ARTrecognition also comes with a voice recognition component that allows you to perform certain commands by voice. My experience with the Nino version was that the program was a lot of fun, very cool, but ultimately impractical. I could get it to work only in quiet rooms. Any ambient sound, like car noise, restaurant noise, etc., made it so the program couldn't recognize my voice. Hopefully they've solved this problem with the current version. Not having a demo makes it difficult to ascertain.

JOT Pro by CIC
JOT Pro is a premium version of JOT. Instead of having your scribbles relegated to a dedicated panel at the bottom of the screen, JOT Pro allows you to use the entire surface of the screen. This is a little less ideal than it at first seems because as you scratch out your text, still using a letter-by-letter method, it's easy to accidentally trigger a screen tap rather than a character. I found this especially problematic when using a program with a lot of fields, such as Contacts. Still, although I can't personally recommend it, it does provide more features than the built-in version. The trade-off may be an increase in erroneous taps.

AccessPanel Platinum Edition by Developer One
AccessPanel, pictured in Figure C, allows you to quickly enter frequently used phrases and terms. It provides easy access to your contact information and custom time stamps. It also allows you to dial a contact using RapidDialer, another of their fine programs.

FIGURE C


AccessPanel Platinum Edition is full of time-saving features. Roll over picture for a larger image.

While I don't use AccessPanel, I've no doubt that it comes in extremely handy for those people who use the contact manager for more than a glorified address book. If you create a lot of notes and emails on your Palm-sized PC, then you'll no doubt benefit from the time-saving features of AccessPanel. For more information, read Dan Huber's article on AccessPanel in this very issue of Windows CE Power.

UniKey by DeveloperOne
UniKey allows you to map infrequently used characters to a special keyboard. Need to create the copyright sign? A TM superscript? No problem with UniKey. Simply map the symbol to a key and then bring up UniKey when you need to insert it. This is a very thoughtful program indeed.

NumeriPad by Developer One
NumeriPad, pictured in Figure D, is a numeric keypad for your Palm-sized PC. If you enter a lot of numeric data, this might be just what you're looking for.

FIGURE D


NumeriPad makes entering numeric data easy. Roll over picture for a larger image.

SIP Manager by Developer One
Ah, now here's a nifty little accessory, and it's free. SIP Manager is a simple utility that allows you to select which SIP programs will appear in your SIP pop-up menu. Since I never use JOT or the soft keyboard, I told SIP manager that I don't want to see those options, and viola, they are gone. Currently my SIP panel shows two options: Calligrapher and RapidCalc. That's all I need; there's no reason to clutter the menu with other options. That's basically all SIP Manager does, but it does it well. A simple, effective program. Get it.