The M Files

By Lee Lup Yuen

A look inside enterprise mobility

SMS taxi booking is my favourite mobile service

Friday, June 27 2008 02:27 PM

In Singapore, you can now book a cab by simply sending an SMS message. I have used the ComfortDelGro SMS Taxi Booking Service for over a month and it has become my favorite mobile service.

To book a taxi, just send an SMS like: "Book 098585 taxi stand outside giant to 71222."

The number 098585 above is the postal code of the building (in this example, the building named VivoCity) followed by the pick-up point. Within seconds you'll receive a booking confirmation message containing the taxi number and the time of arrival.

This is a great example of a..... Read more ť

Give me a billing meter for my roaming data charges

Tuesday, May 27 2008 12:27 AM

During my recent trip to Sydney, Australia, I racked up a monthly mobile phone bill of US$5,300 (S$7,300), my highest phone bill so far. I checked the detailed bill from my mobile operator and I saw several roaming data charges like this:

47200 Kbytes - GPRS/3G Data - US$758.68 (S$1,032.50)

This worked out to roughly US$0.016 (S$0.022) per KByte of roaming data usage. This may not seem much, but when you're sending/receiving e-mail messages with large file attachments and downloading/uploading large files (for example, to Google Apps) like I did, you'll rack up a..... Read more ť

For a more powerful notebook, try remote access to your home PC

Tuesday, May 20 2008 11:11 AM

Notebooks are designed for portability and are not meant to be used as powerful workstations. Notebooks tend to have slower CPUs to conserve power, with limited RAM, storage and expansion options to keep them light and portable. It's generally a bad idea to carry massive amounts of data in your notebook. You may lose your notebook or customs agents may take away your notebook for inspection (read this).

I don't carry a very powerful notebook; instead, I use remote access with my home PC. With remote access software (like LogMeIn) and 3.5G mobile broadband, I have access..... Read more ť

Building the perfect Windows Mobile business application

Wednesday, April 30 2008 11:39 PM

If you're developing a Windows Mobile application for business, you need to consider the following:

-- Can your mobile application work offline, while disconnected from the network? Your application should be able to access a local database for storing data while working offline.

-- Can your mobile application detect the network status and sync data automatically to the server as soon as there's a network connection?

-- Is your mobile application fast and responsive? PDAs don't have CPUs that run as fast as those on laptops and desktop PCs. It's best to use in-memory caching to store frequently-accessed data to ensure optimal performance.

Fortunately..... Read more ť

Using PlayStation Portable as wireless display panel

Monday, April 07 2008 07:22 PM

The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a great games handheld (I play mostly LocoRoco and Patapon), and I discovered recently that it's great for work too.

The PSP has a built-in Web browser and Wi-Fi capabilities. I set up a simple Web server on my home PC, wrote some scripts in .NET, connected the PSP's Web browser to my Web server, and I quickly transformed my PSP into a wireless display panel.

My PSP sits right beside my bed and shows me the current time and my unread e-mail messages. The Web browser refreshes the page periodically so that I..... Read more ť

Tracking calories burnt with your mobile phone

Friday, March 21 2008 03:58 AM

Newer Nokia phones like Nokia N82 and N95, have a built-in accelerometer and are capable of tracking your physical movements.

If you have one of these phones, you can download and install the
Nokia Activity Monitor to measure your energy expenditure while you're walking or jogging/running.

This morning, as I checked out from my hotel and made my way to the Syndey airport, my phone told me that I walked 1,526 steps over a distance of 1.04 km, expending a total of 60 kCal (kilocalorie).

I may not exercise much, but according to my phone I'm getting quite a good..... Read more ť

Mobile broadband roaming works (I've got the hefty bill to prove it)

Friday, February 29 2008 07:46 PM

I'm happy to report that 3.5G (HSDPA) roaming worked flawlessly on my laptop when I traveled from Singapore to Sydney. I was able to enjoy the same high-bandwidth mobile broadband experience in Sydney as in Singapore. So this means we mobile workers can now get high-speed Internet access anywhere in the world, as long as there's 3.5G coverage.

But mobile broadband roaming doesn't come cheap. I chalked up over S$433 (US$310) in roaming data charges just within a single day, which I'm paying out of my own pocket.

How much would you be willing to pay to enjoy that premium mobile broadband..... Read more ť

Mobile office in the sky: On board the Airbus A380

Thursday, February 07 2008 10:03 PM

I have just experienced the future of Business Class on board the newest, largest passenger jet: Singapore Airlines Airbus A380.

I bought the ticket and paid standard Business Class fare myself; here's how I really feel about the new Business Class:

Plenty of space: The seat was incredibly spacious, wide enough to fit two people. It felt like working in your own office cubicle in the sky.

Plenty of storage, too: Right beside the windows at both sides of the plane, there are roomy compartments that you can store your laptop, folders, briefcase, shoes, sweater, almost anything else (except luggage)...... Read more ť

MacBook Air: What would you sacrifice for portability?

Thursday, January 31 2008 04:17 AM

The Apple MacBook Air is extremely portable--it's so slim it fits inside a manila envelope. But the portability requires you to sacrifice some expansion and connectivity options:

No PC card slot: You won't be able to slot in a 3.5G Mobile Data PC Card or any other PC Card because it doesn't have a PC Card or ExpressCard slot. All peripherals must be connected via the USB interface.

No Ethernet port: You can't plug an Ethernet cable directly into the MacBook Air. You need to use an Ethernet adapter for USB. If you travel often, it may be a hassle..... Read more ť

A great new year for enterprise mobility

Friday, January 18 2008 06:38 PM

Here's what we can expect in the coming 12 months to help us work faster and easier while on the move:

Large and cheap Solid-State Drives (SSD): Because they have no mechanical moving parts, SSDs will let our notebooks run longer before draining the battery, compared to ordinary hard disks. They are also less prone to failure if you drop them. The newer notebooks already offer them as an expensive option (like the Apple MacBook Air), but we can expect them to get larger and cheaper in the coming months.

Built-in 802.11n and HSDPA: New notebooks will have built-in high-speed..... Read more ť

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About the blogger

Lee Lup Yuen

Lee Lup Yuen is passionate about mobile phones and PDAs, as he is constantly buying new gadgets and programming them in J2ME, .NET, Symbian and AppForge. He has developed commercial applications with mobile technologies like SMS, MMS, WAP, 3G video streaming and location-based services.