Like any Personal Computer, most Windows Mobile users like to customize their device to better fit their personal needs.  While most of these can be done via the settings within Windows Mobile itself, some are not.  Some of these are buried within the Registry of your device, a place that is not recommended for the faint-of-heart or those who are not familiar with how the Registry functions.  Simply put, one wrong move within the Registry of your device can leave your device inoperable.  This would force you to hard reset your device and worst case – if you don’t have a backup of your device – spend hours restoring all of your applications. 

Seeing a desire for users to customize their devices but without having to have detailed knowledge of the Registry, Frank Garcia created Tweaks2K2 .Net.  Tweaks2K2 allows you to make over 100 different tweaks and changes to your device to make it suit your needs more.  The range of tweaks that are available is impressive and reach into the User Interface, Pocket Internet Explorer, and system functions.  Within Tweaks2K2 you can also check memory and battery levels as well as perform soft and hard resets of your device.  All-in-all, for any Windows Mobile user who wants to customize their device and does not want to manually modify the devices’ Registry, Tweaks2K2 is for you. 

Tweaks2K2 is installed via ActiveSync and requires approximately 1.8MB of storage space on your device.  While it can be installed on either a Storage Card or in Main Memory, it is recommended that it be installed into Main Memory.  Tweaks2K2, currently in version 3.20, requires Pocket PC 2002, Windows Mobile 2003, 2003SE or 5.0 to operate.  Once installed and started, the user interface of Tweaks2K2 is simple with the menus to tweak your device available at the bottom of the display.

The various tweaks in Tweaks2K2 are split into several major categories off of the Tweaks menu:  System Tricks, Internet Tricks, Keyboard Tricks, Video System Colors and Calendar.  Additionally, you can adjust the security settings of your device as well as perform soft or hard resets. 

As the name suggests, System Tricks are adjustments that are made to your devices Operating System and adjust how it functions or its appearance.  These include the adjusting the font appearance, typeface and size, windows animations, Date and Time on the top bar, the long date format, the scroll bar size and so forth.  In all there are five “collections” tabs in the System Tricks menu.

From the System Tricks menu you also have several other adjustments you can make to your Windows Mobile device.  This includes rotating your device’s screen appearance 180 degrees, for VGA on any application (if you have a VGA device) and one of my favorites, Clear Recent Programs List.  New in recent builds of Tweaks2K2 is the ability to change the Today Soft Keys in Windows Mobile 5.  By changing the soft keys, you can have them assigned to any application on your device, customizing it to how you use it best.  

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