Palm Connectivity Part 9 – Flying High on the -Airzed- Part 2

Yep. The title is rather confusing 🙂

It is entitled Palm Connectivity Part 9 since it is the ninth article in the PalmOS connectivity series. It is also the second time that we are writing an article about Airzed. The first time was how to connect the Psion Netbook to Airzed. This time we will demonstrate to you how to connect a PalmOS PDA to Airzed.

Okay, now we have cleared that up, let us look at PalmOS PDAs that has wi-fi capability. Currently they are;

Handera 330 with any CF wifi card (i.e. Pretec) – Nazley has such a setup
Palm m505 or m515 with Xircom wi-fi sled – at RM1500 just for the sled, it is a ludicrous option indeed. I have yet to meet anyone crazy enough to buy one 😉
Tungsten T with Guyver sled plus any PC wi-fi card – the adaptor itself cost RM760. Did anybody actually buy one?
Tungsten C – it has built-in wi-fi
Clie NX70V/NZ90/NX73/NX80V/G with PEGA-WL100 or PEGA-WL110 – a lot of us has such a setup. Myself included 🙂

Since the much talked about SD wi-fi card is yet to be released, I wont discuss that option here.

Handera 330 with any CF wifi card

Nazley has written plenty about his experience with the first option. Allow me to list some of them below;

Tue, 05 Nov 2002 00:27:00 +0800
I have “played” around with a CF Wi Fi on my HandEra. It works great and does not consume too much power as I expected. 30 min of email + surfing only eats up 10% of my HE power. My CF modem on the other hand really “drinks” juice 😛

Mon, Mar 24, 2003 11:04 am
I *WAS* able to go WiFi until Airzed and Timebroadband started to implement the Login Page. I think Airzed Login page requires some sort of certificate authentication that PalmOS browser don’t support. I tried using Avantgo, Blazer, and Pocket Link.

My setup … a HandEra plus a Pretec WLAN CF card.

Now, I can only do wifi at Airzed KLCC … sometimes the system there is wide open. No need to log in. Anyone here know an Open Network I can get into ??

Let me summarise from the above postings, a wi-fi capable Handera 330 wont be able to log on onto Airzed since none of its browsers support SSL.

Palm m505 or m515 with Xircom wi-fi sled

Although I have yet to handle any one of these “beauties”, based on the fact their browsers also don’t support SSL, the above configuration also wont be able to log on onto Airzed.

Tungsten T with Guyver sled plus any PC wi-fi card

Those who are interested in the Guyver sled, please click here for more information. But if you’re hoping to log onto Airzed using it, then don’t bother. Tungsten T runs on OS 5.0, therefore you wont be able to install Web Browser 2.0. Instead you’ll have to be contented with the bundled Novarra Web Pro browser. Based on my reading, it doesn’t seem to support SSL, therefore it wont be able to log on onto Airzed. (update 7/10/03 – Install Web Browser Pro 3.0, then you’ll be able to log on onto Airzed).

Tungsten C

I have yet to play around with the Tungsten C, therefore I am not really able to confirm on its “compatibility” with Airzed. Based on my readings from here, I noted that T|C is bundled with PalmSource Web Browser 2.0. This browser supports SSL 3.0 along with other Internet standards such as HTML 4.01, Javascript 1.5, cHTML, etc. Therefore theoritically it should be able to log on onto Airzed.

If I ever comes across a T|C, I promise to check on it 🙂

Clie NX70V/NZ90/NX73/NX80V/G with PEGA-WL100 or PEGA-WL110

NX70V comes with the Netfront Access browser. The NX73, NZ90 & NX80V/G comes with NetFront 3. NetFront does supports SSL, therefore it is possible to log on onto Airzed. And I am glad to confirm that it does. After 2 separate outings to check it out, I am glad to report that it is indeed possible.

Configuring Your Clie

	Click on Preferences and select Network. From within Network, select “Service: Wireless LAN”. Then click on “Details”. You’ll get the screen as illustrated on the left side. Give it a ProfileName. For SSID, leave it as “Any”. WEP as none, ConnectMode as “Infrastructure”. Once done, click on the “Advanced Setup” button.
	Set the following page as illustrated on the left side. Once done, click “OK”.
	Run the NetFront browser. Make sure that it is the Wireless LAN connection that is triggered open by the browser. You will get the screen as illustrated on the left side. Enter your username & password, then click the Login button. It it is difficult to do so, you may want to use the “Zoom” feature.
	Success! You can now start surfing. The picture also showed the CLIENetMon in action. It is available from the installation CD. It shows all the info that is related to your connection. Warning! Please convert to the default SilkSkin if you’re using the TnSilkChanger v 0.3b. Otherwise there wont be any data transferred at all! This software related abnormalities occurs with all form of network connection, even GPRS and GSM data transfer.
	Just to show that it is actually possible to surf using the Airzed connection!

Conclusion

I could finally make use of my Airzed account with my PDA. Hurray!