Must-Have Pocket PC Software?

MBCook asks: "I just got a new Pocket PC with Windows Mobile 2003 SE on it. I haven't owned a PDA since my old HP 320LX (7 years ago, with Windows CE 1.0!). So since I've been out of the game for a while, I'd like to ask: what PocketPC software (both commercial and free) do you find essential? What little gems can't you live without? Game, productivity, utility, oddity, or other... I'd love to know what Slashdot readers find to be the best software."

The most essential is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

PalmOS ;)

Re:The most essential is ...

[str8edge]

There was a Palm OS 4 emulator out awhile ago. I'm not sure if it was GPL'd or commercial software, but I tried it out, and was able to play Dope Wars on it. you might be able to find info on it at palminfocenter [palminfocenter.com].

Debian

[Pan T. Hose]

That is something I find essential. I rarely use any software which is not part of Debian.

iPodder

[jackr]

iPodder on your desktop. And a really big memory stick :). And acrobat reader.

Re:iPodder

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

Instead of a memory stick, I bought a PCMCIA sleeve for my iPaq and put a 5GB Kingston Datapak [kingston.com] in it.

This gives me plenty of room for all the things I want to have with me (music, movies, porn, etc).

One of the most handy utilities for me is SPB Pocket Plus v2, it provides a *real* close button to end applications (instead of just minimizing them), a good file explorer, some enhancement for Pocket IE, a Today screen plugin that shows memory, storage, backlight adjustment bar and more.

I use a calculator

VNC

[Kris_J]

Of the 3rd-party stuff I have on mine, I use VNC the most. Other than that I use the pocket IE that's on there lots, but I'd prefer a version of Opera with decent small-screen rendering like the Symbian Series 60 product.

Tennis Addict

[BoomerSooner]

This game is awesome link [jamdat.com]

It used to be by hexacto or something, I guess they changed their name.

classic game

[EddieBurkett]

I found a PocketPC version of Nethack that has helped me kill way too many hours.

Re:classic game

[nijk]

This reminds me, I might have to buy a pocket PC soon. For...important business...

What I have...

[SoCalChris]

MiniStumbler. It's Net Stumbler for your PocketPC (free)
http://www.stumbler.net [stumbler.net]

PocketLAN. It allows you to connect to network shares, and print to network printers. ($15)
http://www.pocketgear.com/software_detail.asp?id=2 825 [pocketgear.com]

If you feel like trying to find it, and screwing around with a few hacks, TodayPlus is an abandoned today screen replacement. It was abandoned about a year ago, while it was in beta testing. The beta versions all expired earlier this year, but there is a small but very loyal userbase that has a crack for it. I still haven't found anything that comes close to the features that this program offers, and it's free. Good luck finding a download though.
http://www.jhollin1138.com/todayplus/ [jhollin1138.com]

Pocket Streets. Take a map with you. The newest version also supports GPS. ($30-$120)
http://www.microsoft.com/mappoint/pocketstreets/de fault.mspx [microsoft.com]

Re:What I have...

[n1ywb]

I prefer PocketWarrior over MiniStumbler http://pocketwarrior.sourceforge.net/

my fave programs

[Hinde01]

GSPlayer is my absolut fave program. It is the only free program that i have found that can play internet streaming radio. I also like battery monitor pro. It puts a bunch of stuff on your home screen thats useful. I would also look into video game emulation if your ppc is fast enough. Also look around for aim for your ppc. Some versions off the web are free.

Re:my fave programs

[Hinde01]

o an here is the link for the free version of aim. http://ftp.newaol.com/aim-uk/wince/aim.exe

Autoroute?

[Devalia]

Ive never used/owned one myself but Route planner software sounds handy to me :)

Being a New PPC Owner Myself

[FlipmodePlaya]

I found the selection of browsers to be depressingly lacking, but the pick of the bunch was ThunderHawk. I believe it uses some funky incarnation of KHTML, and in any case it renders infinitely better than PockteIE and the others built off of that. It also displays pages in landscape form, so you never have to scroll horizontally. It is a commercial product, unfortunately.

PocketMVP is the best among the media players I've tried. If you have add in a gig or larger flash card, it's sweet to watch full le

NetHack

[szyzyg]

You can never get tired of this game, frustrated yes, tired no.

http://www.nethack.org/

Pocket DVD Studio

[str8edge]

Pocket DVD Studio [pqdvd.com] is the best battery waster out there. Its a xvid encoder for handhelds. I use it on my Tungsten T3 with mmplayer and a coworker's WinCE PDA. Nothing beats watching your favourite movie in the airport without having to haul the laptop out. All you need is a BIG memory card.

tomeraider + wikipedia

[FrenZon]

If your PPC doesn't have internet access, then get a nice large memory card and put Wikipedia on it [wikipedia.org]. Having Wikipedia so instantly accessible is largely responsible for my loss of long term memory. Other than that, I use the Netfront browser [access-netfront.com], because of its superior JS/Java support, and Agile Messenger [agilemobile.com] (which is free) to handle all my IM needs. Pocket streets is also good, but they've stuffed up the Melbourne coverage, which finishes 5km south of the city (which is heavily populated), and 30k north (whic

Good Backup Software

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Preferably something to flash card. I've run into errors in the PocketPC system from time to time that can only be recovered with a hard reset- and for that, you want a daily backup to flash card.

I use Sprite Software's Sprite Backup [spritesoftware.com], the commercial version of IPAQ backup.

In addition to this, I find AvantGo [avantgo.com] to be highly usefull, as well as good Bluetooth GPS unit and software (currently using a no-name bluetooth GPS unit and iGuidance, but it's all pretty similar, except for Microsoft Streets and Trips 2

Skype!

[Deliveranc3]

I have a palm pilot and I am really hurting to run skype!

I know you probably have a cell phone but it would be pretty awsome. And you can make outgoing calls without worrying about incomming ones.

You need Mic, audio, decent processor, and wifi but if you bought a nice new pocketPC then you should have all of that.

Pocket PC software

[mknewman]

Here's what I have on my Toshiba E805 with Windows Mobile 2003 SE.

Aim Productions Pool Challenge
Microsoft AppLaunch
stumbler.net Ministumbler
Omega One Journal Bar Expansion Pack
Macroedia Flash Player ActiveX
Omega One Journal Bar
Gigabyte Solutions Ltd Animated Today
ZIO Interactive Simcity 2000
Anton Tomov Battery Analyzer
Anton Tomov Pocket Hack Master
IdealTek Pocket Luach
Daniel East's Pocket Quake 2
Nomad Electronics PocketStars
Microsoft Voice Command
JS Ark2
JS Boyan Crystal
JS Turjah
JS Turjah2
Ruksun Telnet Force
Ruksun ScottyFTP
Ruksun Netforce
VL Inc Pocket Gphone
Agfa Monotype Fonts
Conduits TaskSwitcher
Nyditot Virtual Display 3.22
Conduits Peacemaker Pro
Conduits Pocket Spark
Adobe Acrobat Reader 1.0
Aim Productions Trial Halloween
Aim Prouductions Trial Iraqi Track
Game Energy Tic-Tac-Toe
AIM Productions Trial Challenge
SoftWinter StorageTools
LudiGames Rayman
Ansyr Primer (PocketPC)
Toshiba Text to Speech
ArcSoft PhotoBase
MpegTV PocketTV
ScaryBear Software Check Notifications
Glass Lantern PocketLoupe
Zio Interactive Metalion
Amazing Games Chopper Alley
PDAwin TV remote controller
Resco Registry Add-in
Resco Explorer 2003
Resco FTP Add-in
ProCar Racing
Microsoft Activation
ScaryBear Software ClearNotify
Microsoft Power Contacts
Xemi Computers LTD Pocket Explorer MultiIE
PeanutPress Ereader
Microsoft Reader

Ebook reader and possibly emulator for games

[jebiester]

An ebook reader is a good idea. This way you can carry a virtual library of good books with you anywhere you go. Mobipocket [mobipocket.com] seems alright for this, although many features are now only available on the pro version which isn't free anymore unfortunatley.

Another good application for the PocketPC is emulation. There are quiet a few good emulators if you're into playing classic games (eg. Apple IIe, C64, Spectrum, etc)

Familiar

[Matt Perry]

I found that Familiar [handhelds.org] was essential for my PocketPC. Even though the OS that came on my handheld synced with Outlook it didn't always work correctly even though both pieces of software were made by the same company. The original OS was also limited to Microsoft operating systems. Since I'm thinking about getting a Mac i wanted something that could work with a unix system.

Re:Familiar

[mrchaotica]

If you can get your Familiar-running PocketPC syncing to a Mac (or even merely being recognized as a storage device by the OS), be sure to tell me about it! I have an old iPaq 3650, but I could never get the MacOSX driver [loolix.com] to work. I gave up and (just a few days ago) bought a Palm Tungsten E.

Also, I just checked: the latest version is still 0.1, which is what I tried and failed to use way back in the summer. But yeah, if you have more success with it, tell me what you did (PM me here, or send mail to my

One piece of software I find invaluable

[Cyn]

is this: http://www.handhelds.org/ [handhelds.org]

ScummVM

[Chris Pimlott]

ScummVM [scummvm.org] has a lovely Pocket PC version that is really nice and will play all your old favorite LucasArts (and a few others) games. And since they were all mouse-based, the gameplay translate well to touchscreen and stylus.

Pocket PC Magazine Awards

[fakebanana]

Pocket PC Magazine publishes the results of their annual software competition [pocketpcmag.com]. Among the nominations for best game this year, I really enjoy Bust'em [dig-concepts.com], a complex breakout style game. The GameBox games [pdamill.com] ( Classics, Gems, and Solitaire ) are also a particularly good value at $10. Finally, don't forget to download Nethack for PPC [nethack.org]

Duh.

[_mythdraug_]

Why do you even have to ask? Everyone knows the mandatory game for every platform is....

Nethack [nethack.org]

My list

[ebbe11]

includes the following:

• TimeTTracker from RF Consulting" [rfcons.com] to keep track on how much time I use on what and whom. I work as freelancer and this program alone has paid not only for itself but also for the Pocket PC and all the gadgets associated with it.
• Tomtom Navigator 3 [tomtom.com] used with a Haicom HI-303S [haicom.com.tw] compact flash GPS receiver.
• Wisbar Advance 1.3.2.2 [lakeridgesoftware.com] from Lake Ridge Software. This is the older freeware version that does not work with Windows Mobile 2003 SE. The version that does is payware.
• ev41 [hp41.org], a freeware HP-41 calculator
• nPOPw [wibble-wobble.com] freeware email program that can delete mails from the POP3-server, something that the built-in version cannot do. I use it for checking email when I'm on the road.
• Pocket Informat Pro 5 [pocketinformant.com] PIM program. This so much better than the built-in version.

WIS Bar

[pne]

I'm not sure whether the "WIS Bar" program I'm running is the same as the one mentioned above (the one I have says "modified version by Pelmar [pelmarinc.com]"), but I find it extremely handy.

It's an add-on that lets me see a list of currently running programs and switch between them easily, shows me the time, date, memory usage, and battery status in the top, lets me close programs, go to the Today page quickly, and control the speaker volume.

I recommend it highly.

My picks

[RevAaron]

Here is my list of must-haves for PocketPC/WinCE. I'm not quite what most would consider to be a "normal user," as I've got a lot of Unix leanings. However, I do not use a Zaurus because ... well, the software pretty much sucks. I really like real HWR, which doesn't exist on Linux and does on CE and the Newton. So PocketPC it is. But that doesn't mean you can't have your favorite Unix tools...

First, there are a lot of Unix ports [rainer-keuchel.de] from Rainer. I use his TeX distro for writing papers, Maxima w/ GNUplot and Tcl/tk GUI support for doing maths. I used to use Perl/tk, though Dialect [sourceforge.net] (a really cool pythonish RAD language for CE and dekstop windows) has replaced it when I need to write an app that fits in as a CE app.

The app I spend the most time in is Squeak Smalltalk [squeak.org]. It's not quite an application, but a development and application environment. Binary and source portable between oodles of platforms, including but not limited to CE/PPC, desktop windows/x86, linux of all flavors, Mac OS X/classic, Acorn RISC OS, etc etc.

One of the few regular PocketPC apps I use regularily is GowerPoint's uBook [gowerpoint.com] ebook reader. It's the best ebook reader I've found for the platform so far, and pretty good. The only thing it lacks that I wished it had was a text-to-speech feature for having books read aloud occasionally. It can read just about any format- txt, pdb/prc (both txt and html inside), html, rtf, and all of those formats zipped- and prolly others. it's nice to put a whole series- say, Peter F. Hamilton's The Night's Dawn series in one zip file with all of the books in the series. I typically buy a LIT and convert it when I have to, though sometimes I get books from fictionWise [fictionwise.com] where you can sometimes get books in unencrypted formats.

Coding and reading... that leaves out the other big thing I do on my PDA (which is my computer): internettin'. (what a horrible word) I really reccomend the NetFront [access.co.jp] web browser- it's really nice. IE used to be really bad in PPC 2k and 2k2, though I'm told it's improved in 2k3 and 2k3SE, more like the IE that came with Handheld PC 2000 or vanilla WinCE 4.x, which is a very capable browser on the order of IE 5-5.5 or so. Handles most sites well and is pretty fast. However, it doesn't cut the mustard- no tabs, few and not configurable key commands, etc. For that, you need ftxBrowser [wakwak.com], which I've bene using for years. Slick. It just embeds the IE control, so it's still IE (a good thing in the case of CE), but you've got a lot of features that are a must for me, a person who can't just do one browser page at a time. :)

There are a number of SSH clients around there. Some good ones that cost money, but there are some free ones. Rainer has one for free, though it takes a little work to get set up, but it's what I use.

A *must* for video encoding and playback

[no_such_user]

Though I use a PocketPC, I still like to avoid Windows Media. Instead, I use these tools for a nearly perfect experience:

PocketDivXEncoder [ppccool.com] is a wonderful tool, using mencoder to encode video to PDA-sized mpeg-4. Lots of options for video (including rotation) and audio, but not enough to be confusing. More importantly, audio and video stays in sync, I can estimate file size before encoding, and it supports multiple resolutions to support more than one platform.

For playback, I use BetaPlayer [corecodec.org], a very capable (and GPL!) video player, with excellent mpeg-4 support. Full speed playback on my older 300MHz Toshiba e355 device, and it doesn't even kill my battery. Excellent support on the CoreCodec BetaPlayer Forum [corecodec.com].

On a nearly daily basis, I use TyTool to extract last night's Daily Show from my Tivo as a 480x480 mpeg-2, then use PocketDivXEncoder to convert it to a ~64MB 320x240 mpeg4 file. Extraction, converting the .ty to mpeg-2, and encoding to mpeg-4 takes about 12 minutes on my A64 2800. I don't bother to edit out the ads, since it's very easy to skip them in BetaPlayer. Before I found this, I rarely touched my PDA. This is most certainly the KILLER APP for me.

Same question, different OS

[DieNadel]

How about SW for PalmOS?

Info

[cuteseal]

For organising my information, lists, thoughts and Ideas, I find Illium Software's ListPro very useful. Its $$ware, but I've been using that for a couple of years.

Just recently I've picked up ADBIdea, which is a free treenotes organiser. It's quite polished but still has some room for improvement, but yeah, quite good for storing ideas and such.

JourneyPlanner

[tobych]

I have JourneyPlanner with me when I'm making complicated train journeys in the UK. It gives you routes between stations, and all the stops on the journey you're on. If everything falls apart, as it often does on the UK rail network, at least I know what other trains you might be able to use. I've often been streets ahead of railway staff with my little PDA.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?I2E6234C9 [makeashorterlink.com]