I have a now antique (i.e. 2005) PocketPC--an AudioVox XV6600 from Verizon, sporting the Vintage Windows Mobile 2003 operating system. I like every micrometer of my 2.75x2.1875" touchscreen (that extra .1875 inches makes a big difference!). Sure, I get laughed at parties for having the biggest phone* in the room (My favorite jibe yet--"is that a prop from the first Matrix movie?!" I wish I could remember from who). But when I pull important event information out by checking my email, oh, then they're grateful! Gmail's incredibly fast, and the search function has saved me in many a hairy situation.

But I recently discovered a quirk. When you click on a link in a gmail message, all your surfing thereafter is run through google. Google decides how to make the page mobile friendly--which is not always optimized for the page. Google also breaks up the page into sections, one of the only things I hate about mobile Gmail. (It's very frustrating than getting to the finishing the first page of an important email just as my BART train goes under the Bay. I CAN scroll, so I'd like to be able to.) So for example, the interface for the Movable Type software running this blog looks much uglier if I "surf" there by clicking on a link in my Gmail than if I copy and paste that same link into my browser window. The copying and pasting seems like an annoying extra step, but it's much better in the long run than letting Gmail decide what every webpage in the world should look like. They're not that great.

*I also get mocked because when my phone is in my purse, as it usually is at a party, I cannot hear it at all, no matter how loud the volume is turned up, using any of the standard ring tones. So last weekend Scotto came up with a solution to this, utilizing his famously powerful vocal cords. We recorded him (using my phone's built-in recorder) shouting at me that I have a phone call and should take the phone. Until I tried it in a very loud pub last night, I haven't missed a call since. Except that one time I left it in my office and came back to find baffled colleagues crowded around my door, wondering who was in there. . . .I haven't had a chance to change it, and while it's a bit inappropriate, it's so incredibly effective I'm thinking of leaving it there.