Although losing your mobile phone is never an enjoyable experience, it's a much worse feeling when your mobile device is carrying more than just contacts. If you're carrying things you don't want anyone else to have access to—whether it's personal information or company secrets—on your Windows Mobile device, it's a worthwhile investment of time to take a moment to set up an extra layer of insurance against data theft. If you're using a Windows Mobile device it is possible to configure your device to essentially self destruct after a set number of failed access attempts. Check out the walk through at AskTheAdmin for the details on how to turn your Windows Mobile device into a self destructing data safe.

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Despite the flurry of attention surrounding the iPhone and other new mobile phone platforms, Windows Mobile still has a widespread distribution and capacity for customisation. Approaching its ninth birthday, Windows Mobile has a large selection of old and new software that helps enhance the user experience and make getting things done (and sometimes goofing off) all the easier. If you're rockin' a Windows Mobile handheld, check out our favourite programs, add-ons, and tweaks for getting the most out of your Windows Mobile device.

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Windows Mobile only: The Iris Browser—built on the WebKit rendering engine, the basis for popular web browsers such as Safari—offers a more robust web browsing experience on mobile devices. Iris has support for advanced HTML and CSS, as well as multiple windows and tabbed browsing. Like previously reviewed Opera Mobile, Iris has support for full screen browsing with movement around the web page via zoom and tap functionality. Iris comes with a built in screen capture tool, a virtual mouse to mimic a desktop mouse for web sites that require it, support for devices with rotating screens, and a built in pop-up blocker. The Iris Browser preview release is a free download for Windows Mobile 5 and 6. Thanks, How-To Geek!

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Windows Mobile only: The newly-released Opera Mobile 9.5 beta offers a host of features for surfing on your handheld device. The browser operates in full-screen mode to maximize the amount of web site you see without cluttering things up with toolbars. Restore access to the toolbars by tapping small silver arrow in the lower corner of the screen. Opera Mobile also has support for full-screen browsing similar to Microsoft's experimental browser Deepfish. You can look at the entire page at one time and choose which area you want to zoom in on for closer examination. The full page browsing is handy for manoeuvring around web sites that aren't mobile phone-optimised, instead of playing the scrolling game to figure out if you can find what you're looking for. Opera Mobile 9.5 beta is a free download for Windows Mobile only.

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Windows only: Free PocketPC app Calendar+ sorts the Today screen calendar to your liking. Set Calendar+ to only display X number of days ahead or to ignore certain days altogether or to show only relevant appointments. Calendar+ versions are available for Windows Mobile 6/5/2003 and earlier PocketPCs. Thanks, Myrddin-Wyllt!

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Windows only: The My Mobiler desktop application controls your Windows Mobile device through its Active Sync connection. We've already covered the GetPDAScreen program, which allows you to see your mobile device remotely and capture the screen, but My Mobiler adds so many more features. What you see in the desktop application is real time and you can interact with your mobile device using the mouse and keyboard as through you were holding the phone in your hand. It has screenshot and video capture capabilities as well as the ability to cut and paste between the phone and desktop environment. The MyMobiler desktop interface even has the ability to emulate the physical keys on the phone which lets you fully interact with the device. My Mobiler is a free download for Windows only. Thanks, joelena and fellow savvy readers!

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Windows only: PocketPC app GetPDAScreen takes screenshots on your mobile device. There's no installation required: simply launch the EXE on your PC, and take a screen capture of any device connected to your computer via an Active Sync connection with a mouse click. Save the resulting screenshot as a bitmap or copy it directly to the clipboard for pasting into your favourite image editor. GetPDAScreen is a free download for Windows only.

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Windows Mobile/CE/Smart phones: Wrangle files on your handheld with the portable version of popular Explorer replacement Total Commander. Bringing the increased functionality to Windows Mobile devices and smart phones that it brought to desktop users, Total Commander makes manipulating your files and directory structures on smaller devices a breeze. Zip and unzip files, edit the registry, view files in single pane, dual pane, or tree views, and even FTP and browse your LAN all from within Total Commander. Unlike its bigger desktop brother, Total Commander for mobile devices is a free download.

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Windows Mobile only: The free PIM Backup utility makes backup copies of your appointments, call logs, contacts, messages, speed dials, tasks, and even folders and file types you specify. PIM Backup jobs run manually or on a schedule you set. While travelling and far away from my home computer, PIM Backup saved me from a big headache when I had to hard reset my Windows Mobile phone: with all my personal data backed up on the removable mini SD card in the phone, the time from hard reset to restored data was less than 10 minutes. We've covered how to back up your Windows Mobile device's content to the web with DashWire, but PIM Backup comes in handy for file backup without using your handheld's data connection. PIM Backup is a free download for Windows Mobile 6/5/2003SE.

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Windows Mobile/Windows CE/Palm OS: Although development has halted on the project, The Core Pocket Media Player (TCPMP) remains a robust option for media playback on Windows and Palm-based mobile devices. TCPMP supports video streaming and a wide variety of video formats including AVI, MP4, ASF, MPEG 1 and 4, WMV, DivX and XviD, to name a few. TCPMP also plays back several digital audio file formats, including MP3, OGG, and WAV. TCPMP's interface is simple and clean with emphasis on ease of playback and a light memory footprint. TCPMP is a free download for Windows Mobile/CE and Palm OS.

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