FIGURE C

Get rid of all those huge files now! Click picture for a larger image.

bTask by bSquare
The sure fire way of slowing your mobile device to a crawl is to have too many applications open. On Palm-sized PCs, you might not even know if you have too many open because you can only see one application at a time. Closing applications down can be an arduous process because, on P/PCs, many applications don't have an exit or quit option. The only way to get them out of memory is by going into Settings, then System Properties, and then Task Manager to close them out. What a pain.

With bTask, your memory-sucking application woes are over. bTask is a small utility that runs in the system tray (it looks like a little "b" in a circle) that you can tap to display all the tasks running in memory. Got a real memory chewer running? No problem. Tap on the little "b" and nix it from memory.

Mobile Channel Viewer and Mobile Channel Wizard by Microsoft
Mobile Channels are a cool way to download Web data and news to your mobile device, but so far only owners of Palm-sized PC's have been able to enjoy them. If you own a H/PC or H/PC Pro, you've been out of luck.

Fortunately, Microsoft has come up with a solution ­- and it costs you nothing to fix. Simply download the H/PC Mobile Channel viewer from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsce/products/download/mcviewer.asp, install it on your H/PC, and soon you'll be receiving news from MSNBC and other sources. Be sure to check out the Microsoft Mobile Channels web site at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsce/Products/download/channels.asp and CEWire's Mobile Channels list at http://cewire.com/channels.asp.

But what if there's a Web page out there that you want to sync to your device that doesn't have a Mobile Channel? Or what about all these AvantGo channels you've been reading about, but can't take advantage of yet? No problem. Download Microsoft's Mobile Channel wizard, from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsce/products/download/mcwizard.asp. As shown in Figure D, it allows you to convert ANY Web site into a mobile channel ­- including web sites that are optimized for AvantGo, like The New York Times, TV Guide and CNET.

FIGURE D

Build your own Mobile Channel with the Microsoft Wizard. Click picture for a larger image.