Wednesday, June 25, 2003
MSN Mobile - No Canadians Allowed?
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 01:00 PM
One of the new "features" in Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC is the addition of a Pocket MSN icon. This launches Pocket Internet Explorer and takes you to the MSN Mobile site, which technically isn't exactly new. I connected my iPAQ 2215 to my WiFi network using a Socket Wireless card, and the zero config was nice - it detected the network, then it prompted me for the WEP key in a nice pop-up window, and I was on. Nice!
Here's what's not so nice: after I logged into MSN Mobile with my Passport account, I decided to check out the weather. It prompted me for my postal code (that's the Canadian version of a zip code), which I thought was strange considering that information is part of my Passport profile. I started to enter it in, then to my amazement, it stopped me after FIVE digita! Canadian postal codes are six digits long (T3L 2M9, etc.), so I am unable to check the weather, or do anything that requires my postal code. Bad Microsoft, bad! It's also cheesy that the Passport sign-in screen isn't optimized for the Pocket PC screen - big honkin' horizontal scroll bars. Doen't anyone at Microsoft actually use a Pocket PC to check their own services? :roll:
Here's what's not so nice: after I logged into MSN Mobile with my Passport account, I decided to check out the weather. It prompted me for my postal code (that's the Canadian version of a zip code), which I thought was strange considering that information is part of my Passport profile. I started to enter it in, then to my amazement, it stopped me after FIVE digita! Canadian postal codes are six digits long (T3L 2M9, etc.), so I am unable to check the weather, or do anything that requires my postal code. Bad Microsoft, bad! It's also cheesy that the Passport sign-in screen isn't optimized for the Pocket PC screen - big honkin' horizontal scroll bars. Doen't anyone at Microsoft actually use a Pocket PC to check their own services? :roll:
