Although most people use PDAs as electronic schedulers and notepads, you can also use them as portable technical support tools. With the right utilities and accessories, you can use your PDA to analyze your wireless or wired network -- and recoup some of your investment as well. PDAs aren't cheap, but the more you can do with one, the easier it'll be to justify the cost. I'm going to describe how to choose and use a Compaq iPAQ as a network support tool. I'll also recommend some tools and accessories that will help you do the job. Author's equipment For the purposes of this article, I used Compaq's iPAQ PocketPC 3850, but that's not to say that other PocketPC or Palm OS-based PDAs can't do the job. Likewise, I won't be offering an exhaustive list of every hardware/software combination you can use to turn your iPAQ into a portable network testing tool. There are so many options that I can't possibly cover them all, so I've listed some of my favorites to help you get started. Selecting the right iPAQ
As you can tell by looking at Compaq's Web site, several iPAQ models are available to choose from. The model you select should have at least 64 MB of RAM. Two distinct classes of iPAQ are currently available: those using the strongARM processor and the 3900 series using the new PXA250 400-MHz Intel processor. Several vendors I spoke to are just now getting this newer model in the labs for testing, so keep in mind that some of the programs I'll be discussing may not run on the newer processor. Once you've selected an iPAQ, you'll need to purchase some accessories. The ones you need will depend on how you'll use your iPAQ.
At a minimum, you'll need to purchase the Single PC Card Sleeve. The street price for this is around $125. This will let you use either PC Card-type network cards or a Compact Flash card with a CF-to-PC Card adapter. You can buy a dual PC Card sleeve for the iPAQ, but at $199, it's a little pricier than the single PC Card sleeve. Although it's not a requirement for any of the programs I'll be discussing here, I suggest that you consider getting at least a 32-MB memory card for your iPAQ, and preferably a 64-MB card. This will let you quickly back up the iPAQ to a memory card, enabling a fast recovery if you need to do a hardware reset. Having a quick backup certainly beats having to reinstall and reconfigure all of your applications. I learned this lesson the hard way when I applied one of the ROM updates for my 3850. It reinitialised the memory in the machine during installation, and I lost everything on it.