Hi all. Just got home for the holidays, I'll be leaving again in a few days. Anyway just wanted to wish you all hapy holidays and and let you know that Riven! is out for the pocket PC get it here

Hey lars!

Great to "see you" back again, alive & well! Your link is forcing me into considering a Pocket PC over a PALM! Funny when you throw RIVEN into the mix...how easily priorities can change.

Merry Christmas!!!

Hi Neo I'v had a pocket PC for years and I wouldn’t trade it for a palm, if you paid me. The software for ppc is just soo much bigger. I use it to remote control my PC, my TV, and stereo. I get news, email, read E-books (.lit and .pdf) and of course use it to play Myst and Riven (among a lot of old time clasics like the DIG full throttle and day of the tentacle) of course it also runs Skype (Woice over IP) plays movies and mp3's etc.

Ok sorry, I just love my pocket pc. Once you get one you wont know how you ever managed without one. let me know if you need help if you get one

Thanks for the heads up larsschermer. I wonder how much a ppc costs?

*looks up ppc prices*
*faints*

I didn't realize you could use it as a remote control! That's fantastic! I wonder if there is a way to dim lights with it as well??!!! Not that I need to dim lights by remote control!

Well clearly a Pocket PC has a lot more to offer. So here's the little I know or have been told in favor of the PALM: you can usually buy them cheaper than a Pocket PC, you don't have to buy additional software for it, most websites offer free PALM compatible downloads for installation, most software disks (database programs like ACT for example)come with PALM compatible software (for free) and the PALM comes with WORD/XCEL office compatibility.

So that being said lars...I'm already sold on the Pocket PC but if you wouldn't mind...SELL ME some more!!! I'd love to also hear which one(s) you would recommend.

Thanks!

much software is free for PPC too, but there is such a big market now that you get some really serious companysmaking soom relly cool software you just cant get for the Palm. Word exel and database programes are free for the pocketpc and Word, exel, outlook, etc come with the PDa from starts. You can dim lights with no problem, friend of mine has his PC hooked up to the electrical grid in his home, and he just runs a program on the PPC (pocket pc) that shows his PC desktop, from there he just runs everything on the PC over wifi. For the TV and stereo you just use a free app (I thinks its included with most new PPCs) that uses the Ir port on the ppc for a universal remote control.

you can get Divx win amp and a whole range of MPEG players for it as well there re apps for compressing a movie down so you can store it on SD cards and watch it from there. MP3s etc. you have a calendar, email, internet, flash, word, spreadsheets etc. the usual windows apps. Handwriting recognition isn’t that great but it works ok and you always have the option of using external (or onscreen) keyboards.

I use mine for office work like note taking, voice recording, spread sheets email and remote control of the PC (wireless)
Also I use it a lot when I travel. I can run Gameboy games, and old Lucasarts classics (evencomadore64 classics) through software emulators. I also do a lot of reading on it with either Microsoft e-books (.Lit) or PDFs. I listen to music and sync with podcasts too.
I remote all my PC media players witch are hooked up the stereo and TV.
I don’t watch that many movies on it because of the screen size, its mostly for show i get the local newspaper delivered to my PPC and local weather and also news from BBC, Tech/science/health etc. etc. Also i have an RSS reader for further reading. you can get encyclopedia etc to look up in with search function and so on.
Further more I use Skype and messenger and ICQ. Skype is great for pocket PC (if you don’t know skype is a voice over IP program that lets you call other skype users (and even normal phones, thats not free though).

I’ll give you some links, looksat the programs and you’ll see there a virtually no limits.
ICQ for PPC

Quake2!

use your ppc as a second monitor

media center remote (this one is really cool)

RIVEN

Myst

news and weather from BBC CNN etc.

stream radio etc. to you PPC

pocket Skype (free VOIP app)

By the way if I had to get a new PPC today id get a dell v51x. It has built in wireless and a really good screen long battery life and newest windows CE version.

PS sorry for the spelling my keyboard is acting up and i dont have any new battery's

this is a bit off topic so we should proberbly move it to either PM or mail.

Lars!

Thank you too much for taking the time to share all the insight/links etc. Excellent food for thought. If I wind up having more questions for you I'll send you a PM in the future...I think for now though this is more than enough for me to chew on!

Peace