The technology week in view: December 7th 2007

I recently got hold of a Nokia e61i to complement the Blackberry 8820 that I won in a prize draw. I’ve been looking around for a remote email and phone solution for our field based staff for some time. There are a huge number of thumb based, email friendly devices out there which I wrote about in my Thumb Phones Blog post recently and these two devices were definitely high on my gadgety wish list. Whilst the shiny Blackberry is still sitting in its box in my kitchen (not for long hopefully) I have been out and about with the Nokia and giving it a good run its money. I have made a few observations and found out some useful tips whilst Trialling the Nokia E61i. The device works a treat and its Series 60 Symbian OS is about as good as you can get but I’m still having a few glitches with Exchange Server 2007 integration when using the MfE add-in as it seems to demand an SSL certificate which isn’t as straightforward as it should be, as I discovered when writing about The Perils of Support Desks: GoDaddy. For now I am focusing on the Nokia e61i in a mobile environment so watch this space for more!

Another subject that has been on my mind recently is thin clients. As a Blogger I often receive emails from readers asking me Why? Why is generally followed by any number of questions but a recurring theme is why thin clients and not desktop PC’s with XP or something similar. Thin clients are great in certain environments, and they have certainly been a great help in ours. Whilst, in my mind, there are many advantages to thin clients I recently discussed what I feel are the key Five Advantages of Thin Clients and why you should consider them for your environment.

On an almost final note; I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but 2008 is looming on the horizon and reading the technoloy press it looks to be an exciting year. Technology predictions abound and I am no different with my technology predictions for 2008 which include amongst others, the year of the Zune, the rise of the ‘back to basics laptop’ such as the Asus eee and (hopefully) the launch of the pico-projector in mobile devices.

Finally, for a lighter look at technology check out the adventures of Monk in his online cartoon Monk and his IT Junk.