Yes, you really can take it with you

50 ways to use portable technology

If Paul Simon wrote a song about portable computers, he might write: "I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free. There must be fifty ways to use portable technology..." Or maybe not. There are far more than 50 ways to use a portable technology. Here are just three of the songs people on the go love to sing.

Fabian Rodriguez and three associates left the Toxik Technologies Inc. office in Montreal to attend ISPCon Canada 2000 in Toronto--and took their office intranet (internal network) with them on a portable Jazz drive and laptop computer.

The company intranet contains information on customers, accounts, promotional material, other business correspondence, as well as an email archive. It all fit neatly on the Jazz drive, a portable drive for removable hard disks, says Rodriguez, associate director, outsourcing & business development, Toxik Technologies, a Web hosting and Web development company.

At the trade show, he connected a laptop to the ISPCon LAN (local area network) and signed up customers for services. To send and receive e-mail, Rodriguez used landlines. "Finding a free land line was easy. Replying to email doesn't always require to real-time, high-speed Internet access.

The Toxik Technologies associates used the company's phone switchboard to redirect calls to mobile phones.

"I answered the phone just as if I was at my desk: 'Fabian Rodriguez, Good morning/Bonjour.' We were out of the office for 10 days without any of our customers ever noticing, let alone complaining, about service problems, missed calls or delays," says Rodriguez.

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Alan Chapman uses two notebooks on a regular basis, a primary and a backup. Since much of his business involves using technology to assist in meetings, he doesn't want to be caught with his technology pants down.

Chapman provides computer projection systems and keypad polling/audience response systems using small, wireless RF (radio frequency) keypads so participants can respond to polls and the results can be immediately tabulated and displayed.

A principal with the business and computer consulting company, CompuTouch Ltd. (www.computouch.ca), based in Calgary, Alberta, Chapman is in Toronto up to ten times a year consulting with GTA clients. He and his wife also own a cottage in the Minden/Halliburton area.

"I'm probably one of the few Western Canadians who owns a 407 transponder," he says.

When travelling, he has a power adaptor so he can connect to the airplanes power on flights offering this service. "This not only allows me to work for longer periods than my battery would allow, but also gives me a much brighter screen," he says.

Last year, he flew in excess of 40,000 miles with Air Canada and probably another 15,000 on Qantas and other airlines. "My notebook allows me to work successfully from almost anywhere," he says.

When giving presentations, he connects his notebook computer to a light, bright portable computer projector. He has the option of setting up the system so he can see the same image on both the notebook and screen or project one image and see his speaker notes on the portable.

In his office, Chapman connects the single USB port on his Toshiba notebook to a USB hub and then connects a full-size keyboard, scroll mouse, Iomega Zip drive and colour inkjet printer. He also runs two separate 1024 by 768 resolution images using his notebook's monitor and a 19 inch desktop monitor allowing him to run a program on one monitor and write email about the program on the other, or copying text from an application on one monitor to a separate application on the other.

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Paul Witheridge bought his digital organizer before Palm, PocketPC or RIM Blackberry were developed, or the term personal digital assistant entered the lexicon. The owner of Systems Success, a Sarnia, Ontario computer consulting and training company paid $300 for a Sharp IQ-7300M digital organizer ten years ago.

"It's hardly a computer, but an organizer with PC link that I've had since my wife mortgaged the house to buy it ten years ago," he says. The organizer has a mere 64K memory but he uses it daily and backs up data on it to his PC. The PC link cost an additional $125.

"When I got it, no one I knew had one. It was the supreme badge of geekdom. It's not the stuff of today's technology, for sure. But it still serves the purpose for me. It maintains my schedule, stores memos, three phonebooks and performs a few other tricks."

The unit has two sets of batteries -- a master set used only to maintain data while he changes the run batteries. The master set was supposed to last five years, but he is still using the originals.

All appointments, billing information and even directions to client homes or offices go into the organizer. "I frequently meet people who ask for and get a few freebie answers to technical questions and then say, 'I should have you visit' so I plunk them into my to do list for follow up."

Although he works in the technology industry, Witheridge is not one to run out and buy the latest tech toys. He doesn't have a Palm, Pocket PC PDA or even a cell phone. However, he does have four "real" computers including a notebook.

But when it comes to organizing his day and his contacts, "this one works for me," he says. So there is no need to remain a supreme geek.

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