What tools should I add to my iPaq?

February 21, 2008 5:55 AM

What applications (freeware preferred) to people usually load up on their Windows Mobile (5.0) devices? After many years getting by with a regular cell phone, my company recently switched me to an iPaq (6955). While I dislike the form factor a bit, I like the option of extending functionality with new programs. I just added Google Maps for Mobile, One Note mobile and will soon add MyLifeOrganized mobile (the non-freeware task mgmt tool I use). Any other recommendations?
posted by fsmontenegro to computers & internet (5 answers total)

Well, I kind of liked MLO, but prefer (now) Oxios ToDo List. I can set the RIGHT and LEFT buttons to move through categories, and various other buttons to cycle through filters.

I like Live Search by Microsoft - it has the edge on Google Maps for Mobile (and you can talk to it!)

PocketTV will add MPEG playability.

And I have ListPro for logging hours and expenses on the run, as well as building any other kind of list I need, before I transcribe them to our system at work.

I am experimenting with Mobiola, which allows the device to be a (potentially Bluetooth) webcam.

If the phone has Bluetooth, you can play with an app such as BlueLock, which will invoke your PCs screen lock when you walk away from the screen with your device in your pocket, and will unlock it when you come back.

I also recommend Microsoft's Voice Command - which you can try for X days for free. It works really well, but depending on your device and headset combo may not work over a bluetooth headset or earpiece.

PhatNotes is also excellent if you don't use the built-in notes system, which has a habit of getting out of sync in Outlook.
posted by blue_wardrobe at 9:44 AM on February 21, 2008

Voice Commander is the ultimate app. I adore it. It is a form of magic. No voice training required, you say "What time is it?" or "What do I have to do tomorrow?" and it reads up the time or your to-do list. "Call Bobby at home" and it will, "Dial 123456" is a handy one too. But it really comes into its own when it comes to playing mp3s. If you want to impress your buddies, just say "Play Basement Jaxx" and it will! If you say "Play John" it will want to know if it should play John Lennon or John Mellancamp, but you can also just tell it to "Play anything". Handy as hell. Ok, enough gushing, other apps.

Get Pocket DivX Encoder for your PC, and encode your video for TCPMP which is a fab video player. I have probably watched hundreds of hours of video on mine, these two together are a killer combo. Try running a regular divx on it first, you might not need to transcode if your processor is fast enough.

Get Mobipocket to read ebooks, the freeware version is plenty featureful, you only need to pay if you want to have stuff like integrated dictionary and notes and so on. Personally I like a "silver on black" colour scheme for my eyes and battery.

Get Mortplayer for your mp3 playing needs, especially for audiobooks as it will let you bookmark in the middle of a large audiofile etc.

Mobile Atelier is a weird graphics program that takes a while to work out how to use, but it really lets you sketch with nice transparancys and layers and so on. Great little time-killer.

For file navigation and so on, Total Commander do a pocket version.

In general, look into emulation for gaming, there's quite a lot out there google ppc and emulation to play old Sega games and so on on your handheld.

Enjoy! I lurve me some mobile computing.
posted by Iteki at 11:15 AM on February 21, 2008

I agree with Mortplayer and TCPMP. For the latter, there is a plug-in for playing .FLV files, which are the Flash format used by YouTube.

Tillanosoft's Pocket Notepad is very nice. It's especially good for reading/writing to .TXT files that live on a SD card, so they can be accessed directly from a PC if you move it to a card reader.

I also depend on eWallet (I forget the source) for storing account information, etc. I use it lately to store information on PCs that I am responsible for (e.g. Admin passwords, MAC addresses, inventory numbers.

HaaliReader is an excellent .TXT reading program. If you have long text files, Notepad and Pocket Word are slow to load them, and do not remember where you left off. HaaliReader will do both.

PocketXpdf is a good PDF viewer. Adobe's is really slow, although it is feature-rich. I hate reading PDF on the small screen, but sometimes there is no choice.

Um . . . SmallMenu is a useful substitute for the Start menu, and will list currently-running programs. iPaqs do have the "iTask" app for this, but SmallMenu is a bit more versatile.

The Pebbles Project (look them up) has Pebbles Remote Control, which lets you control a connected PC using your PDA. Good for running a presentation, and it lets you draw on the screen, if you have to circle, sketch or highlight on-screen. Since it will work with a WiFi connection or Bluetooth, you can control your PC from quite a ways away.

MyMobiler is a good desktop remote display, so your iPaq screen can be displayed on your connected PC.

The File Dialog Changer is a really useful utility. It changes the file selection dialog to let you navigate your folder paths beyond My Documents. This is especially good when you have documents in a SD card, since these are not directly accessible using the crummy PocketPC file selection dialog. An indispensable tool!

I paid for MindManager Mobile, and liked it a lot for taking notes during meetings. I once had to capture whiteboard notes from a workshop where there were six groups of people brainstorming on something or other. I wandered around the meeting room and wrote down their whiteboard notes through the session, and caught about everything they wrote. I nearly wore out the writing area on my iPaq. There's also Pocket Mindmap, which is very good. Pocket Freemind is not ready for primetime.

I get lost when I drive. I used to visit farms in New Mexico when I worked for the NMSU College of Agriculture. After I finally arrived at a farm, I would use my Compact Flash GPS and Mapopolis to record a map point. It's a really nice piece of hardware, if you need GPS.

For programmers, I am currently playing with the CS IDE Mobile 11, a C# development tool. Really fun so far.

That's all I can think of. I really like my iPAQ, and I hope you find it useful as well. The advice I give people who are new to palmtops is: It won't work unless you carry it with you all the time.
posted by DanYHKim at 4:10 PM on February 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

If anyone cares, I'd be happy to give out the Flickr uploader I wrote.
posted by plinth at 4:54 PM on February 21, 2008

Thanks everyone!
This is enough to get me started... :-)
posted by fsmontenegro at 11:29 AM on February 22, 2008