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The essential free apps that should be loaded on every Centro( in no particular order). You could add all of the application below and not put a dent into your Centro's internal memory (RAM). At the end of this article, you will find two PRCs file that contains all the listed applications.

The applications on the first portion of the list is based on the assumption the Centro owner does not have a micro-SD card nor subscribed to an Internet data plan with your carrier.

PalmHandZipper Lite - A free compression utility for PalmOS! Compress and uncompress zipped files quickly and easily with this powerful tool. Because you don't want to have to run to the desktop every time you want to download a load a zipped application from the web. If you like it, and want to have a more complete function set, please purchase the full version from the author's website. The full version includes support for external memory cards, InfraRed beaming and native ARM acceleration for faster processing. I prefer Resco Explorer - A powerful file manager, zipper, viewer, launcher and backup tool. Includes RAM analyzer and FTP/LAN/VPN browser because it takes care of a lot of needs in one package. Since most of the applications in the list are zipped, I have supplied the PalmHandZipperLite app here as a PRC file so that you can download everything directly to your Centro.

Watchmaker 1.5.3 - You don't want to create a calendar entry for waking you up in the morning, or to remind you to take your medicine or to call the kids after school. Why clutter your Centro's calendar for these daily alarms? Use this easy program to set up to 6 alarms. It has customizable analog and digital clocks and drift correction.

DiddleBug 2.15 - DiddleBug is an electronic PostIt note that you can set with an alarm that will remind you of appointments or other things. It is much quicker and easier to schedule an alarm in DiddleBug than in the built-in DateBook applicaton. Just scribble something on the screen and select the alarm time from a pop-up list. You can even assign a hardware button to automatically jump to a new, blank reminder for those hurried notes. Other features include snoozing and locking of reminders.

CutPaste5 - It is a Palm OS 5 preference panel, which means you will not find it in the application launcher but in the "Preference" screen. It provides multiple 32K clipboards for cut, copy, and paste text operations. This clipboard is in addition to the standard 1K Palm OS clipboard. This can be used to copy and paste items in areas or field where the standard clipboard is not available for use.

FieldPlus - It is a Palm OS 5 preference panel, which means you will not find it in the application launcher but in the "Preference" screen. It allows Centro owners to use the 5-way navigation pad to select text in standard Palm OS fields. It allows you to select words on sentences without pulling out the stylus. Additional it restores use of the command bar to the Centro. Restoration of the command bar allow many of the other apps mentioned here to be easily accessed.

ShortCut5 - ShortCut5 is a Palm OS 5.x preference panel, which means you will not find it in the application launcher but in the "Preference" screen. It allows you to create 50 supports large (up to 4096 characters in size) shortcut definitions. To expand a shortcut, enter a period "." character followed immediately by the shortcut name. Think about the things that you type over and over on the Centro, like email address, statements or even your name. With this program you can type them faster. If you want to type your hotmail email address, you can type .hem (shortcut for Hotmail Email) and the text "themanonthemove@hotmail.com" (without the quotes). Want to type "Make a cold call about product ..." make a shortcut called "cold" and type .cold to have the Centro type it for your. Why type our your name, William Jefferson Brownstone, every time when you can just type .wjb and have the device type it all out. That is just the beginning, it does macros too.

Yaps - Having the Centro with you all of the time, is great. You have some many passwords to remember that you are tempted to save them in the MemoPad or Notepad application so that you can have them with you. That method is not safe and therefore not recommended. Yaps, Yet Another Password Safe, is a safer place to store your passwords and other confidential information on your Palm. YAPS does not support the Centro's 5-way navigator, but hey it's free. Now that you have a safe place to keep your passwords, use PassPhrase if you need help coming up with a new password.

SyncAll - Most people think the HotSync will save the whole data contained on the Palm and this is enough to restore it after a power failure or other cause for data loss. But the normal HotSync only saves the databases (all data/app is is internally stored in databases) that has the so called "backup-bit" set. Many 3rd party applications that store data on the palm do not set this bit, so the data isn't HotSynced.

eReader - The eReader software allows you to read eBooks whenever you want and wherever you go. You can use eReader to add bookmarks, navigate your eBooks easily, and search for words in your eBook. At the eReader.com site, you can buy many best-seller ebooks; however, there are some free ebooks to get you going.

YAHM - Yet Another Hack Manager. A control utility for so called 'hacks' management: activating, deactivating, beaming and deleting. Note: this app cannot run old style hack under PalmOS5. Only new hacks, written for ARM processor can be run under this OS version. See enclosed docs for further info.

Paranoid Security Hack for Palm OS 5 (PSHack) - This hack allows you to prevent someone from exiting a particular application without having your system password. In order for this to work on a Centro, you need to have access to the "command bar". The command bar is made available with FieldPlus above or other applications like Butler. If you have a system password that has a special character, then use the "alert" instead of the form" input method. This is enabled and configured in YAHM. To activate the lock, press and hold the "menu" key and click the clock icon to lock the currently opened application.

KeyCaps600 - This allows you to easily capitalize letters or use punctuation without using the shift or option keys on the Centro devices.

Hide Applications Panel - It is a Palm OS 5 preference panel, which means you will not find it in the application launcher but in the "Preferences" screen. When you launch the preferences application you will see "Applications" under the "Personal" section. By default each application in RAM is selected (circle to the left of name) and therefore selectable from the Palm Launcher applications. If you want to hide an application, then you find it in the list (you can type a letter of the app to jump to that letter in the list) and tap the name to remove the circle from the left. I used this to hide: Quick Tour, AGConnent, Versamail Email (I use Chatteremail), Get Nuance VoiceControl, GetGood, IM, OnDemand.

PowerUp - There is no way to reset the device without opening the battery door and lifting the battery. If the device freezes up, then you don't have any choice but to remove the door. But the times when you need to reset (device is sluggish, after installing a program like FieldPlus which won't work until you reset), this application provides a way to soft reset without removing the battery.

Converter - Converter is a free unit conversion tool for the Palm, supporting over 200 unit types in 23 different categories. The easy to use interface allows you to specify the types you use frequently and access them easily. Convert from miles to kilometers, from pounds to kilograms and many, many other different conversions with ease. (If link does not work, get it here.)

Accessorizer - a unique utility that takes almost any application or control panel and creates a Desk Accessory (DA) that launches it on top of the current application (and lets you come back to it when done), assuming you have enough memory. You can make Calendar a DA so that you can pop it up and use it without closing your other program. DA Launcher 5 is required (or similar DA launching app) to activate the DAs created with Accessorizer (DA Launcher 5 is not needed to run Accessorizer). This one is BETA, so it may be unstable in some ways. I have used it on the Centro to make DAs out from the following apps: Calc, SplashID, Weather, Messaging. Don't you hate when you are in the middle of something like browsing the web and replying to a forum thread when a SMS comes in. You don't want to respond to the SMS now because you would have to start the forum message over again. Using the MessagingDA made with this app, allows you to pull up the SMS app and respond and return to the web page.

9 Free Calculators - You already have these (but might not know it)! There are nine more calculators in the Treo 650, 680, 700p , 755p and the Centro than first meets the eye, and they're almost completely undocumented. Open the Calculator program and keep clicking the right arrow on the 5-way navigator to toggle through the 9 calculators (Trig, Finance, Logic, Statistics, Weight/Temperature, Length, Area, Volume, Math). If you exit the program on one of these 9 calculators, the same one will launch when you return to the calculator program. Press the left arrow on 5-way navigator to return to the normal calculator.

GAMES

You don't need all of the games, but should have at least one for those pure moments of boredom (you are going to kick yourself later if you don't have at least one game on your device when you are stuck somewhere. Yeah, you have Suduko loaded in RAM and you can grab Solitaire for free from the "My Centro" application on your device.

Hearts - This game is developed by Dave Mayes and is one of my favorite games. Play the classic and very popular game of Hearts. The goal is to finish with the lowest point total. Includes the Omnibus and Black Lady variations. Complete rules are built-in and are based on Hoyle's Rules of Game. Keep statistics for how many times you have won. This game has been on my Palm OS devices since the Palm III. It is still in black and white and you have to use your stylus, but the game play makes it still worth it. It you don't mind giving up the statistics and speed, you can get a different hearts game that has a color version. I still prefer the the Dave Mayes' version.

Marbles2 Squared - Match similar patterned squared together in order to remove them from the board. The more marbles you remove at once, the more points you receive. Bubblet is a puzzle game for color and grayscale Palm OS devices that is simply addicting. Match similar patterned bubbles together in order to burst them from the board. The more bubbles you burst at once, the more points you receive. Bubblet will run on all Palm OS devices and features high resolution graphics on the new Palm OS 5 units and Sony CLIE color devices running previous versions of the Palm OS.

SFCave - A simple, deceptively addictive game involving guiding a ribbon through a cave filled with obstacles.

Summing - Summing is a mathematical puzzle game. Your goal is to remove the tiles on the playfield by putting on other tiles. If you are familiar with the game Minesweeper on the desktop computer, you'll have a head start in playing Summing. The challenge is to clear the board of all tiles. To do so, you are given tiles to place on the board, but if you play them in such a way in which all existing tiles touching the new tile sum to your tile, you clear associated tiles. In fact, the tile you are given only represents the "ones" place in terms of score. So, if you are given a 5, you could place it anywhere neighboring tiles summed to 5, 15, 25, 35, etc. The more tiles you can clear, reduces the number of tiles used to clear the board. The objective is to clear the board using the least amount of tiles. It pays to study the board and perform numerous addition calculations in your head before placing the tile.

Yahdice - Yahdice is an award-winning, feature-rich PalmOS 2.0+ clone of the world's most popular family dice game, Yahtzee™. You can play Yahdice both alone or in a group. Yahdice is free, but your donations are gladly accepted!

Target - Target is a Palm OS game where you make words out of a 3x3 grid of nine letters. Each word must be at least four letters long and has to include the centre letter.

Vexed - an award-winning slider puzzle game for Palm OS devices. It's got all the attributes of an addictive, fun application for your Palm. It's easy to learn, but hard to master. Give it a try, and you'll see what we mean!

Video Jigsaw - The application allows you to create jigsaws from pictures on the device, memory card or via the camera. Takes live video from your Centro's camera and turns it into a jigsaw puzzle! (can also use your saved photos on the Centro). Now you can have some fun with those pictures you have on the Centro. More Info can be found in this article - ToySpring's Video Jigsaw is an interesting freeware application

Now for those who have a Micro-SD card (Don't have one yet? Get one here!), I would recommend the following freeware applications.

CardKeeper - CardKeeper helps keep you from losing your memory card by periodically reminding you if the card is ever ejected. Centro owners don't have the same issue like Treo 650 owners where the card can pop out, but they can forget to take it from the card reader at the PC or not stick the micro-SD card back in completely.

FileProg - Until the most recent devices like the LifeDrive, Palm resisted putting any type of file manager application on its devices. Palm has included a download to an application called Files v.2.1 in the "My Centro" application on the Centro smartphone. It may not be the good for all owners because; one, you have to have an Internet connection on your Centro to get to it and second, it sucks. A secondary app is FileZ (not to be confused with another well known freeware file manager called Filez) only works with the card and does not allow access to the files in RAM. There are many times when you need to manage the files stored on your memory card (or even RAM). FileProg is a simple yet powerful freeware to do just that. Even though I use and prefer the commercial application called Resco Explorer, if I was looking for something free, I would use FileProg over Filez; although Filez is still a great free option.

LinkStart - It allows you to move applications to expansion cards and run them transparently as if they were on the device. It may take a little longer for application to start from the card, depending on the size of application and its data, but you save precious RAM space.

NVBackup - I have to say I use and prefer Resco Backup, but alas it is not free. A good backup is program is essential for any Palm OS device owner. Many people assume that they don't need a backup program because they sync to their PC and thus have a backup. But PCs fail and better yet, the PC is not on the road when you lose all of your data (or a critical piece of data). Without the ability to restore the device or a single file on the road means you would have to wait until you returned to get it. In the mean time, your device would have failed in its usefulness. A backup program that backups to your memory card can save your tail in many instances. Set up a schedule backup and forget about it until you need it.

Noah Pro 3.0 - A free English dictionary for Palm. It offers: Definitions of 122 thousand words. Lookup words directly from other programs (resident mode). copy & paste definition to clipboard for use in other programs. support for external memory cards (SD/MMC memory cards, Memory Stick). Bookmark interesting words for future reference. 3 different ways of displaying the definition. Display customization - choose your own fonts and colors. Efficient use of memory thanks to high compression of data. Support for latest Palm OS 5 devices. Support for 5-Way Navigator in Treo, Palm Tungsten and Centro smartphone.

Thesaurus - An English thesaurus offering definitions of 48 thousand words, support for external memory cards such as SD/MMC card or Memory Stick, memory-saving high compression of data, high-resolution screens, latest Palm OS 5 devices and Treo 600/650/680/700/755p, Tungsten and the Centro smartphone.

The Core Pocket Media Player ( TCPMP) - Whether your media files are AVI, DivX, XviD, MP3, Matroska or MP4, "The Core Pocket Media Player" (TCPMP)" is the best open source media player to provide a solution for playing all your digital media on a wide range of mobile operating systems and devices. Possibly the best media player for the Centro.

HRCapt - Captures screen from the Centro and saves them to the micro-SD memory card. Once it is there you can use it on a web site or PC. It has 2 files: one is the Desk Accessory (DA) and the other is the BMP viewer that manages the captured images. The developer is Japanese so the page is translated - look for 1.85-E (the E stands for English; otherwise you will download the Japanese version). It requires the free DA Launcher 5 program to activate the DA. As an alternative you can use a free app called Snap (French Site: Contains French and English Readme and PRC) that you can assign to a hard button to capture the screen.

For those who have a data plan, I would recommend the following applications.

GroupTextMessaging 1.0 (for Palm OS) - Group Text Messaging: PalmOne Demonstration Software. Send a text message (SMS) to multiple contacts (more than the 10 number max limit) at once.

TryDA (Formerly known as Directory Assistant) - This utility automates queries against the YP.com server and adds loads of features of its own. This application is written specifically to take advantage of the Centro's ability to dial phone numbers from the results of your residential or business directory queries, though most of the applications features will work on any standard wireless equipped palm device. Find a number and add it to your contacts and then get directions to the location. This is a must have for anyone with Internet access on a Palm OS device.

FlightStatus - Get Live Flight Status for almost any commercial flight in the U.S. from your Internet connected Palm.

Vox - Capture pictures with your Centro's camera and share them online. It is compatible with your Centro device. The Palm OS file can be downloaded at http://get.typepad.com/Vox.prc (The link is buried so deep in their site, you would think they don't have a mobile client). Previously I recommended SplashBlog but it is no longer available after 08/2007. Vox can be downloaded from free from the "My Centro" application on your device too.

SharkLinks - Create standalone links to web sites that appear in the application launcher. This allows you to launch web sites from the application launcher or from an assigned hard button (if you wish).

Mundu Radio Beta - This is not required as the Centro comes with the Deluxe version of Pocket Tunes (PTunes); Ptunes allows you to Listen to streaming Radio stations on the Centro. Why listen to few MP3 songs, when you can pick from tens and thousands of radio stations, right on your wireless handset. It does hurt to use Mundu Rado in addition; it works with Symbian, Windows Mobile and Palm based Mobile Phones, Pocket PC and PDA devices to bring streaming internet radio stations to your handset. All you need is a data connection (GPRS/CDMA/Wi-Fi). Download Mundu Radio now and tune in to the planet.

kMeteo - Get weather in your Palm. You can get weather directly to your Palm with a wifi, Bluetooth or data internet connection. Display full data about the actual weather. Display ten days forecast weather or Current details. Multi City - Get the weather from different city at the same time. Auto update to get weather each days at the time you set.

I believe that these applications are essential so much, that I can't wait until there is a tool that will allow me to add them into my Centro's ROM with the freeware application for PCs called ROMTool. This mean that even if my device was to lose everything in its memory it would still have most of these application loaded.

The TCPMP application can be downloaded from this PRC file.

Author: Carl W. Brooks

Related Story:

• Essential Treo 755p Freeware Applications
• Essential Treo 650 Freeware Applications

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Are you aware of the things your Centro can do without third-party apps? We gave you the calculator tip above, here are a few more:

RECENTLY ACCESSED APPS LIST
Most people know by now that you can hold down the "Home" button to get a list of your recently opened applications for quickly relaunching them.

GLOBAL LAUNCHING OF PHONE FAVORITES
A few might know that a phone favorite (whether to launch an app, speed dial or open a web site) can be launch from any app if a quick key letter is assigned. Non-Centros require Butler to accomplish this.

TOGGLE QWERTY KEYBOARD'S BACKLIGHT ON/OFF
I wager that less people know that you don't need KBLights or KeyShades Hack to toggle the keyboard's backlight. Want to save battery power during the day? Press the Option (white button) + the Menu button to turn the backlight off and dim the screen.

iRiver iHP-140 40 GB MP3 Jukebox - Now you can listen to over 1,200 hours of recorded music, or tune in to the built-in FM radio. With a rechargeable battery that lasts up to 16 hours, ultrafast USB 2.0 file transfers, and simple navigation, the iHP-140 is the music player of choice.

New! - Need some Palm OS software? We have partnered with Palmgear to offer you the largest selection of Palm OS software. We have games, utilities and much more software.

The New Palm PDAs Are Here: The Palm® Z22 was designed specifically for people who want to replace their planner. The Tungsten E2 brings more memory and Bluetooth technology. The Palm TX Handheld provides 128MB RAM and gives you Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless. Need to kick your storage up a notch? The Palm LifeDrive provides 4GB of internal storage and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless - Store what you want and connect to what you want.

The New Palm Smartphones: Whether the Palm OS (Verizon Wireless 700p or Sprint 700p ) or the Windows Mobile (Verizon Wireless 700w) is your mobile cup of tea, Palm delivers the palm Treo 700. More memory, better camera and faster Internet speeds than what the fantastic Treo 650 (Unlocked,Cingular,Sprint) provides.

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