I dug the old Toshiba e355 Pocket PC out of the "old geekables" drawer the other day. I was wanting to read some textfiles and my old Game Boy Advance Movie Player got "bricked" in an unfortunate bios flashing incident when I tried to update it. Oh well.Anyway, I am currently trying to install software on the thing without hooking it up to the computer. The software that comes with wants to install Outlook 2003 on your computer so that it can manage your contacts and strong arm your mail and the like (even if you don't want it to). However, there is a great Solitaire game included (Microsoft seems to include that in most of their GUI'd OS's, don't it?), so things are GOOD! So far things are working out - I put CAB files for the programs I want to use on the SD expansion card and then boot the Pocket PC and run them and they install and delete themselves. Nice. I just have to find programs I like that have CAB installers.
The main software I ever used on the thing was Haali Reader, which is an awesome textfile reader that can read zipped textfiles (they get WAY smaller - about 1/3rd their normal size!) and has awesome on-the-fly formatting options that make the Gutenberg long-line short-line problems disappear!
Also, Total Commander is a great file manager that allows you to access the SD card expansion and zip and unzip stuff (great for saving space), and move stuff around and delete stuff and the like.
So far, it has been like finding an old friend. Part of the reason I dumped it into the geek drawer in the first place was a hardware power button problem that I currently have under control via a small piece of scotch tape. Perhaps if it goes I might look into getting a low-end Palm.
I have a bunch of sites that have textfiles available on the "Links" sidebar on the right on this blog. And... here are a few freeware sites I used to go to for my handhelds...
FreewarePPC.com
FreewarePalm.com
