Expert: Tari Akpodiete

Crank up the wi-fi on your windows mobile devices because has Skype got a deal for you:

$2.95/month
- Unlimited calls* to landlines and cell phones in the US and Canada.
details: http://skype.com/allfeatures/subscriptions/uscanada/

$5.95/month
- Unlimited calls to landlines* in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey.
details: http://skype.com/allfeatures/subscriptions/mexico/

$9.95/month
- Unlimited calls to landlines* in 34 countries worldwide.
details: http://skype.com/allfeatures/subscriptions/uscanadaworld/

ADDITIONAL BONUS: Get 33% off 3 or 12 month subscriptions - ends June 1st 2008.

The ability to play more video file types without jumping through hoops; for example: Flash (.flv, .swf) and QuickTime (.mov), and not just via a web browser when visiting a site, but also ones on a storage card.

Iambic - well-known to the Best Software Awards - recently emailed to inform me that there were:

...two major enhancements to our latest Agendus for Windows Mobile v.2.2 update that you won't want to miss, including an Active Sync Provider that will allow you to smoothly transfer icons and day colors from Agendus Windows on your PC to your phone and vice versa.

and to make the choice to upgrade even sweeter, rather than their usual U$9.95 fee, they've halved it to U$4.95 until March 5, 2008.

Upgrade to Agendus Pocket PC Professional for U$4.95 or Upgrade to Agendus Smartphone Professional for U$4.95 - a little digging showed that the promo code is apparently 495AGWM0226, but check your basket to be sure that it works correctly for you.

One thing that I have always liked about Iambic is that they give some very generous deals to existing customers, even when they are not running specials such as I have described above.

I recently received a very exiting email from SoftMaker:

Effective immediately, you can download the beta version of SoftMaker Office 2008 for Pocket PCs from our web site - free of charge!

This new version of SoftMaker Office for Pocket PCs contains:

* TextMaker 2008, the new version of our word processor
* PlanMaker 2008, the new version of our spreadsheet
* SoftMaker Presentations 2008, the first release of SoftMaker's alternative to PowerPoint

SoftMaker Presentations brings to the Pocket PC, for the first time, the ability to edit and create PowerPoint (.ppt) files without conversion, without loss of formatting or content.

All applications in SoftMaker Office 2008 can now print, and they can create PDF files. These are just two of the many improvements we made to the only desktop-quality office suite for Pocket PCs.

TextMaker 2008 - Word processor

PlanMaker 2008 - Spreadsheet

Presentations 2008 - Presentation graphics

I suspect that there is going to be a lot of excitment with regards to SoftMaker Presentations 2008 because:

[It] is the only Pocket PC application worldwide that lets you edit PowerPoint files on the Pocket PC without file conversion and without loss of quality.

All elements of PowerPoint files are preserved, among others:

* all types of formatting
* all slide transitions and animations
* all slide designs and color schemes
* all graphics, drawings, and backgrounds
* all notes and comments

... simply everything that could be in a PowerPoint file!

For more information, including the download, visit this link.

SoftMaker Office 2008 is available for Pocket PCs, Windows and soon for Linux and Windows CE. One can exchange documents between all these platforms without conversion.

It's not so much which single Windows Mobile tweak/hack I can't live without, but more like which tweak/hack utility I've found to be the most helpful over the years. That would be Tweaks2k2 which is currently at v3.30.0. The software has been repeatedly honoured over the years in the Best Software Awards, from getting nomiated to making it to the finals to winning three years in a row.