As you can see - Pocket Informant has tonnes of features, for which I barely scratched the surface. I could rave on about Pocket Informant forever, but probably not productive. If you haven’t yet experienced the power of Pocket Informant, I would suggest that now is a good time!

2. WisBar

Price: Freeware

Available from the Pelmar website

                                                      (My current wisBar skin)

This is a freeware task switcher that overlays the standard PPC2K2 task bar. It’s actually available from two different developers - I’m currently using Pelmar’s WisBar. What I love about WisBar is its simplicity and the wide availability of skins for it. Other people I know swear by GigaBar for its powerful features. Being a “power user” myself, the large number of functions that can be accessed from GigaBar piqued my interest. However, the wide availability of skins for WisBar kept me in the WisBar camp.  

Using WisBar, I can actually close applications (none of this smart minimize nonsense), see running task icons (another thing sadly missing in the standard task bar), see battery and memory icons, and also the date and time if I prefer. It’s a very stable utility that I’ve had zero problems with. Using WisBar, you’re still able to see the next appointment bubble by tapping on the time.

3. Fitaly keyboard

Price: $25, fully functional 30 day trial

Available from the Textware Solutions website

In my opinion, the Fitaly keyboard is by far and away the best soft input method for the Pocket PC. As I constantly remind everyone, I’m the current reigning champion in the Pocket PC division for Fitaly, weighing in at a hefty 78.25 WPM. :) It takes a bit of getting used to, as the keyboard layout is not the standard QWERTY layout - but once you master the great art of Fitaly, the possiblities are endless! I easily achieve > 50 WPM just tapping in text using Fitaly (and when not in “Dom Perignon competition mode”.

4. Resco File Explorer 2003

Price: $19.95 (currently 20% off!), fully functional 14-day trial

Available from Handango

                                                        (screenshot from Resco website)

The File Explorer that comes standard with the PPC2K2 OS is a sad joke, and really quite crippled compared to the standard Windows Explorer for desktop PCs (though it may be just fine for “normal” users). Thankfully, companies like Resco have stepped up to the plate and delivered a very powerful file explorer utility that offers all of the features of the desktop file explorer, and possibly even more.

The current incarnation of Resco File Explorer comes with a built-in image viewer, zip utility, registry editor, and encryption utility. It easily lets you rename files (including their extension), associate files with a program, create links to programs, map network drives, send and receive files via infrared, transfer files from one folder to another (and create new folders), copy, paste delete .. you name it, this explorer’s got it!  

Sadly it doesn’t support “drag and drop” like the desktop file explorer, nor does it let you view files by “thumbnail”, but those are the only two features that it doesn’t have that I’d probably be interested in. That being said, I barely miss those features on my Pocket PC.

5. Avantgo

Price: Freeware

Available “out of the box”

                                                              (My AvantGo channels)

I love reading the news on my iPAQ - it’s like a tiny pocketable newspaper, with news from all around the world. Definitely a great way to keep in touch with the latest current events. Setting up Avantgo is relatively simple, as it comes pre-installed on the Pocket PC. All that one needs to do is go to the Avantgo website, create an account, select the channels (or create custom ones) that you wish to synchronise onto your Pocket PC, set up the details in the Active Sync AvantGo settings, and Bob’s your uncle - you’ve got lots of great reading on your Pocket PC!  

Another great feature in PPC2K2 is the ability to sync your Avantgo wirelessly, which means you don’t have to be tethered to your desktop to receive the latest news. Just go to Settings | Connections, and select the “AvantGo Connect” button. Press “Sync all” and voila! (Though you have to be connected to the internet to do this of course)

6. iPAQ Backup (Sprite Pocket Backup)

Price: $19.95 for non-iPAQ 3900+ users - fully functional 10-day trial version

Available from Handango

The possibility of my iPAQ running out of battery and erasing all of the memory on RAM is a frightening (though rather remote) prospect indeed. Thankfully, iPAQ Backup (aka Sprite Pocket Backup) was preinstalled on my iPAQ, making doing backups quite simple, quick and effortless. Unlike the headaches and incredibly long periods of time associated with doing a backup via Active Sync (not to mention the fact that you have to do it via a desktop computer), iPAQ Backup is very simple, effective, takes a ridiculously short amount of time, is very reliable, and can be done anytime, anywhere.

Another aspect of Active Sync (or Active Stink as some people quite wittily call it) backups that is annoying is that you can’t selectively choose what parts you want to backup and what parts you want to restore. It’s pretty much an all or nothing affair. iPAQ Backup lets you select what you want to backup, and also what you want to restore, down to individual files. So if you backed up your entire device and then accidentally deleted an important file, you could go into your backup file, find the file that you accidentally deleted, and then just restore that one file. The ease with which backing and restoring can be done using this utility is almost enough to bring tears to your eyes. It’s .. so .. beautiful!  

Notable additional features of iPAQ backup are the options to compress data, encrypt data, exclude backup files, .exe’s, .dll’s, log files and persistent storage (ie flash memory) from the backup, and also schedule regular backups. If your Pocket PC is important to you, then this feature alone makes this program outstanding. You can set the frequency of the updates to daily or weekly (or for a particular day) and can also specify the time that it’s backed up. You can also set it to automatically backup when your battery reaches a particular threshold - another very thoughtful and insightful feature of this program that ensures all of your data is safe and well cared for. :)

7. Battery Pack 2003

Price: $9.99 (not sure how long trial version is)

Available from Handango

One of my (many) obsessions with my iPAQ is my today screen. As it’s the first thing that I see when I turn it on, I like for it to look very bright and appealing, as well as provide me with information that I need. As today screen space is limited (and I don’t like having the vertical scroll bar on my today screen), I’m quite picky as to what goes on it. But Battery Pack is definitely a “must-have” today screen plug-in. Battery Pack 2003 provides an animated battery and memory monitor, as well as a program bar.

Now, there’s a reason why this application is the #1 selling program over at Handango. While there are other, equally good programs that are similar to Battery Pack (such as Rhino Launch), the feature that won me over was the scrollable program bar. As I mentioned earlier, today screen “real estate” is quite limited, so this feature is quite a good space saver. It lets you configure up to 5 lines of program shortcuts onto the one line, using the arrow bar to scroll through each line of shortcuts. Very clever and effective, freeing room for other today screen plug-ins. The battery meter provides you with both a percentage of the battery that you currently have, and also the estimated time that the battery will last for. Apparently it “learns” the battery life of your Pocket PC and therefore is able to provide you with better estimates of battery life, but I’m not sure how it goes about this. In addition to that, it provides a useful “clean up” feature that lets you delete all of the temporary files (which can add up if you do a lot of wireless surfing) on your Pocket PC.  

Battery Pack also has a speech facility that notifies you when your battery is low, battery is charged, program/storage memory is low, and/or storage card space is low. You can also get free “voice packs” to change the voice of the warning. Personally I found the warnings annoying (but then again I’m easily annoyed), and turned them off, though I can see how they would be a useful feature for those that are that way inclined.

8. Ilium Software eWallet

Price: $19.95, fully functional 30 day trial

Available from Handango

                    (Screenshot from eWallet website - so I think the credit card no is bogus (but give it a go if u want)

This program is absolutely fantastic! I haven’t compared it to the other similar “wallet” programs out there, so I can’t comment on the functionality of this program to the others available, but I can say that this program does the job, and does it very well!

eWallet lets you store important “easily forgettable” information in a “wallet”. You can have different wallets for different purposes, ie one wallet for work-related information, another for personal. I just have all of my information in the one wallet because, well, I’m lazy. I use it to track insurance information, automobile registration information, my numerous user ids and passwords for work and also for websites, serial numbers and support information for the vast multitude of Pocket PC software I have, bank account information, “cool links”, etc, all neatly categorised. There are lots of templates for cards that you can choose from, and you can also easily make your own.

I also use the desktop version, which has a “pass through” feature that automatically inserts your username and password when you go to the website through an eWallet card. For important and sensitive information, the encryption that eWallet offers is a definite must. You can also set the file to lock after a certain number of minutes, and also lock access after a number of incorrect password attempts. Very good for the security conscious.

9. TranCreative Nice Start

Price: $9.90

Available from Handango

I won’t bother going through all of the features that Nice Start offers, as I’ve written a review on it that you can find here. Suffice to say that it makes my password screen much prettier (and matches my today theme), it lets me secure my iPAQ much better than the standard password utility, and provides a neat “turn-off” button that sits in the system tray that lets you reset or turn off the Pocket PC or even “log off”.

10. SPB GPRS Monitor (trial)

Price: $14.95, fully functional 14-day trial

Available from Handango

                                  (screenshot from Handango website - I wish I had that much MB allotted!)

The price of GPRS in Australia is pretty expensive, deterring most non-corporate users from using it extensively. I’m currently on a AU$9.95 plan that gives me 1 MB of data each month, with each kb thereafter 1.8 c each. Pretty astronomical huh? Damn rip-off I think. Oh, waiting for the day when they introduce all-you-can-surf GPRS. *sighs happily at the thought*. For the moment, though, in an effort to keep my already AU$100+ mobile phone bill down, SPB GPRS Monitor appear to be the perfect application.

What I was impressed with (among other things) was the inclusion of my Australian GPRS plan in the options. Who would thunk it! I was fully expecting to have to configure this rate manually, but there it was, patiently waiting for me to choose it in the drop-down list. This list is quite extensive and has GPRS data plans from all over the world, from Germany to Thailand. Selecting the plan then fills in the monthly payment, inclusive data and additional data fields on the tariff tab. There’s even an “update” button that lets the program update its plans to the latest prices. I found that the additional data price for my plan was actually incorrect (0.018 KB for 10 KB instead of 1 KB) - tapping update rectified that error very easily.  

SPB GPRS monitor places an icon on your taskbar that shows you the signal strength of your GPRS and mobile phone once you’re connected. It also provides a very easy way to connect to your phone - just tap on the icon, hit connect, and you’re flying! The “bubble” also shows you a view of how many kb you’ve used at a glance, how much you’ve got left, and also conveniently provides an easy way to adjust your screen backlight and a battery monitor.

Another great feature is the today plug-in, that shows you how many KB you’ve used for that day. This program is easily one of the best-designed programs I’ve ever come across, and I think that’s a pretty high call from someone who’s tried a lot of software. Definitely going to buy this program once the 15-day trial period finishes.

11. IA Style Screenshot

Price: $9.95, fully functional 15 day trial

Available from Handango

I got IA Screenshot as a prize in the Dom Perignon contest for week one (prizes were given out each week for the top 20). I initially chose this prize so I could take screenshots of Fitaly Letris to send in to Textware to verify my latest “high score”. Since then. I’ve used it quite extensively to take screenshots of my Pocket PC for reviews, posting pictures on my website, and also for uploading pics of my iPAQ to discussion boards like Brighthand. It lets you assign the “capture button” to any of the hardware buttons and also lets you choose what format you want to do the screenshot in (gif, bmp or jpg) and the resolution. Very simple to use, and also serves as a picture viewer, providing thumbnail views of pictures in any selected folder, zoom facilities, and even the ability to crop pictures. I haven’t really used IA Screenshot for anything other than taking screenshots, as I usually transfer them to my PC immediately afterwards. But for those who’re looking for an advanced screenshot utility, as well as a simple picture viewer, this program is a must-have.

12. Softmaker TextMaker

Price: $49.95, fully functional 30 day trial

Available from Softmaker website

                                                       (screenshot from the Softmaker website)

Fed up with the crippled Pocket Word, I absolutely jumped at the opportunity to buy TextMaker. Well, not really jumped. More like ummed and aahhed for a couple of months, stressing about the inordinate (but justified) amount of money it costed, and also trying to justify the purchase to myself (I’d use it for university, would do a lot of word processing on my iPAQ, and hence would need the features that it offered such as headers, footers, table of contents, tables, graphics, etc). Luckily it seemed I took the jump at just the right time - when they were offering both the desktop version and the software version for US$49.95 (TextMaker for the Pocket PC usually retails for $49.95 on its own).

I now no longer use the bloatware also known as Microsoft Word, either on my desktop or my Pocket PC - it’s now exclusively TextMaker-city. Admittedly, TextMaker on my iPAQ is a bit slow (slower than other applications anyway), but not unbearably so. The large file size caused me to install it in iPAQ File Store (as opposed to main memory), as I like to keep my main memory size quite high so I can run lots of apps at once. There’s a split second lag between taps on the menu and the actual menus coming up - this is possibly due to the fact that it’s not installed in main memory, and also due to the large size of the program (necessary for all of the features that it packs in!). Actual typing is in real-time though.  

I have absolutely no regrets about buying TextMaker. There’s nothing I miss about Microsoft Word on the desktop - everything I need I can find in TextMaker (though this may not be the same for everyone). And the similarity of TextMaker on the Pocket PC to TextMaker on the desktop makes learning how to use the program a breeze. The feature set of this program is absolutely stunning, but the features that I particularly appreciate (for both the desktop and Pocket PC version) are:

(1) table support

(2) graphics support

(3) ability to “save as” a wide variety of file formats, including html

(4) the dynamic spell checker that underlines words that aren’t in its dictionary as they’re being typed (which I thought would have been beyond the power of a Pocket PC!)

(5) easy ability to select different fonts

(6) ability to use different types of bullets

(7) ability to insert footnotes, headers and footers

(8) ability to insert page breaks

(9) built-in thesaurus

(10) ability to set different paragraph styles

As with Pocket Informant (and probably more so for this program), this doesn’t even scratch the surface of features available for this program - I just mentioned the ones that I constantly use. More advanced features such as calculations, outlines, merging files and running scripts (only on the desktop version) are also available. Whenever people start mouthing off about how Pocket PCs are really limited and only offer very simple functionality, TextMaker is one of the applications I usually whip out that shuts them up really quickly. :P

13. withMP3

Price: $15.75, fully functional 60 hour trial

Available from Handango

This is currently my mp3 player of choice, as it seems to be more stable than the Windows Media Player. At the time I purchased it, it was quite notable as a winAMP lookalike - now, however, there are a few more programs that use the same theme (such as Pocket Music and winamPAQ).

What I particularly like about withMP3 are its list of preset equalizers, which let you optimise the sound of the track depending on the type of music you’re listening to.

The only reason that it’s my MP3 player of choice, though, is because it’s the one that I bought (at the time there weren’t really many other options) to replace Windows Media Player. I haven’t actually done a comparison of this to something like Pocket Music which has only recently been released. It’s on my list of “must-haves” because I listen to music a lot, not so much because of the feature set.

Things that were promised to registered users awhile back (but still haven’t been delivered) are the ability to skin it, and also support for .wma files. I’ll be pretty chuffed when (or if?) they release the above two features. For the moment, though, withMP3 is more than adequate for my requirements. I don’t actually rip my CDs to .wma, as I prefer the higher quality 192 kpbs mp3s - I use pretty good quality earphones, and the difference in encoding quality is noticeable. But skinning support would be very nice, as it just adds to the already high degree of “personalisation” that I have on my iPAQ.

14. TranCreative WordBook

Price: $18.00, fully functional 14 day trial

Available from Handango

As I mentioned above, I like reading the news on my iPAQ a lot, using Avantgo. The downfall of reading things via Internet Explorer (which is the application used to read Avantgo files), though, is the lack of integrated dictionary (unlike ebook applications such as MS Reader and Palm Reader). TranCreative WordBook solves this problem quite elegantly. Read more about this program in my review.

15. Phatware HPC Notes Standard

Price: $29.95, fully functional 14 day trial

Available from Handango

                                                                (screenshot from Handango)

I’ve been using this program since back in the Jornada days, and they’re latest version 4 significantly improves upon previous versions.

HPC Notes comes in 3 different flavours - lite, standard and professional. Lite is a standalone application that doesn’t synchronise with the desktop at all, though you can back up the database of notes to your desktop. Standard installs a module into ActiveSync that synchronises notes to Outlook notes. Advantage of this is that notes are available on the desktop via Outlook notes. Disadvantage (compared to the professional edition) is that all formatting is lost on the desktop, as well as links (more on links further down). Professional version comes with a separate HPC Notes application for the desktop, that lets you make notes on the desktop version and sync them over to the Pocket PC with no loss in formatting and vice versa.

HPC Notes lets you create multiple databases of notes, with a category for each note (unlike the Notes application that comes standard on the PPC OS). Notes can be linked to other notes, as well as to other files (such as images and documents). There are also limited formatting options, such as changing the font and font size, ability to change font to bold, italic and/or underline, and also bullets. You can also insert drawings and voice notes. Additionally, you can attach an alarm to each note, set a password on each note individually, change the colour of each note for further categorisation purposes, and also cut, copy and paste notes from one database to another. Using HPC Spell (available separately but included with the professional edition) gives you an integrated spell checker, and there are also various good features such as a word count, different sorting options (by category, modification date, creation date etc), the ability to convert the notes to an email, task or appointment and beam a note to someone else.

All in all a very good notes application that lets you categorise notes for easy filing. For those who make a lot of short notes on their Pocket PC, this program is definitely worth checking out. I currently use it to scribble thoughts that I have during the day, ideas that I have for my website, and also just for taking notes on books that I’m currently reading. I can then easily find a note that I’ve previously written by either sorting the notes by date (if I know what date I wrote it), by category, or by doing a search for a particular term in the note.  

Well, those are my “must have” applications - the top 15 anyway. And this list is by no means constant. My top list of “must have”s change depending on a number of factors such as my current needs and new applications coming out. For example when uni starts again, Conduits Pocket Slides is likely to become much more useful, to read and create powerpoint presentations, as well as TreNotes for creating outlines for essays. Other programs, such as PoQuick Money Enterprise, MySportTraining, SideX, ListPro and @Mail missed out on the to