There must be 4 technologies for your mobile office

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Everything changes when you turn your desktop into a laptop and your office into a hotel room.

Sometimes this is for the best: You are free from your cage and free to go where your work takes you.

But sometimes things get worse. Productivity suffers when you are in an unfamiliar place. The way a laptop keyboard connects your hands is sometimes enough to keep you from doing the right job.

Here are four must-haves for mobile office technology, along with some tools that can increase your productivity when you're away.

The right software

Not only do you download the required applications on your laptop or PDA, it is also important to know if the applications are suitable for a mobile office. Is your email program built to the road or adapted from a larger application designed for a corporate network? Do programs work together on your laptop or freeze when your processor is busy?

These considerations can become a big problem when traveling. Who knows Tab Stone, a doctor from Los Angeles, but too good. He installed a new email program on his laptop before starting a recent trip, but it was not suitable for mobile use. He had to remove it shortly before startup, but this disables his email backup program. This means that he could not download messages to his PC. "I couldn't fix what was corrupted by a new download or a copy downloaded from the Internet," Stone recalls.

Most recent: Contact management software allows you to integrate data with your PDA, allowing you to download and synchronize contacts, calendar appointments, and notes with your Palm Pilot or Pocket PC. There is also a web-based version for travelers who lose their laptops or prefer to work from a desktop at their destination.

What comes next? Look for more integration between applications for wireless users. Contact managers already take on the role of an email program, an address book and a database. The next step is to make it more accessible to people who use cell phones or PDAs.

The right hardware

I’m not talking about owning the latest laptop computer. I’m talking about hardware made for street life. Face it: many gadgets that mobile phone professionals rely on are not made with travelers in mind. For example, when Joachim Martin's laptop battery ran out on a recent flight, an assistant stewardess offered to charge it in a "secret" shop at the back of the plane. "Charge the batteries," thinks the software developer. "But when I got home, they were dead." The power supply had to be replaced. It’s the fault of the airline, the battery manufacturer or even the unfortunate business traveler who doesn’t know better, but this kind of thing happens often. Phone plugs don’t always fit; also no power outlets. And most of the gadgets we rely on are hostile to travelers, impractical or both.

Last: Some hardware manufacturers meet the demand for traveler-friendly hardware with add-ons such as the Stowaway XT keyboard. I was also impressed with Microsoft's Optical Mini Mouse, which frees you from the limitations of your laptop's fingerprint indicator.

What comes next? As the convergence between phones, PCs and PDAs continues, I wouldn’t be surprised to see devices that offer the ergonomic comfort of a desktop with PDA portability. It will not be a moment too early for many street fighters.

Straight connections

The connections are all for the mobile office.

Remember Stone, the doctor without email? He eventually gained access to his messages through an awkward web connection. Spencer Field, who recently returned from a trip to Melbourne, can also tell you about email issues. Upon arrival, he learned that the dial-up numbers to his Internet Service Provider (ISP) were not working. “I thought this was probably the end of my online access,” he says. "As a last resort, I let my fingers go and check out the Melbourne Yellow Pages for a local ISP." He found one and signed up for a month-long email account that gave him access to local numbers all the way.

Not only internet connections are important but also connectivity to other devices such as mobile phones, PDAs and laptops. Technologies like Bluetooth allow you to communicate with other devices in an office or hotel room without the need for cables.

Last: According to a recent AT&T study, the biggest barrier to working from a remote location is access to a high-speed data connection. High-speed wireless networks can be found everywhere in hotels, airport lounges and coffee shops. And even though Bluetooth started with ns are so important to the mobile office that I’ve decided to give them their own category, even though they technically belong in the “software” section. The web is one of the most efficient ways for a mobile worker to gain access to a back-office system, intranet or database.

My ISP offers a rudimentary application that lets me check my email from the web. I can’t remember how often I’ve had to use it because my email program failed to work properly. But I do remember the last time. I was stuck at an out-of-town meeting and my email account had sustained a spam attack thousands of unsolicited messages that would have taken hours to download. Instead, I logged on to the web and deleted them all in seconds. Were it not for the web application, I would probably still be downloading the spam.

The latest: One of the most innovative Web applications is GoToMyPC, which lets you access the desktop in your home or office through the web. Another useful application for mobile users is web conferencing services such as Microsoft Office LiveMeeting.

What’s next? Expect these applications to become cheaper, more reliable and even more sophisticated.