Do you really want to schlep your laptop into starbucks and sit down? If it becomes popular there won’t be a seat for you. CEO Howard Shultz said he this was not going to be a Europe-style cyber café. While he discovered the idea of the “barista” while traveling through Italy and created starbucks as the model, for some reason the crowded cyber-café business model was not what he and others had in mind. HP is a new partner, and with their experience in PDAs (and Compaq’s) they hope to promote these new products as business and personal tools.
But as anybody who has an Compaq iPaq PDA knows, this becomes almost laptop sized when the “sled” and wireless card are attached. Realizing that size matters with portable devices (but here, small is beautiful) device manufacturers have been shrinking and integrating. Toshiba came out with an integrated WiFi PDA in 2002 that the critics raved about: the e740. CNET gave it a high rating – “highly recommended”. Messages boards buzzed. But some user’s experience with Toshiba’s e740 was telling of the continuing issues with wireless data.
Upon purchasing the new, pricey PDA, he went home and fired it up. Worked great with little wireless network in his home. He could access web content at high speed anywhere in the house. But his initial trips to starbucks proved frustrating. Upon entering he was delighted to see he could detect the signal, but perplexed at how to get on the internet. He had the best new expensive PDA on the market, but it was not working. The little PDA could not connect with the internet no matter how many changed he made to the settings. So he called the hotline, but, they are not 24/7, and besides, his friends were getting irritated.
Undeterred, he returned the next day and tried again. This time he got through to customer support who informed him “Oh…you have an e740…those don’t work with our network and Microsoft’s browser”. Huh? I thought Microsoft was behind this partially, and anyway, it works fine at home. He was told to download a new Japanese browser, which he was unable to do once he returned home. With such trials and tribulations it is no wonder MobilStar was not able to succeed last year. Will T-Mobile have more success?
Never giving up, out intreped electrical engineer consults the handy Toshiba e740 FAQ, which explalins quite clearly how to connect to wireless networks:
Please click Start JSettings JSystem JWireless LAN Utility JScan to view Scan Page where you can find the usable Wireless Network.
If you cannot see all the networks you are expecting, please click “Rescan” to see the list of usable Wireless Networks. Choose one Wireless Network you want and double click the BSSID to connect to the network. Once the network is chosen, you need to configure the IEEE802.11b WLAN adapter. Click Start JSettings JConnections JNetwork Adapters JIEEE802.11b WLAN Adapter JProperties JIP Address to set IP address, Subnet mask and Default gateway settings. Click Start JSettings JSystem JWireless LAN Utility to edit other settings, such as Mode and SSID etc. If the WEP Mode of the Wireless Network you selected is enabled (64bit or
128bit WEP Mode), please choose the proper WEP KeyID and the proper WEP Key value network.
There. Wasn't that simple?
But as anybody who has an Compaq iPaq PDA knows, this becomes almost laptop sized when the “sled” and wireless card are attached. Realizing that size matters with portable devices (but here, small is beautiful) device manufacturers have been shrinking and integrating. Toshiba came out with an integrated WiFi PDA in 2002 that the critics raved about: the e740. CNET gave it a high rating – “highly recommended”. Messages boards buzzed. But some user’s experience with Toshiba’s e740 was telling of the continuing issues with wireless data.
Upon purchasing the new, pricey PDA, he went home and fired it up. Worked great with little wireless network in his home. He could access web content at high speed anywhere in the house. But his initial trips to starbucks proved frustrating. Upon entering he was delighted to see he could detect the signal, but perplexed at how to get on the internet. He had the best new expensive PDA on the market, but it was not working. The little PDA could not connect with the internet no matter how many changed he made to the settings. So he called the hotline, but, they are not 24/7, and besides, his friends were getting irritated.
Undeterred, he returned the next day and tried again. This time he got through to customer support who informed him “Oh…you have an e740…those don’t work with our network and Microsoft’s browser”. Huh? I thought Microsoft was behind this partially, and anyway, it works fine at home. He was told to download a new Japanese browser, which he was unable to do once he returned home. With such trials and tribulations it is no wonder MobilStar was not able to succeed last year. Will T-Mobile have more success?
Never giving up, out intreped electrical engineer consults the handy Toshiba e740 FAQ, which explalins quite clearly how to connect to wireless networks:
Please click Start JSettings JSystem JWireless LAN Utility JScan to view Scan Page where you can find the usable Wireless Network.
If you cannot see all the networks you are expecting, please click “Rescan” to see the list of usable Wireless Networks. Choose one Wireless Network you want and double click the BSSID to connect to the network. Once the network is chosen, you need to configure the IEEE802.11b WLAN adapter. Click Start JSettings JConnections JNetwork Adapters JIEEE802.11b WLAN Adapter JProperties JIP Address to set IP address, Subnet mask and Default gateway settings. Click Start JSettings JSystem JWireless LAN Utility to edit other settings, such as Mode and SSID etc. If the WEP Mode of the Wireless Network you selected is enabled (64bit or
128bit WEP Mode), please choose the proper WEP KeyID and the proper WEP Key value network.
There. Wasn't that simple?
posted by Spasssmeister at 6:08 PM
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