| Product: |
AvantGo |
| Date: |
16.11.02 (283 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: wide range of content, easy syncing
Disadvantages: limitations due to Palm format
... Not me, I just AvantGo!
I had always wondered if AvantGo was going to just be a passing fad, having originally signed up to the service in August 2000, when it was the closest you could get to 'net content on your Palm - and amazingly over two years a go it still has a stranglehold, and one that doesn't look like it will be surrendered in a hurry or without a struggle.
AvantGo is a free mobile web clippings service, or at least it is a freeware piece of software giving you access to content from various providers, some of which in turn do charge subscription fees, although there is a lot of free content. I "rediscovered" AvantGo recently as a useful solution to a personal need. In October I started work on the translation team of a company who send content to various companies and provide a press monitoring service, for names like Goldman Sachs, Accenture, Austria Tabak and the EU. This means an early start (6am each weekday morning usually) and is intensive work, with the essence being speed and accuracy. I have found that reading up on the news has kept me one step ahead of the game, and namely using AvantGo.
The sign-up process is simple, as you sign up for a free profile at http://my.avantgo.com and then you receive the software for your Palm OS PDA, as well as the conduit software for syncing your content. This takes up very little space on your machine and is simple to use, with all subsequent content being part of a Hotsync update, so providing you have a Palm, a syncing cradle or cable and an internet connection you'll have no difficulties.
To choose your content, you can look through the directory of over 700 "channels" which vary from Business and Finance (there are currently 120 channels to choose from), News / Media, Lifestyle, Sport, Health, Travel, Entertainment through to Education, Shopping and Travel. For large companies there is another part to the site dealing with content de
ployment and various options - I have friends whose companies have used the service and so they always get the requisite content on their Palms.
Each channel tends to range from a few Kilobytes (e.g. about 5k for a one screen channel) upto around 200k, depending of course on how much content the site contains, and with the free edition you can get up to 1Mb of content from as many channels as take you up to this limit. Most of the news/business channels that I subscribe to are in the region of 150kb in size, so generally I have about 8-10 channels on my Palm at any one time. If you require more memory space, a $15 fee will allow you up to 8Mb in clippings, which would be the total that by Palm Vx can hold, but on newer devices with memory expansion possibilities (e.g. M1** and M5** series PDAs) allows you to keep abreast of all the subjects you need to. Most channel content is in English, although there are some channels in most major European languages (e.g. Austria's Der Standard in German).
The web interface is used for subscription management, and I regularly change channels, in order to find what is best for me, although WSJ.com (Wall Street Journal Europe), Economist.com (nuff said!) and 3G Newsroom are amongst the "staples" for me. Most of the channels are updated daily and I usually "sync" at 5am to get all the overnight news so that I can read it on the underground on the way to work.
Admittedly reading from a Palm screen is not the same as reading from a broadsheet newspaper, and the platform's limitations, in addition to wanting to keep the space required down to an absolute minimum mean that the content is invariably 95% text only. There are occasional graphs and tables, but not really that much by way of graphics. Similarly the service is fortunately by and large pretty clear of advertisements - other than a title page banner. Otherwise it is pretty much plain surfing - scrolling using the up and d
own arrow, clicking on links with the stylus, and content can easily be copied and pasted, so if there is content you want to keep it is very easy to copy it into a note. Admittedly a lot of content is quite static - you can't interact that much with the content as you are not online, although many channels do give you a chance to request content via e-mail if there is a story that interests you. Dooyoo used to have one such platform - you could request reviews on products - but you couldn't comment or rate on them, although sadly this feature has been discontinued. The software installation is via the usual Hotsync conduit and is very easy, and takes next to no time, with the daily syncing process taking only really the time it takes your internet connection to download the content and then upload via Serial or USB.
All in all, this is probably the piece of Palm OS software I use the most and will certainly carry on using a lot - and with it being free, and the amount you get free being enough to satisfy most people's requirements, I'd have to give this one the maximum 5 out of 5.
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