michaelhong.com

So people always ask me what programs are a must-have for any Treo owner. In alphabetical order, here are the five programs that have made my life with my Treos (600/650) a joy to live:

1) Chatter - Provides support for POP and IMAP accounts. What makes this great is that if you combine an IMAP account with Chatter, you get true “push” email, allowing you to receive emails instantly. The developer is very responsive to his customers, and new builds are released constantly.

[chatteremail.com] | $32.00

2) Clicker - Alright, so this program is only really useful if you have a Mac. But if you have a Mac, this is quite possibly the coolest program around. Clicker connects to your bluetooth-equipped Macintosh. My Mac at home is connected to my Airport Express music, which streams music into my bedroom. In addition, my Mac is also setup to control my lights via X10 technology and Indigo. So get this, I’m lying down in bed, reading. Using my Treo 650, which is my bedside companion, I load up an iTunes playlist to fall asleep to. Album art is displayed, as well as the upcoming tracks. Having set my iTunes, I’m almost ready for bed. But hitting the light switch would require me to get up. In addition, the lights in my living room are still on. No problem. Using Clicker, I hit the “All Lights OFF” function, which interacts with Indigo on the Mac to turn off all of the lights in my house. Incredibly lazy? No doubt. Incredibly cool? Uh… Yeah.

The trial version allows you 30 clicks per session before it shuts down. After it shuts down, you can re-open it, and you’re good for another 30 clicks.

Salling Clicker v2.2 | $19.95.

3) DirectoryAssist - Think of this program as a great yellow/white pages. DA is sorted by five main options: Residential, which allows you to search for a person’s phone number, Business, which lets you search for, yup, you guessed it, a business. Driving Directions, Reverse Query, which allows you to search using a phone number to find a business/person’s name, or using an address. Finally, Show Last Results, will show you the results of your last search if you exited the program. This program has saved me countless calls to 411. Oh, did I mention this program is free? Though if you’ve used it as much as I have, think about making a donation to the developer.

Directory Assist 3.10 | FREE, but donations accepted.

4) PowerRUN - Sucks to have limited storage on the Treo, right? With PowerRUN, you can install apps to the SD card. If you decide you’d rather have it running on your internal storage, you can use PowerRUN to move it from the SD card, and it will transfer all associated files. Combine PowerRUN with a 1GB SD card, and you have enough space to run all the programs you can get your hands on.

PowerRUN | 15.00

5) VeriChat - Instant messaging client. Allows you to login via AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, and ICQ (which is basically AIM now, right?) If you exit the program, you’ll still be logged in, and can set VeriChat to send you aims using SMS if you have a big SMS pool, or via your data plan, if you have an unlimited data plan. Combine VeriChat with Chatter with your ability to make calls and SMS/MMS, and someone really trying to find you has four different ways to contact you on your Treo. The only thing that would stop me from wholeheartedly recommending this program is the cost. Having to fork over $25 bucks for the first year, then $20 every year thereafter is a little steep. The Premium edition adds Bots and Botmarks. Basically, they created screennames that you can IM to get information like stock quotes, weather, flight information, etc. Botmarks allow you to save a query. For example, if you always fly a certain shuttle, you can save that flight info as a Botmark, which will create a shortcut on your Palm menu. If you click the Botmark, it will launch Verichat and automatically send the flight info, so you get the result without having to type it in every time. I’m sticking with the Standard version, but if you’re a Bot lover, go nuts with the Premium.

VeriChat | $24.95/1 year Standard version, $19.95 every year thereafter; $39.95 Premium version, $34.95 every year thereafter.