Fast Loading Links

This page has been formatted for optimal access using a Pocket PC
The Pocket PC normally confronts the Internet user with three barricades to viewing and browsing that may initially discourage, but can actually be overcome with a minimum of effort.

The first hurdle is speed.  If you are mobile, you may have a modem, but more likely a wireless connection that will limit the download speed significantly, especially if you have become used to "broad band" page loading speeds.

The second limit is screen real estate, complicated with unrelated images and advertisements competing for space. While 240x320 doesn't sound like that much less than a 1280x1024 desktop screen, it works out to be only 6% of the total pixel area.

Finally, the fences put in place by frames and Java can corral you into an unwanted corner.   Using Pocket Internet Explorer, you are given the ability to manipulate frames by tapping the frame border, holding and sliding the frame smaller or closed.  PPC version 2002 provides the great option of tapping and holding within any frame and selecting "Goto Frame" which opens it alone... great improvement!



The following links are samples of the "meat" drawn from the focus of the cluttered, slow loading pages that are the subject of the Pocket PC Magazine article titled "Making the Most of Constrained Connections." by your's truly. (When you click the above, scroll down to Constrained Connections and click on the link.)

Since this page is targeted at Pocket PC users, clicking on the links below will take you directly to the raw information, but you will have to press your "Back" arrow or button to return to this page.

When using a Pocket PC to view each of these links, take a moment to tap and toggle the "Fit to Screen" setting under "View"  A quirk in Pocket Internet Explorer will also require that you tap one of the screen scroll bars to complete the toggle to the different resolution.  You will find that the "Fit to Screen" gives a good quick overview of the image and turning it off immediately gives you full image resolution to view the fine details reachable by scrolling to the section of the image you need to view.


The first group are "Drill Down" sites... taking the time to find exactly what you need and loading only the actual image or finding the sites that give the most information using the lowest bandwidth.  These examples are all weather... something that most of us are interested in viewing on a daily basis, but the principals will work with a high percentage of information sites.

Weather

National NextRad
Central Texas NextRad
Austin NextRad
Noaa-Radar Location Picker
Noaa-H2O
Noaa-H2O Big
Noaa-IR
Noaa-IR+Radar Combined

Noaa-Visible  ...First, stop and ask yourself... "Is the Sun Shining?" ;-)
Noaa-Visible High Res
Tropic H2O
Tropic IR
Tropic Text
Map NA
Map US
Austin-10Day
Austin-Forecast

The following are sites that are already structured for PocketPC's  the list below contains a couple of links that took a while to find as they were designed to be accessed using other methods such as Avantgo.
PPC Sites
PocketNow
PPC Magazine
Lookups
Austin Movies
Google

News

Goggle News
MSNBC
Yahoo Mobile
PC World
Wired
Non Sequitur
Utility
Speed Test IT


A Few Details;

Tropical GOES Water Vapor

Atlantic Hurricane Region.  If you live on or near the East or Gulf Coast or on islands in the Caribbean or Atlantic, these links could be important.  In addition to providing vital storm information at a glance, this particular blank and white image can be extremely beautiful depending on the current conditions.

National Hurricane Center Text Page

This site is the text based page for navigating to the multiple information pages for each tropical storm.  Since there may be multiple storms active at any one time, the images and other graphics have file names that are specific to each storm so that pre loading image names is not possible.

The "Graphics" links within these pages are particularly suitable and useful when accessing them using a Pocket PC.  One of the best is the new "Strike Probabilities" graphic.


North American Weather Map

This is a traditional "weather map" for those who are still familar with them.  If you are viewing this on your PPC, it is really only usable with "Fit to Screen" not checked.

National NextRad Radar Mosaic (Location Picker)

This is the Full Web Page that contains the above image which will allow you to tap a location and go to the radar page for that location.  When you get there, you will find that it is a complex page where the actual radar image is only a part of the page, but, on a PC it will allow you to find the url for the image alone to build your own fast load favorite.

I keep this link in my favorites to give me weather radar options when traveling out of my home region.

Austin Texas Forcast Page

Enter your own zip code and determine the url for your current location.



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