In the ever changing world of tech there is constant reinvention, and it seems that various offerings come full circle every few years – notice how in the years before smartphones (sic) PDAs were all the rage – I remember us trialling a couple of ipaqs and being won over because they could do everything a latop could do except with a smaller, harder to read screen and an OS that needed more reboots than windows mobile.
(As a footnote to that I’ve moved from the iPhone to an HTC S620 for migratory reasons – the phone has not migrated rather we have from it’s native network – and day 2 it’s had to be rebooted, same old jerky menu navigation issues – hoping W7 phone OS is going to be an improvement)
But other than that a great bit of kit! Fast forward a few years and you can take your pick of sub £300 sub notebooks (isn’t that what they used to be called last time around?) that will do the same job. You can even get them without keyboards….
On to the point, for our passenger check-in process on the Scillonian III we have two stages, the first one where you hand your ticket over and it’s checked by one of our staff (it’s barcode scanned if you printed it out!) and returned, you will also be handed a boarding pass.
You then move into the area that technically is of no return, similar to a departure lounge at an Airport only with more water – make your way to the boarding ramp and your boarding card is taken from you, once everyone is on all cards are counted up and checked against the computer system, away you go.
This is the process as it has been approved by the MCA – we can make applications to change the process but we can’t change the process until approved.
And here’s where we get to the EDA – the new name for PDA/Smartphone/etc, the Enterprise Digital Assistant – what we hope will give us an improved system as well as service. If we can get a reliable, small, weather resistant device and stand next to or on the ship with it we can dispense with the extra work and hopefully make things move a bit quicker.
With the advent of 5ghz wireless we are finding connections are more secure, so are now confident about deploying this equipment, after a respectable testing period of course, so if you sail with us this year keep your eyes peeled – you might spot one of our staff using one of these!
More on this as things develop – but the handset is one of the few decent looking units we’ve been able to find at a reasonable price point – 2D barcode scanning requirement a minimum.
