Mobile Software

There are a few multinetwork IM clients for mobile phones, but JiveTalk is the one I keep coming back to on the BlackBerry Curve. It may not have the translation engine of Shape Service's more established IM+ All-in-One Messenger (all platforms), but it does have the emoticons, some file-sharing, and a more generous trial period than both IM+ All-in-One-Messenger and Mundu IM (all platforms), another excellent choice. JiveTalk costs about $30 for a lifetime license and is free for iPhone users.

For most of us, checking into work on your vacation isn't any fun, but if it's a matter of no vacation or a tampered one, we'll help you find the most efficient ways to do your duty, so you can get back to doing...well, anything else. For the rest of you who are prone to nervous behavoiral ticks if you're away from your work for too long, these tools will equip you with a mini mobile office for your own brand of paradise.

Another Yahoo department has cause for concern. Up until last week, Yahoo Go was top dog in the mobile widget arena, pulling everything from weather, news, and finance to local listings, Flickr photos, and search onto Yahoo Go 3.0 beta, the company's rich application for smartphones. But Viigo 3.0 beta has added many of the same elements to what is essentially a faster-loading and more visually straightforward wrapper.

I've sung Viigo's praises when it was flexing new-found muscle as a superb RSS reader for Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices. The new beta, released June 19, … Read more

Dashwire (review), a dashboard for synchronizing and managing the contents of your mobile phone online, has let loose with Dashwire 2.0 for Windows Mobile 5 and 6. Tuesday's release enriches the syncing client application with photos and with Facebook and Twitter updates.

The previous version of the downloadable Dashwire app, which opens the syncing channels between the phone's content and the online dashboard, was pretty much a blank placeholder--all back-end functionality and very little front-end personality. Now the screen displays your primary photo, status message, and a media ribbon of the photos and videos stored on your … Read more

Today, Evernote 3.0 (download), the note-taking application I raved about in March, opens to the public for Windows and Mac users. I highly recommend this product. It's functional and useful, and beyond that its architecture is also interesting. It's a true three-platform play: it works very well, and somewhat differently, on desktop computers, mobile phones, and over the Web.

On a PC, Evernote is a good note-taking application. The current version also fixes some issues I had with earlier betas, and I'm seriously considering finally dumping OneNote, the note-taking application I use now, for this new … Read more

A personalized ringtone is worth a thousand preset tones. It's no wonder why so many users produce their own, and why so many developers join the talent show. While all ringtone-making software share some commonalities, they usually vary by some degree of pricing, audio editing sensitivity, and delivery mode. RingtoneExpress, for instance, is light on editing tools, but offers four methods for loading MP3 and WMA content onto the phone. The pricing is kept low, about $10 for limitless ringtone creation, and uniquely, it can also suck the audio out of YouTube videos for conversion to an MP3 ringtone.… Read more

After the sophistication of desktop chatting, mobile instant messaging services often tend to look like rough, rickety wire frames. Not so for AOL's first house-made application for mobile phones, a rich AIM client for Windows Mobile phones versions 5 and 6.

Released earlier this month, the IM application is in beta stages and there are plenty of known issues, including the one that number-locks the keypad on T-Mobile Dash phones and made for a dead-end first attempt. Past that obstacle, AIM for Windows … Read more

Laugh it up all you want, you Web 2.0-using note takers. This simple note maker for your PC is small, robust, and excellent at what it does.

Stickies combines the best and most important features that you could want in a notes program. The program's main feature, the sticky note, can be customized on nearly every level, from font to color to behavior. The program installs a yellow sticky pad in your QuickLaunch bar. Double-click on it to load a new sticky, or right-click on it to access saved stickies and configuration options.

Fonts, hot keys, formatting, opacity, … Read more

Jon Lech Johansen doesn't like DRM. His first public success at breaking it awarded him an indictment orchestrated by Norwegian and U.S. entertainment big-wigs. Though landing him in hot water with the authorities, it also landed him a job. "DVD Jon," who now works with doubleTwist Ventures, has turned his attention to iTunes (for Windows and Mac), and to a freeware application that wrests songs from iTunes control for delivery on a range of high-end mobile devices.

DoubleTwist desktop 1.0, released this week, does double and triple duty by converting any purchased iTunes tracks to … Read more