Pocket PC Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

Hey everyone! This is a quick heads-up for you to check Digital Home Thoughts if you're interested in winning some free stuff. It's by far our #1 site when it comes to contests, largely because it covers a broad spectrum of topics which makes it easier to get giveaway items. We've been running a hard drive giveaway (3350 GB in total storage) for the past five weeks, giving away a variety of hard drives, and this week we're giving away a 500 GB Western Digital hard drive. Also going on is a giveaway for a Skooba Design Checkthrough Brief bag, and on Monday we're launching a contest giving away 10 copies of Corel Digital Studio 2010. Watch for it!

One giveaway down, another to go! Thanks to Eltima Software, we have two copies of SyncMate 2.0 Expert Edition (each valued at $39.95 USD) for you to snag. The sync application is compatible with Mac OS X, and offers a plethora of sync options between Windows Mobile (and other smartphones), Google accounts, and Mac OS-based applications such as iCal, iPhoto, iTunes, Mail, Address Book, Safari, Firefox, and Entourage.

So, what do you have to do to win? Read on and get commenting. Good luck!

• Leave a comment in this thread, stating the editions that SyncMate is offered in. And here's a hint: there are two editions, and we've already named one of them in this post. Still stuck? Perhaps the SyncMate web page will help you.
• Only one comment per person. Any more and your entry will be deemed invalid. Note that if you're registering and leaving a comment for the first time, your post probably won't appear right away as it needs to be approved by our friendly moderators.
• The giveaway is open to anyone and everyone, regardless of where you are in the world.
• Entries will be accepted until 11:59 PM GMT on September 18, 2009.
• A total of two winners will be selected randomly and notified via e-mail, so please ensure that a valid e-mail address is linked to your Thoughts Media account. Each winner will receive a single copy of SyncMate 2.0 Expert Edition.

Without further ado, we're announcing the five winners of our Handy Weather 4.0 giveaway. And here they are, in alphabetical order:

• Cornelius, eliefrancis, toen, Trapperjohn, tsaojam

If you're one of the lucky five mentioned, keep an eye on your inbox (and your spam folder, just in case) for a message detailing how to claim your prize. Thanks to Paragon Software for their generosity. Stay tuned! We'll have another giveaway for you in just a tick.

Giveaway time! Thanks to Paragon Software, we have five copies of the new Handy Weather 4.0 (each valued at $17.95 USD per month) for you to snag. The weather application is compatible with Windows Mobile 5.0 and later, and offers a plethora of features such as detailed 7-day weather forecasts, satellite weather maps, a touch-friendly user interface, GPS/SMS/e-mail integration, and support for over 40,000 cities worldwide.

So, what do you have to do to win? Read on and get commenting. Good luck!

• Leave a comment in this thread, stating today's weather wherever you are in the world. You can be as basic or as detailed as you wish.
• Only one comment per person. Any more and your entry will be deemed invalid. Note that if you're registering and leaving a comment for the first time, your post probably won't appear right away as it needs to be approved by our friendly moderators.
• The giveaway is open to anyone and everyone, regardless of where you are in the world.
• Entries will be accepted until 11:59 PM GMT on August 16, 2009.
• A total of five winners will be selected randomly and notified via e-mail, so please ensure that a valid e-mail address is linked to your Thoughts Media account. Each winner will receive a single copy of Handy Weather 4.0.

Okay, we're a little late announcing the winners of our Ringtone Expressions giveaway, but better late than never, right? Without further ado, here are the lucky twenty in alphabetical order:

• bellor, bulldogdude, Certs, DaViD_BRaNDoN, Dyvim, eviktus, fone_fanatic, GreatDay, hacqua, looneytoone, Lucy, mafaquem, maxnix, NathanBaron, rombo, srsabu, the_matrixx, timmy, timtam, triplegems75

If you're in the list above, keep an eye on your inbox (and your spam folder, just in case) for a message detailing how to claim your prize. Thanks to Gx5 for their generosity. Stay tuned! We'll have another giveaway for you in just a tick.

Remember the iZel review that I published a few weeks back? Well, the makers of the iZel have offered us three to give away to lucky Thoughts Media readers! This contest is open to anyone in the US or Canada (sorry rest-of-world). Entering the contest is really easy: all you have to do is post a message in this discussion thread telling me what kind of device(s) you'd want to use with the iZel. That's it! I'll randomly select three entries and each person will win an iZel. Nice and easy! The contest is open until the 16th of July, at 12pm (GMT -7). Enter now!

UPDATE: Only one entry per person, and if it's your first post, please allow up to 48 hours for it to show up.

UPDATE #2: The contest is now over and the winners have been randomly selected. iZel has a little consolation prize for everyone though. If you use the coupon code 5OFFIZEL you'll get a $5 discount off the normal price of $24.95 from Amazon.com [Affiliate]. The coupon code is valid until midnight July 31st, 2009.

Giveaway time! Thanks to Gx5, we have twenty copies of Ringtone Expressions (each valued at $4.99 USD per month) for you to snag. The Windows-based application offers a quick and easy way for you to convert your music, YouTube videos, and self-recorded audio into ringtones for your Windows Mobile device.

So, what do you have to do to win? Read on and get commenting. Good luck!

• Leave a comment in this thread, stating your favourite music genre. Rock, R&B, psychedelic trance, or something else? Let us know. It's that simple.
• Only one comment per person. Any more and your entry will be deemed invalid. Note that if you're registering and leaving a comment for the first time, your post probably won't appear right away as it needs to be approved by our friendly moderators.
• The giveaway is open to anyone and everyone, regardless of where you are in the world.
• Entries will be accepted until 11:59 PM GMT on June 24, 2009.
• A total of twenty winners will be selected randomly and notified via e-mail, so please ensure that a valid e-mail address is linked to your Thoughts Media account. Each winner will receive a lifetime subscription allowing unlimited use of Ringtone Expressions.

Last month, we had five copies of Paragon Software Group's Handy Assistant and five copies of PocketX Software's Business PRO up for grabs. Without further ado, here are the winners, selected randomly and presented in alphabetical order.

• Handy Assistant: cmusciano, DrAT, elnehi, smconstable, Tryster
• Business PRO: code-frog, dov47, jimmur, moti1010, wisniak

If your user name is in the list above, congratulations! Keep an eye on your inbox (and your spam folder) for an e-mail with your respective license. A big thank you to Paragon Software Group and PocketX Software for their generosity! Stay tuned. There'll be another giveaway later today here at Pocket PC Thoughts.

Giveaway time! Thanks to PocketX Software, we have five copies of the newly-released Business PRO (each valued at $29.95 USD) for you to snag. The application offers advanced phone profiles, a profile picker, advanced call filtering, an SMS answering machine, group e-mail and SMS messaging, support for unique ringtones and message tones, and photo caller ID.

So, what do you have to do to win? Read on and get commenting. Good luck!

• Leave a comment in this thread, stating the number of contacts in your address book. 10, 20, 500, 1000? More? Let us know. It's that simple.
• Only one comment per person. Any more and your entry will be deemed invalid. Note that if you're registering and leaving a comment for the first time, your post probably won't appear right away as it needs to be approved by our friendly moderators.
• The giveaway is open to anyone and everyone, regardless of where you are in the world.
• Entries will be accepted until 11:59 PM GMT on June 3, 2009.
• A total of five winners will be selected randomly and notified via e-mail, so please ensure that a valid e-mail address is linked to your Thoughts Media account. Each winner will receive a single licensed copy of Business PRO.

You want an easy contest? You've got an easy contest: Expansys is giving away a Palm Treo Pro, and all you have to do is answer their question about which operating system the Treo Pro runs. I'll give you a hint: it ends in .1 and has the word "Professional" in it. Shh. Don't tell anyone I told you! The contest ends in 10 days, so enter now.

We have freebies that need claiming, and they could be yours! Thanks to Paragon Software Group, we have five copies of the newly-released Handy Assistant application (each valued at $29.95 USD) to give away. Here's a brief description of what it does:

"Paragon Software Group, the leading software developer for mobile devices and PC desktops, has released Handy Assistant, an advanced mobile phone application allowing management and customization of phone profiles, call processing and filtering, as well as other highly utilized phone features on Windows Mobile devices."

So, what do you have to do to win? Read on and get commenting. Good luck!

• Leave a comment in this thread, stating the ringtone you currently use. If you don't use one, because you simply adore the sweet serenity of silence, that's okay, too! Just mention that in the thread.
• Only one comment per person. Any more and your entry will be deemed invalid. Note that if you're registering and leaving a comment for the first time, your post probably won't appear right away as it needs to be approved by our friendly moderators.
• The giveaway is open to anyone and everyone, regardless of where you are in the world.
• Entries will be accepted until 11:59 PM GMT on May 30, 2009.
• A total of five winners will be selected randomly and notified via e-mail, so please ensure that a valid e-mail address is linked to your Thoughts Media account. Each winner will receive a single licensed copy of Handy Assistant.

"We are busy building the next generation features for Mobile Phone Backup. Completely re-engineering backup to make the most of the features offered in Microsoft's new Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7. We would like to invite you to take part in a massive prize contest we're calling the Sprite Backup 7 Feature Hunt. You can win some great prizes..."

The crew over at Sprite Software are busy working on the next version of Sprite Backup, and they're interested in hearing from users of their software about what feature they'd like to see the most in version 7.0 of Sprite Backup. That's it - talk about an easy contest! The contest starts today (April 21st) and goes until May 8th. The prizes? Two winners will get the first prize, which is a Touch HD! Five winners will get the second prize, which is a Bluetooth GPS, and 30 winners will get the third prize, which is an 8GB microSD card. Nice! Winners will be announced on May 15th. Jump on over to their contest page and enter now.

Good news everyone! Yours truly has come into possession of two registration keys for Microsoft's My Phone Beta program! Since I'm such a nice guy I thought the best thing to do would be to give them away to our readers! For those of you that are unaware - "Microsoft My Phone syncs information between your mobile phone and the web..." - Basically it can best be described as a very simple and easy to use cloud syncing solution for Windows Mobile handsets. Exchange services for the rest of us!To qualify to win one of these two never before used registration codes, all you have to do is post a reply telling us about a time when data syncing has failed you miserably. It can be anything; like having your phone stolen and not backing up your contacts or getting the phone number of an attractive member of the opposite sex seconds before your waiter spills a cup of water on your Samsung Blackjack... Whatever you can think of!The contest will be going on now until Sunday April 12th, 2009 at 11:59PM PST, at which time I will go through and randomly select two entrants to be announced Monday April 13th, 2009. As I mentioned before the winners will be selected randomly so unfortunately bribing me with cookies will do you no good - but you are more than welcomed to try!

HTC has a pretty rockin' contest going on right now for people located in the USA (sorry rest-of-world) that's worth checking out: the grand prize is $25,000 in cash with two HTC Fuze devices, the first-place prize (given out to four people) is a $15,000 American Express gift card with two HTC Fuze devices, and the daily winner gets an HTC Fuze. That's a lot of prizes! So how do you enter? If you're in the USA, you'll no doubt see the green HTC Fuze banners on this Web site - click on one of the banners (turn down your speakers first), and once it loads, you'll see an orange "WIN" graphic in the upper-right corner. Click on that and you'll be taken to the HTC Fuze contest page. Have fun! The contest is open until the 5th of April.

Last month, we offered 25 copies of Pocket Watch Software's ActivePrint Traveler to you, dear readers. And without further ado, here are the winners, selected randomly and presented in alphabetical order.

• bhphotovideo, Catman51, Deemo, deenoo, dyrtnapr, freddiemac, hogger_jeff, Ha11y, Hx4700, Joel Crane, kerrins, laubin, markhartman, MikeStanley, psyjohn, SpriteGF, srsabu, stephen_yfc, tcassidy, tpeazy, twcook, Vapor03, WhyldMan, yawanag, yvilla

If your user name is in the list above, congratulations! Keep an eye on your inbox for an e-mail with your ActivePrint Traveler license. A big thank you to Pocket Watch Software for their generous contribution! Stay tuned as we bring you more giveaways here at Pocket PC Thoughts and Smartphone Thoughts.

If you missed the ActivePrint Traveler giveaway thread that was posted a little over a week ago, now's your chance to check it out and get your entry in before it's too late. There are 25 copies of ActivePrint Traveler up for grabs, which makes for pretty good odds. Simply head over to the giveaway thread, check the rules, and leave a comment. Winners will be announced next week.

Some of you may be familiar with ActivePrint. Well, not too long ago, Pocket Watch Software (the folks behind ActivePrint) released ActivePrint Traveler, which they say is their easiest-to-use mobile printing solution yet. Want to know how it works? Scoot over to their Web site to find out, and grab a free trial version while you're at it.

But why settle for a trial version when you can have the full version? Yes, as promised, we have more swag to give away to you, dear Thoughts reader: not 5, not 10, but 25 copies of ActivePrint Traveler!

And now for the rules:

• Leave a comment in this thread, stating the brand and model of your home or office printer, and the version of Windows Mobile you're using (either Standard or Classic/Professional). It's that simple!
• Only one comment per person, because we're advocates of fair play.
• Note that if you're registering and leaving a comment for the first time, your post probably won't appear right away as it needs to be approved by our friendly moderators.
• The giveaway is open to anyone and everyone, except maybe the folks at Pocket Watch Software. So, whether you're in the United States, snowed under in the UK, or sweltering in yet another heatwave in Australia, give it a shot and you may just get lucky.
• Entries will be accepted until 11:59 PM GMT on February 15, 2009.
• Winners will be chosen with the aid of highly complex genetic algorithms. Just kidding. Winners will actually be chosen randomly, and subsequently announced on the front-page.

Good luck!

The seventh and final of our 8th anniversary contests is now over: the winner of the one week vacation stay, selected randomly from amongst all the entries, is makicr. Congratulations! Thanks to everyone that entered this contest, and all of the other contests. It was a lot of fun to give away so many devices! Special thanks to PPC Techs for their prize donation, and to all of the companies who allowed me to give away devices that I'd been holding on to for a while. I hope all the winners enjoy their devices, and all of you enjoyed the contests. Thanks for supporting Pocket PC Thoughts!

The sixth of our anniversary contests is now over: the winner of the MWg Zinc II, selected randomly from amongst all the entries, is Kassad. Congratulations! Thanks to everyone that entered.

A word about the final contest: I had intended to launch the last contest last Friday, but you can all guess what I was working hard on. There's some some more work to be done, so I'm going to schedule the final contest for this coming Friday. Watch for it!

The fifth of our anniversary contests is now over: the winners of the PPC Techs Super Packs, three of 'em, selected from amongst all the entries are martin_ayton, V-IPAQ, and Pony99CA. Congratulations! Thanks to everyone that entered.