your net:// Net wapping in the wop-wops

PETER SINCLAIR discovers the pleasure of go-anywhere access to the internet.

I hate gadgets. Each new gizmo simply confirms what I've always suspected is true - I'm technologically dyslexic.

I'm always a couple of beats behind, the last to embrace the microwave/VCR/pager/camcorder/Palm or whatever the toy of the moment happens to be. Suddenly I'm out of the loop as everyone else starts talking reverently in numerals and initials.

But for once this gadgetophobe is at the crest of the techno-cultural wave. I've got a wap phone.

Wap - another of the graceless acronyms that suddenly clatter into the language - lets you engraft yourself to the web with a mobile phone.

The phone I tried is a stunningly, James Bondish, big-screen Nokia 7110 (http://nokia-asia.com/main.html) with a clickable Navi-Roller to help thread your way through its many cool options, just like a mouse. It's so intuitive I didn't have to look at the manual once.

Setting up a wap account with Vodafone is a little more complicated. You visit the My Vodafone website (www.vodafone.net.nz) from your PC to customise your preferences, although soon you will be able to programme the myWap portal direct from the phone.

You set your preferences for InfoServices (news, weather and so on) and utilities such as single or repeating alerts. There are wap bookmarks to add (because it's much easier entering them here than on the mobile itself), an address book to fill, and maybe you will want to send someone a text message.

It's a bit of a chore, but you are soon ready to surf, and for the hurried, the hassled, the far from home, it's a great way of staying in touch - news and entertainment on the run.

Wap in the wops will be as much a boon for truckies who want to keep up with the score as it is for road-warriors who need to keep an eye on a spooked market. There is no longer any good reason why you shouldn't be out on the gulf hauling in snapper while keeping up with the world.

I'm a tennis fan, so the first address I entered was Wimbledon (wap.wimbledon.org), and as you'd imagine they did wap wonderfully well - several bulletins a day, with order of play and constant score updates. Then it was down the road to the Beeb, who are as wap-enabled as it's possible to be at this stage.

Sending and receiving e-mail was, for me, a key feature of the wap experience - once you get it configured. It took me and Vodafone two or three goes. You are no longer tied to the apron-strings of your computer and can check your e-mail wherever and whenever you please.

But sending e-mail, given keypad constraints, is really only for emergencies - typing anything much longer than Hi and CU, even with the Navi-Roller, is a definite pain; as are the continual small delays while your phone is "Connecting to Service."

Roll on the roll-out of the new always-on mobile networks and new handheld computers pretending to be phones.

View wap demonstration

Download yourwap to view wapsites in your web browser

PC World articles:

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