Office Mobile 2010; Recent Freeware

Microsoft posted a video yesterday that begins to introduce the features of the forthcoming Office Mobile 2010 software. In addition to pointing you to that, I want to highlight some recent freeware, including Skype 3.0 gold, Searchme, Auto Call Recorder, and Screen Capture.

Office Mobile 2010

It’s great to see Microsoft reconceptualizing its mobile applications and moving ahead with new features. Their video about Office Mobile 2010 suggests the new software is a significant step in the direction of cloud computing, which gives you a seamless connection between your computers and mobile devices.

If you’re working on a document on your desktop computer and then need to go someplace, you you’ll be able to continue working on that document wherever you are. Office Mobile 2010 lets you take your office with you. You can view and edit Excel, PowerPoint, and Word Mobile documents on your phone.

A focus will be collaboration. A new document-viewing application will let you view any document on a server, but without having to download the document to your device. It simply renders it on the server so that it’s viewable on your Windows Mobile phone — or almost any other smartphone, giving groups of people common access to files.

The video also shows new features of the e-mail software and instant messaging.

Best Recent Freeware

Gizmodo has a list of top Windows Mobile apps of the month, a number of which are freeware.

Skype 3.0 is now out of beta and makes Gizmodo’s list. In addition to being a stable version, it adds a new feature: the ability to send SMS messages. The advantage, of course, is that you often have to pay your carrier a fair amount to send text messages, and doing it via Skype will likely be much cheaper. The new version also supports file transfers.

Searchme is a great new search engine that lets you search the Internet and then quickly preview the web pages in the results without having to actually load each page. It’s a fast and efficient way to view search results.

Searchme: Mobile is an application for Windows Mobile 6 devices (touch screen only) that lets you access their search engine. You can also simply point your mobile browser at m.searchme.com.

Auto Call Recorder is a simple application for automatically recording all of your incoming or outgoing calls. It detects when you’re on a call and records the conversation, saving it in the location that you’ve specified. Of course, it may not be legal in some places, so check that out before you use it.

Screen Capture from Ilium Software isn’t among the apps on Gizmodo’s list, but it certainly deserves a look. It has just been updated and saves files in PNG format.

PocketPCSoft.net was one of the earliest websites that had a comprehensive listing of software titles for devices running Microsoft’s mobile software. It’s gratifying to see that it’s still around. It includes a great listing of freeware.