Where your tech tools are headed. By Alisara Chirapongse, Top Koaysomboon and Gregoire Glachant.

Teaching cars how to look happy depending on the chemical balance of your sweaty palms may have topped the wishlist of every geek just a few months ago, but then, along came the recession. Now, it’s all about being faster, leaner and more collaborative—all that on a dime and without losing your rights to privacy and access. Here are the trends you need to follow if you want to keep your edge in a world where things become obsolete as soon as they hit the shelves.

BYE, BYE COMPUTER

Let’s start with the basics. You soon won’t have an office. So you can forget about that desktop, hell, you won’t even have a laptop. And you won’t store anything on a hard drive. Cheaper online storage and better web connections are driving a revolution where your computer is becoming a cheap screen and keyboard connected to the web. The best part of online storage is it makes it easier to share and collaborate with others. This process of working online, through your web browser (as opposed to Office, for example) and storing that work online is called Cloud Computing. The side effect of Cloud Computing is netbooks—little laptops with small hard drives and little processing power that are perfect for working online. (See Top Netbooks.) Here are some cool Cloud Computing websites to get you started:

Google Documents

http://docs.google.com

What - Google provides online clones of Powerpoint, Word, Excel and Acrobat Reader that don’t exactly rival MS (or Open) Office but do allow for easy online sharing.
How - Start a new document in Google Docs or import a file from an MS Word or Excel file. It’s really flexible. Once you’re done, export or share it online.
Perks - Unlimited storage but there is a limit on how the size of each file you can upload—up to 500k for word docs, 1MB for spreadsheets, 10MB for presentations and 10MB for PDF files. You can also use Google Docs to export files into PDF formats.
Supported Files: OpenOffice (.odt, .ods) and Microsoft Office (.doc, .xls, .ppt, .pps).
Price -  Free

MobileMe

www.apple.com/mobileme

What -  MobileMe is a program that helps Mac users synchronize their contacts, emails, files and pictures between their laptop, iPhone and iPod Touch.
How - Once you sign up you will get an account on me.com, where all your information is stored. It will automatically copy everything that is on your Outlook or contact list and then send this to your other device almost instantly. Just took a photo with your iPhone? It will get uploaded to your MobileMe server at the same time as it’s being sent to the photo album on your Macbook. It’s almost like magic!
Perks -  As most of the world is still running on Windows, MobileMe also allows you to synchronize your data with PCs. MobileMe initially gives you 20GB for one year—a touch small for pictures!
Supported Devices: Computers and laptops running Mac OS 10.4 or later and Windows XP or Vista, iPhone and iPod Touch.
Price - B3,140 at iStudio, 2/F Zone F, CentralWorld, Ratcharamri Rd., 02-613-1540/1. www.istudio.in.th.

SugarSync

www.sugarsync.com

What - MobileMe for non-iPhone users.
How - See MobileMe. The only difference: it synchronizes your files (documents, photos, music, etc), as well as your emails or contacts.
Perks - Since your phone browses for files through the internet, any phone with an internet browser and wifi or EDGE can use SugarSync.
Supported Devices -  PCs running Windows XP and Vista and Macs running OS 10.4 or later. For mobiles, it works with BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and iPhone.
Price -  You can download the starter pack for US$24.99 (B904) a year, which gets you 10GB of storage.

Live Mesh

www.mesh.com

What - Microsoft’s very own cloud synching program to make your Windows computer talk to your Windows Mobile phone. Live Mesh’s forte is collaboration; its Mesh Bar shows who on your team is currently logged on, viewing, or editing files.
How -  You sign up for an account, log onto your Live Mesh and start your synching. If you share your Live Mesh with your work group, you can also see a list of colleagues who are currently viewing the file on the Mesh Bar.
Perks -  The “Live Desktop” is an online desktop where your files and folders are stored. Changes will then be synched with your other devices working with Live Mesh.
Suported Devices -  Windows XP or Vista and mobile phones running Windows Mobile 6 or later.
Price -  It’s free to sign up for the Windows Live account, which gets you 5GB of storage.

NEED FOR SPEED

While netbooks are one way to ditch the traditional desktop/laptop, you’re also going to be getting a lot more done on your phone. You need the right phone, of course (see iPhone Killers), but you also need a decent connection. 3G is the next big thing in data transmission, with speeds from 2MB per second, up to 14MB per second. That’s better than a lot of home connections! Cambodia and Vietnam may already have 3G, but according to the TOT, Thailand won’t get it until the end of 2009. Meanwhile, you’re stuck using Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE). It’s not 3G but it’s already up to three times faster than GPRS, the previous standard. So, who’s got the edge on edge?

AIS 1175, www.ais.co.th

Regardless whether you’re a privileged Serenade Club member or a lowly pre-pay customer, the charge for unlimited EDGE is B39 a day or B999 a month. The AIS service is by far the most economical in town. The speed is at 384kbps if you’re in the city but it shouldn’t ever drop below 114kbps. Also if you’re not a heavy user, AIS also offers packages from three to 250 hours, or you can go with their rate of B1 a minute for a quick flick through Facebook.

DTAC 1678, www.dtac.co.th

DTAC might be big on phone packages, but they can’t offer the best deals for online addicts. For unlimited usage at 384kbps, the same speed as AIS, DTAC users have to dish out B1,070 a month. A cheaper option might be the smaller packages as the charges are just B32 for three, B53 for six and B105 for 40 hours.

True Move 1331, www.truemove.co.th.

At first glance, True’s new Mobile Hi-Speed package looks like a winner—B20 a day; B450 a month for unlimited wifi and EDGE. Sound too good to be true? Well it is. True’s wifi, rate of 256kbps, is slower than its competitors’ and its EDGE is a measly 160kbps.

PRIVACY AND ACCESS

Sure, the new rules mean you need to work hard and fast, but you also need to make sure you’re not getting screwed. The MICT (Ministry of Information and Communication Technology) has been putting a lot more effort into curtailing your access to websites than in promoting consumer rights (see Q&A FACT). Here’s how to watch your back.

AIS Call Center: 1175

AIS can help you fight off the spaSMS (a contraction of spam and SMS) only if you know the sender’s number. However, there are cases where the sender’s name shows instead of a number (such as ones from banks, events, etc). In that case you would have to call the culprits yourself. Once you know the number, you can call the AIS call center and have them block it. AIS also has a call screening service where you can automatically ignore calls from up to 10 specific phone numbers. That service will cost you B30 a month, though.

DTAC Call Center: 1678

Although they don’t have a policy on blocking numbers, you can contact them and report spaSMSers. Write down the sender’s name and/or number and the message details and give the info to DTAC. They can then investigate if it’s a service you have registered for or if it’s a spamathon. If it’s the latter, they can act on the case. DTAC does has an excellent tool to fight another kind of cellular annoyance—private numbers. Their B10 “No Number No Talk” service can automatically ignore those anonymous calls.

True Call Center: 1331

Yeah, True has everything—internet, music, cable TV and a cellular network—but they’re pretty far behind the others in terms of dealing with the nasty byproducts of advanced technology. Your only solution is to be a spammer yourself and repeadetly ring their call center and hope that they will finally get the message.

Changing Phone Networks without Changing Phone Numbers

Bad news: phone number portability is not possible as of now. The National Telecommunications Commission 
(02-271-0151/-60, www.ntc.or.th) had planned to put the policy into effect by 2008 but, as with almost all other telecommunication plans, the policy has now been delayed until late 2009. Good news: there is one exception, True Move’s new hard-binding-yet-mouth-watering iPhones contract allows you to keep your DTAC or AIS number.

Consumer Rights

The Telecommunications Consumer Protection Institute (TCI) was established in mid-2008 to act as a middleman between us and the tech companies. This is your go-to guy for complaints about your phone or web connection. So if your high speed internet is running at the pace of a 1998 dial-up, or you feel your monthly EDGE spending is a little too steep for its quality, the TCI is who you need to call. Their website also maintains a comprehensive list of the current Thai technology laws such as electronic transaction regulations as well as the infamous Cyber Crime Bill that helped send bloggers to prison for lèse majesté. Another section of the website that could be great is the mobile promotion comparison chart. It should list the latest offers from all the operators but currently just has those from AIS. This is still obviously a work in progress (we hope) as demonstrated by the “Statistic” page, which should list info about actual downtimes, and speeds for the different networks but currently just reads “Coming Soon.” Still, if you’d like to give it a try anyway, you can submit your complaint online at www.tci.or.th or call the hotline at 1200.