The default Windows Mobile user interface isn’t ideal for the majority of daily mobile working tasks – it depends heavily on the stylus (or is you’re using a Smartphone, the D-pad), a hardware keyboard and in some cases very good eyesight.

As such, several developers have taken advantage of this to introduce alternative user interfaces for Windows Mobile devices. Given that the platform (while under supported in recent years) is the most versatile of all the flavours of mobile available, this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.

Key among these developers is Spb Software, who over the last few years have released a succession of mobile shells for Windows Mobile. The latest of these is Spb Mobile Shell 3 which is available as a free 14 day trial from Spb Software, full price $29.95.

When Google Gadgets were released for Linux, many people once again praised Google’s support of free and open source software, but there was just one problem. The two major desktop environments for Linux, GNOME and KDE, both already had desktop widget components that were better integrated into their overall desktops. Fortunately, the Google developers were well aware of this and built in the interoperability that would allow the GNOME and KDE developers to seamlessly integrate the two.

With the release of KDE 4.2, Google Gadgets became fully integrated into Plasma. You can add them to your desktop with a few clicks of your mouse, unless you happen to be a Kubuntu user. For reasons that are outside the scope of this article, Kubuntu developers decided to remove the Google Gadget code from Plasma.  Being the stubborn hackers that we are, however, we are going to get them back.  This will require a little compiling of software, but I will walk you through each step.