It's not too surprising that I am usually WAY behind the times on stuff like this, but I have recently stumbled upon AvantGo.com. This service is amazing and now has me hauling my Palm IIIx out of my knapsack and hotsyncing it several times a day.

AvantGo is an online service that allows you to sign-up for free downloads to your portable hand-held device (Palm OS, Windows CE or web enabled phone). Once registered, you can choose from almost 1000 different channels that you can dump onto your portable device whenever you hotsync. Primary channel headings include business, news services, travel, sports, computers and technology with each having several layers of sub-channels.

After signing up for the AvantGo service, a file was downloaded to my desktop PC and executed. The Mobile Link conduit software and the AvantGo reader was setup on my PC and configured for uploading to my Palm IIIx. After a hotsync, my browser restarted allowing me the opportunity to choose my channels of interest. The set-up was clean and easy, the channel selection was a breeze and I was up and running within 10 minutes. Now, with the simple act of hotsyncing my handheld as normal, the Mobile Link software automatically takes over and downloads my selected channels from AvantGo. From the huge list of available downloads, I have complete control over what is and is not sent to my portable device. I am currently downloading Suck.com, Salon.com, RollingStone.com and the NY Times to my Palm IIIx every time I sync my handheld.

The Mobile Link software on my PC and my handheld is pretty much invisible (as mentioned, it starts and stops automatically on each hotsync). The AvantGo software on my Palm IIIx has a clean interface and is easy to use. It closely resembles a Palm based web browser with forward/back buttons, a home button and a refresh button. Hard key control is also configurable (less need to use the stylus when moving around).

Another feature is the ability to choose your own channels. Essentially, a web address can be selected as a channel, the link-depth can be selected (saving on the amount of information saved to your handheld) as well as the total size of the channel to be uploaded.

Overall, with it's clean interface, ease of use and quality of the software involved, AvantGo is very impressive. If you have one of these devices, try it. It will cost you on batteries, though, because you'll want to sync your mobile device 40 times a day to ensure you have the most up to date information. But it's well worth a couple of AAA's.



Recommended: Yes