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Minisizing Skype and going War Trekking
21:52 p.m. EST Nov 26, 2004
Picking up free hotspots is getting easier than ever and can be done even in Kathmandu these days. Kathmandu University is offering wireless web-service in front of the Library building.
Picking up a connection with your tiny PDA is cheap (read free) and easy. Once you are connected it’s possible to send and receive e-mails, browse the web, SKYPE your friends and even make cheap VOIP phone calls anywhere in the world.
Make the PDA WIFI ready
Some PDA’s like the iPAQ 5500 series comes with a built in wireless card. If your machine is lacking built in WIFI you can buy a wireless CF card for around $70 and a wireless SD card for just over $100. Installation is very easy and in a decently populated area chances are pretty big that you will soon pick up a signal.
“War Trekking”
It started out with “war chalking” a couple of years ago. British Cyber kids browsed the streets with wifi enabled laptops looking for hot-spots. A successful logged on hot-spot was chalked up on the street with old-fashioned hobo signs to mark the place for other wifi surfers.
”War Chalking” fast spread to the land of cars, US and got slightly modified into “War Driving”. Cruising your car with a beefed up wifi antenna (an empty Pringle can seems to have the ideal dimension) soon became the new hit among adventure-techies.
Now, explorers and travelers are picking it up a notch - we are going “War trekking”!
This means finding hotspots of the beaten track – in places like Kathmandu and even Everest Base Camp (oh, you’d be surprised).
Now it's one thing to find an active hotspot in Calcutta - but an entirely different story to power up your laptop. That's when you bring up the PDA, and know within 5 sec if there is a hotspot to be found or not.
Connect to WIFI
If the PDA doesn’t connect automatically, click the two connection arrows at the top. Then go to settings, advanced and Network Card. You will get a list of available networks. Press the stylus on one of the networks and connect.
Skype for Pocket PC
At www.skype.com you can download Skype for pocket-pc. You need to download Skype from your PC/Laptop and have to be connected to the iPAQ with Active Sync during installation.
Once installed Skype looks exactly the same on the PDA as on the PC and is easy and fast to navigate and understand.
Call home or do messaging
You don’t need a headset with microphone for the PDA to make Skype voice calls. Normal freestyle like earplugs work fine since the microphone is in the PDA. Connect to your Skype friends for free or do normal cheap (app. $0.02/minute) phone calls.
It's also possible to do instant messaging from your skyped PDA. Have fun, it's free! But don't forget to do some regular sightseeing around town as well...
Next week: Skype over Satellite!
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