In the airports going and returning, starting with our own San Antonio International, I had hoped to be able to tap into WiFi hot spots to sync my e-mail with my Small Business Server back home, and send my little e-mails to my wife on their way. I found plenty of strong hot spots in each airport. They were all T-mobile hot spots like those found in Starbucks and Kinko’s. Unfortunately I am not a T-mobile subscriber so I couldn't access them. If I were a more frequent flyer, like I was a number of years ago, I'd certainly sign up with T-mobile. But one trip does not me a subscriber make.

Fortunately I had my web enabled cell phone with me. With it, and in conjunction with OMA (Outlook Mobile Access) on my Small Business Server 2003, I was able to access my e-mail not only from the airports between flights but even while sitting in the aircraft until they closed the doors and made you turn off your PEDs (personal electronic devices). That came in particularly handy on my way home on Monday when I had a couple of client issues I was able to attend to via OMA.

Once in Seattle, my hotel had free WiFi for guests throughout the facility. This included not only my room but our conference facilities as well. It was wild seeing everyone fire up his or her wireless notebooks and Tablet PCs (didn't see many Pocket PCs, but then they're small and inconspicuous). The MVPs (Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals?) were usually busy updating their blogs during the sessions. I of course was able to sync my e-mail with my SBS 2003 server back home and check out a few web links referenced during the conference sessions. I even checked out a blog or two.

But WiFi Internet access was not the only benefit of having my PPC with me. I'm not a great note taker. But there was a lot of good stuff being put out in the various sessions. I did take paper notes but wanted a better record. So I used my Pocket PC to actually record the audio from the sessions. The PPC has an amazing ability to process the audio through its tiny pinhole sized microphone. Even somewhat distant speakers come in loud and clear. I not only recorded our speakers but also the party at our conference host's home on Bainbridge Island Friday night. They had the Bainbridge High School band welcome us as we walked in after our long ferry ride across the bay and bus ride on the island. I recorded a bit of the band and it came out great. I recorded some of the remarks during the presentations and even the reggae band that provided the music for our Caribbean-themed bash. That didn't record as well though as I was right in front of their speakers and it kind of blasted out my PPC. However, there are adjustments one can make on the PPC to compensate.  But I didn't.

All these recordings take up a bit of storage. The recording of the two-hour SBS Users Group Leads meeting with Microsoft consumed 18 MB! The PPC does have some RAM to store such files. However a recording or two of this size can quickly fill it to capacity. My PPC has a slot built into it for a SD (Secure Digital) card. Before going on the trip I purchased a 128 MB SD card. As I made recordings, I moved them to the SD RAM, freeing up space in the PPC's main memory.

The recordings from the confidence are available on the Alamo PC SBS SIG web site. Look under SMB Nation on the left.

Unfortunately 128 MB was not enough. The 18 MB from the User Group Leads meeting almost put me over the top. On my first recording the following morning, I didn't have enough room left on the SD storage card to handle it. I attempted to e-mail some of the saved recording files to my wife but I didn't have enough RAM left in the main memory to load the files as attachments. The result: My system locked up! The only way to get any control back was to do a hard reboot of the PPC!

A hard reboot is not to be taken lightly. Basically it wipes out every thing in main memory. It pretty much takes it back to out of the box status. Luckily the SD and built in storage memory is left intact. However the machine is otherwise 'reborn'. This means that it has to be re-introduced to your network and reconfigured to synchronize your e-mail, etc. That requires physically connecting it to your workstation via a cradle or direct cable. That turned out to be kinda hard to do in Seattle, some 2,000 miles from my office workstation! Luckily OMA not only works with cell phones, but also works with Pocket PCs. Even though I couldn't synchronize my e-mail, I could at least access and respond to my e-mail. Unfortunately I couldn't send my wife little e-mails on my way home. Next time, I'm going to get a bigger SD card, or at least have another card handy.