PocketPCFreeware : About

Who are we ?

PocketPCFreeware is the web site of an association with no commercial interest (French law from 1901), created by some Pocket PC enthusiasts who want to share their passion by creating a database that contains the free software (freeware) that exists for this OS. You will find all the information you need to find quickly, choose and download the right programs for you. Everything is kept up to date and is maintained in order to achieve constant progress.

Why this database ? Simply because most freeware authors develop these program in their spare time and don't want to bother about the marketing of their products. PocketPCFreeware wants to provide a showroom and an online community where users can react. Besides we were a bit terrified by the price of some commercial software. We think that the promotion of freeware may force the editors of commercial software to justify their price with an increased quality of their products.

Why an association ? It took only a few months for a small personal homepage to grow and become a major site for the French Pocket PC community, with a number of visitors that made it impossible to keep it hosted on the basic site where it had been : in 2006, we receive 40,000 visits a day. The necessary bandwidth has a cost which requires an adapted structure.

Why the advertising ? When you visit our site, keep in mind that it is only a hobby, and that its creators have absolutely no financial benefits from it, just like the authors of featured freeware. Paying our hosting bills is source of permanent headache, and banners appear as a way to continue with this venture. You may donate via PayPal too, but for now, it is a total failure. Could you visit from time to time our sponsors ? It is a way to keep the site alive. We promise we'll never use aggressive banners or pop-up windows.

Please forgive us if you find things that are not exact, broken links or when our language skills fail to reproduce what we intended to say, we are neither a company nor professionals.

But who is involved ?

The PocketPCFreeware Team is evolving constantly. The founders are still active members, translators are helping to offer a multilingual site, and guest stars appear from time to time when we need their skills or hardware. Here comes a summary.
Let's begin by the founders :
- Lou (Vincent T.) is managing the technical part of the site and is the webmaster. He produced the whole PHP, a huge work which is so well done that you hardly notice it. He has been working for years in the videogame industry (Infogrames - DokiDenki). You may visit his personal site : http://www.louterrailloune.com where you can find the programs he developed.
- Torgamm (Didier B.) exclusively works on the content of the site and is the Editor-in-chief. He is working as an engineer in the manufacturing industry. Born in Nantes (France), his passion for small devices began with a Ti-57 when he was in junior high scool. Even if he likes to stay up-to-date, he still uses on day-to-day basis a Sharp PC-1500. He left his country and is living in Portugal, that's why you sometimes see portuguese screen shots and translations. He was awarded MVP Status by Microsoft in July 2006 :

Let's continue with contributors :
- HPClean (Stéphane Torrès), after leaving Ludipocket/Mobigeeks where he was webmaster, is leading the main french TabletPC site : TabletPC'Corner.
- R.DevilR (Renaud D.) : « Professor of mathematics, I have been using a Pocket PC for 3 years and I am addicted to it. I am very pleased to write some reviews for PPCFree, it is a way to thank them for their contribution to PPCFaQ, the french online FAQ I am in charge of. »

The translators without whom the site would still be french-only :
- (US) ashmoo (Ashley M.) is the main english translator. He is a developer and you can visit his personal site : http://home.iprimus.com.au/ashmoo/
- (US) Marta translates to english and introduces herself alone : « Hello, everyone my name is Marta. I live in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas. I was born in Toul, France in 19xx. After living in Meung-sur-Loire for a few years, my family and I moved to the United States then to Japan where I continued my high school and university years. After college, I taught English in Lyon, followed by studying to be an interpreter/translator in 5 languages at the Universite de Toulouse-Le Mirail. I have been in Law Enforcement since 1988. Currently, I am a Law Enforcement Trainer training officers in Texas as well as in Puerto Rico in Defensive Tactics, baton, OC spray, among others. I also train women in self-defense. If time permits, I tinker with computer building and repairing, I garden, or I read. »
- (US) MikeAmerlo (Michael Ansaldi) is an Oracle database developer and free-lance translator, specializing in translating legal, commercial and information-technology texts from French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese into English. He lives in Boston (U.S.A.), and can be contacted at here.
- (US) seidler (Stefan)
- (US) Nathalie
- (US) Dave Johnston is a developer, you may visit his personal site : http://www.johnsto.co.uk/pocketpc.php
- (US) mikedann

Last words are for ex-members and guest stars that we want to thank :
o909, Habot, Zebulon, Nairolf, Rom, Honolulu, Titimoby, grominetdoc, Pi314, Grazu, Zendrui, Marc H, Puyb, P@sc@l, Daimaou, youpps, alemão, xonox, azulsa, Clevers, NunoUFO.

Special thanks

We want to thank Karim from MKLabs for hosting our site there for almost one year at a price that beats all other offers.

How do we rate a software ?

It is not very easy to give a coherent rating when there are several reviewers. We are using a rating based on a scale of 10 :

- 4 points : general interest for typical end user.
- 3 points : ergonomics, ease of use (menus, options, etc.)
- 3 points : production (code, ...), speed of reaction.

Easier to understand for our visitors, we use to check the result in this scale :
10/10 Absolute masterpiece
9/10 Excellent
8/10 Worth testing absolutely
7/10 Very good
6/10 Worth testing if needed
5/10 Not bad
4/10 Average
3/10 Poor
2/10 Only if you really need it
1/10 To avoid
0/10 Useless and not functional