[General Topics] Menneisyys:
As you may know, I am involved in several projects that provide your software a lot of good free publicity:

I regularly make thorough, all-product, roundup reviews of most Windows Mobile software categories.

Hal Goldstein, publisher, Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine, has appointed me Best Software Awards 2007 Nominations Manager, http://www.pocketpcmag.com/awards (site may not yet updated for 2007 but current information almost all applies for 2007)

For the awards to succeed and in order to be YOUR software not to be missed from my roundups, you REALLY submit or update your product listing at the Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine Encyclopedia of Software and Accessories ( http://www.pocketpcmag.com/_enc/encyclopedia.asp ) (click the link - the listing is free!).

IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO THOSE ALREADY LISTED In ENCYCLOPEDIA: Make sure all your listings are up to date. A new field has been added - Last Major Update. The field will be used in the awards process and published on-line and in print. See the end of this E-mail for details.

To be nominated for the awards, a product must first be listed in the Encyclopedia. For my roundups, I do my best to track down all possible alternatives. However, sometimes even I don't find them; for example, when they're only discussed on a forum in a language I don't speak (for example, Chinese) I speak / understand (Germanic) Western languages, all the three major Finno-Ugric ones, Russian and spoken Japanese. Except for Japanese, I keep an eye on most of these forums and WM-related sites. I can't do this, however, with Far-East languages. That is, I can't follow, for example, Chinese forums and, therefore, don't know what the Chinese discuss if they don't post on a European/U.S. forum.

Therefore, I *strongly* implore you all to make sure your product is listed in the above-linked Encyclopedia. By doing this, you can be absolutely sure it won't be missing from my future roundups. Registering / editing / updating stuff is FREE and can be done in a few minutes. In exchange, the entire world will be aware of your product, particularly when I include it in one of my forthcoming articles AND / OR if it is nominated for the Best Software Awards 2007. In addition, Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine uses the Encyclopedia to create their New Products section in the magazine, their New Products weekly newsletter, and their New Products section on their web site.

Note that you don't need to be a "big", established software developer. One-man developers should register their products and if there product is strong have BIG chance to be nominated for the Best Software Awards 2007 contest. For example, I do plan nominating several free, but very-very important and life-saving utilities of well-known, mostly XDA-Developers-based hackers / programmers like vijay555 (for example his full screen TSC hack), water (SmartsKey) or FdcSoft (Task Manager). The same stands for other, free utilities like Motoblast, LLC’s PMRecorder. That is, even if you're a hobbyist programmer / free-time coder "only" writing free utilities, make sure you DO register your stuff in there. This will help me a LOT in the nominating process (I REALLY don't want to leave out any decent titles from nomination), let alone my future articles & roundups.

Once again, it's for everyone's advantage that you register your stuff. For me (and the other folks at PPCMag in charge of the Best Software Awards 2007), it's easier to find them, nominate for the Best Software Awards 2007 voting and consider them for my product roundups; for you because your product will be not only included in my roundups but are also accessible to the public in the Encyclopedia - again, all this for FREE! -, and, finally, for all Windows Mobile users because they will have an easier time finding your stuff.

Finally, I'd like to point out that I've just added a new data input field to the product update form containing the Date Of Last Major Upgrade of the product. Please do fill it in and always make sure you fill it in whenever you implement a major upgrade on your product.

What is a major update, you may ask. An example: the NetFront 3.2 -> 3.3 version jump is a major update. So is the PIEPlus 1.x -> 2.0 version jump. Sticking with PIEPlus, a 2.1 -> 2.2 jump is NOT a major update. I'd say everything should be considered a major update that involves at least 20-40% completely rewritten / redesigned / brand new code or resources. Please, therefore, refrain from always updating this field with every minor update - the 20-40% rule should always be right (and note that I'm also a die-hard programmer - I can give a pretty much exact estimation of how much of that code base / resources have been changed between subsequent program versions. That is, no cheating please ;-) ).

Thanks in advance,

Werner 'Menneisyys' Ruotsalainen

Best Software Awards 2007 Nominations Manager, Smartphone and Pocket PC Magazine

(Comments are welcome!)