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Now that I’ve had my pocket PC for a while longer now, I’ve come up with a few more essential PPC applications.

KBattery

A nice, small app that shows battery usage in the title bar. Clicking on the icon displays a screen with estimated battery time remaining along with storage card and built-in memory remaining.

As part of the setup, you can position the display wherever you want on the title bar. Another great feature is you can display the time above the battery meter. Then, just slide display over top of the existing clock, saving valuable space in the title bar.

Calendar+
Again, another great free app that provides basic functionality that should have been part of the OS. It has a variety of configuration options allowing you to display more than one calendar entry on your Today screen. Plus, when you click on an entry, it actually takes to you to the entry in your calendar (a novel concept that Microsoft did not think of.)

TotalCommander
A truly full-featured freeware file manager for the Pocket PC. There are too many great features to list here. It is so much easier to navigate the file system with TotalCommander than the built-in File Explorer.

SplashID
Here’s the first PPC application that I had to purchase, and I’m very glad that I did. It was well worth the price. Previously on my Palm, I was using a free program called YAPS which was very nice, but they do not have PPC version.

So after A LOT of hunting and evaluating, I finally settled on SplashID. The price is very reasonable. Only $30 for the PPC app and you get the desktop app with it. It has all the features you would expect from an “electronic wallet.” One major thing that sold me over was the variety of import and export features. I don’t want to ever be locked into one program, so at least I know I can get my data out. You can customize and create as many new record types as you like. The only thing some may consider as a drawback is that it is fixed to 6 fields for any record type, plus a note. I don’t find it to be a problem at all though, in fact, it really helps if you need to manipulate your data in a CSV file and import it back in.

PocketTV
This program is free, although a registration is required. Nice program, very well put together. The website also includes some instructions on how to size down a DVD for playback on your PocketPC.

Dell Axim Rom Update
For the Dell Axim users, there was a recent ROM update you may be interested in. Not a lot of changes, but there were updates to the WiFi and Bluetooth drivers.

Games

I would argue that having at least a few games on your Pocket PC is absolutely essential. They come in very handy for occupying time otherwise spent in complete boredom. I know there are thousands out there, but these I would consider essential:

Kevtris - You guessed it, a Tetris clone.
CE Zebra - Very nice looking Othello clone.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 23rd, 2005 at 11:04 pm and is filed under Pocket PC, Electronics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.