Gupta's Greats

As Pocket PC magazine's New Products editor, it's Nitin's job to find software for your Pocket, Palm-size and Handheld PCs. This regular column looks at Nitin's best finds, including applications, games, utilities, and other software programs for your Windows Powered devices. For a weekly look at what's hot, check out the "Download of the Week" section on our Web site

GigaBar

Replace the Today screen's taskbar with a more functional and exciting taskbar

GigaBar is a customizable replacement to the Pocket or Palm-size PC's taskbar, adding functions and flexibility to your Windows Powered device. In addition, you can "skin" GigaBar, changing the way it looks. Add icons to GigaBar to add functions. These can vary from closing an application, browsing files, taking a screen shot, switching applications and more. Five of the functions can be accessed by five actions, which are Tap, Double Tap, Tap-Left, Tap-Right, Tap-UpDn. The other five are available through the menu, which appears when you tap and hold on an icon. A collection of icons with a particular skin is called a "scheme." Many skins and schemes come built into GigaBar. You can make your own skin, using the Skin Me application available from www.desertware.com/skinme. You can customize existing schemes and save them too.

A scheme can be customized by going to Start Menu -> Settings -> System -> GigaBar. It may take a little time to get conversant with each icon in a scheme and the functions it performs. You might also have to practice a little bit, the tap and drag actions. But once you get a hang of them, it will be hard to live without GigaBar. This is a great application that doesn't cost you a penny! ThumbsUp Software developed GigaBar. They provide great customer support through telephone and e-mail. I called them twice and each time I got my problem solved satisfactorily. This is the first time I've seen a developer providing toll-free support for a free application. GigaBar can be downloaded from Download.com. The website of GigaBar is (www.gigabar.com).

Dashboard

"Skin" your Pocket PC's Today screen

If your Pocket PC's Today screen seems a bit boring try Dashboard, a program that lets you "skin" your Today screen as well as add icon shortcuts to Tasks, Appointments and applications Inbox. The Launcher icon takes you to a customizable Launcher screen that lets you start any built-in or user installed application on your Pocket PC with a single tap. You can customize the way in which tasks, appointments and e-mails are displayed. For example, you can choose to see the preview of the e-mail in your Inbox. A lot of skins have been created for Dashboard by users, and are available at the developer's Web site (www.snoopsoft.com/pocketpc/skins.html).

The "My Dash" page can be customized using the Third Party Add-ins. One add-in available from Whittaker Moore associates (www.pocketfillers.com) lets you display the names of the contacts that you have stored in your Pocket PC. You can configure Dashboard to change the skins displayed on the Today screen at a regular interval. You can make your own skins for the Dashboard using the Skin Me application available at (www.desertware.com/skinme). This is a cool application, which makes using a Pocket PC more exciting and fun. It also makes it easier to access tasks, appointments and incoming e-mails from the Today page. Dashboard is by SnoopSoft (www.snoopsoft.com). It is shareware and the registered version is available for $13.00.

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