Technological advances abound as we move into a new age of cell phones and computer innovation. Some individuals rely on new forms of technology such as cellular phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and the Internet, while others remain dependent on out of date materials. In today’s competitive world, success most times is being measured by access or lack of access to relevant information at the right time. Therefore, there is a division in society marked by those who have and those who lacked access to technology.

Digital Divide means the gap between those people who can get information and those who cannot through the modern communication technologies like Personal Computer (PC), Internet, Cell phone, etc. Nevertheless, this Digital Divide can be corrected. The cost of new technology like cellular phones are among the most common type of new technology, but not everyone can afford them. Even though the original cost of acquisition has been spiralling down in Nigeria, the maintenance cost is still on the high side. This is because the cost of maintaining a mobile line in a developing country like Nigeria is a substantial percentage of the income of the average man.

Necessity or Luxury?
Individuals, having to chose between necessities like food and rents as against Personal Computers or cell phones would without doubt choose necessities over luxury like cell phones. Therefore, there is a Digital Divide in our society based on the level of incomes of individuals. People who are still struggling to get the necessities of like cannot afford to acquire and maintain cell phones.

The issue of having Personal Computers at home is still being considered as a matter of luxury reserved only for the rich in our society. Until Personal Computers become popular in our homes, just like television set, then the Digital Divide between Nigeria and the rest of the advanced nations will not show any sign of reduction. This is because the demands for Internet at homes is complimentary to the demands for PCs. With the entry of computers into home, its twin brother, the Internet, will also find its way in. The fact still remains that Internet access is still costly in Nigeria and therefore not many homes can afford it, assuming the owning of a PC at home is not an issue.

Well, the main reason for this gap is that in the west, people have an easy access to the internet compared to those who lived in other parts of the world like Nigeria. However, this situation of Digital Divide does exist even within developed countries, as not all people are able to use internet because of their income level, availability of services, their age and sometimes lack of knowledge.

All Hands Joined Together
Bridging the Digital Divide is not something that can be done overnight, but it surely can be done. This requires the concerted efforts of the individual, the government and corporate bodies within the society. The technological advancement of our society is closely tied to how well we can bridge the Digital Divide that exists between us and the western world. This is because a technologically empowered people is a technologically empowered nation. For there to be a meaningful technological breakthrough in our society, we must have grown beyond the mundane affairs of life like food, electricity, good road, etc and focus on how we can use science and technology to develop our society.

PC + cell phone: Tools for digital communication

I got a good bargain recently and purchased the Qtek S100 Pocket PC (a brand of the i-Mate JAM), and immediately I felt the difference between a Windows Mobile phone and the Symbian OS phones. The Qtek S100 has the same specifications or features with the popular i-Mate JAM, with a difference only in the pre-installed software and brand name. The phone is also code named HTC Magician and has the following brand names: I-mate JAM, MDA Compact, Dopod 818, mini-XDA, etc.

All along, I have been using several Symbian OS cell phones mostly Nokia and Siemens phones, and then recently Sony Ericsson phones. For a long time now, I had fixed my eyes on purchasing the Nokia 9300 Communicator or the Sony Ericsson P910i, until I came across the Eten M500 Pocket PC, which is a close rival of the i-Mate JAM in terms of size and functions. From that time, I concluded that a Windows Mobile Pocket PC will serve my needs better.

Why I-Mate?
I decided on the i-Mate brand of Pocket PC because of its size and weight. Like the i-Mate JAM, the Qtek S100 has the most beautiful design of Pocket PC, and it is easy to fall in love with it at first sight. Besides, it has the smallest weight (150g) of all Pocket PC (PPC). This makes it smaller it than the Nokia 9300 Communicator and slightly bigger than the Nokia 7610. The beautiful silver coloured steel body makes it a preferred choice over the Eten M500 PPC, which has an all plastic built. You can slide the Qtek S100 into your trousers pocket without feeling a serious bulge.

Qtek S100 Pocket PC (Front, Back & Side Views)

Features
The Qtek S100 has the following features:

Dimension of 108 x 58 x 18 mm

Weight: 150g

Windows 2003 Second Edition (SE) OS

416 MHZ Processor Speed

64MB RAM & 64MB Flash Memory

SDIO/MMC Slot

2.8″ 320 x 240 Pixels 65K Touchscreen Colour Display

GSM 900/1800/1900, GPRS class B, multi - slot class 10

1.3MP Camera

Bluetooth & USB Connectivity

Use MP3 as ringtones

Pocket Word, Excel and Outlook Software

To maximise my Qtek S100 PPC, I use it with a 1GB Kingston SD card, which I purchased separately. With this, I uploaded all my favourites MP3 music and musical video clips and installed several free software.

A 1GB Kingston SD Card used with the Qtek S100

I can now do these better on my Pocket PC:

Create and edit Word and Excel files

I downloaded and installed Acrobat Reader to view PDF files

Windows Media Player 10 to play MP3 files

Watch musical video clips including MP4 on my Pocket PC

Read the bible and other ebooks on my Pocket PC

Synchronised Contacts and Outlook Emails on my Pocket PC

I Install many other software to handle personal finance, tasks shopping list, multimedia files and other utilities.

However, typing SMS would have been better with a QWERTY keyboard, but then using the stylus to type is still faster than using the T9 language. Besides, one can still use handwriting recognition to type and use the Letter Recogniser to convert it to the corresponding texts.

Good Design
Though the Qtek S100 is not the fastest or latest Pocket PC around, because of its small size and good ergonomic design, it sure will attract any man’s attraction.

The i-Mate brand of Pocket PC will always be my choice because of its small size and sturdy steely design. Apart from the screen and the black plastic that runs around the depth of the Qtek S100, the whole body is a silver steel design. This gave it a sort of a classy look and feel. You have to be careful not to drop it because of its small size and smooth body, especially when you are holding the phone with other things in your hand. I had dropped mine at least three times within the last 4 weeks, and was punished with two small dents on the lower parts of the PPC.

Great Pocket PC Sites
You can check any of the underlisted sites for free software and other resources on Pocket PC: www.pocketpcsoft.net, www.pocketrocketfx.com and www.pdagold.com/software.

With the aid of Advanced X Video Converter downloaded from pdagold.com, I converted and compressed my popular musical videos to format suitable for my Pocket PC.

The latest of the i-mate brand of Pocket PC are:
I-Mate K-JAM with Windows Mobile 5.0 OS and Wi-Fi I-Mate JasJar with Windows Mobile 5.0 OS, full QWERTY keyboard,640 x 480 pixels Display, 520 MHZ processor and Wi-Fi. The i-Mate JasJar weighs about 285g, which makes it 55g heavier than the Nokia 9500.

Battery Life
Battery life is fairly ok. If you use it normally for making and receiving calls, and occasional texting, it will keep the phone for two days. However, if you play MP3s or watch Videos for up to three hours, then be ready to re-charge at the end of the day.

Though I have not been able to set up the Pocket PC to browse MTN or Globacom GPRS, it browses full HTML quite well using Activesync. I was able to manually configure the Qtek S100 to connect to Glo GPRS, but then it failed to browse. I was not able to connect to MTN at all. Since I could not configure it for GPRS using the operator’s OTA settings, both Globacom and MTN customer service had asked me to bring the Pocket PC to their office for manual configuration. Then, each time I got to their office and see many people waiting to be attended to, I will just drive away without bothering to wait.

The Down Side
Those who are not computer geeks may not find the Qtek S100 easy to use as it had sometimes hang up on me. Those times I have to remove the battery to get out the situation. Three times now within the past 4 weeks I have been using it, removing the battery has resulted into hard reset making me to lose all my data on the phone. Then, within 30 minutes of connecting it to my laptop, I put everything back into the Pocket PC again as I use Activesync to synchronise my Contacts back again. Installing back the software will take just 15 minutes and there will be no loss of data since I always install the software on the 1GB SD card. But then configuring the phone settings all over again can be a painful task.

Though I can transfer files from my laptop to the PPC using bluetooth, I have not been able to synchronise the Qtek S100 with my laptop using Bluetooth, but with USB cable, Activesync is no stress. I am still looking for a way to resolve this.

With the Terminal Services Client, I can connect my Pocket PC to, and work on any system on my office network, but then I do not think this is of much use to me since my laptop is right before me, which can do the work better. Maybe with the bluetooth Activesync working, it might make a difference anyway.

Remarks
The Qtek S100 PPC or the i-Mate JAM is good for someone who desires a small and compact PPC, and does not want to be saddled with a bigger and heavier device. The Qtek S100 is also suitable for those that do not place a heavy demand on their PPC apart from the normal usage, checking emails occasionally and browsing the internet. Because of the size of the PPC, it will sit comfortably and unnoticed in the pocket of the trouser or jacket of the busy executive. One more thing to add, you need another phone besides the Qtek S100 PPC. While you make use of the Qtek S100 as a PDA or organiser, the other phone will be use for the bulk of your making and receiving calls.

The Qtek S100 with its closest rival Eten M500

Time is money, so goes the old axiom. For those of us that talks on the phone for about a total of two to three hours a day, then any effort put into reducing unwanted telephone calls is well worth it. This is because each minute we spend attending to a call all accumulated to hours, not to mention the distractions caused by unwanted phone calls. Most of these unwanted calls come from telemarketers and unwanted friends/relatives who are seeking from us one favour or the other. Below are some practical ways to save your time and reduce unwanted phone calls, thereby reducing your everyday stress.

Be Discreet With Your Number
Your first line of defense is to be discreet with your phone numbers. Mind who you give your phone number to. If you do not want someone to call you, then do not give the fellow your phone number. In the case the person pesters you for your number; you can always give the number with one digit wrong. It will be difficult to judge later where the error came from, whether from you pr the other person.

Consider Caller ID Seriously
Use caller ID to screen your calls before answering them. Make an effort to enter into your Phone’s Contact the phone number of people who you call or that call you regularly. When you are too busy to receive calls, then any number calling that is not in your Contact’s list will be the first to be ignored. In addition, once you see the ID of who is calling, you can decide to answer or ignore the call.

Use Voice Mail
When you are extremely busy to attend to unimportant calls, switch your phone to voice mail so that your callers can leave their message. The serious callers will always leave their message in your voice mail.

Have Two Phone Lines
Consider having more than one phone lines. Use one during the office hours and the other after closing hours and weekends. Switch off the former after close of work every day and on weekends while you switch on the later. You have to avoid giving the after office hours telephone line to those who call you for business, except a few special ones, otherwise the whole purpose will be defeated.

Use Call Screening
If you are using a smartphone or PDA, consider investing in a call filtering software. With this, you can create your Blacklist. Those on the Blacklist will not be able to get through to you. To them, your line will always be ringing busy until you remove them from the Blacklist. However, they can always try to reach you on another line. You can bar all calls from reaching you except those on your SIM card.

Pocket PC phones like Eten M500 comes standard with a powerful call filtering software. While software like AGLAYA and Blacklist are available for Symbian OS smartphones at www.symbiangear.com and www.symbianware.com respectively.

Use Call Forwarding
You can forward all your calls to another line where someone else or your secretary answers the call first before deciding to pass the call to you.

Switch Off
When you are really stressed up and have a zero tolerance level for distraction, you can switch off your phone completely. This will allow you to fully concentrate on the task at hand, and thereafter you can switch on your phone at your convenience.

Finally, it is worthy to note that the telephone is a servant made to assist the owner. However, you can decide to say no whenever it decides to become your master. The phone is made for man, and not man for the phone.

Phone calls: A pain or pleasure?

In its characteristics style of manufacturing top designer phones, Samsung announced earlier this week the introduction of its five new slim phones for the European market (GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900). The new Samsung phones are Samsung Z510, Samsung Z540, Samsung P300, Samsung D800 and Samsung D820.

All five handsets feature 1.3 megapixel cameras with video, bluetooth connectivity and MP3/AAC music player. With the exception of the credit-card sized Samsung P300, all the other slim phones have internal memory ranging from 73MB to 150MB. Only the Samsung SGH D820 phone has a MiniSD TransFlash memory card slot for memory expansion.

The chart below compares the Samsung five slim phones SGH Z510, SGH Z540, SGH P300, SGH D800, and SGH D820.

Samsung 5 Slim Phones Comparison Chart

The Samsung five slim phones are expected to be commercially available by the end of the year 2005.

(From left to right) Z510, Samsung Z540, Samsung P300, Samsung D800 and Samsung D820 phones

For all music and television fans all over the world, Nokia has just announced new addition of 3G multimedia phones to its stables. These are the Nokia N92, Nokia N80 and the Nokia N71. Nokia at its Mobility Conference organised early this month announced this.

Nokia in its strive towards total digital convergence, decided to extend the N-Series of smartphones by launching the addition of the Nokia N92, Nokia N80 and Nokia N71. This move highlights Nokia’s vision towards Digital Convergence Devices (DCD) by bringing together information technology, enterprise applications, broadcasting, music and imaging into mobile devices.

Nokia N92
The Nokia N92 is the world’s first mobile phone with a built-in Digital Video Broadcast Handheld (DVB-H) receiver, making it possible for users to watch and record live TV at any time. This means that you can watch and record live TV programmes on the Nokia N92 by subscribing to a service that lets you download clips from your phone provider and then you can watch them.

The Nokia N92 features also include:

The Nokia N92 is expected to be commercially available mid 2006.

The Nokia N92 TV Phone

Nokia N80
The Nokia N80 is the world’s first handset to feature UPnP (Universal Plug & Play). This feature allows it to be used as remote control for wirelessly exchanging data between compatible computers, audio equipment and televisions. You can view images and videos stored on the Nokia N80 or compatible PC on a TV, while music stored on the Nokia N80 can be played through an audio system.

The Nokia N80 features also include:

The Nokia N80 is expected to be available in the First Quarter of 2006.

Nokia N80 UPnP Phone

Nokia N71
The Nokia N71 is an all-in-one entertainment device complete with Radio FM Stereo and supports for digital music and videos. This device also features the new Nokia Web Browser with Mini Map.

The Nokia N71 features also include:

The Nokia N71 is expected to be commercially available in the First Quarter of 2006.

Nokia N71 Entertainment Phone