:50AM
I’m docking my company-issue IBM ThinkPad, and log on, and check my mobile phone to see if it needs a charge. If so, I plug it in to the charger I keep in the office.
I take my iPaq out, turn it on, and input my security code to unlock the Credant security software. It takes about two minutes to go through its unlock sequence. If I ever lost the iPaq, in order to get any use out of it, you’d have to do a hard reset. The security on my CLIE is quite as rigorous, even though it doesn’t access the company network. I do secure that as well.
What amazes me is how many people use security systems on their handhelds but back everything up to the expansion card that they leave in the handheld. That’s sort of like locking the door, but leaving the key in the lock.
The laptop boots and I log into the network. ActiveSync connects to the iPaq and starts syncing. It’s a good morning; ActiveSync connects seamlessly. It can be annoyingly temperamental at times.
I turn my attention to my CLIE and connect it to its charging cable. I sync my CLIE to my home computer and to my desktop Compaq computer at work. I check my calendar for any appointments and to see what priority tasks are scheduled for the day. I use the To Do view in DateBk5 and check off a couple of items that were completed yesterday. Open up PDAsoftnet’s Wardrobe program and log in what I’m wearing today.
.H1 9:00AM
On-Time-RX beeps reminding me to take the rest of the morning meds.
.H1 10:00AM
An alarm goes off. I need to check with the caterer for an event for my professional association. I log in some dates from an email I got from my daughter into DateBk5. My work commitments are entered in a bold red font, personal ones in teal. Items pertaining to my husband are in blue. Each daughter has a color assigned to her; I use her school colors. Appointments pertaining to my parents are in another color.
.H1 11:45AM
A text message comes through on my mobile. It sounds like a siren. It’s from my college freshmen daughter asking if she has money. I check her account balance, transfer some money and sent a reply to her text message telling her "Yes, you have money."
I’m not a fan of text messaging. My fingers aren’t agile enough. I feel the same way about thumb keyboards on handhelds. I usually respond to text messages using the iPaq and Sprint card if I’m not at my desk. If I’m near a computer, I go to the text-messaging site for my wireless carrier and respond.
Since I get frequent text messages from the kids, I marked this site as a favorite so it appears on my IE toolbar. I’m often at other company sites, so my family tends to call my mobile phone rather than my work phone. With custom ring tones, I designate a unique tone for each child. My husband, sister and my mother have ring tones unique to them. Without looking at my phone display, I know who’s calling me.
.H1 12:00 noon
An alarm goes off telling me it’s noon and I should start to think about lunch. I take a blood sugar, log it into to GlucoPilot and decide I can wait another half hour to eat. The other cubicle dwellers in my office are all techno geeks, so no one is bothered by all the ringing, buzzing, and chirping from each others’ gadgets.
.H1 12:30PM
Time for lunch. An On-Time-RX alarm goes off and I grab my meds. I slip my CLIE and moblie phone into my Levenger case and head to lunch.
.H1 2:00PM
I’m working on a project and decide I need some music. I exchange the menmory stick that holds programs and drop in a 128MB one with about 2 hours of music and plug in my headset. I make a note to buy one of the new 256MB Memory Sticks.
I take a quick call from my nephew who tells me that he’s loaded 267 songs on his new 10GB iPod and barely made a dent in the memory. I get good "aunt points" for his early Christmas present.
Audible.com, which I belong to had a really great member special on refurbished iPods. I took advantage of that. One Christmas present already out of the way! The iPods are so cool, but I’ve managed to restrain myself. With both of my handhelds having MP3 capabilities, an iPod would be overkill — even for me.
.H1 4:00PM
I sync my iPaq to reconcile it and my Lotus Notes calendar and mail databases. I then do a incremental backup on the iPaq. I usually don’t have any problems keeping both handhelds current. At work, most of the appointments I receive come via email, so they automatically are added to my Lotus Notes calendar. I tend to enter them immediately into the CLIE. If not, I can beam appointments between the two platforms. I default to the CLIE; its calendar is always correct, since I take it everywhere.
Meanwhile I turn on my CLIE and launch the program NextUp! from neohand, shown in Figure E.
.FIG E NextUp! gives me a place to put all those little bits of information.
I love having a place to put all those miscellaneaus bits of information: movies, to see, books to read, Web
sites to try, etc. I tap the events icon and start a new form listing the details of an event for the local chapter of the Special Libraries Association.
I then start a spreadsheet with the cost figures using Sheet To Go. I deal with very little paper. Word and Excel documents get converted using Documents To Go. PDF files I convert using the Adobe Acrobat Reader for Palm. Using a serial cable from Brando, I connect the CLIE to my desktop PC to HotSync. As we still use Windows NT (which doesn’t support USB) serial HotSync operations are painfully slow.
.H1 5:45PM
I’m shutting down my laptop and locking it away. Since I can log into the company network with the iPaq, I can leave my laptop at the office on occassion.
.H1 6:00PM
A quick stop at the supermarket. I check SplashShopper, shown in Figure F, to see what I need for dinner.
.FIG F I like to keep a my shopping list in my CLIE.
Oh yeah, I need to stop at Radio Shack. My husband wanted to borrow my laser pointer stylus. He better not lose it! In the old days I was a pen junky. Now all of my writing instruments are usually dual purpose pen/styli combos.
I own a Cross Morph, a really nice Cross Digital Writer. My company anniversary pen has a Cross stylus insert in it. I have a couple of Tornados and since I train end users as part of my job, I also have three pen laser pointer styli.
StylusCentral is one of my favorite places on the Web. I really like my new one: the Palm Executive Multi-Function Stylus, with a laser pointer, flashlight, pen and stylus is really cool! I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would use the "stick" stylus that ships with the handheld except as a reset pen!
.H1 9:00PM
There goes another alarm. Time for Resident Life on TLC. I must remember to see if there is another program guide application. I miss the Pocket TV Browser. [This product was unavailable for a while, but as of October 3rd, 2003, is back in play. –Ed.]
Add another To Do item: fill in the URLs for all of the applications mentioned in this article and I must remember to see if I can find a Stowaway keyboard for my daughter’s T615c CLIE. I’m not giving this one up! I also have to remind her that I’m not her Memory Stick supplier. She needs to buy one to load MP3’s so she can use it with the audio adapter I gave her.
In truth, both my husband and daughter look far more techno savy than they actually are. I’m the tech support person for her CLIE and his Dell Axim. The other resident techie in the house, my youngest daughter, is still wedded to paper. She lives by her Franklin-Covey college planner. Okay, it’s a little embarrassing and I try not talk about it too much. Thankfully, at least she uses the Palm Desktop to keep a backup copy of her phone book.
.H1 10:00PM
I’m not sleepy yet, so I think I’ll read in bed awhile. My battery is getting low, so I use my portable charger. Hmmm…what to read? I’ve got eight books loaded on the CLIE and another five loaded on the iPaq, in addition to the Pocket PC buying guide provided in Microsoft Reader format.
.BEGIN_KEEP
Ah, a romance novel. I heard that! Stop, snickering, everyone has a vice. Hey, Harlequin! Here’s a hint: make your entire monthly line or some number of books available in a partnership with Palm Digital Media. That way we romance novel junkies can feed our addiction discreetly.
.H1 10:45PM
It’s lights out for me and all of my gadgets. Good night!
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on Rick Smolan’s Day in the Life series, visit http://www.againstallodds.com.
For more information on the Sony CLIE, visit http://www.sonystyle.com?CategoryName=hp_Clies.
For more information on Proporta aluminum cases, visit http://www.proporta.com.
For more information on Levenger cases, visit http://www.levenger.com.
For more information on the Motorola A720 phone, visit http://www.motorola.com.
For more information on the BD Latitude Glucose Monitor, visit http://www.bddiabetes.com.
For more information on the Compaq iPaqs, visit http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/prodserv/handheld.html.
For more information on Vaja cases, visit http://www.vaja.com.ar/pda_eng.htm.
For more information on MegaLauncher, visit http://www.megasoft2000.com/palm_division/megalauncher.htm.
For more information on GlucoPilot, visit http://www.healthetech.com/consumer_glucopilot.html.
For more information on the FreeStyle Tracker Diabetes Management System, visit http://www.therasense.com/tracker/index.asp.
For more information on On-Time-RX, visit http://www.ontimerx.com.
For more information on DateBk5, visit http://www.pimlicosoftware.com.
For more information on Curves, visit http://www.curvesforwomen.com.
For more information on Calorie King, visit http://www.calorieking.com.
For more information on Checklist, visit http://www.handmark.com/products/checklist.
For more information on Credant security software, visit http://www.credant.com.
For more information on PDAsoftnet’s Wardrobe, visit http://www.pdasoftnet.com/wardrobe.
For more information on the iPod, visit http://www.apple.com.
For more information on Audible.com, visit http://www.audible.com.
For more information on Lotus Notes, visit http://www.lotus.com.
For more information on NextUp!, visit http://www.neohand.com/nextup.
For more information on Sheet To Go and Documents To Go, visit http://www.dataviz.com.
For more information on the Adobe Acrobat Reader for Palm, visit http://www.adobe.com.
For more information on SplashShopper, visit http://www.splashdata.com.
For more information on StylusCentral, visit http://www.styluscentral.com.
For more information on the Cross Morph and Cross Tornado pens, visit http://www.cross.com.
For more information on the Palm Executive Multi-Function Stylus, visit http://store.palmone.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1387251.
For more information on the Pocket TV Browser, visit http://www.doublebit.com/ptvb.
For more information on the Stowaway portable keyboard, visit http://www.thinkoutside.com.
For more informaiton on the Dell Axim, visit http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/pda?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
For more information on the Franklin-Covey planners, visit http://www.franklincovey.com.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.END_KEEP
