A couple of interesting and related articles on the BBC website today. The first reported that the symptoms felt by those living near mobile phone masts were “in the mind”. The research went on to conclude that “If you really believe something is going to do you some harm, it will.”.

This is good news for the company producing femtocell which essentially puts a mobile phone base station in your home and connects it to the internet. This means that those who have a poor signal at home will in future be able to continue to use their mobiles at home as they will connect to the femtocell and route the call via a broadband connection.

Both stores may not, however, have a happy ending. Those who feel the effects of living and working near mobile phone masts will continue to dispute the results and carry out their own studies. For femtocell the question is whether they are swimming against the tide of mobile devices that have wifi inbuilt that can connect to wireless routers and make voip calls cheaper than using a mobile.

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Today AppSwing are releasing some applications that we had written for our clients but could be useful for others too so you can now download them from our site. What the apps do is allow you to put an icon on the desktop of your device (either BlackBerry or Windows Mobile) and have it redirect to a fixed URL when started. Not earth shattering but still very useful and saving a few clicks which is all important on a small screen device.

You can get more information and download from the following link: http://www.appswing.com/ota

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An article at silicon.com discusses whether mobile devices rather than being a positive benefit in your life are actually bad for your work/life balance. I guess that this depends on how you deal with it. I have auto on/off set on my device which helps but I have also started leaving my BlackBerry at home when I am out with the family and only taking a personal phone. This is better for all concerned.

However, looking at the early results from our mobile working survey it seems that one of the strongest outcomes recorded by those that are doing some form of non-email related mobile working is an improved work/life balance. Maybe the biggest gain in this area is when you do more with the device than simply email. That will come out as the survey progresses and we analyse the results.

Read the original article here.

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AppSwing are interested to know if your company is already getting the benefits of mobile working or if you haven’t already implemented, when and if you plan to. We are currently running what will become an annual mobile working survey. With no more than six questions from start to finish it isn’t very onerous and for completing it you could win a BlackBerry Curve courtesy of RIM.

If you haven’t already done so you can enter here results will be published in the Autumn.

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For the second year AppSwing is taking part in a scheme that sees university students placed with industry for eight weeks during the summer. The scheme is great from us as it allows the business to take a look at things that we might not otherwise get time to look at.

Last year we had two students with us. One who produced what is now released as AppSwing Management Console and the other produced a proof of concept for a product that is to be released this October. This year Peter Bodin is with us and is working on a POC for another long term project.

For the student not only does it give them some funds over the summer but also allows them to see what it is really like to work in a development environment. Every student that passes through the company is subject to the same processes and procedures as any other member of the team and is mentored during the period to ensure that they get the most out of the experience.

It has been good for both company and individual and I would thoroughly recommend it. We have so far only taken IT students but they could be from any discipline.

Find out more details at http://www.step.org.uk/

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