Murphy's Law and smartphones

One of the downside elements of being away for a couple of days and not online at all is the time you then have to spend going through email and RSS feeds.

It always seems to me that the high volume of stuff is directly proportional to the length of time you're not online. Definitely part of Murphy's Law.

Last night I returned from the UK where I'd been in Sunderland in the north-east of England for the past couple of days participating as a speaker in the Making the News: Blogging, RSS and the New PR (PDF) one-day conference yesterday at the University of Sunderland, organized by Philip Young.

A tremendous event with over 90 participants. Everyone who signed up to come actually did. That's the first conference I can recall being part of where everyone who signed up, showed up. Not a single no-show. There will be a post here this weekend about the conference. Plus perhaps a photo or two.

Speaking of Murphy (in a highly positive sense), I had the pleasure of finally meeting Tom Murphy, one of the key influencers in the PR blogging community and a fellow speaker at the conference. One of our conversations has got me thinking hard about the need to be online no matter where I am. I don't think anyone really can just be out of virtual touch for a couple of days. Not so much because you then have big email catch-ups to do; it's more to do with being reachable and being able to keep on top of what's going on in your areas of interest. This is especially important if you're a consultant, no question about it.

Tom has a very neat Qtek Smartphone that has many of the features in my mobile device wishlist.

I've looked at quite a few such devices in recent months but haven't been that impressed. What makes the major difference with this one is talking about it directly with someone who has one and hearing how he sees the benefits.

Could this be the one I should get now?

Comments

[Stephen]

Hi Neville,

I bought a SPV c550 Smartphone about 6 weeks ago and I highly recommend it. I'll give you a run down why I think it's great:

I have all my contacts synched with Outlook on my lap top. This is great incase something happens to either your phone or computer. I have my calendar and appointments synched also.

It has an external flash card. The standard card that comes with it is only 128mb but you can buy a 2GB card. I'm thinking of buying one so I can listen to music and podcasts on the move without lumbering my iPod with me. **Windows Media player only. I'd love a mobile iTunes!**

If you use bloglines or newsgator you can read your feed through their mobile versions. This is great as it synchs your feeds - stopping you from reading the same posts twice.

Personally I found both a little too slow so I paid the $20 for a year's subscription to FreeNews. A handy little Java based mobile feed reader that is very quick indeed.

Gmail Lite. A mobile version of Gmail developed by SourceForge that lets you send and receive email on the move. I use this very regularly.

I have Google Mobile and Technorati Mobile in my favourites bookmarks too.

POP3 and IMAP4 email. Haven't figured this one out yet - I'll get back to you.

1.3 mega pixel camera/video camera. You can send pictures by email - ideal for moblogging. If my blog was up on Friday I was going to moblog the conference as I have the WordPress plugin Poastie installed.

There's dozens of applications too. I'm thinking about downloading the Opera Mobile browser. This apparently condenses normal websites to fit on the Smartphone's screen.

You can install the TomTom Sat Nav system on it and also watch full length movies too. Again, haven’t figured this out yet, I’ve got the applications to do it – just haven’t figured it out.

For someone who does a lot of flying like yourself, you can also switch it to flight mode, so you can still listen to podcasts, read Word docs etc etc while flying.

Plus there is a large British based SPV following that will help you with any problems. Once or twice I got carried away installing too many applications at once and it crashed. I posted on the SPV forum and within a day someone replied with the solution.

I’m starting to think that Smartphones are the way forward.

If you do end up buying a SPV, let me know and I’ll email you all the applications and SPV movies I have.

P.S. Got my blog up and running now. Still missing a lot of posts and having one or two technical difficulties, but at least it's back up!

Also, tried to link all that I've mentioned in this post but it says your blog doesn't allow HTML comments :(

[Neville Hobson]

I'm beginning to drool after reading this, Stephen! Looks like I'd need to have an account with Orange, though (I use Vodafone).

Still, this looks very impressive. Bookmarked your recommendation along with Tom's Qtek...

[Stephen]

Yes it's an Orange phone, but you can easily unlock it. I've already unlocked mine and tried it with a Vodafone sim card. It was a cinch!

http://www.spv-developers.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1286

Alternatively, buy one of eBay already unlocked.

[Neville Hobson]

That's a hack worth knowing about. Thanks.