I've had a lot of fun helping a co-worker become productive with her new Windows-based Palm Treo smartphone.
She wanted to be mobile while having easy access to her work e-mail. She also wanted to be able to write stories and such while on the go. This all requires a bit of ingenuity, but it's not rocket science.
Here are the steps:
E-mail. Getting easy access to Pioneer Press e-mail on a wireless handheld is a bit tricky. BlackBerry users have it easy here because we're set up for mobile BlackBerry-based e-mailing, but users of Windows-based devices need to be a bit more creative.
I simply set up my co-worker's Outlook program on her desktop PC to redirect copies of all her work e-mails to a Gmail account. She can pull that up on her Treo as well as her home PC to keep up with work mail. I've done that (on my home Macintosh, I don't have a mobile Web gizmo) for a long time.
Works great. And this automatically creates a searchable Gmail database of work messages for future reference, which has been a lifesaver for me on more than one occasion.
Writing. My co-worker wanted to write right on her Treo, which doubles as a Windows-ish Pocket PC with a compact version of Microsoft Word, etc. She could have done this after a fashion using her thumb keyboard, but it makes more sense to add a folding keyboard of the sort intended for such gadgets.
I happened to have two Think Outside models lying around. One uses Bluetooth wireless, the other infrared. Either will work with the Treo, but the infrared one seemed to need less futzing. So off my co-worker went to file from the road using her mini-workstation.
She later wrote:
worked like a charm!!! I feel so empowered!!!!
