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.

Using Microsoft Exchange is the nearest thing to true push email on Windows Mobile devices, and thanks to a new free open source service, you are no longer restricted to paying an for an unreliable service or depending on your corporate email.

Funambol is a free service that uses the open source model. It replicates the workings of Microsoft Exchange and offers free exchange style email to many mobile phone types, particularly Windows Mobile.

It’s a powerful tool that goes beyond over the air email synchronization – Funambol also offers calendar and contacts synchronization.

With calendars, contacts and task data becoming more and more mobile, pocket PCs are a key home for the storage of mobile organizer information.

Windows Mobile can be synchronised via ActiveSync with your PC or Exchange server to keep synchonrised your contacts list, calendars and flagged emails and tasks – but tourble can arise in the shape of duplicates.

If Microsoft truly intend on aligning the Windows Mobile/Windows Phone platform to the same market spread as Apple, BlackBerry and Palm Pre, resolving the laughable situation with the contacts, calendar and tasks duplicate should be high on their list of priorities.

Until Windows Mobile 7 is released however, Trinefix is by far and away the best solution to this frustrating problem.

Good games on the Windows Mobile platform are largely limited to a few recent titles – but there is a wealth of games available for the platform thanks to the library of titles written in MS-DOS, and a suitable emulator.

If you want to install some old games or apps or simply want to push the limits on your Windows Mobile device, MS-DOS emulation is a good way to go. Modern Windows Mobile devices are more than capable of running old MS-DOS games and applications, but emulation is a tricky business. Surprisingly there are just two emulators available.

There are considerable benefits in using a software keyboard on your Windows Mobile phone – but it can be troublesome to find the right keyboard and difficult to set it up without the right tools.

Windows Mobile comes with a number of onscreen input options.  Various stylus methods are provided such as Block Recogniser and Letter Recogniser which both involve scrawling the stylus within a specified area of the screen, as well as Symbol Pad and Transcriber. Each of these methods has its own peculiarities for attaining a reasonable success rate of conversion from the input squiggle into a legible sentence

Finally there’s the poorly designed micro keyboard designed for Windows CE and the larger display handheld devices from companies such as HP that when resized for a typical Windows Mobile smartphone screen are almost as difficult to use with the stylus as without!

Thankfully there are alternatives to this input method. If you’re looking for direct onscreen software keyboard access to services such as Twitter or text messaging – situations when it would be quicker to use a more accessible input device than the slide-out hardware keyboard, then there are plenty of alternatives. These can either be downloaded free or purchased and then setup on your Windows Mobile device as the default software keyboard.

When resorting to a factory reset to reinvigorate your Windows Mobile phone – for instance to get rid of a severe bug or remove some badly made software you’ve downloaded – it can be a galling procedure to pour over your handset re-entering your email settings if you’re using POP or IMAP.

Happily there is a simple way to create an XML file to store your settings and turn this into a CAB file which will apply your IMAP and/or POP3 settings for single or multiple email accounts.

Windows Mobile devices have long had the ability to share their internet connection with a laptop or desktop PC, with just the right software and a USB cable.

Overview

If your phone line, WiFi or cable connection is down, or you’re on the move with your laptop and Windows Mobile device in tow, as long as you have a data connection with your mobile contract and such a service is available (dependent on location) you should be able to use your handset as a modem.

This process is commonly called tethering – Windows Mobile users are able to take advantage of the platform’s version of Internet Connection Sharing in order to get online.

Constant day to day use of a Windows Mobile device can lead to a slowdown in performance even on the highest spec devices with memory and by extension processor time continually allocated to applications that are to all intents and purposes closed.

Poor application programming is usually the cause of these apps retaining system resources and the usual fix is to perform a soft reset of the device – although a Task Manager is included on Windows Mobile 5 and later, it usually only assists in closing difficult to exit programs.

CleanRAM therefore is a vital tool in managing memory resources on Windows Mobile devices, and is available free from FreewarePocketPC.net. We’re going to look now at how to use CleanRAM in different ways to control allocated memory.

Successful blogging from the Windows Mobile platform can be difficult. There are several applications that can be installed and utilised but most of these alternatives are limited in some way.

However if you’re blogging to a Movable Type or Wordpress platform blog, the best solution is Pocket Sharp MT  for touchscreen “Professional” Windows Mobile devices (or Phone Sharp MT for non-touchscreen WinMo handsets). Pocket Sharp MT is available from www.randyrants.com.

Once the installation is complete, you can configure Pocket Sharp MT to connect to and publish to your Wordpress or Movable Type blog, and comfortably blog from the comfort of your Windows Mobile device, employing basic formatting, assigning categories and even uploading images.

Maintaining a remote backup of your Windows Mobile contacts, calendar, schedule, tasks and other documents, pictures and MP3s has traditionally been a problematic task, leaving Windows users looking on in envy at the owners of Apple Macs and iPhones and their iDisks and other solutions.

Thankfully as part of an overdue concerted move to develop the Windows Mobile and Hotmail/Live platforms, Microsoft have developed the My Phone, a secure online repository for contacts, SMS messages and other vital information stored on your Windows Mobile device that can be added to or cut down as the user sees fit.