Pocket PC Thoughts: The Big Red Box for PPCs -- Pocket Mechanic Professional v2.23

Introduction
Ever wished you could spend the afternoon/weekend flipping up the hood and ‘tinkering’ with your favourite Pocket PC the way that car guys do with a Corvette/Mustang/Dodge Pickup on the front driveway? Well, Anton Tomov has provided you with everything you need to do just that in the latest version of Pocket Mechanic Pro (v2.23.163).

Opening up the Big Red Box…
Once installed, Pocket Mechanic Pro can be started from the icon in the Programs folder. On my machine however, it took about 12 seconds to get the main screen from the initial tap on the icon.

So, what have we got in here? Pocket Mechanic Professional comes with such a wide selection of tools, it can be a little daunting at first glance.


Figure 1: Main screen of Pocket Mechanic Professional.

Here’s a short description of each of the tools in your kit:
Card Info - provides detailed information on installed storage cards (SD and CF);
Free Ram - defragments and frees up unused ‘Program’ memory;
Card Benchmark - compare your storage card against others;
Fragmentation Status - shows a map of fragmentation on storage cards;
Defragment - remove all those nasty memory fragments on storage cards;
Slack Analysis - analyze card storage for ‘wasted’ space due to un-filled clusters;
Format – reformat a storage card (similar to reformatting your hard drive);
Recover Bad Sectors - scan the data sectors and relocate data from ‘bad sectors’ to healthy ones while marking the unusable ones in the FAT tables;
CE Databases - view content of WinCE databases (e.g. Pocket Outlook and others);
Find Duplicate Files - as titled, locate (and eliminate) multiple copies of the same file;
Find Invalid Shortcuts - locate and eliminate shortcuts to nowhere;
Large Files - find the files taking up the most space;
Large Folders - find folders that are taking up the most space;
Notification Queue - review the reminders on the system and eliminate duplicates;
File System Cleanup - select from a list of file types which clutter a system, and have them removed;
Registry Cleanup - analyzes the registry and (optionally) removes unused / unneeded entries;
Uninstall Apps - a more complete uninstall utility;
Relocate - move applications from Program Memory to storage cards (or vice-versa);
Storage Cache - tuning of the file system memory management to improve storage performance.

Whew! That’s quite the toolkit. You can be forgiven for not being able to remember what each application does, but that’s exactly why Anton has provided a Help/Description area at the bottom of the screen. (BTW, this can be reduced by dragging on the space between the windows, or eliminated via the Details option on the View menu).

Along the top of the main screen is a BRB (Big Red Button) for shutting off power to your unit plus a rolling CPU usage meter. I couldn’t figure out how to use the View and Shortcut drop downs, since on my upgraded-to-WM5 Axim X50V, they only show ‘N/A’. The menus on the bottom of the screen provide a proper exit function (i.e. actually shutting down the application); editing of settings for PMPro; formatting of the main view to shut on and off the Header line and descriptions; and rotation to any display position you want.

Which End Does the Bit Go In? Using the Tools
Generally, the interface for using each of the tools is simple, consistent, and leads the user through the various stages of analysis and results. After selecting a tool from the main menu, the next screen displays the available storage cards and allows you to select which ones to work on.


Figure 2: Picture of card selection screen.

After selecting the desired card or cards, tapping the Next button at the bottom of the screen starts the analysis. If more than one card is selected, the application will go through the first card to its final report, then proceed to the second selection.

During analysis, notifications of problems or status may be presented.


Figure 3: Notification screen. If desired, these intermediary notifications can be turned off, application by application, by selecting the tick box in the lower left of the notice screen.

Then, the results of the analysis are shown.


Figure 4: Analysis results.

Tapping the Next button again will present the analysis report.


Figure 5: Analysis report.

Most of the reports are text (as shown above) but there are variations based on what function has been selected.


Figure 6: Fragmentation status screen.

The reports and notifications are also logged as text files in a location specified in the Edit/Settings/Debug menu item.


Figure 7: Logging settings screen.

Tapping the OK button at the Report screen then returns you to the main tool selection screen. Selecting the Back button re-runs the function, and Cancel returns you to the main function screen.