One For The Road

Read MS Office Documents On The Go
Documents to Go for Palm, Symbian and Windows Mobile

With wireless e-mail available on your mobile device either via GPRS or via local connectivity to a central computer, you will run across attachments mailed from office or friends. If your work demands it, you might need to read and evaluate attached documents while on the go. The road warrior might need to not only read office documents, but also edit them.

Most Palm OS devices ship with a version of Documents to Go, but the application is also available for Symbian and Windows Mobile. It supports native Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF and TXT files, as well as native JPEG and BMP graphics. You can even use files saved to expansion cards or sent as e-mail attachments directly on your device without synchronisation. It is important to note that the program allows for both viewing and editing of this range of files. Moreover, the editing done is never destructive, and is compatible with all major Microsoft Office formats.

While Windows Mobile devices bundle native versions of Word and Excel, the functionality offered by Documents to Go far exceeds that of those versions. The Premium version of the software, as an example, supports password-protected files, charting, pictures, synchronisation of e-mails with attachments, and even spell checking.

You can download evaluation or upgrade versions (if your device already ships with the product) from the DataViz Web site: www.dataviz.com.

For Frequent Flyers
WorldMate 2005 Professional for Palm OS, Symbian, and Windows Mobile

In today’s connected workspace, you need the world at your fingertips. WorldMate 2005 Professional offers a comprehensive range of features for exactly that, delivering key data to travelling business people and telecommuters.

The product can keep a wireless tab on its home Web site to offer up-to-date information on items ranging from the weather to currency exchange rates. For those of us who travel frequently, WorldMate has comprehensive and reliable flight schedules for over 800 routes. Daily and weekly schedules are provided for any selected route. A dynamic connection engine provides the 50 fastest connections to your destination. Its five-day weather forecasts cover over 38,000 locations worldwide, and are updated four times a day. WorldMate also has a world clock that features full time-zone coverage and automatic daylight savings time calculations.

Other features include a satellite image covering major landmasses and even offering precipitation data, an itinerary manager, a tip calculator for restaurants-which lists tax and tip information for over 30 countries and across seven service categories from restaurants to taxis, currency exchange, unit converter, a comprehensive area code directory, packing list, and more. WorldMate comes with an optional desktop client for data syncing and data delivery to your PC as well as mobile devices.

Pocket Informant

WorldMate 2005 Professional is available for all platforms. Download an evaluation copy from www.mobimate.com.

Keeping In Touch
Agile Messenger for Symbian
VeriChat for PalmOS
MSN Messenger for Windows Mobile

If you own a smartphone or PDA with wireless radio, there are several utilities that allow you to stay in touch with your important contacts over your favourite instant messengers (IMs). Instant messaging over a phone can be a lot cheaper than SMS messages, and is ideal for arranging an impromptu meet over coffee or lunch.

We take a look at VeriChat for the Palm OS and Agile Messenger for the Symbian platform. Users of Windows Mobile platform already have the able MSN Messenger installed.

Agile Messenger allows you to connect simultaneously to Yahoo!, MSN, ICQ, and AOL. It can download your contacts to a Symbian mobile device. Agile can connect to the relevant servers either via your phone’s GPRS connection, or by wirelessly connecting to your PC and using its Internet connection via Bluetooth. Note that the software is also available for Windows Mobile and Palm OS, but it is not as developed as the Symbian version. Head to www.agilemobile.com to download Agile Messenger.

VeriChat is a similar tool for the Palm OS platform. It is an always-on, unified IM application for PalmOS devices. On a smartphone, such as the Treo 600, VeriChat works with your persistent GPRS /CDMA 1xRTT wireless data connection to give you an always-on presence on the Yahoo!, ICQ, MSN, and AOL chat networks. It can also send across messages as SMS data. Your buddies always see you as online and can send you messages even when your device is in standby mode, and you can receive and reply to these messages. On a non-phone PDA, such as a Tungsten C with its Wi-Fi connection, you can use VeriChat whenever you have a network connection, or you can use it in always-on mode in conjunction with your mobile phone.

Instant Messenger

VeriChat offers advanced features such as auto-login/logout, which lets you pick the time of day when you want to be available on the IM networks. You can download a trial version of VeriChat from www.iambic.com. VeriChat is also available for the Symbian and Windows Mobile platforms.

Chances are you bought the approximately $500 device now sitting in your pocket, to do at least some form of personal information management (PIM): to maintain a list of contacts with phone numbers and important dates perhaps? Maybe you needed a comprehensive calendar application on the go. Maybe you needed something to keep track and make sense of your mountain of tasks. Whatever the need, a PIM is an essential tool on any mobile handset. And while most devices ship with some form of rudimentary PIM application, you can always find something more comprehensive online. We take a look at one such application meant for Palm OS and Symbian platforms. For Windows Mobile devices, we suggest Pocket Informant.

The personal information manager called Agendus tightly integrates three of the most-used applications on your mobile device: contacts, calendar, and tasks, letting you seamlessly link your business contacts and friends to meetings, events, calls, and tasks. Salespeople will love the way it generates a comprehensive contact history. And, you can choose from seven daily, weekly, and monthly calendar views so you can see your schedule the way you like it. You can even assign icons to events for some fun customisation, so you can tell what upcoming events are with just a glance, in any view.  Agendus is available for both the Palm OS and the Symbian platforms. You can download a trial version from www.iambic.com.

While Windows Mobile devices have a healthy application suite for personal information management, we suggest you at least try Pocket Informant. It is a tightly-integrated application that replaces your inbuilt Contacts, Calendar and Tasks applications with simple yet more powerful versions. The program can sync with Outlook and ActiveSync, and any third-party sync solutions. Some of the advanced features of the product allow you to create templates for appointments or tasks, with contact info automatically embedded in the subject, location, or notes. The application also offers smart journaling options and support for VGA resolution and landscape orientation. You can download a trial version of Pocket Informant at www.pocketinformant.com.

Lock Your Personal Data
SplashID for Palm OS, Symbian and Windows Mobile

The concept of using your mobile handset as an electronic wallet has been bandied about with much fanfare. Although we still haven’t reached the point where we can shop and flash our cell phone to make the credit transfer, these mobile devices can nevertheless carry a lot of personal information. With the threat of wireless snooping, viruses and Trojans ever-present, it becomes vital to protect personal data to the best of our ability.

There’s an application for all major mobile platforms that does just that. Called SplashID, the utility safely and securely stores all your personal identification information, including usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, calling cards, bank accounts, and PINs. Information is stored in a secure, encrypted format, and is quickly accessible on the mobile handset or even the desktop computer via the included desktop software.

SplashID offers an unlimited number of customisable record types and categories for storing all kinds of personal information. You can also use it to beam stored records to other devices. The software uses Blowfish encryption to protect your data. It offers field masking, an automatic password generator, and a backup and restore facility for easy data transport and syncing.

Back Up Your Data
BackupBuddyVFS for Palm OS
Sprite Backup for Symbian
Spb Backup for Windows Mobile

The importance of backing up your data can never be overstressed. Most mobile devices support some form of expandable memory-applications can back up to such a card to the desktop; some even back up your device to a Web server.

BackupBuddyVFS is a backup solution for the Palm OS. With BackupBuddyVFS, you can back up your organiser’s critical files to an expansion card. This is a valuable tool when travelling, and in the event of a data loss: you can restore the data immediately without needing to resort to Hotsync.  The application also supports incremental backups, encryption of backup files for security, and multiple checkpoints that let you keep varied sets of backups on your expansion cards. BackupBuddy also allows you to schedule a time each day when it will automatically back up your organiser. You can download the software from www.bluenomad.com.

Sprite Backup is a data protection application for mobile phones running the Symbian Series 60 OS. Backup data is encrypted and password-protected. The software also offers an automatic backup management feature. You can pick up a version of Sprite Backup for your Symbian handset from www.spritesoftware.com/ symbian.php.

Spb Backup for Windows Mobile creates a backup of your Windows Mobile device. The application creates a self-extracting compressed executables of your device’s data, thus making the backup and restore processes simple and intuitive. The application supports backup file compression and backup file encryption, and offers a desktop companion tool.

You can download a version of this software for your Pocket PC or smartphone from www.spbsoftwarehouse.com.

Modern devices come with modern operating systems-and the associated headache of OS files, registry settings, preferences and essential files. File management on a mobile device is just as important as it is on the desktop. More so with the introduction of wireless radios and the need for data security-beaming files, compressing them, and encryption are all essential aspects of file management.

Resco Explorer for both Palm and Windows Mobile devices implements standard file and folder manipulation, allowing you to copy, move or delete files, create folders, run programs with arguments, and search for files or folders.

        
Resco Explorer gives you control over OS files, registry settings, preference, and more

You can also use the Base Cryptographic Provider with RC2 (40-bit) or DES (56-bit) algorithms. The Windows Mobile version also proves a Windows shell extension that can be used for the encryption/decryption process on desktop PCs. The file manager also integrates ZIP Compression which can be used to increase the storage space; moreover, the created archives are PC-compatible-you can extract archives created on a desktop PC and vice-versa. The manager also sports an inbuilt viewer for the TXT, BIN, and HEX formats, as well as the JPEG, GIF, BMP, and PNG graphics formats.

The Palm OS version also allows you to move an application from system RAM to an expansion card; it can also be used as an application launcher, and to back up the contents of your RAM to a card. Download a trial version of this great application from www.resco.net.

JAVA APPLICATIONS
Virtually any device with a processor can run the Java Virtual Machine and thus the applications listed here. Make sure your phone has Java installed before attempting to run these:

flurrymail
www.flurry.com

A signup service that delivers your email to a Java-enabled cell phone for free. More than e-mail, though, the service also pushes RSS feeds over the air. Its e-mail service supports a variety of Web mail-Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL, and all POP3 and IMAP services. Data traffic is compressed and messages are stored on your phone. The application offers a search function and allows you to store multiple mail accounts on one device.

Opera Mini
http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/operamini/

A fast and tiny Web browser that allows you to browse the Internet on your phone. With Opera Mini, you can download images, MP3s, and documents directly to your phone. It has all the features expected of a browser and more, such as content download, skinning, bookmarks, and browsing history.

UltraIM Pro Instant Messenger for MSN
http://www.mobisophy.com/ultraimpro/ultraimpro.htm

A non-free attempt to mimic MSN Messenger on your cell phone. The appearance and functionality of UltraIM imitate many features of the MSN client on the desktop, including a sign-in screen, a contacts list, and chat windows. The software allows for direct peer-to-peer transfers of files and photos from your cell phone. If you have a cameraphone, the application allows you to snap a photo and set it as your display pic. It also lets you save your chat history, change your online status, block/unblock contacts, and so on. If you are looking for a less-featured, free software that offers MSN IM functionality, check out QuickIM Express Edition at www.quickim.com.

Remote Desktop for Mobiles
www.desktopmobiles.com
This application allows you to remote control your desktop computer with your cell phone. It works on a client-server model: it installs the client to the phone, and the server on your PC. Once set up, you can execute mouse and keyboard commands using the phone’s joystick or buttons. Remote Desktop allows you to send and receive mail, browse the Internet, edit a document in a word processor, and copy, cut, and paste files or folders.

MobyExplorer
www.bermin.net
A file manager and FTP Client with support for military-strength file encryption, an inbuilt text editor, and support for file compression using the GZip protocol. The Text Editor can also be used to edit files or Web pages remotely on an FTP server. The trial version is valid for a period of 15 days.

AvantGo
www.avantgo.com
A well-known offline browser that allows you to view, offline, specially-made versions of Web sites called channels. You can find preset channels at the Web site.

MobiPocket
www.mobipocket.com
An e-book reader that also allows you to read news and RSS feeds. News can be read offline when you sync your phone with your desktop PC.

Bemused
http://bemused.sourceforge.net
Allows you to control your music collection-and your presentations-from your phone using Bluetooth.

You can control Winamp, Windows Media Player and PowerPoint.

PuTTY
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ s2putty/

A free SSH client for the Symbian platform that lets you make secure connections between your mobile device and one or more computers.

Free Palm OS Applications
Converter
www.mattmarsh.net/computing/converter.shtml

A unit conversion tool. You can convert between 215 different elements across 23 categories.

Diddlebug
http://diddlebug.sourceforge.net/

A note application that allows you to scribble notes on your Palm device using the stylus. It also allows you to set alarms and reminders for each note.

LED Off
http://mytreo.net/downloads/ details-241.html?LEDOff

A godsend for the Treo phone, LED Off allows you to control the LED of the unit, switching it off under various usage scenarios.

SharkMSG
http://software.palminfocenter. com/product.asp?id= 1877

Prompts you to send an SMS to a caller when you ignore an incoming phone call of his or hers. It can be used to decline a call with a friendly text message.

TCPMP
http://tcpmp.corecodec.org/ about

TCPMP is a great free and open source program handles all sorts of video and music files. The codecs supported are MPEG, DivX, XviD, H.264, MP3, and OGG video and audio formats. Goes great with PocketDivXEncoder (http://divx.ppccool. com/).

Free Power PC OS Applications
zsIRC
http://umlaut.intro.hu/ ~gargaj/zsirc/

An IRC-client for the Pocket PC. The application is only meant to be run on ARM processors.

ceNetTools
www.mourfield.com /ceNetTools.asp

A PocketPC-based network utility that supports ping, traceroute, and whois.

PocketGBA
www.sunbug.net/products/emul/PocketGBA.html

Emulator software for Nintendo’s hand-held game machine-the GameBoy Advance.

Phone Profiles
www.winmobileapps.com/device/pocketpc/plt/plt.aspx

An application to cycle your phone settings through preset profiles. Phone Profile comes with a Today plugin for easy setup.

Redial
www.pocketmax.net/redial.htm

A little tray utility to automatically redial a number if it happens to be busy. Saves you two irritating button clicks!
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