Computer Articles - Internet and Computer News » Mobile Phone

BlueJacking and BlueSnarfing

admin — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:08:35 +0000

One of the guys who works for the computer repair company in one of the offices above Refresh suggested that perhaps I should do an article on the mysterious world of Bluejacking and BlueSnarfing. The motive behind this suggestion was that whilst in a pub last night someone tried to compromise his mobile phone handset; we both agreed this was a danger Click readers should be made aware of.

Bluetooth is a fantastic technology and one of its many applications allows modern day mobile phone handsets to communicate wirelessly and exchange data with each other. Although the technology currently has a theoretical maximum range of up to 100m, it is worth noting that when built into a mobile phone the two devices realistically have to be in the same room to communicate with one another.

The applications for Bluetooth are numerous – one of the most useful and practical use for the technology is that handsfree headsets can communicate with your mobile phone without the need for cumbersome cables. Bluetooth can also be used to send files such as pictures, movies and MP3‘s to others that you know quickly, easily and free of charge.

Unfortunately, with most technology there is often a downside. In this instance, the problem with Bluetooth is that unless you turn it off when you’re not using it, then your phone will be continuously broadcasting itself and this can be a potential security vulnerability.

BlueJacking is a term used to refer to the sending of unsolicited messages over Bluetooth. The person sending the messages doesn’t have any control over your phone so it is technically harmless, however it can be quite confusing for the person on the receiving end when they receive anonymous messages. BlueJacking can also be used for unsolicited advertising; I was offered a box several weeks ago that when put in my window would send a message advertising my company to everyone who drove past with a bluetooth enabled phone. Of course, I declined but if such advertising technology catches on then using our phones on a day to day basis could become a lot more tiresome.

BlueSnarfing is in a different league to BlueJacking as it is usually used for malicious purposes. By taking advantage of vulnerabilities in susceptible handsets the BlueSnarfer can potentially gain access to confidential data within the phone such as the contact list, pictures, videos and text messages. There have even been instances where the BlueSnarfer can dial premium rate phone numbers without the consent or knowledge of the handset owner.

Another potential vulnerability of Bluetooth is that is can be used as a medium to transfer viruses. It is a rather strange state of the world when we have phones capable of contracting viruses but trust me, it does happen. Such viruses only tend to affect the handsets that have relatively advanced operating systems. Once infected these handsets then start propagating the virus by sending it out to every Bluetooth handset within range. These viruses are fairly easy to avoid because the handset does ask the user if they want to accept a file via Bluetooth before permission is given for the transfer to take place; typically only those uneducated in Bluetooth etiquette would accept such a file.

I don’t want to incite a knee-jerk reaction resulting in my readership abandoning Bluetooth – It is a good technology, is genuinely useful and the risks are relatively low. If you do have a Bluetooth enabled handset there are a couple of ways to minimise your risk and luckily these are extremely easy to implement.

If you don’t use Bluetooth then keep it switched turned off or your status set as ‘undiscoverable’ as this will result in no malicious users being able to locate your handset. If you do require or simply would like to keep Bluetooth enabled then make sure that if you are asked whether you would like to receive a file you weren’t expecting then reject it. Simple!

iPhone

admin — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 15:37:33 +0000

It’s been a while now since I’ve talked about a mobile phone in Click so with Apple unveiling the new iPhone I thought it was about time we looked at this eagerly awaited product. At last weeks MacWorld Expo many anticipated the announcement of this new phone along with a new version of the iPod but instead they saw a combination of the two devices in a single product. There is a large amount of extra technology thrown in for good measure which is why I feel this product deserves a mention in a predominately computer based article.

The iPhone looks very different to other mobile phones that we have become accustomed too as rather than using a keypad underneath a conventional screen the iPhone dispenses with buttons altogether. This has been achieved as happy have made the device essentially one big touch screen – The obvious advantage to this is that the device can remain the same size as existing models on the market whilst giving the user a larger screen and a larger user interface.

With regards to actually navigating around this phone you can move through the menu options by using a system called ‘multi-touch’ which doesn’t just sense you touching the screen but also in what way you are moving your fingers and how many of them you are using. The system is intelligent enough to detect accidental clicks and when you go to actually make a call the phone will sense that you have moved the phone to your ear to prevent you touching buttons on the touch screen with your face.

As one would expect from a modern day phone the iPhone supports Bluetooth, has a 2 megapixal digital camera and includes a host of applications but there are several extras that you’d be hard pressed to find on any over phone in the market at the moment which I’ve covered below.

First off we have the widescreen iPod function and whilst it is true that most modern handsets include an MP3 player these often lack in terms of the interface used and the screen employed by the phone. The iPhone benefits from a large 3.5 inch screen which means that not only can you easily navigate your favourite songs but you can also watch movies in widescreen on the unit.

Additionally the handset supports Wi-Fi and has a built in Safari browser. Existing handsets have typically stumbled at providing Internet access due to slow connection speeds, a limited display size and problems using a simple keypad to navigate your way around. With an iPhone however you could connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot and then browse the Internet at high speed on the large touch screen.

There are of course a number of downsides to this particular phone and unfortunately these are so serious that they could possibly constitute a death warrant. The iPhone itself will most likely not enter the UK market until the end of 2007 and as at present the US version is set for a costly $499 purchase price in addition to a 12 month contract. Additionally in the US the phone is only being made available to one selected network and if this is the case in the UK then coupled with the high release price Apple may find it very difficult making sales.

To allow these above factors to worry those wanting such an advanced handset would be a little bit premature. The reason for this in my mind is that the important consideration is that we’re looking at a product which will become available to us in the future and not something we could realistically go out and buy today. Technology has a habit of being copied very quickly and efficiently and now the iPhone has been announced you can be sure other manufacturers will be scrambling to create their own versions which will most likely be cheaper and available on all networks – excellent for the consumer.

Calling Services

admin — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 14:06:05 +0000

I recently talked about Voice over IP (VoIP) and how it could save you money by routing your calls over the Internet but unfortunately such a service isn’t always suitable for most users as although the sound quality is improving and the service becoming easier to set up it still isn’t quite as simple as just picking up the phone.

Financially I am hit quite hard by having a girlfriend that lives in the Republic of Ireland and although I am certainly not complaining I must say that calls and texts to Southern Ireland using non VoIP services are not quite as cheap as I would have liked. Some time back I discovered a company called Alpha Telecom which I thought I would introduce to you as they provide a few products and services that may help you out if for whatever reason you find yourself having to make overseas calls.

The first thing we should look at is their phone service which allows you to call Internationally at prices which are most likely much lower than your standard telephone provider – You dial the access number provided and then simply enter the number that you wish to dial and the service connects you instantly. In my case phoning an Irish mobile went from £1.50 per minute for me to just 18p per minute which is obviously a fairly significant saving. Check out www.alphatelecom.co.uk where you can select the country you wish to call from a drop down list to see appropriate prices. Phone accounts can be instantly opened online with no contract and you get £5 of free calls when you first subscribe to the service. You can use any phone to call this service however if you use one that isn’t registered on your Alpha account then you will have to specify a PIN number so that unauthorised users can’t make calls from your account.

I have also recently discovered another part of the service called Web2SMS which allows you to type text into your browser and have it sent to a mobile phone anywhere in the world. If you have a friend who lives in Africa for example you can text him for 5p which is half the price most of us pay for texting friends in the UK from our mobiles. Some users may simply find it easier to type out a text message that they wish to send on their computers and some, like myself, will just appreciate the money it saves them.

There are a number of Internet only features such as the ability to send free E-cards, a free e-mail service and their own version of MSN Messenger but to be honest with you these aren’t really anything worth writing home about.

There are no monthly charges for any of the basic packages listed above but credit has to be added to the account in advance by either credit/debit card or direct debit. As the account can be managed entirely online this is extremely easy to do and with the inbuilt reporting tools it is easy to see what services you are spending your money on. Those of you who call internationally even once in a while could possibly benefit from going to www.alphatelecom.co.uk but of course if anyone knows any cheaper services available out there then please do let me know!

Bluetooth Technology

admin — Sat, 24 Jul 2004 18:04:44 +0000

There are some technologies that even when working in the computing field as I do that you sometimes have limited contact with and one such technology which has up until this point eluded me is Bluetooth. Of course, like the majority of my readers I understand that it is a wireless technology which links different devices together via a universal standard but knowing how something works and actually using it are two entirely different things.

This week has changed that ignorance however with my purchase of a Bluetooth handsfree kit. I was always one of those annoying drivers who drove around whilst talking on his mobile phone which is obviously a very stupid habit and one that needed to change; not only from a legal standpoint but also due to the fact that I was endangering both my own life and the lives of other motorists. For that reason I opted to get a handsfree kit installed in my car and having a Bluetooth mobile phone I went for a Bluetooth handsfree kit which means that essentially my car can now talk to my phone.

When I get into the vehicle it links wirelessly to my phone automatically so if someone calls I just talk normally with the phone still firmly in my pocket and the car picks up my voice by a concealed microphone and projects the callers’ voice through my car stereo speakers. If I want to make an outgoing call I just say who I want to call and my phone does it; all very cleaver stuff which in the past would have been only possible by physically connecting your phone to an intrusive holder mounted inside your car. When I get out my car it recognises that I’ve left and disconnects itself but then I if I walk into my flat, the laptop notices that my phone is in the vicinity and starts communicating with it in case I would like to backup my phonebook or copy some MP3’s onto it.

This is the perfect example of three very different devices communicating with one another through a universal technology; I must be honest I haven’t yet tried getting my car to talk to my laptop directly but that experiment can be left for another day.

Bluetooth does have many more useful applications as it allows a whole manner of devices to communicate together such as Mice, Keyboards, Gamepads, Printers, Mobile Phones, PDA’s (Personal Digital Assistants), Headphones, Portable MP3 players and GPS Units. Whilst most of them will communicate with each other in some way or another it is worth bearing in mind that some devices will be practically useless when used in synergy due to the fact they have nothing in common.

There are a great number of unique products on the market that use Bluetooth technology; a large number of which I can guarantee that you never knew existed. One such product that stood out for me was the Nokia Digital Pen; a device you carry around in your pocket and it remembers everything that you’ve written during the day. When you get back home it links with your PC and copies everything you have written for the day onto the hard drive; perfect for students who would normally have hundreds of pages of notes that they would rather transfer straight onto the computer.

I do like to see continuity and so it is nice to see such different devices working to a universal standard so no matter how different they are as it gives them the opportunity to work more efficiently together. Take a look at www.bluetooth.com for more information on the Bluetooth standard and the Bluetooth products that are available.

Nokia N-Gage

admin — Sat, 31 Jan 2004 17:30:16 +0000

I remember the days when a mobile phone was exactly what it said on the tin; my very first mobile was a Nokia 5110 which I purchased shortly after they first came out and at the time it was an incredible phone – ‘lightweight’, ‘well specced’ and ‘user friendly’ although by modern standards it is considered heavy and very under featured. Some of the older generation who remember when a mobile phone weighed approximately the same as a fully grown badger would say that I’m wrong to mock my very first mobile but when I compare it to the models available on the market now I wonder how I was so proud to be seen in public with it.

Fast forward to the year 2004 and we see people carrying the fairly new Nokia N-Gage handset which resembles anything other than a phone; in fact I don’t think Nokia are even calling it a phone but rather a ‘Mobile Game Deck’. The unit weighs in at a fairly hefty 137g including the battery but is really packed with features including a colour screen and a multi-tasking compliant processor and whilst you may be wondering what you’d need these features on a phone for I plan to shed a little bit of light on the situation.

The N-Gage is Nokias latest attempt to target the youth end of the market that require a phone just as much for the ‘cool’ factor as the actual ‘phone’ factor. I remember when I used to work at Carphone Warehouse we used to get 12 year old children coming into the store with two hundred pounds worth of twenties stuffed in their pocket. They’d ask to see the phones and would merely be interested in the games that the handset played rather than the actual features of the phone and once established that the phone could play the game ‘Snake II’ they would stuff the money into my hand and run out the shop completely ignoring the option of insurance. More often than not they’d then come back into the shop a week later with another pocketful of twenties as their first phone had been stolen by their ‘best mate’ who was somewhat jealous of their new toy. I found it remarkable the amount of money that a large proportion of youth of today have access to; it’s clearly a very lucrative market for the phone manufactures.

To target this audience, the Nokia N-Gage has a fully featured games console built integrated into it which you can use to play far more sophisticated games than ‘Snake’ on – In fact it reminds me somewhat of the Sega Megadrive that I used to have as a teenager although slightly smaller. Games such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Tomb Raider and FIFA Soccer can be bought on removable memory cards which slot into the machine for around £30. Two people who both own N-Gages can also play head to head as the units can be linked wirelessly via Bluetooth. It has to be said that compared with modern consoles the games are very primitive but remember this isn’t a modern games console; it’s a phone.

Additional features include an inbuilt MP3 music player (including the ability to make an MP3 your ring tone), stereo music recorder, Voice recorder, FM radio, an XHTML browser, E-mail support, Multimedia Messaging, Bluetooth connectivity and 3.4mg standard memory which is fully upgradeable via memory cards and all of this is managed by the Symbian Operating System. It seems like technology gone mad and also such a shame that 99% of these units will end up in the hands of people who aren’t allowed to buy a lottery ticket legally and have no need to be carrying around that much technology in their pockets.

Having said that all of the above, I’m willing to bet that if you ask me in a couple of weeks then temptation will have probably set in and I’ll own one but ask me again in March and I’ll be sure to admit that it’s next to useless and I’ll wish I’d have stuck with my bulky but trusty 5110.

Handsfree Kits

admin — Sat, 06 Dec 2003 17:24:03 +0000

I realise that last month a stated that I would be reviewing sites that would save people money on the run up to Christmas but as one of my readers helpfully pointed out, I had completely neglected to cover the new legislation coming into effect that bans the holding of mobile phones whilst driving. Whilst this article is primarily concerned with computing I do like to think that I cover other areas relating to technology in general and of course mobile phones are one of them.

The new law that came into effect at the beginning of the week basically allows the Police to issue on the spot fines of £30 to anybody caught holding a mobile phone and that could rise to £1000 if convicted. This is obviously a fair amount of money and so it makes sense to look at means of complying with this legislation even if not for a financial point of view then of course for a safety point of view.

The main confusion arises from most drivers not knowing exactly what keeps them within the law and what accessories are still legal. Essentially, any piece of equipment that means that you don’t have to physically hold the mobile is legal; so for example, a little earpiece which you could pick up for a couple of quid would be considered legal, a £20 plug and go car kit or of course a £200 fully installed job would all do the trick. If using an earpiece then the mobile does have to be placed in a secure holder and not just placed in your lap!

I did look for a clarification on the Internet as to what exactly happens when the phone rings if you’re not allowed to physically touch it which of course wouldn’t pose a problem in the case of a fully installed car kit but if you had a little in-ear headset then in the majority of instances you’d actually have to touch the phone to answer it. Another point that I don’t understand is that if you had a headset plugged into your phone and it started to ring then you’d have to take your hand of the wheel to fish around trying to find the headset and putting it into your ear. Of course, the alternative would be to keep the headset in your ear throughout the entire journey, whether you are in a conversation or not but I wouldn’t like to drive around all day with the hearing in one ear completely impaired.

There is of course the flip side that suggests that the main risk with using a mobile phone when driving isn’t the physical act of holding it but rather the fact that you’re drawn in to a conversation which distracts you from driving. At first I found this hard to believe as when I’ve had four other people in my car nattering away then I’m not particularly distracted nor am I when listening to the radio but after having tested a fully installed car kit I’ve concluded that this doesn’t seem to be an accurate comparison; I was far more drawn into the conversation I was having on the phone than I would have ever been if the person was in the car with me. Why this is I have no idea but it does seem that conducting a phone conversation took my focus off of driving than having a conversation with someone sat next to me.

Bottom line is that I’m in business and so often need to use my phone in the car and so I’ll be taking the lesser of two evils by getting myself a fully installed car kit next week to keep me legal and I suggest that any of you who often use your phones whilst driving do the same. I don’t believe that any of the other methods are particularly safe, practical or viable so I’d suggest that you either do it properly or pull over to make your calls. With Christmas coming up then what better time to ask for something that could really come in useful; retailers like Carphone Warehouse have full car kits from £60 that you can install yourself.

Whilst I believe that all the details relating to the product pricing and the law are correct I suggest that the information I have given here is for guidance only and should be checked before any action is taken as a result.

Online Banking.

admin — Sat, 16 Feb 2002 15:02:51 +0000

Probably one of the most useful applications I have been using the Internet for recently is online banking and so I find it strange that over the past 60 articles, this is something that I haven’t even scraped the surface of so far.

To me, the reason online banking is so helpful is that any bank that I have ever been a member of seems to be impossible to park near and for some reason, and perhaps it’s just me, whenever I decide to do my banking there is a always a huge queue stacked onto the street; I still believe that drive-though banks similar to those in the United States remain a good idea, even if they would be an inappropriate area of discussion for this article.

If you go to the website of those who you bank with, you will find up to the minute monetary news, interest rates, special offers etc. however nowadays, all the major banks and building societies also have online banking sections on their websites. These areas allow you to perform a number of different tasks, the diversity of which all depends on those who you rely on to do your. As a rough guide, typical features include the ability to check your balance online, transfer money between accounts, pay a specific company (credit card, mobile phone etc.), increase or change your overdraft, view past and current statements, contact a member of staff, order replacement cheque or paying in books; the list continues and although you still have to visit your bank for certain more complex things, a large proportion of your banking life can be done online.

The list doesn’t just stop with your current account either, the e-banking section of your banks website may also allow you to manage your mortgage, credit card, savings or stocks and shares online. All very helpful, especially if you’ve just realised that a payment for your credit card was due and it’s now 6pm on a Saturday evening, as I often have.

To register with online banking is a fairly straight forward. On the whole, most people tend to be existing customers with the bank or building society they wish to use for online banking, although some sites allow you to sign up for an account online. Signing up is essentially a case of registering your interest online, at which point the bank will issue you with a user name or membership number and post a e-banking password to the address that they have registered with your account. When you receive the password, usually within 5-7 days then you are ready to start using the service.

Security is obviously a major issue so all data you send and receive is encrypted so the chance of anybody being able to spy on what you are sending and receiving over the Internet is very low indeed.

To begin using e-banking, get in contact with your local branch for more information on what they can offer, or go to one of the following websites – Barclays (www.barclays.co.uk), Lloyds TSB (www.lloydstsb.com), Abbey National (www.lloydstsb.com), Brittania (www.britannia.co.uk), Nationwide (www.nationwide.co.uk). You’ve probably gathered by now that generally, all you have to do to discover the website of a major company is to put a ‘www.’ in front of their name followed by either a ‘.co.uk’ or a ‘.com’. This tends to work in the majority of cases.

One other advantage to online banking is that there are certain banks, loan companies or credit card issuers that only allow you to use their services if you have an Internet connection, Egg (www.egg.com) and Cahoot (www.cahoot.com) are examples of such websites. These companies have very low overheads as don’t have the high overheads that high street branches have as they are based solely online. This allows them to pass on some incredible deals such as current accounts with 4.5% gross APR or credit cards with 0% introductory APR. We’ll take a closer look at these Internet only bank accounts next week.

Readers Questions and Answers

admin — Sat, 20 Oct 2001 14:42:47 +0000

This week I will again answer some of the mail that I have been receiving recently in the hope that it will resolve a number of problems that my readers have been having.

I read with interest your article a few weeks ago concerning connecting laptops through mobile phones to the Internet. I currently have a Nokia 6150e and will be going to the Med next year on a boat.

I hope to be able to connect to the net via laptop and mobile phone and would appreciate any info you can provide that will allow access. I had hoped to just have ‘Pay as you go’ but you said this does not work. Why?

Also if it’s not possible to connect via our system of Pay as you go, is it possible to use the Spanish system instead? I’ve tried to find information on the Net but have not had much luck.

I have found the ISP providers that are free in Spain and hope to use one of them for my net connection, instead of phoning back to the UK for my e-mails.

Terry, via e-mail.

Matthew Rhys-Davies of Carphone Warehouse Torquay replies:

The Nokia 6150 is data compatible but requires a Nokia Cellular Data Suite for it to communicate with your laptop which usually costs around £89.99 as the phone itself doesn’t have an internal modem.

Assuming your phone is unlocked (meaning that it can take any SIMcard) then you should be able to use it on another network; unfortunately however I don’t believe that data is supported abroad on pay as you go as it’s such a basic service. Foreign SIM cards typically cost around £20 – £30 and would allow you to benefit from cheaper calls when abroad however as data is a bit of a grey area to be honest and although I am very doubtful it would work, I would not be able to confirm this 100% unless I were to go out there and test it for myself.

Please also bear in mind that if it did work, very few networks support 0800 access and if using a Spanish SIM card then you would require a Spanish ISP to get the cheaper call costs.

For a while I have been meaning to design my own webpage to put onto the Internet but am increasingly confused with what I have to buy in order to make the process as painless and economical as possible. I know that I require to buy a web address but am not sure where to go from there. Any help you could give on designing a webpage would be most appreciated.

John Mills, Roselands.

Since this is a question I am often asked, I have decided that it probably warrants running a series of articles on the subject. You are correct that you do require a website address in order to set up a homepage and so it would probably be best if you or any other people that are considering designing a webpage were to get this situation sorted before the series kicks off next week.

There are many ways in order to gain a website address, probably the cheapest would be use the space that comes free with your ISP (Internet Provider), however there are a number of disadvantages which you should be made aware of:

- You would be obliged to continue using this ISP for the entire time that you required your website to be on the Internet – If you left their service then you would more than likely lose the website address.

- The web address would more than likely have a very cumbersome name. For example instead of www.johnmills.co.uk you may be issued with an address such as www.freeserve.co.uk/johnmills which obviously doesn’t look as professional.

Because of these reasons, I suggest you register your own personal name on the Internet, such as in the first instance (www.johnmills.co.uk) which is incredibly simple and surprisingly affordable.

My personal favourite for this task is a company called Redstation Internet (www.redstation.co.uk) which allows you to register a name of your choosing for £9.40 all inclusive. If you wish to follow this series over the next couple of weeks then I suggest that you get your Internet name registered this week so it will be ready for use when we continue next Saturday.

Mobile Essentials #2

admin — Tue, 16 Oct 2001 14:40:27 +0000

Continuing from last weeks article focusing on mobile essentials that I have discovered recently by gaining first hand experience. This is particularly understandable when you bear in mind that in future I’ll be writing my articles on my laptop in rainy Wales!

Last time I talked about the ability to connect your mobile phone to your laptop in order to access the Internet to send and receive e-mails or to surf the Web. Obviously this resulted in a somewhat slower connection than by using a normal landline and so if you were required to send a moderate amount of data then e-mailing from a laptop may not be a satisfactory option.

The two main alternatives that spring to mind would be using a floppy disk or re-writable CD-ROM however there are a couple of problems with these that you may not have considered; Firstly, a floppy disk is only capable of storing 1.44Mb of information which means that if you want to transfer anything but the smallest of files then you are going to need to use multiple disks. In contrast, the main drawback with a rewritable CD-ROM drive is the cost; you’re looking at around £150 at least for an external drive that can be connected to a laptop.

One avenue which you may not have considered would be to use a Zip Drive, this technology allows you to store up to 250Mb on a single disk which is physically around the same size as a standard 3½” floppy. This solution does have multiple drawbacks but for the time being I’ll look at what this has to offer:

- Extremely fast. Unlike a CD-RW disk, it is extremely quick to drag and drop any file onto the drive, delete, rename files etc. The access speed of a Zip disk is also much faster than a standard floppy drive.

- Cheap initial outlay – I recently purchased an external 100Mb Zip drive with 3 disks for my laptop for £69.99 all inclusive.

- Easy to set up – The Zip drive comes with a USB interface and most new versions of Windows don’t even require a separate driver in order for the device to work – You simply plug it in to any USB compatible computer and you’re ready to go.

- Reliable – All original Zip disks come with a 5 year warranty provided by the manufacturer which compares very favourably in comparison to floppy disks which are notoriously unreliable.

- Large storage space – As stated above, Zip disks come in 100Mb and 250Mb capacities. The cheaper 100Mb disks can store the equivalent of 70 normal floppies.

Obviously Zip disks aren’t just useful for laptop users as they can also be connected to a home computer for backing up and transporting data. The main reason for not buying a Zip disk if you have a home computer is that Internal CD-RW drives are much faster and more affordable than those designed for laptops which make Zips somewhat less appealing.

In terms of negative sides to using Zips to transport data, there are a few that I have noticed. Firstly, the Zip drive itself needs a separate mains power supply which means that you are stuck if you are trying to use your laptop and Zip drive in an area where there is no power. The price for additional disks is also fairly costly, with new 100Mb disks retailing for around £7 – £8 which makes the cost per megabyte look very poor when compared with CD-RW disks.

Finally there is the question of compatibility; If you write data to a CD-R disk then you can be assured that it is likely to work in pretty much any other computer with a CD drive whereas with Zip disks you have to ensure that your target computer has a Zip drive of it’s own otherwise you should be prepared to transport your drive to connect to the computer in question.

To summarise, Zip drives are very much a specialised device – There will be people out there who often need to move large amounts of data, perform regular backups or who are often on the move with a laptop who will clearly see the advantages of owning such a drive. In contrast, there will also be those who have little or no need for this type of equipment and so obviously it’s up to you to decide which of these two categories you fall into.

Mobile Essentials

admin — Sat, 29 Sep 2001 14:39:12 +0000

Having started at Cardiff University this week I thought I would take the chance of using a couple of articles in order to discuss some essentials for mobile computing on the move. There is the obvious essential ownership of a laptop computer that I have discussed in weeks gone by that will allow you to use the devices that I’m going to cover but asides from that there are a number of other things that I would recommend.

This week I’m going to discuss the perks of having a mobile phone while you’re out and about. Obviously, mobile phones make and receive calls, which would have to be their most useful feature; however they are also capable of acting like a mobile connection to the Internet which can be accessed via your laptop.

I myself have been using a Nokia 6210 to connect to the Internet to send and receive e-mails to my clients back home. My laptop has an Infra-Red port on it, and basically you stick the phone next to the laptop then the computer detects the mobile and sets it up to be used as an Internet connection – Not a single cable is needed. It is then simply just a case of dialling out to an ISP of your choice and you are free to browse the Internet at the rather restrictive speed of 9.6kbps which compares unfavourably to the standard landline speed of 56.6kbps.

Don’t turn the page just yet as it does get slightly better, mainly due to the fact that unlike the rather pathetic WAP services, when you use a mobile in conjunction with a laptop you are free to browse all the information available on a standard Internet connection or download files such as MP3’s albeit at a slow speed. In addition, the mobile provider Orange allows its users to download at a standard speed of 14.4kbps using a compatible handset such as the Nokia 6210 only or at 28.8kbps if used on their high speed data tariff. Unfortunately Orange are the only provider to offer this kind of higher speed data access through your mobile although this doesn’t seem to be a problem when you also consider that they currently offer 0800 data access for free unlike the other UK networks.

There are also a number of special offers on this handset from retailers such as the Carphone Warehouse in Torquay who are currently offering the phone completely free of change and all you have to do it take out a standard contract for 12 months – Something such as Talk 60 which costs £17.50 and gives you 60 minutes of calls anytime for free or alternatively the high speed data plan which gives you the 28.8kbps access for £10 a month with no free calls except free 0800 numbers.

Future innovations such as 3G promise to revolutionise the way that we connect to the Internet by providing extremely fast data speeds though our mobiles but for now this is best we can get. Browsing the Internet on a mobile does feel slightly painful in comparison to using a standard line although it is perfect for retrieving e-mail, checking banking online and doing limited amounts of web surfing which is all that most people need when on the move.

If you are planning to buy a laptop, ensure that it has an Infra-Red port on it otherwise you will have to buy a lead to physically connect it to the phone. Obviously, other phones are available for connecting to the Internet through a laptop although again you should ensure that you buy one with an Infra-Red port. The Nokia 6210 is the only handset currently for sale that supports high speed data access above 9.6kbps and you should also note that none of the phones available will work on the Internet through pay-as-you-go.