The concept I’d seen was the next step in travel “on the edge”. According to MobiMate, i10 would be the perfect virtual travel agent. At the core of the system would be a dedicated Worldmate servers that would accept traveler’s itinerary confirmations from airlines. The idea was that a simple forward of an e-itinerary would automatically add the flight into your Worldmate LIVE plans, eliminating the hassle of having to enter in flight details into your calendar in the process. Once i10 would “know” where you are, it could track your flight’s status for you, and notify you of changes in real time via a “push” message to the i10 client.

Unfortunately, at the time,  i10 wasn’t available at all, and was still in the planning/alpha stages. And so for the next year or so, I relentlessly hounded the Worldmate PR rep (who by the way deserves serious kudos for her forbearance and patience) for the Worldmate i10 Windows Mobile client availability. Since then, it’s undergone a name change (it’s now Worldmate LIVE), and some slight cosmetic facelifts, but thankfully, it’s core utility hasn’t been compromised in any way. After playing around with the Windows Mobile client for a while, I can attest that my initial wow reaction hasn’t diminished with usage, as is so often the case with many wowser concepts that simply don’t convert into bottom line productive applications.

I’ve split up this review into two sections- one focusing on the PC/Online sections of WM LIVE, and one focusing on the Windows Mobile side of the WM LIVE system. The truth is, however, that the LIVE system is meant to be used as an integrated system- without the mobile side of it, all it really is is a glorified online trip planner. The review was conducted on a Vista Ultimate (SP1) PC using Outlook 2007 (SP1) and a Samsung Blackjack II running WM 6. Below is the PC/Online section. The mobile section can be viewed here. For the purposes of the review, I’ll call the Worldmate Live system “WML”.

The first step is getting your travel itinerary to WML. This can be done in one of three ways. Number 1 is for those trips where you either don’t have or can’t access the airline confirmation email. Number 2 requires Outlook and an itinerary email, and Number 3 requires access to the email, but is email client generic- that is, you don’t need to be using Outlook.

As far as the automated conversion that the WML servers perform from airlines, when I tested I got a 100% accuracy result; in other words, the system gave entered in the correct travel details for the flight I was on. It’s important to note, however, that this is to be expected- unlike a voicemail, where I’d accept 90% accuracy, I do not want to headed to airport for my flight a day early, or worse, late! According to MobiMate, the system can process XX? amount of e-itineraries from various airlines and travel providers, like Orbitz.com and other travel agents/web booking sites.

1) Go to the web section of WML and manually enter it in. While a fairly straightforward process, once you get used to the ease of the Worldmate Outlook plugin, it seems to be a downright laborious task. The web interface is clean and Web 2.0ish, with a nicely done Ajax page.

2) Use the WML plugin for Outlook (2003/2007) and simply click on the forward button. This is obviously the way to go, but as noted above, requires both Outlook 2003 or 2007 as well as having the actual e-itinerary from your airline.

3) Forward the confirmation to a user-specific XXXXXX@worldmatelive.com address. This is your personal Worldmate live address, and is essentially what the WML Outlook plugin above does for you- it forwards the airline itinerary to that address.

Once Worldmate Live has your travel deets, (as long as you’ve created the “Trip”), it will match up the flights that you send it and add them to your itinerary.

A trip can consist of various parts, like

(Credit to photopia).

Basically, RSS formats news posts/blog updates/thread posts for delivery in a standardized feed based system. Chances are that if you’re reading this you either know what RSS is, or more likely, are actually reading this in an RSS reader yourself. For those of you new to RSS, or still searching for a setup that works for you, I though I’d describe my setup and how I arrived at it for you here…and just so’s were clear about the finances involved, every one of the products covered in this post are absolutely free.

FYI: Those of you new to RSS looking for a more involved primer on the basics of RSS should look at this detailed guide.

Previously, I’d used Google Reader, which is an online based reader, and has many advantages over a typical RSS program that’s downloaded to your PC like FeedReader or BlogExpress. The obvious one is that its accessible from any internet equipped computer, and since its web based, is also cross platform compatible. As it happens, this wasn’t a feature that I rarely had opportunity to make use of, since 99% of my usage is performed on my Sony Vaio, be it docked or around and about. The most useful feature that I miss in my current setup that Google Reader does have is its capability to quickly scroll through hundreds of items at a time, albeit with the caveat listed below in “C”. (I use the Logitech Dinovo Edge -current street price about $150- for this; it has a “touch circle” that is particularly apt for scrolling with a continuous circular motion down long pages, like Google Reader’s main page with all your news items). My problem with GReader, as its known, was trifold.

A)- I couldn’t read my feeds offline. Although my Vaio TZ notebook has a built in Sprint Rev. A broadband card with an active unlimited data plan ($60 per month with a 2 year contract), there are certain scenarios that I frequently find myself in where I do not have a connection or signal. Those times are precisely when I like to catch up on my feeds, and since GReader is web based, it obviously made for a serious problem.

B) No Windows Mobile accessibility. I often find myself without my trusty Vaio laptop, and just my Windows Mobile phone of the day. Unfortunately, Google Reader doesn’t have a mobile access option, (yet), as opposed to Gmail and Picasa Mobile which are compatible with IE Mobile, so I can’t view or update my feeds on my device.

C) Caching problem when reading at high speed. Since Google Reader is web based, after scrolling at high speed through a number of items, GReader hits the end of its cache and needs to update, which makes for an annoying pause. I’m a big fan of the whole “My computer should work as fast as I do”, and when it doesn’t, I start to get ticked off and try to figure out how I can make it go faster.

Clearly, GReader wasn’t an option for me.

After some investigation, I found a great alternative that offers a solution to problems A and B, and sort of to C, and it goes by the NewsGator moniker…

NewsGator’s FeedDemon, formerly a paid for solution but now gone free, has a downloadable PC client, as well as a Windows Mobile compatible application, called NewsGator Go!, which performs well, all things considered.

Like almost all WM RSS readers, its a bit sluggish, especially when switching items/feeds.

FeedDemon has a “PreFetch” option that allows it to download, in addition to the feeds themselves, a specified number of links out of the post as well.

This is really convenient for users (like me) who frequently find themselves without a connection. In addition, aside from access on my mobile and PC, NewsGator has a web option. The kicker here is that NewsGator synchronizes the read status of items across all the feeds. This allows me to access and read my feeds from anywhere, and lets me knock off feeds whenever I have downtime. Should I wish to save an item or pursue a news bit further at a later date, I can conveniently “Clip” it for later viewing (NewsGator’s version of bookmarking/starring),and it will show up in a special “Clipped” folder. For the record, NewsGator also offers more options for accessing your feeds, such as through Outlook (similar to the built in RSS Feeds), or on your Blackberry/Java device. They also happen to have a Mac client, not that I care in the least way. If you’re still on the fence here, I’d recommend looking at this guy’s deeper look into NewsGator, where he lists ten specific features unique to NewsGator vs. Google Reader.

Understand that this setup is in many ways specific to me. In other words, it may very well be that for your use case, a different setup involving GReader or another reader may be more efficient. I am not harping on Google Reader categorically, and do not want letter bombs or hate mail detailing the many reasons why I don’t know anything about tech (most of them probably true anyway). A personal RSS setup will by definition vary from person to person for maximum efficiency. Take the time to study the different option out there, and you’ll end up with a setup that suits you.

So that’s that. That is how I access and keep up to date with the latest feeds. Should you be interested in subscribing to the MobileOfficing.com feed, simply look at the upper left hand corner of the homepage, where I’ve integrated a number of quicklink Chicklets to add MobileOfficing.com’s news feed into a number of different readers with a single click using a cool Wordpress plugin called Chicklet Creator. Enjoy!

AppToDate from MoDaCo is a new initiative designed to make it easier to update Windows Mobile applications on the fly. Paul O’Brien, the brains behind MoDaCo and a Windows Mobile MVP himself, has developed the application and sounded the call for developers all over the world to come and take part in the free AppToDate.

To download it, simply click on this link from your mobile device, and you’ll be prompted to download the .CAB file (BTW: Only a shockingly small 55kb). I did, and the install proceeded without any issues (although I wasn’t prompted where to install it to-either way, it’s 55k, so who cares, right?). Unfortunately, I don’t have any apps listed with AppToDate- which makes sense, considering the total supported list as of this post’s writing is only 4.

The above screenshot illustrates AppToDate in action on a device that has the currently supported four installs. As you can see, the device’s .net Config isn’t up-to-date, while the other 3 applications are.

Developers interested in having their application added -for free- need only add a small XML file to their installation, as per Paul’s instructions here. Personally, I think this is a great idea…now all we need is for the idea to take off. Although I’d say that in the PC world this would be an almost impossible idea to successfully implement due to the fragmented nature of the millions of ISV’s, as well as the behemothic proportions of many of the most popular ISV’s, I think that in the mobile world this may take off. Considering the great attitude of some of the key players like Alex Kacs (Pocket Informant and more), Amit Regev (SBSH Software- Pocket Breeze and more), and Chris McKay (LakeRidgeSoftware- WisBar Advance and more) among many others, I’m thinking this may actually have a shot at taking off, and sincerely hope it does…I know it’d be an invaluable timesaver for me personally, or at least when I end up using the same device/ROM for more than a month or so.

Good Luck Paul!