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More computer tips
Short version: GSM cell phone, Wap, GPRS and a yahoo e-mail address. Works
almost worldwide. You can forward from another e-mail address to the yahoo
address, and spam sorting still doesn't break!
Have you ever wished there was a way you could have access to your e-mail even if you had no access to computers? Guess what, it's possible these days! The answer is the right cell phone!
I should point out that this little piece contains terms that I'm not going to explain (gets a tad complicated here and there). If you think this might be for you, but don't understand the technicalities, take a printout to a shop or computer geek (they are often also gadget geeks) you trust and ask them to explain the technical stuff for you. It also depends on where you live and where you travel - what networks have coverage etc.
I was travelling yesterday, and didn't bring a computer. What better day to talk about this than when I'd had opportunity to put it to the test?
Cell phones are getting more and more capable of reading e-mail on the go. I've gotten a new one now, and have been experimenting quite a lot recently.
Most phones here (Norway) today can read WAP pages. Those are light pages with a slightly different markup language than pages you read with your computer. Even the cheapest of the cell phones sold here now can do WAP, which surprised me!
Many celebrities have Hotmail accounts, and here's where it gets interesting. Hotmail supposedly allows you to read your mail via WAP! I tried it, but my phone was unable to log on for some reason. Point your regular browser here first to set it up: http://mobile.msn.com/ . I HAVE tried my own ISP's WAP mail, and it works wonderfully. Yahoo also works, though the first time I tried it malfunctioned. Yahoo's implementation is pretty good, once you find the right bookmark! Try http://wap.yahoo.com
Some phones also have e-mail clients built in that you can use with POP3 (your ISP account) and IMAP mailboxes.
So let's say you're reading this and starts thinking it could be a good way to keep in touch with friends even when you're on the road... OK, here's some advice:
Unless you pair up your cell phone with a PDA and download almost full messages (via infrared or bluetooth pairing), you're probably better off not using a regular cell phone connection to the net (cause it's usually pretty expensive). More and more networks, and more and more phones will allow you to use GPRS. Check the rates on your network and when you're roaming, so you don't get any surprises. On my network it's reasonably cheap, and I only pay for the Kb's I use, not for how long I'm connected (some networks make you pay for the time you're connected as well).
But even when using GPRS, there are some caveats. I've found that downloading headers with POP3 consumes more Kb's than using WAP and scanning the same number of messages (if you remember how many messages you had last time you checked, you'll save even more Kbs - say if there are no new messages). I find that I don't read every message (usually you can choose not to download the full messages to your mail client, just if you choose to download it. And for WAP you have to follow the link to read the mail. A long mail will also be cut into chunks, so you can quit reading if it wasn't that interesting anyway). WAP mail will usually load the new messages first, so if you remember how many there were last time, you don't have to read them all (there are 5 message links a page).
There's however a caveat to all of this. In Norway we have 97-98 % coverage, with only two different networks. In the US it's a different situation. Many movie locations are well outside of coverage of the digital networks. There are many weird phones out there, and some switch between digital and analog all the time. I kinda doubt all this technology works if you're in an area with only analog coverage.
There are other cell phone advantages, like SMS and MMS, useful if your friends are on a compatible network. Will write more about that later!
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