.KEYWORD internet0601
.FLYINGHEAD THE INTERNET IN YOUR PALM DEVICE
.TITLE Be enterprising, use AvantGo for offline browsing
.DEPT
.SUMMARY If you’re working in today’s fast-paced mobile workforce, you know you can’t afford to waste a minute. For the uninitiated, AvantGo is a Palm device-based Web browser that supports channel-based offline reading. In this edition of his "The Internet in Your Palm Device" column, Michael Connick will show you how to get this powerful software that allows you to download the very latest business news right onto your Palm device.
.AUTHOR Michael Connick
I’m sitting in an airplane writing this month’s column. If you’re working in today’s fast-paced mobile workforce, you know you can’t afford to waste a minute. I just finished reading online articles from PalmPower’s Enterprise Edition, DominoPower, and The Wall Street Journal. I did all of this without being connected to the Internet. How was this possible? I used AvantGo.
.H1 What is AvantGo?
Technically speaking, AvantGo is a Palm device-based Web browser that supports channel-based offline reading and has Windows-based and Mac-based conduits for synchronizing. Whew, that’s a mouthful!
Actually, it can be explained a little more simply than that. AvantGo combines a Palm application, Mac/PC HotSync conduits, and an Internet service. These all work together to update user-defined channels kept on your Palm device. AvantGo usually does this by retrieving information from the Web and importing it via a conduit to the AvantGo Palm Client.
It can also retrieve information from the Internet directly to a Palm device using a PalmModem or wireless connection and allow this information to be read offline. AvantGo can also be used as a Web browser with a PalmModem or wireless connection for real-time access to Internet Web pages. Finally, the very newest version of AvantGo handles wireless real-time access into AvantGo’s predefined channels. I’ll be covering this new wireless feature in next month’s column.
AvantGo is displayed on my Palm IIIc in Figure A.
.FIG A AvantGo lists the specific channels to which I’m subscribed.
.H1 How do I get AvantGo for my Palm device?
AvantGo is available free of charge from http://www.avantgo.com. This Web site will inform you of all the requirements for running AvantGo, as well as guide you through the installation process on your Palm unit, PC, and/or Mac. It will also allow you to set up an account on AvantGo, which is required to use the program for anything more than a simple Palm Web browser.
.H1 How do I start using AvantGo?
Once the software is installed and your account is created, you can select one or more AvantGo channels on the AvantGo Web site. Channels are simply collections of Web pages that are optimized for AvantGo, and which can be viewed offline on your Palm device. They include topics such as sports, news, lifestyle, and technology.
Organizations and individuals that want to provide information to AvantGo users create these channels. They are special Web sites that use very limited graphics and are constructed using a simplified page structure. This allows AvantGo to pack the maximum amount of information into a minimum amount of memory on your Palm device. Each channel has a maximum memory size allocated to it, as well as an estimated actual size. This information can help keep you from running out of memory on your Palm unit if you get carried away and subscribe to too many channels. I suggest you start off slow in subscribing to channels and see how much of your Palm device’s memory ends up being utilized by them.
The number of channels you subscribe to is limited only by the amount of free memory you have on your Palm device. Currently, there are over one thousand channels available from AvantGo!
Users can also create custom channels using any Web page on the Internet. Later in this article, I’ll show you how to do this.
.H1 How do I get my channels into my Palm device?
This is the interesting part. There are actually two ways to get your channels into your Palm device for offline reading. First, you can simply HotSync with your PC or Mac when it’s connected to the Internet. Your PC or Mac will then act as an AvantGo agent for your Palm handheld. It’ll go out to the AvantGo server and pick up updated pages for the channels you’ve subscribed to. It will then transfer this information to your Palm device via the conduit that’s part of the AvantGo software. After the HotSync is complete, you’ll be able to start up the AvantGo application on your Palm device and read the Web pages that make up your channels. You can read this information at any time after the HotSync and in any place. I’ve read the channels I subscribe to on airplanes, trains, buses, and even in my easy chair at home. I particularly enjoy reading this information while traveling on business or commuting.
The second way to pick up your channels’ Web pages is to use a PalmModem or wireless connection from your Palm device. To do this, just select Modem Sync from the AvantGo program’s Channels menu. This will cause your Palm device to directly connect to AvantGo’s server and transfer the Web pages of your channels directly to your handheld. This is the technique I most often use. Every morning I come downstairs with my Palm IIIc in my hand, get my coffee, and sit down in my recliner. Sitting right next to my recliner is a PalmModem that’s plugged into my home phone system. I just clip the PalmModem onto my Palm IIIc and use it to pick up my email and to perform an AvantGo modem synchronization while I’m drinking my coffee. Then I review my morning’s email and read some of the pages of my AvantGo channels.
.H1 How can I create a custom channel?
Creating a custom channel is actually quite easy. In fact, you can use just about any Web site as the basis for a custom channel. However, if the Web site you choose isn’t designed for the small screen size and limited memory of the Palm device, the results can be downright frustrating. Try to stick to Web sites that are designed to be viewed on a Palm device or other PDA.
I’m going to use a known "Palm-friendly" Web site as an example of how to set up a custom channel. This is my own Web site, The Palm Device as Information Portal, located at http://www.monmouth.com/~mconnick/palm.htm.
To add my Web site as a channel, first login to AvantGo.com using the User ID and Password you selected when you first set up your account. After you login, you’ll be presented with a screen that contains a list of all the channels to which you’re currently subscribed. This list is located in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Figure B shows an example of this list.
.FIGPAIR B Here’s an example list of current channels.
At the top of this list, you’ll see a "Create Channel" button. Click on this Create Channel button.
You’ll now be at a page like that shown in Figure C. This is the page you’ll use to fill in all the information needed to create your custom channel.
.FIGPAIR C Here’s the Create Channel screen.
To create a custom channel for my Web site, you’ll fill in the data exactly has shown.
For the Channel Title, enter "Palm as Information Portal." Enter http://www.monmouth.com/~mconnick/palm.htm in the Location field. Leave the Channel Max Size at the default value shown. This value is 100K and is well above what this new custom channel will actually require on your Palm device.
Next, set the Channel Link Depth to 4. This is higher than what you would set for most other custom channels. The number is high is due to the way my Web site is organized. I’ve broken the "What’s On My Palm IIIc" pages into a series of small pages to make them easier to retrieve and read on a Palm unit. Each one of these pages would be counted as another link down in the site’s page hierarchy. Most other Web sites are organized differently, so in most other cases you’ll normally set the Channel Link Depth field to no more than 1 or 2.
Next, you’ll need to make the decision as to whether or not to include images. My site has few images, and they’re all very small in size, so it’s OK to set this to Yes. If you were to create a custom channel for another site that had large and extensive graphics, you would normally want to answer No to this question. Large graphics will eat up your Palm device’s memory very quickly.
Leave the Follow Offsite Links to its default setting of No. If you answer Yes, AvantGo will go out and pull in copies of all the pages to which my site has links. This will increase the amount of memory required for this channel dramatically and will also result in some very large pages loaded onto your handheld. Most, if not all, of these pages aren’t optimized for AvantGo, and it will be very difficult to read them on your Palm device.
Finally, you can leave the Refresh option set to its default: "on every sync." This means that AvantGo will go out and fetch new versions of the channel’s pages every time you synchronize with the AvantGo server.
Just click on the Save Channel button, and your custom channel will be set up for you. The next time you synchronize with AvantGo, whether via a HotSync or via a direct synchronization with your Palm device, you’ll see a new channel named Palm as Information Portal when you start up the AvantGo program on your Palm device. You’ll now be able to traverse through all the pages on my site. In addition, any changes I may make to the site will automatically be reflected on your Palm device.
Now, I’m not suggesting that my site is all that dynamic and worthwhile to keep on your Palm unit forever. After gaining experience with this first custom channel, you may want to go ahead and remove it and add some other Palm-oriented Web sites as custom channels. I’d suggest that you choose Web sites whose content changes everyday and which provide up-to-the-minute news of interest to Palm device users. I can recommend three that are custom channels on my own Palm device: Smaller.com (at http://www.smaller.com/mobile/news.html), PalmInfoCenter (at http://www.palminfocenter.com/palm/), and PDAGeek (at http://www.geek.com/pdageek/portable/). These URLs will take you to pages optimized for viewing on your Palm device. And of course, you need everyone’s favorite Palm computing publications, PalmPower Magazine and PalmPower’s Enterprise Edition. The optimized URL for PalmPower is http://www.palmpower.com/avantgo/, and the optimized URL for PalmPower’s Enterprise Edition is http://www.palmpowerenterprise.com/avantgo/default.html.
.H1 How can I use AvantGo to surf the Web?
To use AvantGo as a normal Web browser, just use the "Open Page
