The word "utilities" may elicit unpleasant memories of hefty winter electric bills or interrupted phone service. But when used in Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine, it refers to small programs that perform very specific tasks. Windows Mobile has a number of utilities built into it, allowing you to change the look and feel of your device, monitor and adjust system resources, and more. Whether built in or installed by the user, utilities can help you customize your device to fit your needs, and help you deal with tasks you must perform or problems you may face on a day-to-day basis.
There are more third-party titles in the utilities category than in any other. Most are inexpensive commercial programs, but there are also some excellent utilities available for free. This article reviews a few of the better freeware utilities. Hopefully, after reading this review and trying them out yourself, you can replace those unpleasant memories with something a little more positive.
Two of the utilities mentioned below require the .NET Compact Framework 2.0. This is a free download available from the Microsoft Download Center (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads). Simply enter ".NET Compact Framework 2.0" into the Search field to find the latest version of the download—as of this writing, SP2. Follow the instructions to install it.
Create your own mobile lists
With the incredible popularity of Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org), the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit," wikis have become an online phenomenon. A "wiki" is a collection of Web pages that can be created or changed by any reader. This unique functionality provides an interesting solution to list makers, project managers, and others in need of a widely-accessible collaborative authoring tool.
Dale Lane has created bLADE Wiki (http://www.bladewiki.blogspot.com), a free utility that brings all of the functionality of a wiki to your Windows Mobile device. The software package comes with Windows Mobile and desktop PC versions of the application, so you can view or edit a wiki on either device.
You start by entering text, just as you would if you were making a list in any word processing application. Then, using a special markup language (Fig. 1), you enter specific characters to format the text. The bLADE Wiki software supports more than two dozen formatting tags, including headings, bullets, hyperlinks, and more. Once you've created your list, click the View button and you'll see a beautifully formatted list (Fig. 2).
Figs. 1 & 2: The bLADE Wiki application lets you enter and format text lists (top) and turn them into formatted wiki Web pages (bottom).
Learning how to tag the wiki text will be very easy for those familiar with HTML (HyperText Markup Language); novice users will find the examples in the help file easy to understand. The only cumbersome feature is creating a new page, which is achieved by generating a hyperlink to a page that does not yet exist. When you tap on this in View mode, bLADE Wiki will create an empty page which you can immediately edit. According to the author, he took this method from another wiki application. Once you get used to it, the procedure becomes easier.
Your wiki is extremely customizable, and includes separate CSS files (a template which will allow you to customize the entire collection of Web pages by changing one file) for the Pocket PC and desktop computer. This means, for example, that you can specify larger text when viewing your wiki on the mobile device, or a "fancier" design when you view the wiki on your desktop. The wiki can also be exported to HTML, allowing you to e-mail it to someone else or display it in Internet Explorer Mobile.
Printer-friendly version
