Goodbye operators, page it yourself with notify!<\/p>\n
By Zatni Arbi<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): \"So, you're now a Simatupang,\" a friend said to
\nme some time ago when she learned I always had a pager with me.
\nActually, \"Simatupang\" is the name of a clan in Tanah Batak,
\nNorth Sumatra. One acquires the name at birth or through
\ndeliberate rituals involving all the clan's elders.<\/p>\n
I've never been a Simatupang in that sense. The word she used
\nwas actually the abbreviation of \"Siang Malam Tunggu Panggilan\",
\nor \"on call day and night\". This, unluckily, is the image
\nassociated with people who carry a pager. In our society, where
\npublic image -- no matter how false -- is so important and so
\ncrucial, a pager cannot be compared with a handphone. Indonesians
\nwill chat through their handphones for a long time in public, but
\nthey very rarely have the courage to read their pagers in the
\npresence of others because pagers are only for the lowly
\nprofessions.<\/p>\n
As Nick Louth's article in last Monday's newspaper forewarned,
\nin more advanced societies the tiny chirping box is undergoing a
\nfundamental transformation. A good friend of mine, a businessman
\nfrom Singapore, for instance, leaves his handphone off and tells
\nhis staff and clients to page him instead. He only uses his
\nhandphone to reply to messages. For a person who rakes in the
\nmoney, he is indeed a stark contrast to the Indonesians who talk
\nendlessly into their handphones. But, more than that, he
\ndemonstrates that a pager user can actually be perfectly
\nrespectable.<\/p>\n
What is it that makes the pager a more powerful communication
\ntool than a simple gadget usually associated with those who
\nengage in, shall we say, the private entertainment business? It
\nis the enhancement of the basic paging service.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of PT Sky Telindo Services, I was able to test drive
\ntwo products that give a taste of these enhanced paging services.<\/p>\n
Notify!<\/p>\n
The first product was an interesting piece of software written
\nby Ex Machina, Inc., a New York based company that is also backed
\nby Delrina Corporation. Now, the moment I hear the name Delrina,
\nI know who is the big guy behind the product. People who use
\nWinFax Lite or WinFax Pro are familiar with the user-friendliness
\nand hassle-free installation of the products that have granted
\nDelrina such a strong presence in the PC-based communications
\nindustry.<\/p>\n
This particular product, notify!intro, is the entry level of
\nthe software package that enables users -- using a PC and modem
\n-- to send messages directly to a pager. As you can see in the
\naccompanying illustration, the program's screen interface looks
\nexactly like a pager. PT Sky Telindo Services will soon be
\ndistributing a customized version of this software, allowing
\nmessages to be sent to the company's pagers without the
\nassistance of an operator. The tentative price list will be Rp
\n250,000. It sells for US$119 in America.<\/p>\n
Why is notify! better than dictating your message to the
\noperator over the phone? With this software, you can type in your
\nown message. Not only does that give complete privacy and allow
\npersonal messages to be sent without embarrassment, you can also
\nedit and spell-check the message before it is sent. I sent a 240
\ncharacter message in English to a friend using this beta version
\nof notify!intro for SkyTel, and the recipient was surprised to
\nsee there was no spelling errors. Suppose you have a list of
\ndifficult and unusual terms -- such as the names of chemical
\nsubstances used to produce a drug -- to be sent to your
\npurchasing staff, would you feel confident that the operator
\nwould be able to type it in accurately? Of course you would feel
\na lot better if you typed the list on your PC and sent it with
\nyour modem.<\/p>\n
It is also the safest way to send messages in foreign
\nlanguages, such as Mandarin and Japanese (if the recipient's
\npager is equipped to receive and display the characters). I doubt
\nit is easy to find an Indonesian operator who speaks these
\nlanguages.<\/p>\n
Installation of notify!intro is as straightforward as any
\nDelrina's WinFax software product. The software auto configures
\neverything for us and saves the correct parameters when the
\nprocess is completed. If you insist, you can still tweak these
\nparameters, although there may not be much you can do. The pager
\nservice number and the recipient PIN needs only be set once, and
\nwe're set.<\/p>\n
User-friendly<\/p>\n
On the bottom right of the on-screen pager, there are three
\nbuttons that can be clicked with a mouse. The Clear button
\ndeletes all the text in the green Message area. A pre-typed
\nsignature can be added by clicking on the Sign button. The
\nsignature can be your name or phone number. The message is sent
\nto the service center's computer simply by clicking the Send
\nbutton. In my tests, the message was received in less than three
\nseconds after the modem hung up.<\/p>\n
Being the entry level product, notify!intro can only send
\nmessages to a single pager through one paging company. The
\nsoftware must be reset for each new recipient. The high-end
\nnotify!classic offers more features.<\/p>\n
The advanced product can broadcast messages to groups of
\npagers. In addition, if you have a very long message -- something
\nmost operators would resent -- notify!classic can send it to the
\npagers in installments.<\/p>\n
I've also been told that notify!mobile can send an Excel
\nspreadsheet to a pager after the program converts the file into
\nits proprietary format.<\/p>\n
The notify!intro software requires a Windows-based PC and a
\nmodem. My only wish is that the text entry function had more of
\nthe features of a typical word processor. An automatic spell-
\nchecker in Winword-style would be nice.<\/p>\n
WordSender<\/p>\n
If you don't have a PC and a modem at home, take heart. Here's
\nanother interesting gadget you can use right out of the box. Made
\nby Motorola, WordSender looks like an ordinary telephone set
\nequipped with a full QWERTY keyboard. It functions as a regular
\nphone until the \"Page\" or \"Speed dial\" key on the bottom left of
\nthe keyboard is pressed.<\/p>\n
In the picture of my cramped desk, you can see WordSender
\nbetween my keyboard and my mouse. It feels very sturdy, and as a
\ntelephone set it has great sound. A timer starts clicking when
\nthe receiver is picked up, and the elapsed time is displayed on
\nthe clear LCD screen.<\/p>\n
Relying on a 9V battery, WordSender can maintain up to 20
\nnames in its memory, each with a telephone number for speed
\ndialing and a paging service number plus a PIN. To send a message
\nto my wife's pager, for instance, I just press the Page key,
\nfollowed by either her directory number or her name. WordSender
\nis intelligent enough to match patterns, so that each time I type
\nthe first letter of my wife's name her entry will appear on the
\nscreen immediately. Then I hit the Return key (equivalent to the
\nENTER key) and start typing my message. When finished, I hit the
\nReturn key once again and the set will dial the number of the
\npaging service center and download the message to the center's
\ncomputer, which in turn will send it to the transmitter. Within
\nthree seconds my wife's pager will start to beep.<\/p>\n
I like WordSender very much, although its price tag of Rp
\n500,000 might make it hard to justify buying. People who become
\nfrustrated when their messages are misspelled will love it.
\nBesides a lower price, I wish WordSender had a full-sized numeric
\nkeypad in addition to the QWERTY keyboard. To keep the size
\nsmall, the numeric keypad could be made retractable. I assume
\nMotorola would have no problem designing it.<\/p>\n
Enhanced services<\/p>\n
Compared to handphones, pagers are going global much more
\nquickly. During the recent Non-Aligned Movement Summit in
\nCartagena, Colombia, for example, several Indonesian journalists
\ncovering the event were already carrying SkyTel pagers that
\nenabled them to receive messages from Indonesia in several of the
\ncities where the entourage stopped. The sender simply dialed the
\nlocal access number of the paging company. In fact, the
\njournalist were also able to send messages home by dialing the
\nlocal access number in many of the cities where they stayed.<\/p>\n
Nick Louth also briefed us about the two-way paging and paging
\ncards that can be inserted into a notebook or Personal Digital
\nAssistants to enable paged messages to be read on screen.
\nFurthermore, Roy Breslawski, HP product manager, recently told me
\nthat, after the Oklahoma bombing incident, police officers and
\nFBI agents in the field immediately got a picture of the suspects
\nthrough their paging system. In Hong Kong, people use pagers to
\nget the latest info on precious metals, stocks and currency. With
\nall these possibilities, it's hard to imagine that pagers will
\nforever belong only to those working in the private entertainment
\nbusiness.<\/p>",
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