David Berlind, ZDNet TechUpdate Editorial Director, explains why the PDA is still a bad bet for solo missions.
I like living on technology's bleeding edge. I spend as much time with emerging technologies as possible, and attempt to move the ones I like most into a full-blown production environment. Despite the difficulties I've had with my Compaq iPaq running PocketPC, I attempted something unprecedented (at least by me) at Comdex 2001.
My ambitious goal was to completely manage my Comdex coverage with a Compaq iPaq equipped with a Sierra Wireless AirCard 300 to access e-mail and the Web via OmniSky, and a collapsible "stowaway" keyboard. For the many appointments made prior to the show, I would use PocketPC's built in calendar application to tell me where I needed to be, and when. At meetings and interviews, I would take notes using Pocket Word (the built-in word processor) to record my thoughts and observations. After the meeting, I would shape my notes into a story and send it to Tech Update's editors via OmniSky's wireless e-mail.
Not only would I be testing the PDA in a real world application that goes beyond basic personal information management, but gaining significant professional and personal benefits. For instance, instead of taking paper notes at each meeting and waiting until evening to write the stories from my hotel room, I would have the stories finished and transmitted within hours of my meetings. The result: more timely coverage of Comdex (a competitive issue for any media outlet) and a more restful night's sleep. The productivity gain alone would be phenomenal.
Another thing that would benefit was my back. Having ruptured two disks in my lower back this past summer, I've developed a new appreciation for lightweight devices. (At the time, I couldn't even lift a notebook computer.)
Bottom line? I would leave the notebook computer and conventional paper behind rather than take them to the convention centre each day. This proved to be a grave mistake.
Things went swimmingly over the weekend and through part of Monday. Several of the stories that now appear on ZDNet were prepared on my iPaq and transmitted from it via wireless connection. As a side note, collapsible keyboards, are significant gating factors for turning PDAs into primary computing devices; even if the PocketPC's handwriting recognition worked flawlessly for me, (which it didn't), it is easier to take notes with a keyboard than with a pen or stylus.
Halfway through Monday, however, things went awry. While attending a press conference held by Compaq and Intel to deliver the message that the desktop isn't dead, I took copious notes with my miniature set-up. There was a certain amount of irony in the whole situation. Here were two computer companies telling me why the desktop wasn't dead, and there I was, a technology professional, in real time, eliminating the desktop from my professional regimen. My tool of trade was manufactured by Compaq and powered by Intel.
However, as the meeting drew to a close, I became very aware of why desktops may not be dead yet. However, not as a result of any comments either company made. As I finished my story, the iPaq experienced a catastrophic failure. If there's any good time for your PDA to experience a catastrophic failure, it's during a meeting with executives from the company that makes it, I reasoned.
In the hour that followed, I worked with Compaq officials in a desperate attempt to revive the iPaq and, hopefully, my story. But I lost more than the story. After several failed attempts at a soft reset (which should not result in data loss), we were forced to perform a hard reset. The process wipes out all data, programs, and device drivers. Not only was my schedule lost, but so too were the drivers and software needed to use the collapsible keyboard and OmniSky's wireless services. The schedule and other data that I synchronised into the device from my PC were recovered easily back in my hotel room.
But without the device drivers, I would not be able to continue with my intended mode of operation for my remaining meetings with Xerox, the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Association, and Oracle.
No problem, I thought: 'I'll find a cradle in Compaq's suite, attach it to some system with Internet connectivity and Microsoft's ActiveSync software (necessary for loading anything into PocketPC), download the drivers from OmniSky and ThinkOutside, and install them into iPaq'.
Wishful thinking-- though the process worked well for the keyboard, the same could not be said of OmniSky. The only download we could find on OmniSky's Web site was a driver upgrade that required an existing driver. I had no choice but to give up.
As I walked to my next meeting, I started to realise how ridiculous the situation was. Even if we were able to restore the device to working order, doing so required all sorts of resources that the iPaq itself should be able to eliminate. Imagine if this happened anywhere but at Comdex? What are the chances of a user being near a computer, let alone one with a cradle for the same PDA you have, running Microsoft ActiveSync, having internet access, and an expert who knows how to run it all?
Furthermore, add-on companies like OmniSky need to realise that such a catastrophic loss is a very real possibility, and that a user most certainly won't have the CD-ROM to install the original software. The software needs to be online.
I've been wrestling with the iPaq and its PocketPC operating system for several months now. Microsoft PocketPC product manager Ed Suwanjindar, who is attending Comdex, has insisted that the problem is the iPaq's hardware, and not PocketPC. That's the sort of finger-pointing users really hate. Even so, Suwanjindar has asked that I give the PocketPC 2002 OS a workout before continuing on my warpath.
I'm not getting my hopes up. If Ed is suggesting that PocketPC 2002 will never crash, I have some reservations about his statement. I've never owned a system--desktop, server, handheld, running Windows, Linux, PocketPC, PalmOS, and others--that didn't eventually crash (often because of third-party drivers). When systems crash, and they will, all of the companies involved--Microsoft, Compaq, OmniSky, ThinkOutside, and others--have a responsibility to make sure that the entire system's functionality can be quickly and easily returned. End users will accept no less (and certainly won't accept blame shifting) if they're expected to use these devices for mission-critical applications.
One way this could be accomplished is by loading critical software and drivers into a portion of flash memory that isn't wiped out if a hard reset is performed. An alternative would be to allow those drivers and software to be backed up to a specially allocated memory area that's not affected by hard resets. Had this capability been included with my iPaq, and I had known which files to backup (another challenge), I could easily have restored them without the need for anything or anybody. I asked Suwanjindar if any of these features were incorporated into the new version of the OS. Suwanjindar said they had not, but agreed that the suggestions were good ones.
Until PDAs can be resurrected on the fly, I'd be hesitant to deploy them in mission- critical situations where novice users need to depend on their resilience to faults.
Meanwhile, my iPaq is now restored from a backup that ActiveSync created on my notebook. But I won't be depending on it for tomorrow's adventures in the convention centre, a bitter disappointment to me--and my aching back.
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