Get More from your Pocket PC Phone Edition

The Pocket PC Phone Edition does not receive enough recognition for the incredible features it packs into a single piece of hardware. In one well-designed unit, you have a full-featured cellular telephone and a full-sized PDA. Many Pocket PC Phone Edition users select it over the Windows Mobile-based Smartphone, because the touch screen and larger display is critical for inputting and reviewing large amounts of information. Plus, with the suite of Pocket Office applications, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, the Pocket PC Phone Edition becomes a viable replacement for a laptop. For this issue's focus on communications, we will explore third party software specifically designed for the Phone Edition.

Dial by photo

If you find that scrolling through a huge list of names to make a phone call is boring, check out PhotoContacts by Pocket X Software Inc (http://www.pocketx.net). Integrated with the Pocket Contacts database, PhotoContacts lets you assign a digital photograph to each person in your phonebook and dial them by simply tapping on their picture. You can customize the main screen to display pictures only in Icon View (Fig. 1), an image and their name, or List View, which displays a snippet of their contact information to the right of each photograph.

The software also displays photographs on the incoming Caller ID screen, so you can identify an important caller at a glance. When installed, the software defaults to a full-screen incoming call message with the caller's photo displayed on approximately 75% of the screen, and the name and phone number are listed at the bottom along with the Answer and Ignore buttons. A quick change in the PhotoContacts Options screen lets you see the familiar "incoming call" balloon message, only now it sports a thumbnail image of the incoming caller.

Navigating through the contact list is easy, and category and text filters are available at the bottom of the screen. PhotoContacts can sort the entries by first name, last name or by the "File As" field you have preset on the desktop version of Outlook. Two additional buttons at the bottom of the screen allow you to quickly create a task or appointment named after the currently selected person, and pastes their contact information into the Notes field of the appointment or task.

If you have a large number of contacts, the program's Options screen allows you to store the pictures on a memory card. Importing an image is as easy as renaming any JPG to match the contact's name (e.g. John Doe.JPG) and copying it to the Photo Contacts folder. Photos can also be beamed from other PhotoContacts users by tapping and holding on a user and selecting Receive Photo from the IR menu. The application will automatically save the JPG file to the proper folder and name it after the contact you have selected.

Photo Contacts is compatible with English, German, French, Italian and Spanish-language Pocket PC and Pocket PC Phone devices and is available for $24.95.

Fig. 1: PhotoContacts makes calling your friends and family as easy as tapping on their pictures.

Schedule a power outage

Although the standby time on Phone Edition devices is impressive, power users might want to get even more out of each battery charge. Slipstream Solutions Ltd. (http://www.slipstreamsolutions.co.uk) has created an innovative solution to this problem with mPhoneSchedule. By creating a custom wakeup and power down timetable (Fig. 2), the software can vastly increase standby time, stop unwanted calls in the middle of the night, and prevent background applications (like POP3 e-mail checking and SMS messaging) from draining your battery. It is important to note that mPhoneSchedule turns off the phone's wireless services, not the PDA itself, so you can still use the Pocket PC with wireless disabled.