As others have done before such as James Kendrick and the guys at Gotta Be Mobile, I am going to document a typical mobile day for me. I will include the software and the gadgets I use throughout the day in order to get me through the day.
For those of you that don't know, I am an independent software development consultant and I am currently working with several clients. The following chronicals my day as it was on this past Monday.
My iPhone went off at 7 am as I use that as my alarm clock. I grab it and check my email and calander for the day. It helps me get organized for the day and jog my memory for what I need to do. I then check my SMS Twitter messages to see what else is going on in my virtual world. On Tuesdays, I also check the new music that arrives in iTunes. If anything that interests me is released that day, I usually download it from the iTunes WiFi store so I have something new to listen to that day.
It is now time to stop playing, so I hop in the shower and get dressed. I have a meeting at a client site and so I need to get properly dressed and not just throw on my usual jeans and t-shirt mode when working at home. I go down to my office where my Lenovo Thinkpad X60 tablet is sitting in it's dock from the previous night. I put it in hibernate mode (something that takes several minutes in Vista) and load it into my Tom Bihn Ego bag. While I am doing this, I place my iPhone into it's dock and it syncs with my desktop PC in order to grab any new podcasts that may have come down the previous night. I then make my way upstairs to wkae up my daughter and get her ready for day care. I grab my Tom Bihn bag and my iPhone and I am out the door to drop my daughter off and proceed to my meeting.
After I drop my daughter off, I turn on my Garmin Nuvi 350 GPS unit and head towards my client's office. Although I have been to the client's site many times, using my GPS allows me to get around any traffic jams that may occur on my way. Waiting for the GPS to boot up when stuck in traffic may make me miss some opportunites to redirect my route so I keep it on just in case. My client's office is about an hour away so to keep entertained, I often listen to my podcasts that I just synced from my desktop PC. In order to listen to these, I use the b which I do not like as a solution. The FM transmitter makes me have to turn off the radios on my iPhone in order to not allow for any interference. This means that all calls are routed directly to voicemail and I have to pause my podcasts from time to time on the trip to make sure I didn't miss an important phone call. I am looking for a new solution such as a car stereo with a jack or an integrated iPod control but I have not done that yet.
Once I get to the client site, I grab my tablet and get it set up before the client gets to the meeting room. During the meeting, I need to show the current software features that I have completed in between the last meeting and the current one. I also need to get feedback on the current software and plan what will be done between now and the next meeting. In order to do this I often need to flip in between tablet and laptop mode. In notebook mode, I use the keyboard and mouse to enter data and show the application. I show the client the software over a projector and so I put the tablet in presentation mode through the Lenovo tools. Once that is complete, I unplug the projector and flip the tablet into tablet mode. I bring up the meeting within Outlook and click on the Meeting Notes toolbar item in order to enter my notes within OneNote and keep a reference back to the meeting within OneNote. I absolutely love this integration bewteen Outlook and OneNote. During the meeting, I often have to refer back to a live web site that we use to keep the client's project in order. To accomplish this I plug in my Merlin S720 Sprint EVDO PCMCIA card. This allows me to access the internet without requiring me to get access to the client's internal network. I love that fact and my client appreciates it as well.
The meeting is over at 11 am and it is now time to head back home. I plug in the iTrip and start my podcasts listening. I use my GPS unit to get back home as well. When I am about 15 minutes from home, I feel the urge for Chineese for lunch. There is a great Chinees resturaunt near my home but I forgot the number. I grab my iPhone and use Google maps to quickly find the number and call them. I place my order and pick it up on my way home. I get home and dock both my iPhone and tablet. While eating my lunch, I pull up some recorded shows from the previous night on my DVR. I finish my leasure time and it's time to get back to work.
I go back downstairs to my office and take a look at my notes I took in OneNote. I enter any tasks that came out of the meeting into FogBugz and Morale. I am using Morale side-by-side as a test case before I release it. I also enter any requirement changes into our wiki we are using to track user requirements.
I stay in my cave and slang code for several hours on my desktop computer. I use Visual Studio to develop as well a lot of tools that augment the development. I listen to my music and watch video podcats on iTunes. I am often on Microsoft Messenger IM'ing people. I use Twadget to Twitter throughout the day.
It is now 4 pm and I have another meeting with a new client. I enter the address into my Garmin GPS, through my Lenovo tablet in hibernate mode and into my Waterfield SleeveCase bag. I do not anticipate this to be a long meeting so I can just take my tablet and no extra power supplies or batteries. I arrive at the meeting a little early so I through in the Sprint EVDO card and read a couple of my RSS feeds using Newsgator Online. My client arrives to the meeting and so I again use the Outlook and OneNote integration. I take notes in OneNote and flag any action items with an Outlook task flag which creates my tasks in Outlook. Those tasks are then synced automatically with the Plaxo toolbar. I can use my iPhone to check those tasks on Plaxo mobile which syncs back to Outlook. It was a productive meeting and my (hopefully future) client is impressed with my tablet so I do a little evangeslism before I take off.
Back at home, I play with my daughters and have dinner with my wife. Once the kids are asleep, I grab the tablet in order to do some light work upstairs where I can talk with my wife and we can watch tv on our high def 50" LG plasma. I use my tablet in notebook mode and track my time for my various clients using Quickbooks Online. I now have to create an estimate for a client on yet another project. I use Mindjet Mindmanager to map out the tasks I need to complete for them. I use this in tablet mode and it simply rocks and it is very productive. Once I work on that a little, it is time to wind down and read some feeds. The best use case for a tablet is the ability to lie down on a couch and read my feeds in tablet mode using Newsgator Online.
I get through my feeds and it is still early (by my standards), so I flip back to notebook mode and slang some code for my Morale project.
It was a very productive day and my gadgets and software help me get through the day.
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