Jim Karpen's blog

It's hard to tell what's new and what's merely updated,
but I was just looking at Microsoft's Windows
Mobile site and was really impressed with some of the
offerings, especially with the support
area.

It offers step-by-step help, including screen shots, for
configuring and using all the applications and settings on
your device.

AximSite.com
has been quite a success story, and now the site's founder,
Chris Leckness, has created iPAQ
HQ, a new site dedicated to the iPAQ.

The new site will include many of the elements that have
made Aximsite popular, including news, forums, downloads,
links, and FAQs. Chris says the goal is to offer a site
where "the newest PPC owner can feel comfortable
posting."

Obviously people do feel comfortable posting, because the
forums already have a fair amount of action.

Mobile sites have been a great boon for those who access
the Internet via their handheld because all the content is
formatted for the small screen. There are now many excellent
portals for these sites, a number of which I list on our
Mobile
Sites page.

I recently updated the page and added EVMO, which had been offline for
a while and which has long been one of the more
comprehensive listings.

It sounded too good to be true: free audio books in MP3
format. I went to AudioBooksForFree.Com
and indeed there are free audio books. Hundreds of them.
But to get the best quality recording you have to pay.

The site consists mainly of public domain books, mostly
fiction but some nonfiction.

The annual Pocket PC Summit has ended, and the winners of
Pocket PC magazine's Third Annual Best Software Awards have
been announced. You can view the winners by going to our
Awards
page and selecting a category.

Our goal is to round up the best software for Pocket PCs
and Smartphones and to point you in the direction of those
products favored by the pros.

Last week was a big one for Pocket PC enthusiasts, with
the announcement of three new devices from Dell and two from
HP. And a new device was released by Asus the previous
week.

The new Dell X3 line, which has different styling and is
smaller, lighter, and thinner than the X5 line, continues to be among the
least expensive devices.

On the heels of last week's column about site updates
came word that Tekguru,
the U.K.'s largest Pocket PC-dedicated site, has relaunched.
The new version is similar to the popular weblog-style
approach of many of the most popular Pocket PC sites, with
frequent news updates on the home page and the opportunity
to discuss each item.

In addition to news, the site offers hardware and
software reviews, info on Windows Mobile programming, Pocket
PC user chat, and a user swap shop.

Daron Brewood, the s

It almost seems inevitable that we'll eventually use a
single handheld device for everything: telephone, personal
information management, camera, GPS navigation, and more. Of
course, a step in this direction is the Windows Mobile Smartphone, which
uses Microsoft's Windows Mobile software.

The Windows Mobile Smartphone debuted in Europe last year and will
appear in the U.S. later this fall.

Pocket PC Thoughts has recently added an eBook
forum, and one of the threads about sources of eBooks included a link to the
Yahoo
Ebooks store, which I hadn't come across before.

The site promises "great prices on over 20,000 titles
from your favorite authors." While not all

While there are no known Pocket PC viruses so far, those
infecting desktop machines have certainly been wreaking
havoc of late. Check out the Internet
security center operated by Carnegie Mellon University
to get news on the latest outbreaks.

The most recent virus has been masquerading as a security
patch from Microsoft.

Handango
has long been one of the leading Web sites for Pocket PC
software, but I only recently discovered that they also have
a mobile version of their site tailored to the small screen
of your device (http://mobile.handango.com/ppc).

What makes this especially useful is that almost all of the
downloads in Handango's mobile site are CAB files, not EXE files.

Last week we covered the site upgrades offered by two
major Pocket PC sites: Pocket
PC magazine and Pocket
PC Thoughts.

Pocket
PC magazine and Pocket
PC Thoughts, two of the most popular Pocket PC Web sites
as measured by Google rankings, both have major new
offerings.

PocketPCmag.com,
in case you hadn't noticed, recently underwent a complete
redesign. One major goal was to put more of our content
front and center on the home page.

With the release of the most recent version of Microsoft
Reader for Pocket PC, Microsoft is encouraging people to
download it by making available three free
eBooks each week.

Well, thanks to my readers for helping me keep my
coverage balanced. I've received e-mails lately suggesting
that I may have omitted significant products.

One of the great features of the Pocket PC is its ability
to browse the Web. However, you'll quickly find that many
Web pages don't fit the small screen or simply don't work at
all. You can stick to specially formatted pages (see our
mobile
directory), or you can take advantage of services and
tools that help make all Web pages available to you.

As we mentioned in a recent column, there are now
services that take regular Web pages and tweak them so that
they fit the small screen.

GPS (Global Positioning System) seems to be one of those
ideal applications for the Pocket PC. GPS hardware add-ons and
accompanying software use satellite technology to let you
always know where you are and give you routing information
so that you always know how to get to your destination.

To use GPS on your Pocket PC you need some sort of
receiver, which connects to your device via Bluetooth, CF
card, sleeve, or other means.

Pocket PC magazine's annual Best
Software Awards are intended to help you pick the best
software for your device and to recognize the hard work of
the community of developers.

Last week we touched on the merging of PDAs and cell
phones and listed a few of the main Web sites related to
Smartphones, including Jason Dunn's Smartphone
Thoughts. Turns out, I missed a major site: MoDaCo
Smartphone, which has very active forums with well over
10,000 registered users.

According to the site's founder, Paul O'Brien, MoDaCo
Smartphone is the largest Smartphone community on the
Internet.

It seems inevitable that PDAs and cell phones will merge
completely—which may be why Microsoft's new software has
been named Windows Mobile 2003 rather than Pocket PC 2003.
Of course, Microsoft's earlier Smartphone was a major step
in this direction.