Here you can see my standard today screen - in two flavours - standard and with WIS Bar running. The GPRS Monitor icon can be seen in the top 'Start' bar with it's companion Today plug in active immediately below the Battery Pack information data. Initially the start bar icon has a black background when it sits above WIS Bar but once the icon has been tapped the background appears transparent. Tapping on the Today plug in takes you immediately in to the chart displays. The Today plug in can be configured as to it's update interval and can show the battery panel, brightness panel, Pocket Internet Explorer icon and Inbox icon.
Tapping upon the icon brings up the summary data display which gives you data on the current connection (if connected) as well as battery and screen brightness indicators. Tapping on the connect button will immediately start a default dial up connection - much quicker than going through the connection manager. Tapping on the miniature usage graph takes you into the main chart display.	The initial Monthly costs (Online icon) chart displays cost information for past months. For myself this is showing my prepaid inclusive Vodaphone GPRS1 charge of £7.49 per month. If my cost had gone above my inclusive limit the charge graph would be increased in height.
The Daily costs chart shows the charges incurred on a daily basis - here they are very much below my data limit.	Switching to the online charts icon shows the graphical volume used per month - against the total 1Mb limit I have available under the GPRS1 tariff.
Online daily traffic can also be monitored - you can see here the increased usage when I had the occasional to go on to the web via Pocket Internet Explorer to check out some data.	The Report tab allows you to generate reports over any given period which can be saved as plain ASCII text files.
The Tools menu option allows you to configure the GPRS Monitor and to set which profile you are working with.	Here the Main Profile has been configured to use the Vodaphone (UK) GPRS1 tariff. If your selected tariff is not available as standard you can go online via the 'update' button and download an updated list of tariffs.....
..... more are being added on a regular basis. If your tariff is still not available you can add it as a custom tariff. Once added if you advise Spb of the tariff data they will be sure to add it to their list within a few days!	The tariff options are fully configurable even down to which day within the month your tariff starts.
You have to select which connection available on the PPC you wish to monitor.	One especially useful feature is the ability to configure the position of the task bar icon in the top tray along with which graphing option will appear in summary. The ability to move the position of the icon is a boon for those users running WIS Bar as you can move the icon out of the way of the WIS Bar icons.
The device information screen shows you which brightness data you can monitor and modify for your particular machine.	You can have multiple profiles configured to monitor various connection methods and tariffs.

Pro's and Con's

Pro's:

• Collected logging data is stored within the 'GPRS Monitor Data' folder within 'My Documents' which ensures your information is backed up via ActiveSync. Useful as well if you own multiple machines which you change between.
• Unique icon positioning facility ensures the application works well with all task bar skinning applications.
• The monitoring data collected allows you to keep a respectful eye of the remainder of your data remaining and the cost incurred.
• Monitor any connection; ActiveSync, Serial, Bluetooth, direct connection via Phone Edition GPRS link.
• Monitor your current data connection speed.
• Current GPRS data block usage monitoring.

Con's:

• The various charts can not be closed using the WIS Bar 'close' icon as it is not visible when viewing the charts. The only way of closing the chart is to either exit WIS Bar and use the standard minimise icon, or within WIS Bar to use the close application menu option.
• Background icon transparency is not always set correctly on loading.
• Large memory footprint - 519Kb on my iPAQ.

Suggestions:

• Allow the option of using line style charting over a monthly range, that way you could watch the line graph climb upwards towards your limit.
• Add the ability to generate warning messages when you get close to your data size limit.
• A useful addition to the Today plug in would be a wide, but then bar placed horizontally about the current data - red and green, showing a graphical percentage of how much of your GPRS allocation you have left that month.
• Add the feature to automatically detect which connection is being used and then switch to monitoring the correct profile automatically.

Conclusions:

The Spb GPRS Monitor has proved to be a most useful addition to both my iPAQ 3870 and the Jornada 928 (phone edition) Pocket PC's. It is now installed as one of the primary applications on my PPCs as it gives me the ability to monitor GPRS bandwidth usage and avoid high online costs.

The developers at Spb welcome feedback and will certainly investigate any new feature requests. I look forward to each new incarnation being developed.

Product	Spb GPRS Monitor
Manufacturer	Spb Software House
Cost:
Web Site:	Pocket Gear (Affliate Link)
Rating: