If you’ve got a Pocket PC Phone Edition and are concerned about the security consequencese of losing your device (and you should be), then you might want to consider beefing up your Phone Edition with some kind of theft alerting software.

The developers at Carty Studios have such a solution, Ultimate Theft Alert v3. Basically, the software keeps track of your SIM identification and automatically sends an SMS to your pre-defined destination if/when somebody inserts a new SIM card into the phone. Kinda nifty. You can grab a free trial or full version for $14.99 here (affiliate).

BONUS: Carty Studios wants to help you readers out with your security needs by offering a free license to five of you lucky folks! Here are the rules for entering this giveaway:

? Submit a post to this thread and mention at least ONE current feature you like about Ultimate Theft Alert, ONE enhancement you’d like to see or ONE short description of your greatest Pocket PC security tragedy.
? All entry posts must be made before 12:01AM EST on Monday, December 4, 2006.
? You may enter only ONCE (i.e., one post); multiple posts will be deleted and sent to the Seventh Dungeon of the Evil Goobleslug Emperor.
? The decisions of the judge(s) are final, especially those concerning his personal attire for the day.
? As always (say it with me): No Whining!

Good luck to all, and HAVE FUN!

Thanks to all who entered the recent PPC Tablet 4.0 contest. Our Sultan of Swag, Brad Adrian, has picked the winners and they are: Dyvim, asims, c1oudrs, PPCRules, and Bruce Babcock.

If you’re one of the lucky five, congratulations! We’ve just sent you an e-mail containing details of your prize. If you missed out, you can still pick up a copy of PPC Tablet 4.0 for $19 from our affiliate software store. Thanks again, and expect more giveaways soon!

Too stuffed with turkey, mashed potatoes, etc. to actually go out and physically shop in person? Well, the Pocket PC community is starting to crank up their Thanksgiving sales. Here’s the current sales we’re aware of; if any others crop up over the weekend, I’ll be sure to update this post.

• Astraware is offering 3 “simple, fun games” for under $10 through Monday the 27th; to get more details, login to or join Club Astraware.
• VidaOne promises to help you watch your diet post-gorging, with 40% off any of their health, fitness and nutrition software today (Friday).
• JAVOedge, makers of PDA accessories and cases, is offering a blanket 25% off your entire order through their website. Use the coupon code “JAVO25BLKFRI” (case-sensitive) upon checkout; the code expires on the 26th.

Enjoy!

Our pal at DinarSoft snapped some pictures of the i-mate booth at GITEX in Dubai. We’ve got a few pictures of the PDAL, side-by-side with the i-mate JAMin and Dell Axim X50v. If you’re a little more interested in the JAQ3, check back later in the day. … [more]

Some of you may remember our PPC Tablet 3.0 giveaway that was held in January. Since then, this remote control and virtual input application has matured a great deal. The latest version, v4.0, offers enhanced stability and security, a new Remote Desktop-like experience, and adds support for remote file browsing, downloading, and execution, on top of all the great features that existed in v3.0.

Vladimir Ralev and his team at Amorphous Media have done a great job, and they’ve generously offered us copies of PPC Tablet 4.0 to give away to five lucky Pocket PC Thoughts readers. To enter the contest, all you have to do is answer the following in this thread:

- Armed with a copy of PPC Tablet, tell us how you’d use the application to its full potential.

Need some ideas? Visit the PPC Tablet product page or download a free trial version from our affiliate software store. Remember, only one post per person. The contest closes on Monday, November 20, 2006 at 5:00PM PST. After that, our resident “Sultan of Swag”, Brad Adrian, will randomly select five winners. Good luck!

Congratulations to paulsg63, kaiden.1, philipp-grunwald, knaak, Non-Geek, rombo, fishboy, elempoimen, choyboy and sjosjo! You have each won a free copy of SplashID from SplashData!

If you’re one of these lucky ten Thoughts readers, keep an eye on the e-mail account you’ve registered with us for further instructions for claiming your prize. If you’re NOT one of the Chosen this time around, you can still get yourself a free demo or full version of SplashID here.

Many thanks to everybody who contributed their ideas to this giveaway, and especially to Raphael at SplashData. Be on the lookout for more giveaways soon!

Keeping your Pocket PC’s screen clean can be pretty tough, especially if you’ve got kids or pets in your household. The folks at Mobis want to help you, though, by offering five lucky Thoughts readers a chance to win a free micro-fiber Moon Cloth for cleaning those pesky globs of dust, dirt and grime from your device screen.

This is going to be a quick and easy giveaway. To be eligible, all you have to do is make sure you’re registered with our site and post (once) to this thread and describe the most common or worst kind of grime you’ve ever had to clean off your Pocket PC screen. We’ll accept entries until 12:01am EST November 6, 2006, after which we’ll randomly select five winners from among all entries.

Remember, please only enter once, and have some good, clean fun!

“It’s almost time for Halloween so we’re excited to announce the Astraware Spooktacular - a special sales event offering a cauldron-full of great games at scarily low prices! Starting on Friday 27th October and running until midnight on 31st October 2006, six weird and wonderful games will be available with up to 50% off their regular price. For Club Astraware members, there’s a special Halloween treat as one of them will be available free! Just visit Club Astraware at: http://www.astraware.com/club/login.php. Club Astraware is easy to join and costs nothing, so why not grab a free game this Halloween?”

Yes, roll out those pumpkin heads. October 31 is approaching. Astraware is celebrating with a 50% discount on multiple titles, so if you’re interested in saving a few bucks, visit the Spooktacular page.

One of the most important applications you can have on your Windows Mobile device is a safe, secure place to store important data. If you’ve never owned such a program (shame on you) or if you’ve always wanted to use SplashData’s SplashID, now is your chance! The great folks at SplashData are giving away a free SplashID For Pocket PC license to 10 — count ‘em, 10 — lucky Pocket PC Thoughts readers.

Here are the rules of this giveaway:

? Post a reply to this thread with your answer to one (or all) of these questions:

— What type of secure data do you (or would you) currently store most often on your Windows Mobile device? … [more]

“You’ve earned it. Now Microsoft wants to thank you with a great deal on a Windows Mobile powered smartphone from T-Mobile. This is your opportunity to receive up to a $300 discount on the latest Windows Mobile device from T-Mobile. In addition - you can receive discounts on mobile service all for being an MSDN subscriber. Leverage your skills to build applications for the .NET Compact Framework and get started as a Windows Mobile developer today.”

Not a bad deal indeed! The Dash for $99 with promo code “Windows Mobile”. Only problem is that if you’re an existing T-Mobile customer, even if you are willing to re-up your contract for another 2 years, the offer isn’t valid. New activations & data plan upgrades only. After all, who the heck cares about your existing customers - mistreat them all you want (the number 1 rule for cellular phone providers!). If you’re not tied to T-Mo already, the prices are surely worth your consideration, however.

Some of the winners of Smartphone and Pocket PC Magazine’s Best Software Awards are celebrating by offering discount codes for many of their applications. We’ve taken what’s available and summarised it here to make it easier for you to take advantage of the savings. We’ll update this thread over time as more codes are announced. For now, enjoy what’s below!

- Ilium Software (all applications): Visit the Ilium Software store, and add items to your cart. At checkout, enter the code, MAGAWRD, and hit the Recalculate button.
- Pocket Watch Software (ActivePrint): Visit this page, select your preferred version, and click the PayPal button to grab 20% off.
- Web Information Solutions (all applications): Visit the WebIS store and use the $5 coupon code, 97638883, at checkout.
- SK Software (all applications): Visit this thread for details on the 10% discount offer.

It’s 11pm where I am, and my wife is staring at me with those “It’s time to go to sleep eyes” , but I’d be remiss if I didn’t do a really quick post before today ended, this being the 6th anniversary of when I started Pocket PC Thoughts back in 2000. It seems like an eternity ago, and the site and the Windows Mobile platform have come so far. Now Windows Mobile is dominant over Palm in many spaces, and growth is happening fast. The new underdog is the Zune. I wanted to say thank you to each of you who come to this site, day after day, because without you Pocket PC Thoughts wouldn’t exist and I wouldn’t have the amazing opportunity and blessing to make a career off of something I love doing. A big thanks go out to all the amazing volunteers that help make this site rock (in no particular order): Darius, Janak, Fabrizio, Doug, Ed, Ekkie, Jeff, Brad, Steve, Jon, Raphael, Jorj, Ashley, and the great review team (Don, Steve, Philip. and everyone else). Thank you for all making Pocket PC Thoughts a raging success, and I look forward to six more years (at least!).

Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to stop by a particularly unusual event: HTC and Cingular’s “Smart Meets Sexy” press event, featuring the Cingular 3125. Now, details on the Cingular 3125, known otherwise as the HTC Star Trek — the thinnest clamshell Smartphone on the market so far — is primarily the purview of our sister site, Smartphone Thoughts, so I’m not going to go into it in much detail. Nevertheless, the fact that HTC America is visible and active is noteworthy. Read on for a quick look at what I saw.

[more]

After publishing my Mobius 2006 Thailand Day One article immediately after the first day, I have to admit I was proud of myself - normally it takes me many days to transform my session notes into a complete article, so this was a big improvement over previous Mobius events. Well, you know what they say about being proud of yourself - here I am publishing the day two article (a much shorter piece to begin with) a full week after it happened. I was essentially busy and/or travelling from the second day of Mobius through until Tuesday AM, and have been catching up on email and other tasks ever since. So you’ll have to pardon the lateness, but here’s the Mobius day two article.

Derek Brown, BMO Director (Marketing Director) for Microsoft Thailand, started day two with a session called “Emerging Markets & The Next Billion PCs”. His introduction was a brief overview of how the Pocket PC launched and how the first “Pocket PC Wireless and Beyond” event came to be (the precursor to Mobius). There was some wistful (and wincing) talk about the Palm-size PC evolution into the Pocket PC, and the things that Derek oversaw during his time on the Windows Mobile team in Redmond (including the infamous Mobile Experience Tour). Living in Thailand, Derek had a unique perspective on the military coup that occurred, and he showed us some photos of what things were like in Bangkok. Soldiers, tanks, and guns ? but everything was peaceful, people were posing for photos with the soldiers, citizens handing out flowers and cheering for the military. It’s about as benign as a coup can be.

Thailand is an emerging market, with 65 million people, and most of the population still lives in rural communities. Piracy is a concern Thailand ? Microsoft believes in bringing technology to people, but as a business they also want to sell software. Respect for intellectual property is lacking in Thailand ? there’s about 79% piracy rate, which includes software piracy, movie piracy, and other forms of IP theft. He discussed open source and governments ? Microsoft is happy to compete with open source solutions, but they dislike government edicts that give an unfair advantage to open source solutions. [more]

A little while ago, we posted a review of a spiffy text-entry application, TapText from DinarSoft.

TapText is a whole new way of inserting text into your notes, e-mail or documents. With only two taps you can add pre-edited text into any application without leaving it or even changing your preferred input method. If you are tired of entering the same text over and over, then this is the best tool for you.

To learn more about TapText, you can read our review here, and download a free demo version or buy the full version for $9.99 here. In addition, the folks at DinarSoft have offered to give away a free license to five lucky Pocket PC Thoughts readers. All you have to do to enter the giveaway is post a reply to this thread and mention the one type of data/field you would most often use TapText for OR the one product feature you would like to see added in future releases. We’ll randomly select the winners from among all the entries.

A couple of additional rules are:

? You may only enter once; duplicate or multiple posts will not be included in the drawing.
? Entries must be posted by 11:59pm EST on Saturday, September 30, 2006.
? The decisions of those performing the drawing (namely, me) are final — unless I decide to change my mind.
? As always, no whining.

Oh, and make sure that your profile is up to date, because we’ll be using the e-mail address you’ve registered with this site to notify you if you win.

“Many thought “why only America”? Well fear not Europe, because Skype is with you. As of right now and until the end of 2006, all SkypeOut calls to landlines within France are free. Unlimited. Zero price. No catches.”

I’m sure most of you still recall that offer from Skype for free calls to landlines and mobiles within the United States and Canada (which, by the way, is still active). If you’re in France, you can now enjoy half of the benefits (only free calls to landlines, not mobiles) - so grab your Pocket PC and start calling.

“Microsoft will be at CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment 2006 to showcase how a Windows Mobile powered device can help your workforce stay in touch with customers, be informed and rise above your competition. Visit us to learn how your organization can deploy a secure, scalable, and cost-effective mobile solution that helps your workforce stay connected and be more productive.”

There are two things you’ll find at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2006 - odd postures (see above) and Windows Mobile. I guess we’re primarily concerned with the latter.

The event runs from September 12 to 14 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. If you’re interested in attending to learn more about Windows Mobile, as well as a collection of other technologies, visit the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment home page and register.

“Expand your mobile device with cool content! You can get a 50% discount on WorldMate travel organizer or a 10% discount off your next order of any other software found at the PocketPC Thoughts software shop powered by Handango.”

50% off of WorldMate is a very nice deal, especially if you’re a global traveller looking for a high-quality all-in-one type of application that covers world time, currency/metric conversions, weather and more. If you already have WorldMate or are eying another application available at our Handango store, you can opt for the 10% off discount. Be sure to click here for the full details. Happy shopping, everyone!

We’re doing another giveaway from Pocket PC Techs, a great long-time supporter of this site. Whenever I think of cables, screen protectors, stylii, or broken Pocket PCs (gasp!), I think of Pocket PC Techs. The giveaway is a bundle of two things: a USB U.S. Power Accessory Bundle (or the EU version) and a Lil’ Sync Pro cable for whichever device the winner has (if Pocket PC Techs makes one that is). That’s a total value of $57.49 USD for each bundle, and Pocket PC Techs has generously offered to give away three of these bundles. This is a great bundle because it allows you to charge your Pocket PC in a car, in a wall socket, and anywhere else via the battery unit.

All you have to do in order to enter this contest is post a message in this thread telling me what kind of Pocket PC you need the accessories for. It’s that easy! I’ll randomly pick three messages next Tuesday, the 29th, at 10 am mountain time. Only one post per person. Thanks and good luck!

Last week I posted on an awesome giveaway of 10 copies of Pocket Mechanic! The winners have been selected randomly and now it’s time to announce!

The Winners Are: renzokuken, Sogarth, PiateHS, omkar, ddwire, Bradman, beowolf, devoncatt, paulsg63, and wilsojer! Congratulations!

If you’ve won, check your email box for an email from the Pocket Mechanic crew regarding your prize. If you haven’t heard from them in the next 3 - 4 days, feel free to contact me and we’ll sort it out.

Thanks to everyone who entered - this was certainly one of the biggest giveaways we’ve done in awhile! If you didn’t win, check out Pocket Mechanic - it just might make your day!

“The leading Windows Mobile maintenance utility comes re-loaded with features and tools to keep your mobile device and storage cards in perfect shape. A complete rewrite of the award winning Pocket Mechanic application, the Professional version is faster, more powerful and is compatible with more devices. Optimize your device and storage for peak performance, clean up system junk and free up precious memory occupied by unwanted files and OS objects, maintain the system integrity and prevent possible problems, ensure your privacy and protect your investments in storage cards and mobile device hardware by using a simple and descriptive user interface yet offering robust arsenal of powerful Pocket PC maintenance tools this is what Pocket Mechanic Professional does well.”

Anton Tomov has offered 10 lucky Thoughts readers a FREE copy of Pocket Mechanic Professional! Pocket Mechanic has been around a few years, and if you haven’t checked it out lately - you’ve missed out on the benefits that maturity can bring to an established application! Post your entry below and then check it out!

To Win, all you must do is reply to this post and answer the question “What feature of Pocket Mechanic Professional do you believe would be most useful to you?” Would it be defragmenting storage cards? Cleaning the registry? Fixing invalid shortcuts? Finding large files? Simply post your response by 5 PM MDT on Monday, Aug 21 to be eligible. The winners will be randomly drawn from those entered. Good Luck!

Last week I posted on the update of ThumbMagic and also offered 3 lucky Thoughts Readers a copy of the software (Courtsey of the developer!). Now it’s time to announce the lucky few who will get their hands on ThumbMagic for absolutly nothing other than their “thoughts” on one-handed operation!

Drumroll Please…..

The Winners Are: scmidlap, SpencerAR, and MBurch!

Congratulations to our winners. If you’ve won, be sure to keep your eye on the email box you specified when you registered in our forums. If you don’t hear anything within a few days, feel free to contact me using the “Contact Us” link at the top of the page! Thanks to San Kowdley, ThumbMagic’s Developer for offering the prizes. In addition, he’s also offered a special Thoughts Discount for 20% off ThumbMagic! The promo code is 15EEF952, and is good at Handango (Using the links from his site ). Offer is valid until August 15th, so don’t wait!

Here’s a simple contest. All you need to do is head over to the Ilium Software Blog, come up with a great caption for the picture (and also ask them why only one person has a mobile device on show ), and you’ll be in the running to win an Ilium Software application or stylus pen (if you already have all the applications).

“ThumbMagic is designed for complete one-handed operation of the Pocket PC device. You can create appointments, tasks, contacts in an extremely intuitive manner without using your stylus! Completely redesigned interfaces for text entry such as a built in qwerty keyboard, sequential data input for making the process much simpler makes it a perfect companion on the go! You can also send Emails (multiple POP3 accounts/ Outlook), SMS messages, MMS messages all through a SINGLE unified 3 step messaging system. Not to forget, all of this can be done without the need of a stylus! Besides, a powerful plugin system which currently comes with two default plugins (a scientific calculator & a device statistics plugin) which takes the potential of expansion to the next level.”

ThumbMagic 1.4 is out, with new features and the plugins available. ThumbMagic, if you haven’t had a chance to play around with it yet, allows you to speed up routine tasks on your Pocket PC by simply using your thumb - no stylus required. To celebrate the release, San (The developer) has graciously offered to give 3 Pocket PC Thoughts Readers a free copy!

All you have to do to be considered for the contest is to post a reply to this thread, answering the following question: What task on your Pocket PC do you wish was completely stylus-free by default?. Post your thoughts by August 2nd at 2 PM TDT! (Thoughts Daylight Time, a.k.a. Mountain Daylight Time)

Our Pocket PC Techs Lil’ Sync Penguin giveaway contest is over, and I’ve randomly selected ten winners, who will each be receiving one Lil’ Sync® Penguin? Chargers (either US or EU versions) along with a matching Lil’ Sync® Power Accessories Carrying Case, valued at $19.99 each, for a total prize package of $48.98. The winners are as follows: piperpilot, doc, Oreocat, PPCRules, kcwester, Ploobers, Mitch D, kndlewis, enrogue, and bananasplit. Each winner has been contacted via private message, so if your username is on that list, please check your inbox.

In the words of the great Ron Popeil, but wait, there’s more! For all those that didn’t win, using the coupon code ppctpengiun0706 in the “Special Instructions” field at check-out will save you 15% off the Pengiun, the carrying case, or any other accessories such as Lil’ Sync Cables, screen protectors, etc. The coupon code is valid until the July 31st, so order now. Gee I do sound just like Ron, don’t I?