As the riders prepare for yet another year of the World's most famous cycle race, so comes another new version of this Pocket PC guide to Le Tour de France.

LeTour 2009 is crammed with all sorts of information about the race, including information about the route, as well as details of who is taking part this year. The main program interface consists of a map of France with the route drawn onto it. Each stage is numbered on the map and the corresponding numbers are circled around the map. Unfortunately, there's no way of zooming into the map, so you only really get a general overview of exactly where each stage is.

Clicking on any of the stage numbers will bring up more details about that stage. Here you can see the date, distance and location, as well as a rough overview of the route, showing key markers and a visual guide to the undulations of that particular section. Again, this could do with a zoom feature, as the text on the stage overview is pretty small.

Besides the information about each stage, you can also access details about the teams from the main menu. Although it doesn't list detailed information about individual riders or photographs, you are able to view the names of the riders in each team.

One of the best things about LeTour 2009 though, is the fact that you can combine it with your Datebook to add all the stage information, removing and updating details as the race progresses.

If you want to keep an eye on what's happening at this year's big race, LeTour 2009 provides a useful way of doing so from your Pocket PC.

Download LeTour 2009 1.2 in Softonic

Generally speaking, tennis sims for mobile devices are pretty lame. Fiddly controls and jerky animation are often the main culprits in the failings of these titles. Not so in VT Pocket Tennis though, which proves to be one the most enjoyable games of its kind on the Pocket PC.

VT Pocket Tennis has a wonderfully realistic feel to it, with well-rendered 3D players, accurate shadow effects and authentic motion blur. The sound effects add to this lifelike experience, with realistic ball noises, umpire calls and crowd cheers.

There are plenty of game modes in VT Pocket Tennis to keep you occupied. You can play an exhibition between two of five pre-created players, all of differing skill levels. There's also a practice mode to help you hone your skills. The main part of the game though is the tournament mode, where you can create your own players and build up their skills over time, taking on the CPU in challenges in five different locations across the World, each with a different court surface. Winning matches will help you climb up the rankings section, and the goal is to reach the top. Note though, that only the exhibition mode is playable in this demo version of VT Pocket Tennis.

The control system in VT Pocket Tennis is refreshingly intuitive for a tennis sim. You make shots simply by tapping the part of the court you want to aim at. Providing your player is standing in the right place and the timing is right, the ball should hit this desired location.

There isn't much to fault in VT Pocket Tennis, aside from the fact that there are no real players in the game, and the occasional moment where a player will freeze and become unresponsive.

If you fancy yourself as the next Nadal or Federer then VT Pocket Tennis makes for a good way to taste tennis glory without exerting too much energy.

Download VT Pocket Tennis 1.0 in Softonic

Kaspersky Mobile Security is designed to protect you from a range of threats and compromises, including viruses spam, Internet attacks, and even theft. As you'd expect, the most prominent aspect of the suite is its Anti-Virus, which is reliable and easy. It allows you to scan your whole system, or selected parts of it, for viruses, as well as move infected files to quarantine, and schedule scans periodically.

If you're fed up with getting calls and texts from people you're not interested in talking to, then you'll love the Anti-Spam feature in Kaspersky Mobile Security. This allows you to set up black lists and white lists to block or grant access to specified contacts, depending on whether or not you want to speak to them.

For me, the most useful tool within Kaspersky Mobile Security is the Anti-Theft feature. Once configured, this allows you to remotely block your SIM if your phone gets lost or stolen to prevent anyone accessing your personal data. Better still, Anti-Theft comes with a tool that lets you find your missing mobile via GPS. With SMS Find, you just send a text to your number and the software retrieves the GPS coordinates and displays its exact location in Google Maps.

With other safety features such as encryption, parental controls, and firewall, Kaspersky Mobile Security represents a consummate suite for taking care of all your security needs. I must say that the user interface needs some attention though. I would've preferred a start screen linking to the various elements, rather than having to go through the pop-up menu.

That aside, Kaspersky Mobile Security has such a powerful arsenal of tools that it's probably the best way to protect your device from anything nasty.

Download Kaspersky Mobile Security 8.0.0.75 in Softonic

Visitor Guide is an application that helps you find your way in cities, public transport systems, museums, zoo's, exhibitions and many other places. Visitor Guide combines the functionality of a route planner and an information guide

Metro Paris is a route planner for the Metro, Tram, RER and Orvy Val lines of Paris. Part of the route planner are the 100 most important tourist attractions of Paris.

Visitor Guide Metro Paris features:

• Great colour map of the Metro, Tram, RER and Orly Val lines of Paris
• Combines with other Visitor Guide maps of Paris
• All Metro lines
• All Tram lines
• All RER lines; stations are limited to Paris area (plus Charles de Gaulle airport)
• Orly Val line to Orly Airport
• All important (~100) Tourist Attractions of Paris with detailed information (including address and opening times) about Tourist Sights, Monuments, Musea, Theaters, Churches

Visitor Guide General Features:

• Visitor Guide allows you to load one or more maps, find any location on these maps, plan a trip from one location to another (which doesn't have to be on the same map), and calculate the shortest route between these locations
• The route can be displayed as a list of travel directions or graphically as an animated display combined with travel directions
• The route animation can be shown in a forward and backward direction
• The route animation can be shown step-by-step, or as a fluid movement
• During route animation the travel directions for the current location are displayed
• In situations where you do not want locations to be part of the calculated route you can block these locations. You can also block complete lines
• Visitor Guide will exclude blocked locations and lines from the calculated route.
• Visitor Guide uses a split window. The top window displays the map; the bottom window displays textual information like travel directions
• Select the location with the stylus in the top window and information about this location is immediately displayed in the bottom window. Using the tool bar you can easily select a selected location as departure or destination
• When Visitor Guide is started it reserves 2/3 of the screen for the map and 1/3 for text. You can change this ratio by dragging the split window border with the stylus
• When Visitor Guide is started it detects the maps that are present. If there is only one map it will load this map automatically. If there is more than one map Visitor Guide will display the available maps allowing you to select one or more maps to load
• Find any location on the maps using the Find Location by Type function or the Find Location by Network function

Download Visitor Guide Paris 2.08 in Softonic

There's a lot of technology around these days for sportspeople and if you want a competitive edge over your rivals it's a good idea to embrace these new aids. ProTracker Tennis, for instance, is perfect for tennis players who want to improve their game.

ProTracker Tennis is designed to give coaches the ability to track and analyze players' matches in greater depth than they ever could with a pen and paper. The program allows users to record precise information about tennis matches down to the position and outcome of every shot.

Information is captured by tapping the stylus on the appropriate part of the on-screen tennis court depending on where the ball lands. The coach can then select details about the shot, including the type of shot and the outcome. ProTracker Tennis automatically keeps score based on this information (i.e. whether the point was won or lost).

ProTracker Tennis really is a coach's dream and the level of analysis available in the program is second to none. Besides displaying overall TV-style stats the app lets you view performance in graphical format on the tennis court display, so the player can see exactly what they are doing right and where things are going wrong. Match reports can be printed, multiple player profiles added, and games can be compared easily.

Perhaps the major downside of ProTracker Tennis is that it relies on speedy input by the user. In particularly fast matches I can imagine it being pretty tough for a coach to record the precise location and type of every shot while watching the game.

Nevertheless, if you're a tennis coach who wants to bring the best out of your disciples then ProTracker Tennis could be an essential aid.

Download ProTracker Tennis 4.2 in Softonic

The control of Wild Gears is really intuitive, if you've seen Mario 64 DS you will recognize it. There's a circle from which you control direction, and the further away from the center you touch, the faster you'll go. It's really easy to pick up.

The four vehicles behave quite differently, from the quick but easy to damage to the slow but strong and the dependably average car. Races last for four laps, and various power ups appear along the way to help you and your opponents out. The CPU opponents sometimes act a little strangely, but for the most part they provide good competition.

Wild Gears' tracks have different locations, like beach, dirt and forest, although we noticed little real difference between them in terms of handling. The graphics are cheerful, although not very original. The soundtrack will remind older people of 80s games, although even they will probably find it irritating pretty quickly, and the sound effects aren't at all special. For this type of casual game, a four lap race actually seems a bit long, and it's a shame you can't choose that yourself.

Although this type of game's been done better in the past, and while it's not particularly wild and features no gears at all, Wild Gears can provide some casual gaming fun for a few minutes here and there.

Download Wild Gears 1.0 in Softonic

If you've ever dreamed of hopping into a tank and driving across all terrain blasting enemy vehicles to bits along the way then you're in luck because you can now do so from the comfort of your mobile device.

Tank Ace transports you back to the Second World War, charging you with the task of neutralising enemy forces by destroying their tanks. At the start of the game you're presented with a map of Europe and can choose to fight as the Allied, German or Soviet forces in a series of locations across the continent.

The first thing you notice when you climb aboard your tank and set out is the quality of the 3D graphics, which are very impressive for a mobile game. The terrain is well drawn out and animations are realistically slowed down or speeded up depending if you're going up or downhill. Likewise, the sound is impressive and the boom of the gun is as good as you'll hear on any phone-based game.

The control system is very fluid and you'll soon be navigating effectively using the keypad. If you get really stuck you can even call up a control panel on the side of the screen and do it manually. I also like the way you can switch between drive mode and aim mode, as it gives you pinpoint targeting of enemy tanks.

There are two different gaming views to choose from - one where you're watching from behind the tank and an overhead mode. You'll need to using the latter quite a bit because the lack of a radar map makes it difficult to really know where you're going and there's a lot of aimless driving around involved.

One of the things that lets the game down I feel, is the lack of variation in the scenes. It seems that no matter which country you select to play in (with the exception of some snowy parts of Russia), the terrain looks exactly the same, which only adds to the game's monotony. What's more, all of the tanks seem to look and behave the same no matter which force you choose to play with.

On the whole the gameplay is enjoyable although because of a lack of AI the enemy tanks often disappear out of sight even when they know you're there and that you have no ammunition left.

Overall, this is a polished 3D war game that looks great on the small screen but lacks a little variety.

Download Tank Ace 1944 1.01 in Softonic

In a very hectic time in which we live today we do not have a luxury of putting on a side a chunk of time, sit in the chair, relax and read the newspaper. We provide an opportunity to busy people and especially commuters that spend precious time on the road to listen to their favorite newspapers wherever they go and whenever they want. You only have to carry with you Pocket PC, and not bulky newspapers and magazines.

How does it work?

The user selects news channels and schedule a download time. At the specified time ReadMeNews downloads HTML pages, extracts text and converts them into MP3 files. At the same time it builds tree-like structure that organizes news stories in categories and subcategories. All necessary files are stored on CF/SD card. Snap a memory card into Pocket PC and you are ready to go.

In the car just place a Pocket PC beside you and you can navigate through the news by simple pressing the hardware buttons. Four buttons are provided for navigation.

Hardware buttons on the front side of the PDA are enabled to perform navigation like to go to the next/previous news or to go up in the tree with the Up button.

Our experience is that only two buttons are required for easy navigation: Next and Up (taking you one level up in the tree). The Next button will always take you to the next article wrapping around when it comes to last one (it will position you to the first one). With the Next button you always stay at the same level. Up button is provided for changing the level, taking you a level up from the current level. Both buttons can be easily located on the Pocket PC even while you are driving. It will take the most 5 to 10 minutes to get used to button manipulations.

The best way to listen is to let ReadMeNews cruise through all the news and when you ear catches something interesting you can go back and listen to the part again. No frustration that you missed something and pressure that you have to be attentive to every spoken word in order not to miss interesting parts, because you can very easily navigate through the news and go back to the previous one. At the same time no need to listen to something you do not like. You can easily skip those parts. Our experience tells that most of the users would let ReadMeNews automatically walk them thorough the articles and occasionally skip some or go up in the tree. As you spend more time with ReadMeNews, you will learn more about your preferences and find ways to locate the news that the most interest you.

Download ReadMeNews Windows app in Softonic

Mau Mau is a classic card game of two to four players on your PDA's screen. The game is played against three AI opponents, so that total four players participate in the game. The player may choose in menu also different number of players from two to four, and select which players should be present.

Player's cards are located at the bottom of screen. The game is turn-based, each time a player moves, (s)he either plays card from hands, or takes card from the base pile. The goal of the game is to get rid of all cards from the hand. (Note that this description doesn't supplement actual game rules, which are not described here, but are completely described in game's help screen).

After winning a round, the winner gets points, and the game continues with next turn, until one of players reaches such amount of points, that the game is over. The round winners are rewarded after each round, as well as the winner of the game is rewarded when the game is over. The reward is in a form of special item placed in front of winner, and satisfaction from seeing the opponents being deadly sad that they have not won.

The opponents have animated parts of face in order to show their emotions. This includes eyes, mouth, and some figures have special animations (e.g. the boy uses sticking out his tongue when making good turn).

Download Mau Mau 2.31 in Softonic

These days, travelling for business or pleasure can often mean that you speak English all the way because so many people understand it. However, you’ll often find that making an effort to use the local language, whether to seal the deal or just to order a coffee, can make a big difference in the way people welcome you.

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary from Mobile Systems is a tool that can help you if you’ve already made the effort to learn some Spanish beforehand. It’s not a traveller’s phrase-book but it does contain precise translations for more than 170,000 words and phrases, all in a simple and easy-to-use interface which guarantees instant results.

The way that the dictionary is presented makes it easy to locate the info you’re looking for. Its default start-up screen is a list of the first half-dozen or so words beginning with ‘A’, and a text box which allows you to start searching for words immediately. We weren’t sure about displaying the full list of words as a default view: how many times will you choose to scroll through the full list rather than searching for your term? But as we typed, the dictionary filtered the words on-screen, narrowing down the choices until there were just a handful to pick from. In the end, we felt that this method of displaying information could well serve as a time-saver, and it’s therefore a must-have feature on any business dictionary.

When you open a specific record for a word, the translation is provided in a clear manner, using variations in font-strength and colour to indicate the various parts of the word’s entry. As well as the traditional Castilian Spanish (from Spain), twenty regional variations are included in the dictionary’s database, meaning that you can safely avoid the embarrassment of misusing Mexican slang in Spain, and vice versa. What we were surprised by is the absence of support for variations in English. The dictionary is clearly only designed for American English speakers, and omits several ‘test terms’ we used to examine whether British or Australian English terms were included. This is disappointing, as it means that the dictionary may not be suitable for either British visitors to Spanish speaking countries, or Spanish speakers who intend to visit the UK.

Other small gripes included not being able to select terms for cross-referencing within the dictionary, and the lack of more encyclopaedic definitions. However, both these features would have taken up more precious space on your phone’s memory card, a sacrifice which on balance wouldn’t really be justified.

The Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary is a well designed, simple and easy-to-use tool for American English speakers who need a mobile dictionary solution. While it doesn’t support British English, its support for 20 variations of Spanish is impressive and useful. Automatic updates and a ‘word of the day’ random term option are well executed, handy features which seal the deal on this reviewer’s recommendation.

Download Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary and MSDict Viewer 7.00.44 in Softonic

Over the past few years, Feng Shui, the Chinese art of putting things in the right place, has become a hugely popular consideration for many people buying homes, renovating their living space or trying to improve their office’s atmosphere. In this pocket guide to the philosophy, MobileReference.com tries to introduce the basic concepts of Feng Shui and outlines how you might employ them to improve your life.

The first thing to note about Feng Shui, the program, is that it’s not actually a program. The download simply installs a folder of HTML pages and images to your device which are then viewed via your preferred web browser. While this may seem a little too simplistic, we feel that for this sort of job, HTML does just fine. After opening it, the ‘program’ takes you straight into a brief and clear explanation of just what Feng Shui is. Below this paragraph, you’re offered a series of links which take you further into the nuts and bolts of how Feng Shui can influence your life, starting with the location of your home.

The in-depth guides to Feng Shui are interesting and, for the most part, well written. A few unusual phrases gave the impression that perhaps they had been translated from another language but the text is still very clear and easy to understand. To help with the textual points, Feng Shui includes diagrams of favourable and unfavourable situations and environments – making sure that even if you didn’t follow the text, you can’t fail to understand that it’s bad to live underneath a motorway.

As well as the step-by-step guides to Feng Shui (covering the location of your home and detailed guides to achieving best results in particular rooms), the program provides a more detailed explanation of how Feng Shui works. This text, much like the rest of the program, is clear but brief. This brevity, coupled with the occasionally unusual English and clunky interface are the weak points on an otherwise enlightening and interesting guide.

While not dazzling in its detail or quality, Feng Shui manages to be informative, concise and clear – qualities often lacking from similar self-advice guides with far more ‘bells and whistles’. Above all, the information it provides could really help you to improve your quality of life, just by making small changes.

Download Feng Shui 2.1 in Softonic