PocketToolman

[Jason Dunn]

<a href="http://members.shaw.ca/pockettoolman/">http://members.shaw.ca/pockettoolman/</a><br /><br />Looking for an easy way to access important settings on your iPAQ? PocketToolman may be the answer - check it out! It's a freeware app, but if you like what the author has done, toss him a buck or two - support those developers!<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/toolman.jpg" /><br /><br />"What is PocketToolman? PocketToolman is a tray utility that gives you quick access to Pocket PC's functions, programs, and settings. What features does PocketToolman currently offer? Currently, PocketToolman has the following features:<br /><br />• Suspend - allows you to power-off the Pocket PC without having to press the Power button.<br />• Soft Reset - perform soft reset. *Not compatible with some Pocket PCs.<br />• Hard Reset - reset the Pocket PC will be reset back to factory state.<br />• Settings - quick access to Control Panel applets."

[Kre]

The program looks great, but one thing I would definitely change about it, is to make the hard reset feature much more of an effort to access. A lot of people soft reset their devices for one reason or another, and by having the soft reset and hard reset settings so close to one another, somebody who wants to only perform a soft reset is going to inadvertently tap the hard reset by mistake. And thats no good. Even a soft reset may accidently be tapped. By making these settings a little more of an effort to access, it could drastically reduce accidental resets.

So Id say to the developer, good job, but make the following changes as a suggestion...

*Replace the soft and hard reset settings where you have them now with a drop down menu titled, of course, `Reset`, like you already have for `Settings`.

*Then when someone taps `Reset`, this could drop down a small window with two choices... Soft Reset could be performed from here, and also one more drop down menu right beneath it in the same window titled `Hard Reset`, which when tapped, would drop down one more small window where the actual hard reset could be chosen. Like this...

*Reset>
***Soft Reset
***Hard Reset>
*****Hard Reset

It sounds a bit more complicated at first but its really not, and again, I really believe in this case that reset functions shouldnt be so easy to access because anyone could hit reset by mistake. There have been times when I meant to tap one thing and accidently tapped something else right next to it. Which is why the hard reset feature especially, needs to be separated from everything else. The little extra effort to access these two reset features would be worth it to prevent accidental resets. Just my take on it.

Keep up the good work!

[ipaq-PHD]

The author has made some changes to the ease of hard resetting ! This is a wonderful program ! :D

[Willa]

Kre, my initial reaction was just like yours - performing a hard reset looks a bit too easy to do inadvertantly. However, as ipaq-PHD points out some changes were made... and according to the developer's site: "You will be asked to confirm 3 times before PocketToolman will do a hard reset." Looks like a good app. and the price is right, so I'll give it a try.

Thanks for the link, Jason.

[heov]

Here is my hard reset suggestion. This is what I think PHM Task Manager does. When you select hard reset, you have to type in your name that you have saved in teh owner profile. So to reset, you type in the name, and then it resets, so it is almost impossible to hard rest on accident.

If you don't want to use the name, you could just come up with a random number, display it, and tell the user to retype that number in order to hard reset.

[Kre]

Kre, my initial reaction was just like yours - performing a hard reset looks a bit too easy to do inadvertantly. However, as ipaq-PHD points out some changes were made... and according to the developer's site: "You will be asked to confirm 3 times before PocketToolman will do a hard reset." Looks like a good app. and the price is right, so I'll give it a try.

Thanks for the link, Jason.

Oh, I see. I didnt know that. Guess I should look at the site first. :oops: Oh well. Thats a good way of doing it, though. Cool app then. 8)

[masaki]

Hello everyone :D I'm the author who made PocketToolman. Thank you all for giving PocketToolman a try. I really appreciate it.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll consider implementing them :)

Clarence

[crispeto]

I really missed the "Q" on my Ipaq. This little program works even better on my Maestro. I just paypaled them a few bucks. I think it's worth it!

[Ed Hansberry]

It would be nice if running the link would bring up the menu from any app, not just the today screen. That way I could assign it to PocketNav's lightning bolt hot icon and access it anywhere. I guess that would work from a button assignment.

Looks promising though. A bit nervous about code being able to trigger a hard reset though. I wish the OS forced a confirmation to prevent malicious code from doing it.

BTW, those of you running PocketNav don't forget it too is donationware. :-)

[Corn Bread]

Great app! Installed the latest build in my iPAQ and works pretty nifty. Found a few bugs though:

-My PPC doesn't have password protect enabled so when I use the "lock" function of Pocket Toolman, it'll ask for a passwork even though I don't have one. You can kill that screen easily though with a task switcher like Task Pro Navigator.
-The Screen Off feature still will lock up the unit when you press any other hardware button other than action button.

and I hope the author can add the an option where I can choose which commands I like to be present in the Tollman menu (I'd like to remove the Hard reset, Power, and memory command)