With the year drawing to a close, it’s time to pull out the best that WindowsMobile Cool had to offer our readers this year in the way of comprehensive guides on everything from personalizing your WinMo phone to using your phone as a wireless modem.

Let’s take a look at WindowsMobile Cool’s most popular how-to guides of 2008:

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1. How-to: Setup, configure, and personalize your device – a comprehensive guide – Configuring your device involves making some one-time settings that personalize the device for your use. It’s super easy! Check out this in-depth how-to on setting up, configuring, and personalizing your Windows Mobile handset and get started now!

2. How-to: Get Wikipedia on your phone without an internet connection – Being a history graduate (go on, make your nerd jokes now), I pride myself as being the Queen of Trivial Knowledge – but even I need a refresher now and again. If I’m lucky enough to be sitting by a computer (which I’ll admit is quite often) the internet has almost every answer I could possibly need in seconds thanks to Wikipedia. But what if I’m not in front of my computer? Here’s the perfect solution: Wikipedia… on your Windows Mobile phone! I know what you’re thinking. Data. Data is expensive! And Wikipedia is full of images and links and then you have to worry about having the right browser to view it in properly… grah! So here it is…

3. How-to: In case of theft, enable ’self-destruct’ mode – So you just bought a brand new WinMo phone. Does the idea of some thief getting their grubby little hands on your new baby and all its private information (text messages, contacts, credit card numbers, private emails) make you absolutely sick? This walk-through will help you protect yourself against information theft by showing you how to turn your Windows Mobile device into a self-destructing data safe.

4. How-to: Getting Internet Sharing to work on your AT&T Fuze, Sprint Touch Pro, HTC Touch Diamond, and Samsung Epix – This one allows you to ‘enable’ (read: re-enable) Internet Sharing on your HTC Touch Diamond, Sprint Touch Pro, AT&T Fuze (Touch Pro) and the Samsung Epix! Now, this is a registry key edit so use at your own risk as we’re never 100% sure of how these things will turn out sometimes.. but if you’re desperate for Internet Sharing (or brave and up for a challenge) try out this trick…

5. How-to: Watch Digital TV on your Windows Mobile phone – This really cool compact accessory for your phone is called MOBio (MOB View) and it’s made by a company out of Shanghai called Permian. MOBio (MOB View) is an SDIO Interface Mobile Digital TV receiver which uses Bluetooth to provide digital TV services.

6. How-to: Get the YouTube app on your Vodafone HTC Touch Pro – If you’ve purchased a Vodafone HTC Touch Pro, one of the first things you’ll notice is that there is no YouTube application — but with this guide, you’ll have it in no time!

7. How-to: Stop ActiveSync from eating your valuable system resources (and your money!)

8. How-to: Internet Sharing – love between a laptop and a Windows Mobile phone – This how-to was born on a day that I had a bit of a scramble to find a reliable internet connection in order to bring my readers the latest Windows Mobile news so I decided it was a good time to use WinMo’s Internet Sharing application. If you haven’t tried this out – I suggest you do! It’s very easy and works better than you expect it will, I assure you.

9. How-to: Turn your favourite mp3 into a ringtone – A little birdy told me that putting a ringtone on their phone is one of the first things new phone owners look to do. So today, for your auditory pleasure, I’ll show you how to put a ringtone on your Windows Mobile device! You’ll be glad to hear that it’s actually dead simple!

10. How-to: Sync your Windows Mobile device with your Mac – Are you a Windows Mobile user… but a Mac user as well? Well, it’s not impossible to sync up these two devices – in fact, it’s very easy! This tutorial will walk you through installing, setting up and using SyncMate to sync your Windows Mobile device with your Mac.

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Being a history graduate (go on, make your nerd jokes now), I pride myself as being the Queen of Trivial Knowledge – but even I need a refresher now and again. If I’m lucky enough to be sitting by a computer (which I’ll admit is quite often) the internet has almost every answer I could possibly need in seconds thanks to Wikipedia. But what if I’m not in front of my computer?

Here’s the perfect solution: Wikipedia… on your Windows Mobile phone! I know what you’re thinking. Data. Data is expensive! And Wikipedia is full of images and links and then you have to worry about having the right browser to view it in properly… grah! So here it is…

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There are several ways to do this, of course. I’ll outline two in this how-to guide.

The Easy Way

MDict + Wikipedia data library

Step 1: Head to Octopus Studio and download MDict. This app is a multi-language dictionary for Windows Mobile that isn’t actually a dictionary in itself, but is instead an ‘empty’ dictionary program that you can fill with libraries built by users like yourself. (ie. importing Wikipedia data files!)
It supports multiple libraries at once, supports multiple languages, has online word pickup functions, and best of all – is totally and absolutely free for personal use.

Step 2: Grab the latest Wikipedia data library from some kind of torrent, let’s say. Oh, I dunno, let’s say this one from September 2008, for example. (Psst – you didn’t hear it from me.)

Step 3: Read MDict’s manual.txt file to learn how to import your Wikipedia library into the app (very, very simple).

Step 4: It’s great to learn!

The Even Easier Way

Pocket Wikipedia

Step 1: Download Pocket Wikipedia.

Step 2: Drink some tea and read about the Eastern Imperial Eagle!

Is Pocket Wikipedia better than MDict? It’s a tough call, really. Like MDict, Pocket Wikipedia is absolutely free for personal use. MDict allows you to add new libraries at any time and its user interface is much more user friendly. I use MDict because it’s up to date as of September 2008. But you may prefer Pocket Wikipedia. Check them both out and decide for yourself which one earns the permanent spot on your mobile device!

Tired of the bland look/feel of your Windows Mobile device’s Comm Manager? Check out this guide to easily customizing your Comm Manager with skins and styles — for FREE!

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CMSettings by edba and FInixNOver
(Comm Manager Settings)
Version 1.0 – 2008

The author’s disclaimer: This application may be redistributed by any means, however, it cannot be sold for profit, and providing that this notice and the authors name is included. This application is provided “as is” with no expressed or implied warranty. The author accepts no liability if it causes any damage to you or your Windows Mobile device whatsoever.

Description:

CMSettings was created to make the Comm Manager customization easier. It allows the user to change between available stiles (skins), and select the desired Comm functions to use.

Download

edba & FInixNOver CMSettings.cab

System requirements

- .Net Compact Framework 2.0 or higher
- Comm Manager

Installation:

When the application starts, it will search the Windows folder for available skins. With this we can prevent applying a skin that doesn’t exist. It also makes a backup of your present Comm manager settings just in case you want to go back.

Just select one of the available skins, change the functions to your likings and apply changes. There’s no need to terminate the Comm Manager process, as the application will do it for you.

Skins

Default Skin – This skin will always be available since it belongs inside the CommManagerRes.dll(this file is necessary for Comm Manager to work, so…) It supports from 4 up to 12 functions.

Touch Skin/Large Buttons Skin – This skin will be available, as long as the skin files are located in windows folder, and it has skin files for a minimum of 8 functions. It supports 8 to 10 functions. When the user selects this style (skin), a popup window will appear to let him/her choose between 8 and 10 buttons.

Note: It is up to the user to know which option to use, according to the files he/she has put into Windows folder) If the user accidentally selects the wrong number of buttons to use, just select the skin once again and the popup will appear again. If the skin files are the ones provided by HTC the user can quickly get the HTC settings by selecting the menu option “Default Settings”. If the option is not selected, when applying the skin, a popup will appear asking if the user wants to apply the default settings(if you have customized the skin for different settings, just press NO and the user’s settings will be applied).

Touch Dual Skin/ON/OFF Buttons Skin – This skin will be available, as long as the skin files are located in windows folder, and it has skin files for a minimum of 6 functions. It supports 6 functions only.

About the Comm functions

• To select a function, just tap once.
• To enable/disable a function, tap twice. If the function is already selected, the user just have to tap once and it will be enabled/disabled.
• When the function is enabled, the user can see a green icon on the left side of the function text and the text will be black.
• When the function is disabled, the user can see a gray icon with a red cross on the left side of the function text and the text will be gray.
• When there are not files for a function in the selected skin, no icon will appear on the left side of the funcion text, the text will be gray, and the user will not be able to enable/disable the function.

About the Menu

About - A popup will appear showing info about the program. To close it just tap the popup.
Language - Here the user can choose the application language. If the desired language cannot be found in the list, the application can still support it. The user needs only to edit the CMSettings.ini (for more info on how to do this see “How to edit the .ini file”).
Default settings – It can be used in all styles, but the best use of this function is when “Touch Skin/Large Buttons Skin” is selected, to apply HTC Settings on HTC devices (since when using the HTC skin, the functions must be in a specific order, so the background doesn’t get messed up)
ROM Default settings – On first run, the device backs up the existing Comm Manager settings. This option is used to get those settings back.
Apply settings – Use this option to apply the changes made to the Comm Manager settings.

How to edit the .ini file

The application is provided with a few .ini files containing the following languages:
- English, Portuguese, French, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish, Slovenian,

The following languages will only fully work in ROMs that support them:
Vietnamese, Russian, Czech, Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Norwegian

If the user’s language is not yet supported, it can easily be added by translating one of the existing languages. To do this, open CMSettings.ini with a text editor, copy all lines from one language, and translate all the strings. If the user’s language needs special text encoding, make sure to save into a separate file. Finally copy the new .ini to the same place as CMSettings.exe, and restart the application. Now the language will be available to be selected.

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