Thanks to the generosity of freeware authors, you have many valuable Pocket PC enhancements available to you online. Some of these authors have garnered quite a reputation for their useful products and range of offerings. Let's take a look at the offerings of four of the most industrious: Scott Seligman, Tomoaki Nakashima, Philippe Majerus, and Jonathan Sachs.
Scott Seligman
(www.scottandmichelle.net/scott/cestuff.html)
Scott Seligman's Web site is well known for two popular programs: PocketNav and Launcher. PocketNav is a useful task switcher that makes it easier to navigate among applications as well as to quit them. Launcher adds an icon bar to the Today screen that lets you launch applications with one tap. Scott's site also has games, utilities, screensavers, and more. I've often used his Conversion utility for converting measurements. His offerings are actually "donationware." You try it and if you decide to continue using it, he invites you to make a donation via the PayPal link on his site.
PocketNav, a task switcher, is one of the many great freeware programs available from Scott Seligman.
Tomoaki Nakashima
(www.nakka.com/soft/ptools/)
Tomoaki Nakashima has garnered quite a lot of attention for his tdLaunch, a launcher that, like Scott's, displays application launch icons on the Today screen but has additional features. The site is in Japanese, but he offers a link that translates it to English. Still there's not much documentation to get you going. Once it's installed, you go to Start > Settings > Today > Items, select the tdLaunch option in the items list, and tap on the Options button. This takes you to a dialog box that lets you add icons to the tdLaunch bar that will appear on the Today screen.
You may want to check out the Tekguru review of the product, which goes into more detail (www.tekguru.co.uk/PPC_Reviews/dlaunch/tdlaunch.htm). Other popular applications on Tomoaki's site include rCE, a program that lets you control your device from the desktop, and tdClock, a clock that's displayed on the Today screen.
TdLaunch, a free Today screen add-in from Tomoaki Nakashima, adds application launch icons to the Today screen.
Philippe Majerus
(www.phm.lu/Products/PocketPC/)
Philippe Majerus of Luxembourg is something of a legend among Pocket PC power users who value his system tools. This is especially true of his popular Registry Editor program, which lets you tinker with specific innards of the operating system so that you can add certain enhancements.
Some of his tools may be useful even if you're not a power user. One such is Today Meters, which adds status bars to the Today screen that display the levels of your batteries, memory, and storage card memory. He also has a range of small utilities, such as Reset, which performs a soft reset on your device--useful if you don't like using the small reset button.
TRegistry Editor is one of the many free Pocket PC system tools from Philippe Majerus.
Jonathon Sachs
(http://web5.topchoice.com/~jsachs/ppc.html)
Jonathan Sachs has a number of somewhat specialized offerings. Photographers love DOF, a program for computing depth of field and Expose, for computing recommended exposures for a given film speed.
Other downloads include Stop Time, which combines a stopwatch / lap timer and an alarm clock / calendar display. Technical people like Eval, his scientific calculator that includes features useful to programmers. Another program, Ephemeris, computes the phase of the moon and the times and azimuths of sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset for any location and date.
Expose, by Jonathan Sachs, computes recommended exposures for film.
Favorite freeware programs
Speaking of freeware, someone posted a message in Microsoft's Pocket PC newsgroup asking people to tell their favorite freeware programs. The result was a useful list that I thought I'd share with you. In these sorts of discussions, the first programs mentioned are typically utilities that make it easier to use your device:
WisBar is an award-winning program that replaces the toolbar on the Today screen. It has some of the same functionality as PocketNav, mentioned above. (www.pelmarinc.com/pocketpc.htm)
WisBar, a program that replaces the toolbar on the Today screen, is one of the top favorite freeware utilities.
WimR lets you easily see which applications are taking up your RAM. Some users find that their device can slow down if too many applications are open. (http://mypaq.net/mysoftware/wimr/index.shtml)
ZapIt! provides a quick way to quit applications--something not easily done on a Pocket PC. (http://asia.cnet.com/downloads/ handheld/swinfo/0,39001949,20053224s,00.htm)
PowerTap lets you shut down the Pocket PC with a screen tap rather than using the power button. This can be useful on those occasions when it's not convenient to put down your stylus to turn off your Pocket PC. (www.iliumsoft.com/site/fp/powertap.htm)
Other free downloads extend the functionality of your built-in apps:
Calendar+ runs under the Today screen and emulates the standard Pocket PC Calendar plug-in but offers more features. These include the ability to see multiple days and the ability to display the various Calendar fields in multiple ways. (www.mohairsofa.com/main.aspx?page=7&article=26)
Calendar+ adds detail to the Calendar appointment information displayed on the Today screen.
nPOP gives you remote access to e-mail on a POP3 mail server. When you connect using nPOP, you see a list of subject headers and can select the messages you want to receive rather than downloading all your e-mail. (www.nakka.com/soft/npop/index_eng.html)
PocketTVletsyouplayMPEGvideos.(www.mpegtv.com/wince/pockettv/)
Pocket MVP (formerly Pocket Divx) is a multiple-format video player. Pocket MVP supports DivX, MPEG, AVI video, and MP3 audio formats. (http:// home.adelphia.net/~mdukette/downloads.html)
Pocket MVP is a multiple-format video player.
Pocket PC magazine salutes the generosity of these freeware authors. There are many more excellent programs that I didn't have space to mention. For more great freeware, check out the Downloads section of our Best Sites Web page (www.PocketPCmag.com/bestsites.asp).
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