Get More out of Traveling with your Pocket PC

Whether traveling for business or pleasure, the Pocket PC can manage all of the details of your excursion so that you can focus on work or sit back and relax.

Start off with an organized schedule

Frequent flyers know that an organized itinerary is the key to a pleasurable trip. TripTracker by Two Peaks Solutions Inc. organizes the details of flights, car rentals, hotel reservations, and more, and displays them on a single screen (Fig. 1). Best of all, Two Peaks has created a clean and easy-to-use application that is unmatched in form and function.

When you enter your flight information into TripTracker (Fig. 2), the program automatically makes an appointment in the Pocket PC's Calendar application (Fig. 3), correctly entering the start and end times based on the time zone where the flight departs or arrives. In addition, all appointments entered into TripTracker correctly reflect the time zone of your travel location, so if you have to check out of a hotel on the East coast at noon on Monday, it will show up as 9am in Calendar when your Pocket PC is set to West coast time.

Figs. 1, 2, 3: TripTracker puts your complete travel itinerary on one screen (top). When you enter flight, car rental pick up, and other events into TripTracker (middle), the information is automatically entered in Calendar, and displayed on the appropriate date and time (bottom).

You can track expenses and airline mileage programs in TripTracker, and the software will even estimate the amount of mileage you'll earn on each flight segment, based on the actual distance between the cities. TripTracker allows you to add bonus miles for special flights or short flights that offer a higher "minimum reward."

Additional convenient features include a world clock, time/distance calculator, currency converter, and a phonebook with entries for 49 airlines, 26 hotels, and 9 car rental agencies. TripTracker even includes a PC version of the software so that you can set up the schedule on your desktop computer and then sync the information to your Pocket PC. The desktop software is also helpful for quickly copying your trip costs into a company expense report, since it can export to Microsoft Excel. In addition to syncing with the Pocket PC, trip itineraries can be exported to Microsoft Word or printed from the desktop PC version. The Pocket PC and desktop PC versions of TripTracker are available as a bundle for $29.95 from Two Peaks Solutions Inc. (http://www.twopeaks.com).

Find anything, anywhere

The traveler's nightmare is that you find yourself in the middle of an unfamiliar city with no idea where you are or what to do. Thankfully, a pair of applications can save you from this plight and provide a wonderful experience for countless cities around the world.

Vindigo 2.0 from Vindigo Studios is an electronic travel guide that gives you information on and directions to restaurants, bars, museums, shops, movies, and more in over 80 U.S. cities (and London). The program goes the extra mile by offering one-tap access to information on nearby restrooms, live music events, couriers, auto repair shops, hospitals, and more.

When you arrive in a city, open Vindigo and mark your current location by entering the street you are on and the nearest cross street. Vindigo automatically lists restaurants, shops, etc. by how close they are to you, and customizes the program so that directions start from your current location.