[BBLISA] PDA/Smartphone for *nix admin types?

[Eric J. Hansen]

Back in May I acquired a T-Mobile Wing (aka HTC Herald) with essentially
that same set of requirements - to receive emails and SMS notifications,
remotely monitor/investigate/diagnose/control systems, etc. The Wing is a
cell phone + PDA that is the successor to the T-Mobile MDA, and runs
Windows Mobile 6 "professional" (i.e. includes Office Mobile).  The device
has both a touch-screen with a slide out qwerty keyboard - both took me
some time getting used to since I'd never owned a PDA or a smartphone
before.

I'm currently running ssh (pocketputty), RDP and VNC clients (these all
happen to be free, but many other apps/tools are not).  The built-in
Pocket Outlook app is decent - it does POP and IMAP, and is also the
interface for SMS/MMS reading/sending.  The built-in "PIE" web browser
(pocket IE) is marginal, but made considerably better with 3rd party
add-ons that give enhancements like tabbed-browsing, etc.  WM has a "task
scheduler" not unlike the one on the desktop OS - with a 3rd party app
(e.g. MemMaid) you can set up and tweak your own scheduled tasks, etc.

Overall, the device/service hasn't been without quirks and problems, and
some have been quite frustrating.  But once I got things set up the way I
wanted it's been pretty good.  You can also plug it into your laptop via
USB for Internet connectivity...  i.e. for train trips, etc.

HTH,
Eric


On Sun, December 16, 2007 12:42 pm, Paul Beltrani wrote:
> I'm currently stuck with a BlackBerry Pearl.  I have nothing good to
> say about this device and would like to replace it with something that
> meets the following requirements:
>
>  1) Supports SMS for alerts from my monitoring systems
>  2) Supports basic email (POP would be fine for retrieving email)
>  3) Has basic web browsing capability
>  4) Supports an SSH client
>  5) Has a useful user interface. (Subjective,  but ANYTHING has to be
> better than RIM.)
>  6) Supports Scheduling (see catch below)
>
> Numbers 5 and 6 are the tough ones here.
>
> For example, every portable device more complex than a basic phone has
> a  QWERTY keyboard.  (I really miss graffiti and would love to LART
> the marketing moron that thought a mini, multi letter per key, QWERTY
> keyboard was a good idea.)
>
> Scheduling is complicated by the fact that my current environment uses
> Outlook for communal scheduling.  A mechanism to automatically
> synchronize an Outlook calendar with a Google Calendar would be ideal.
>
> This doesn't have to be a single device.  I would love to have a
> decent PDA that could (easily) maintain a Net connection via bluetooth
> to my mobile phone.   The phone could handle the SMS alerts and the
> PDA could do the rest.  This would have the added benefit of only
> having to carry a small phone when I didn't need the PDA
> functionality.
>
>   - Paul Beltrani
>
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