Pimp up your Windows Mobile !

It surely is the ‘Touch Generation’ now. With most of the major cell phone players now in the touch screen market, you have a bundle of options when it comes to buying one.

I use one from the good old HTC Gene family, the P3400i, one of the cheapest products from the Pocket PC giant, HTC. Its based on Windows Mobile 5 platform. No Wi-Fi or 3G, but it pretty much does everything I need and fits perfectly for me when considering the price/performance ratio.

Now that you own one, making your gizmo productive is one tricky part. There are hundreds of apps available on the Web, but it’s rather difficult to find one that completely satisfies your needs. I mean, when you are happy with the performance, the looks bug you, or when the looks are good, you find that the app is eating away most of the internal memory.

Well, these are some of the apps that I feel can make your PPC come alive.

Videos

• When it comes to playing videos, the built-in ‘Windows Media Player’ in WM5 is a complete nuisance; it takes up longer time to load, can’t play the videos smoothly, and doesn’t really support a wide range of video formats that you really dig for.

I use the TCPMP. When it comes to video playback, this seems to be the best. Its super-fast, supports a wide range of video formats, has a completely free-license DivX Player, and the good part, it’s free! The latest Beta release is TCPMP 0.81 RC1. A more stable version, that I use is the 0.72 RC1. The 0.81 RC1 has additional support for WMV9 vidoes, and it looks slightly better than its predecessor.

You also need to install additional plugins for advanced functionality like playing flash videos, AMR, AC3, Matroska, HQ, Flac et cetera.

http://tamspalm.tamoggemon.com/2006/12/25/tcpmp-072rc1-incl-nearly-all-plugins/

Download and install the player first and then the plugins.

TCPMP should suffice your needs when it comes to portable video playback.

Music

• The Audio Manager in WM5 is pretty much what you need to listen to your favorite tunes. It doesn’t impress you, but it’s quite good at its functions. The Audio Booster functionality is pretty good with its clean equalizer and bass-boost effects. Only minus point is that it takes up quite a bit of memory. Now, you just listened to a song and you desperately want to make it your ring tone, what’ll you do? Well, the Audio Manager has a trimming functionality too. You can trim your songs instantly and make it as your ring tone or send it to your ring tones folder.

Personally, I use the Audio Manager, but if you consider using a third party software, I recommend the GS Player. It’s a basic mp3 playback software for PPC, and its free too. Get it here:

http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA032810/

Utilities

Clear Temp

• Clear Temp is all you need for clearing your temp, cache, cookies, history etc. It’s somewhat similar to the CCleaner, which is a PC App. It frees the internal memory and the Recent Program list. It’s a quite fast in its working and again a freeware.

http://cleartemp.en.softonic.com/pocketpc

Hide Folers

• Hide Folders is another good application that lets you do what the name suggests, “hide your folders”.

Hide your private stuffs with ease!

http://handheld.softpedia.com/get/System-Utilities/Enhancements/Hide-Folders-67768.shtml

WM5torage

• If you copy a lot of files back and forth between your PC and PPC, the ActiveSync might annoy you when copying very large files, like a MP4 movie for instance.

WM5torage lets your PC recognize your Storage Card as a Flash Drive. You activate this utility, plug in to your PC with the data cable, and there it is, ‘redemption’! Now, you can copy your files without using the ActiveSync. A good tool if you travel a lot, or visit the Internet Cafes in the city frequently.

Use your PPC as a Flash Drive.

http://wm5torage.en.softonic.com/windowsmobile

Internet

Opera Mobile

• Opera Mobile 9.5 Public Beta is the ultimate in browsing experience on a PPC. This version is built up on top of the rendering engine for Opera web browser, Presto. It tries to bring the real-time PC browsing experience to mobiles with its zoom, tabbed browsing and touch interface functionalities. You even could download files, videos, mp3s straight to you mobile with ease. This is a must use app for PPC users. Opera has release a new version of the browser, the 9.7 Beta Public, find the download link below.

A must-use app!

Download the new Opera Mobile 9.7 Public Beta here.http://www.opera.com/mobile/download/

YouTube for WM

• Mobile video streaming is simply the best thing to happen, ever! Playing YouTube videos on your mobile just got funkier with the release of the new YouTube for Windows Mobile streaming app. It’s a stunner! It’s fast and neatly designed for the average PPC user and the interface never looked so good. Find your videos on the search box, click play and the app will play the video nice and fast in the landscape mode. But be sure you have a good data plan it will give you a run for your money because of YouTube, as usual, will chew up a hell lot of data. For installation visit http://m.youtube.com with your device and follow the instructions.

Google Maps Mobile

• Determine your current location with our without GPS, get driving and transit directions, get phone numbers and addresses for local business; that’s what google maps lets you do, but only this time it’s on your mobile.

http://www.google.com/mobile/products/maps.html#p=default

I think this should do it. These are just the essential, the basics, when it comes to your PPC. Try these out today and know the difference..;-)