HPC Notes by Phatware
If you use Outlook 97/98or even 2000 as your main email, contact management, and personal organizer program on your desktop PC, you may have noticed one glaring void in Windows CE Services' capabilities: the ability to synchronize the yellow "sticky notes" we all know and love.

Sticky notes in Outlook can be an easy and useful way of getting data onto your mobile Windows CE device. That is, if you have PhatWare's HPC Notes, shown in Figure A.

FIGURE A

Feel free to jot down anything at all. Click picture for a larger image.

HPC Notes consists of a Windows CE note viewer application, plus a Windows CE Services connection for your PC that communicates with Microsoft Outlook. Simply cut and paste the contents of any text file (such as data from your favorite word processing program, or information from a Web page) into a Outlook note, and the next time you sync, you'll be able to view (and edit) the information on your device. It's that simple.

While, at $49.95, HPC Notes is one of the more expensive utilities you'll find for Windows CE, you'll find it can be an indispensable tool. HPC Notes works on both Handheld PCs and Palm-sized PCs.

Palm Explorer and SpaceHog by Grundle Software
If you're the owner of a Palm-sized PC, you may notice that it's virtually impossible to manipulate files on your unit unless you're actually connected to your desktop PC. Worse, moving and deleting files and creating shortcuts on the Start Menu can be a slow, arduous affair. Why Microsoft decided to leave out a file manager from the Palm-sized devices when H/PC's have had "My Handheld PC" icon all this time completely evades me, but there is a solution.

Grundle Software's Palm Explorer, shown in Figure B, provides a real Windows 95 "Explorer- style" file manager for your Palm-sized PC. You can move, delete, rename and copy files and directories in RAM and Storage Cards -­ and it all happens at blinding speed. Running out of space in main memory because you've got a few huge sound files taking up all the room? No problem. Just delete them, or move them to a CompactFlash storage card. With Palm Explorer, it's a cakewalk.

FIGURE B

Make your moves with Palm Explorer. Click picture for a larger image.

And if you'd like to find out at a glance what the real file hogs on your system are, try SpaceHog. SpaceHog, shown in Figure C, is like a scaled-down Palm Explorer, but it creates a database of all the big files on your H/PC or P/PC and allows you to delete them. You'd be surprised just how huge some of these voice recorder files and Mobile Channels can get.