I'm a fairly gadget-addicted person. From the very first Palm Pilot to Tablet PC, I've been there, done that - and took every step inbetween as well.

And still, when judging the real-life usability of some of these products, I can't stop short of complaining. As I'm one of these folks who really likes to work outdoors and does so on every sunny day, I switched to Bluetooth/GPRS for my Pocket PC some time ago to allow for mobile access to email. Bluetooth is a really cool technology which allows me to keep my mobile phone in my pocket while establishing always-on GPRS connections.

Let me tell you: It just worked. Everytime. Without any problems. In a number of different countries, states and even continents. Fairly cool, indeed.

So I decided to go the same route with my Tablet PC. Thanks to some great forward-thinking designers, my device comes with a Compact Flash port which accepts the same Bluetooth card as my PDA (and btw. also the same memory cards as my digital camera, etc.).

Plug. Configure. Test. Works. --- Cool.

Put the system in standby. Move outdoors. Read a book. Check emails. --- Nothing works. Bluetooth receiver could no be found.

I'm currently able to accurately reproduce this behavior. Bluetooth works after restarting the system but ceases to do so after the first switch to standby-mode. Re-pluging the card doesn't help. Isn't this scary? Who the heck develops a device driver for mobile communication which ceases to work after switching to standby? Scary ... indeed.

But wait - this isn't a big problem. I still have my Pocket PC which allows me to check my emails. *Switch on*. Welcome to Pocket PC. Please configure your device.". Grpmf. Cool - my device decided to forget about all its data.

No problem, let's get back inside and check emails from there. Send and receive error .... It took me a while to figure out that my ISP decided to disable my account because I reached my download limit (yes - VS.NET 2003 has been released this month). They didn't send me a warning email or anything but just disable the account. Well, I'm about to leave for the US tomorrow, so I definitely needed internet access today to download some stuff in the meantime. "Fortunately" the friendly staff at my ISP offered to upgrade my account to a level which enables them to bill the additional traffic to me. Unfortunately, this new level costs twice as much as the old one for the same 8 Gigs. This additional 60 bucks is just for the possiblity that they can bill me the horrendous amount of 50 bucks per additional Gig. Weird, isn't it? Sorry folks - I'll cancel my account as soon as I'm back from the States.

Let's recap:

• Bluetooth doesn't work with my Tablet
• Pocket PC lost all its data
• The ISP disabled my account and charges 60 more bucks each month to allow them to bill me yet even more

It's days like this which really make me look forward to boarding my plane tomorrow.