One of my favorite Christmas presents from my dad, a few years ago, was a "Leatherman" Wave multi-function tool. I still use it constantly, I carry it in my computer bag and it is on my belt most weekends. Scissors, pliers, knives, saw, screw-drivers and more instantly at my finger tips. Today my cell phone/pocket pc is becoming just as useful and essential.

I have used both a cell phone and a pocket pc for several years. Last spring I switched to a single combination device. I now have email and internet access when-ever and where-ever I need it. It synchronizes wirelessly with my desktop calendar and contact book. I also have the pocket version of the whole Microsoft Office programs on it as well. Powerpoint presentations, spreadsheets and text documents can be viewed, edited and created on the run. I can access Internet radio and podcasts, check news, markets and weather radar while in the field.

The Bluetooth option allows me to connect with other devices such as my laptop, a headset, a portable printer and my GPS. I use a variety of Windows Mobile software for field work. The GPS allows me determine the quickest/shortest way to get to my next destination and collect field data using one of the pocket GIS systems I use.

Here is a real example of how this device worked in action this fall. A suspected soybean rust sample was submitted to our University of Illinois Extension Distance Diagnostics system. This generated an email to each of the six soybean rust diagnosticians. In less than 15 minutes that email causes the alert on my phone to go off. I read the email and then accessed the Distance Diagnostics website and examined images of the sample that had been brought in to a county extension office. It was suspicious, but did not look like rust to me. To get a second opinion, I started my Communicator, instant messaging program, which showed me which of my colleagues were currently at their desks. I started a real-time chat with one of them asking him to pull up the sample and look at it on his larger office computer screen. He agreed that it was not rust and I sent an email to the county office to inform them that it was not.

If it had needed further investigation I could have activated my GPS and plugged the sample location information into the navigation program on my pda-phone and found the quickest way to the field and an estimated time of arrival. I could forward this information on to the local office or client to meet me there. While at a rest stop on the way, I could also have gone online and looked up the latest fungicide information and printed that on my battery-powered Bluetooth printer. Ready to hand to the client on my arrival.

You can find out a lot more about this kind of technology at the IT4AG meeting being held on December 13 , 9AM at the Interstate Center in Bloomington. Contact the McLean Extension Office for registration call (309) 663-8306. Maybe this is the ideal gift for the farmer in your life.