Getting your news on the AvantGo
by Gary Woods

I bought a new PDA the other day. It's a Dell Axim X5 with a 400 MHz processor, 64 Meg of RAM and 32 Meg of ROM. That's a lot of computing power to hold in your hand.

I usually build my own computers so it was interesting going through all the "value-added" stuff that showed up in a store-bought computer. Most of it was pretty straightforward, but there was something in the box that I'd never heard of before. It was called AvantGo.

You had to sign-up for AvantGo, but there didn’t seem to be any charge so I plowed ahead. The next time I stuck the handheld in the cradle it logged into the AvantGo website and there were all kinds of newspapers and magazines just waiting to be plucked. I signed up for The New York Times, MSNBC.com, CNET News.com, Sports Illustrated and USAToday. There are hundreds of publications from which to choose, ranging from financial, technical, sports, home and health, all kinds of stuff.

The basic free subscription to AvantGo gives you 2 Meg worth of news a day. If you desperately want every syllable of every story you can pay $19.95 for a yea r subscription and you'll get 8 Meg worth of data.

AvantGo works on both Palm OS and Pocket PC and you don’t have to wait to get a new handheld to try it. Just go to the website http://www.avantgo.com and start reading.

If you have any suggestions or questions for me please drop me a note at garyandlaury@santabarbaraproperties.com or see my column on the Internet at http://www.santabarbaraproperties.com or call me at (805) 729-0910