BlackBerry mobile phone software for engineers

[afcrool]

Hi, a theoretical question aimed at gas engineers. I'm part of a small team developing applications for BlackBerry mobile phones and we are looking to produce a product for gas engineers whether one person businesses or larger operations.

Features will be along the lines of.

1. Job scheduling and management (jobs scheduled from partner, secretarial service or web pages?).
2. Automatic creation of invoices and mailing out (as a service?).
3. Ability to look up parts manuals for part numbers and pictures of parts for identification.
4. Ability to check up parts inventories by linking online to wholesalers.
5. Ability to follow fault finding flow diagrams to aid resolution of problems on boilers etc.
6. Calendar regular visits for services and certificates.
7. Reference regulatory manuals and documentation.
8. Produce regulatory documentation such as safety certificates.

BlackBerry does all the usual stuff such as working as a mobile phone and storing contacts. Plus it can do other jobs such as turn by turn sat-nav. Pricing yet to be defined but likely a monthly fee.

Idea being to provide an easy to use professional tool for engineers to use to help them when out and about with an emphasis on managing the admin and paper work, in particular getting invoices out promptly, and in identifying parts needed quickly in order to reduce waiti times for customers.

I think Corgi had a bash at doing something on Windows Mobile PDAs like this a while back which never really worked.

I'd be real interested any feedback and

[Adrian C]

Is the blackberry handset qualified as intrinsically safe in an explosive environment?

[Alan]

No From the documentation on the blackberry site

The BlackBerry device is not an intrinsically safe device and is not suitable for use in hazardous environments, where such devices are required, including without limitation, in presence of gas fumes, explosive dust situations, operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or communication services, air traffic control, and life support or weapons systems.

[Graham.]

But, as any air hostess will tell you, they do have a flight-safe mode.

Actually, this is something I haven't really thought about, I well understand the dangers, albeit theoretical, of hand held transmitters in petrol forecourts, and it makes sense to extend the precaution to other potentially explosive situations, but as things stand, are gas engineers required or advised not to take phones into these situations?

[geoff]

In message , Graham. writes

When JCB went through the gas pipe at the entrance to our estate, one of the gas "engineers" (as you like to call them) was standing there smoking a roll up looking down into the hole

a) not hot enough

b) domestic gas is only explosive between 5 and 15% concentration

I think that the practical possibility of a mobile phone causing an explosion is somewhere on the region of zero

[Bill]

In message , geoff writes

This sort of discussion always reminds me of a talk on risk I remember from years back. "Are you willing to take a risk if the odds are 1000 to 1?" Most people would say "yes." "OK here is a jar with 1000 smarties in it, plus one that has cyanide in it, would you like to take one?" answer was normally "no"

With mobile phones and the hazard on garage forecourts the bigger risk is if they are dropped and break in a way to cause sparks or a fire in the phone, very remote but possible, I have had a portable radio, walkie talkie, catch fire due to a fault and would not have wanted to be near any explosive gas mix.

So is it worth the risk if it can be avoided? No.

[geoff]

In message , Bill writes

and the risk of a spark from e.g. dropping your keys ?

[Dave Liquorice]

Keys tend to be brass, thus don;t spark. Iron or steel is normally required to make a spark. I agree the risk from a mobile phone is minimal, they don't after all take any precautions to prevent static discharge. May be an urban myth but the a reason for the ban of transmitters on forecourts is so the electronics in the pumps doesn't get confused and misread...

[The Medway Handyman]

Surely that depends on how much you like Smarties? I don't eat sweets, biscuits or chocolate, neither do I take sugar simply because I can't stand the taste of sweet things. I wouldn't eat a Smartie if you paid me [1].

So what about the alternator, distributor, HT leads etc in a car/motorbike engine?

[1] OK, it would depend on how much :-)

[Bill]

In message , The Medway Handyman writes

Indeed, not all risks can be removed, although I have worked in a few refineries and in at least one petrol engined vehicles are not allowed onto all of the site, whereas diesel are. So a slight reduction of risk there.

:-) :-)

>

[geoff]

not mine - only the yale key is

I think it's as case of "we don't know, so we'll ban them anyway"

[ARWadsworth]

That would depend upon the returns of the risk.

What would be offered in return for eating a random smartie from that jar?

1001 to 1 odds as you have added an extra smartie.

If you win a free McDonalds meal then the take up would be less than if you offered a million pounds for surviving (some council estates could prove me wrong on that offer).

Adam

[John Rumm]

I recall a news story from a few years back when CB radio was the craze. There were cases of people using high power RF amps on their CBs to make the adjacent pump under read.

[John Rumm]

Yet they are happy to host a base station hidden in the petrol price sign... ;-)

[dennis]

Lets see..

steel steel brassed steel steel steel brass and a steel key ring and a steel id plate

The reason is that all radio equipment has to comply with the regulations which predate mobiles. If they ever update the regs they may allow mobiles but I doubt it for two reasons..

You don't want some pillock being distracted by a mobile while they are filling up.

If you drop a mobile and it get run over there is a good chance the battery will short and Li batteries are quite good at exploding.

[DM]

All very worthy services, however personally I would be interested having very few of these services on a Blackberry or a.n. other PDA. But then again I'm not a gas engineer, although have designed and installed large multi-point gas monitoring systems.

possibly

No. For this and pretty much everything that follows something like an Asus EEE and web access would be my preferred option. While I use a PDA daily I would not want to use such a tiny screen for looking at any sort of detailed documentation. I'd much rather have a laptop, or EEE at a minimum, hooked up to a 3G service and receive the information that way.

possibly

[Paul Matthews]

The battery in my keys is feble, the bateries in my mobile phones are a lot more potent...

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Adrian C saying something like:

Ie, does it spark when you lob it at the wall?

[RW]

All bollox !

Bloke in USA was hit by a bolt of lightning around 3 weeks ago on a forecourt while filling with fuels. Made the international news complete with CCTV footage of the actual event. So a mobile phone, keys or for that matter a chav bird smoking a roll up while her Burberry capped dumfuck boyfriend fills up from a filing station in darkest Essex isn't likely to start a blaze. Where is there *any* evidence of a phone or anything remotely like it causing an explosion at a pump ?

[DM]

As others have said they are more likely to be concerned with EMC issues and whether that could subsequently cause any billing errors.