Dopod C720W

I started using the Dopod C720W in December 2006 after previously using the HP iPaq 6515. Moving from the Pocket PC 2003 platform to the Windows Mobile 2005 Smartphone Edition (WM2005 SE), I had several concerns. What is the usability like with no touch screen? Will my existing software work the same way in the Smartphone Edition? After using it for a couple of months, I can say that I am very comfortable with the WM2005 SE and even prefer it to the touch-screen Windows Mobile.

The lack of touch screen may prevent some types of software to be used (e.g. sketching, scribbling tools), but for the most part it becomes a blessing in disguise for a Smartphone. I always believe that a true Smartphone needs to be operable using one hand. The Treo line of phones does this very well (I used the Treo 600 and 650 prior to using the iPaq 6515). But we don't see other Windows Mobile phones (the touch-screen ones) concentrate on this usability feature. The C720W does one-hand operation very well. There are some drawbacks, for example scrolling becomes slower in Pocket Internet Explorer, but this is not a major issue.

The best part of the C720W may be its thumboard. It feels significantly better than the iPaq 6515 thumboard and a joy for typing emails and text messages. The text prediction functionality is excellent. Not only it offers suggestions to complete the word you're typing, it is also smart enough to guess and offer suggestions for the next word. It does this by looking at your past words. If I typed "Dear" after "Hello", the next time I type "Hello", it will offer "Dear" as a suggestion.

The C720W comes with a few nice software and utilities. Worth mentioning is the copy and paste utility which allows selecting, copying and pasting without using touch screen. It also comes with basic RSS reader, voice commander utility and a Java engine.

Besides the positive points, there are a number of things that can still be improved. I will start with the JOGGR. The JOGGR is meant to be a next-generation scroll wheel, implemented using touch pad technology. At the top of the touch strip is a touch button that functions as a “back” button. At the bottom of the touch strip there is another touch button to access the messaging functionality.

The problem with the JOGGR is that there is no tactile feedback between the top button, the touch strip and the bottom button. You can easily accidentally touch (and activate) either the top or bottom button while trying to scroll. The lack of tactile feedback also prevents you control your scroll speed. I had to furiously move my thumb up and down before realizing that I could easily achieve the same effect (while using much less energy) by clicking and holding the D-pad. There really is no motivation to use the JOGGR when you already have the D-pad. Fortunately there is an option to turn off JOGGR so its weaknesses are off of my mind.

I should also mention that the location of the JOGGR (on the right side and slightly to the front) also prevents you to access it using your left hand. This is a design flaw to both left-handers and right-handers because right-handers sometimes hold their phones using the left hand as well.

Another hardware weakness that I note is with the Wi-Fi reception. It is sufficient if you have a small house or does not sit too far from the wireless router, but in general its reception is fairly weak. If I sit next to my D-Link wireless router with it, I only get 60% signal quality strength.

Overall, I have a very positive experience with this Smartphone device. The form factor is excellent and its thinness and light weight are quite a difference compared to the iPaq 6515. The build quality is also very good. I dropped this phone twice from waist high to concrete floor, and it kept on running.

Wet Weekend Part II

I had to take Mina to the airport earlier today. We were worried that the toll road to the Soekarno-Hatta airport was blocked due to flood, as often happened during rainy season. Fortunately the trip was mostly smooth, except for a few rough spots where cars couldn't exit the toll road due to flooding outside of the toll road.

The toll road was built above the streets so it has the advantage of being dry despite flooding everywhere else. On the flip side, some cars that got on the toll road got trapped and couldn't get out because their exit got flooded. Rather than brave it out, these cars are parked on the side of the toll road near the toll exit. People then get out of their cars and walked around looking at the flooding underneath the toll road, causing a carnival-like atmosphere.

This is the pool in the Pondok Indah water park whose size is expanded by the flood. Beyond the net you can see the driving range. Picking up those golf balls became a lot harder now.

Wet Weekend Part I

The big story this weekend is flood in Jakarta. The local government was caught by surprise, judging by the lack of preparation in anticipating such catastrophe. And who could blame them? Jakarta hasn't seen flood since... oh, wait... last year's rainy season!

The picture above was shamelessly copy-and-pasted from detik.com.

Leading Up

I read this article on Yahoo News. The content itself is not extraordinary, but I find the following passage quite interesting:

Abrams, 40, is the ultimate example of what can happen to the office busybody. After years of peppering his bosses with memos and suggestions about what MSNBC could do better, they finally said, "OK, you try it."

In probably all of John C. Maxwell's book you'll find him saying that leadership is influence. And like he writes in his book 360-degree Leader, the act of leadership includes influencing your boss. Another business reading on the topic is "Managing Your Boss", a classic  Harvard Business Review article by Gabarro and Kotter.
"Leading up" (Maxwell's term) is something that not a lot of business people appreciate. We often find it easier to criticize our bosses than to help them. It is indeed much easier to vent than to think and offer solution. But as the Yahoo article shows, leading up can mean a very successful career.

Would you like wi-fi with that latte?

Ars Technica has an interesting article on cafes giving free wi-fi. I wish they have that problem in Jakarta, where internet is still quite expensive.

I have to admit that working in a coffee shop has its own appeal. I'm usually more productive when working at a local Starbucks because nobody bothers me there.  Nobody comes to my table and asks why data is suddenly missing from their Oracle table. And because wi-fi in Jakarta is not cheap, I'm online only when I need to. The rest of the time, I'm typing away at my notebook, productively, offline.