I posted (funny how I can't bring myself to type "blogged", I've been "posting" messages for nearly two decades now and a blog is just a bulletin board system with a potentially much larger audience.) a while back about a new gadget I'd gotten. The Danger Sidekick. In case you don't remember its a cool little cellphone/email messenger/web browser/AIM/pager/camera/pda convergence device. I got one about a week after they came out and loved having those functions all rolled into one device.

I set aside the little nagging doubt about having one device that performed so many functions. Keep a cellphone separate from your PDA from your camera from your pager. That way if any one device fails (dead batteries mostly), you're not SOL with the others. But, the Sidekick was cheap enough and T-Mobile offered the device so I threw caution to the wind and bought one.

I must admit that I really enjoyed the device and its form factor. The applications worked well for what they were supposed to do. The fact that it was Internet connected through GPRS all the time and synchronized the PIM functionality with the web servers at Danger made it much cooler. I could make an entry on the device or on the web and the two would immediately synchronize. I'm also a firm believer in having multiple copies of important data lying around on various machines and data stores. The Sidekick could be destroyed but all my data was safe. I could take the SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card from the phone that had been destroyed, place it in another Sidekick and all my data would synchronize to the new device. Very cool.

But after three months I came to realize that I really didn't need a cellphone that was somewhat uncomfortable to use. That had miserable battery life. And that the build quality was exactly what you'd expect of a startup that did not have long experience in building devices to be used under harsh mobile conditions. The absolute worst infraction was that the Sidekick's firmware is absolutely bug ridden!

I don't mean just minor bugs either. A cellphone should ring when you call it, or at least somehow notify its owner of an incoming call. And if for some reason it doesn't ring, it should notify its owner that there is a message waiting. And be persistent about both. When the SK went into keylock mode (whether it did so itself or through user input) it would intermittently turn off the ring and alert tones! What good is a cellphone that doesn't alert you that someone is trying to get in touch with you? Not good at all.

I realize that I've also posted regarding the desire to "get away" from some of the more intrusive communications technologies that are available today. And I understand that cellphones are one of those technologies. However, I carry a cellphone because I have committments. My first committment is to Heather, and when she tried to contact me because she left her keys in my vehicle one evening and the Sidekick didn't ring... well, it was time to chew some support droid butt.

I called T-Mobile. They wound up giving me a month of free service because they know there's an issue with the device that they can't yet solve. So, being the good American consumer I am I voted with my wallet.

Last Friday I bought a new Nokia 6310i on the AT&T GSM network. I got this particular model for two reasons. First, Nokia is known for building hardware that can withstand the rigors of time. We use Nokia's at work, and some of my team's phones are going on four and five years old. The 6310i also has Bluetooth built-in.

Bluetooth is a short range wireless network protocol that allows several devices to create a "personal area network" without all the wires hanging all over the place. Now this is a little portion of Nirvanna on which I've been waiting for a good long time.

I also recently purchased a Palm Tungsten T PDA as a replacement for my aging iPaq PocketPC. The Tungsten has Bluetooth built-in as well.

I had pondered the implications of Bluetooth connectivity since hearing about it almost seven years ago now. But until the point where I had my PDA, my cellphone, and my laptop all on Bluetooth I never realized the power that such a situation could create.

I synchronize the Palm with the Apple Powerbook over BT without any cables, and the devices don't have to be "line-of-sight" to each other. I can use the Palm to dial or send SMS without having to take the phone off of my belt, or even out of the bag it is in across the room. Either the Powerbook or the Palm can use the phone as a GPRS modem to access the Internet as long as the phone is within a 10 meter radius of the devices. Very friggin cool!

I can surf the Net from the Palm and people think I'm making calendar entries or something! Heh! How's that for fooling the teacher?

So between the Palm and the Nokia I now have a replacement for all the functions my Sidekick did except for AIM and digital camera functionality. I used AIM only when away on trips, and not that often. And the digital camera function was cool for the first 20 pictures. It's not like I don't carry a much higher resolution digital camera in my laptop bag anyway and the Powerbook goes everywhere with me.

One last thing in my little geek-scheme. Bluetooth also has a profile for headsets. And as you might expect there are BT headsets that sit on your ear and wirelessly integrate into your PAN. I'll get one soon and may post a picture of my "borgification". But think about it. I won't need to pull the phone out to make a call. Dial it from the address book on the Palm, when the call connects, the Nokia shoves the voice to the earset. Very, Very, Very friggin cool and integrated.

And even though all these devices are integrated to an extreme unthinkable even a year ago, it doesn't break my cardinal rule of more than one function per device. I can survive without any single device. I don't want to, but losing one doesn't diable all of my communications capabilities any longer.

Tags: Technology, Leisure, Gadgets, Mobile Internet, Cellphone