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Filed under: Windows, Productivity

SpeedScript for UMPC or Tablet PC - 1 year free trial

SpeedscriptSpeedScript is an innovative program (one of many) aimed at making it easy to enter text on mobile devices. With all the talk about whether the iPhone's lack of a physical keyboard is an advantage or a detriment, it's easy to forget that folks have been struggling with on-screen text entry methods ever since the days of the Apple Newton. See how it all comes full circle back to Apple?

Anyway, as we've mentioned before, SpeedScript is available for Windows Mobile devices for about $13. But SpeedScript is also testing tablet and UMPC versions of the software. And when we say testing, we mean if you download a copy today, they're not going to charge you for a year. That should be more than enough time to figure out whether SpeedScript actually saves you any time.

[via jkOnTheRun]

Filed under: Utilities, Features, Windows Mobile, Productivity, Mobile Minute

Easy text entry methods for your PDA - Mobile Minute

TenGo FreeText entry on mobile devices has never been what you would call a pleasant experience. These days, many PDA and smartphones often include built in keyboards for typing with your thumbs. But if you're an old fashioned stylus warrior, there are a few ways to improve the hunt and peck experience.

While Microsoft includes an on-screen keyboard and several types of handwriting recognition to choose from, here are a few third party programs that might make typing on your Windows Mobile device faster and easier.

Tengo

Tengo is a pretty nifty application that brings predictive text to Windows Mobile. Technically, it was there all along, with Microsoft integrating a word suggestion feature. But Tengo makes typing with an on-screen keyboard a bit more like typing on a cellphone keypad. And believe it or not, that's a good thing.

TenGo divides presents you with a QWERTY-style keyboard, but the 26 letters of the alphabet are divided up into 6 zones. You don't have to hit a letter precisely, you just have to hit the zone it is in. As you add more letters, TenGo will try to guess the word you're trying to enter. It works surprisingly well.

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Filed under: Windows Mobile, Commercial

Speedier Windows Mobile text entry with SpeedScript

When I got my first PDA years ago, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out if I could enter text quicker using the letter recognizer or the on-screen keyboard. Since I often use my PDA to take notes, the answer quickly presented itself: they're both really slow.

SpeedScript is an alternative text entry program based on the concept that when you type a letter, 50% of the time the next character you will need is a vowel or a space. So when you tap a letter, a little blue box opens up, letting you slide the stylus to those characters. If that isn't clear, check out this video.



It looks a bit confusing in high speed, but since there's only a few characters in the blue box, you can memorize their locations pretty quickly. Still, I find that blue box rather distracting. Personally I prefer TenGO for quick stylus-based text input. Of course, the quickest solution is to plug in an external keyboard, but that only works if you have room in your bag for the keyboard, and the time to unfold it and plug it in.

SpeedScript is available for $12.99. A free trial is available, which lets you write up to 7,000 characters. I like this as a method for letting you try the program before you buy it, rather than having the program expire in a few days whether you've used it or not.

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