Here is a sampling of some of the other software for people using Spanish:
smallTALK — This innovative program bills itself as the world's first real-time, two-way translator. The software allows you to engage in two-way conversations in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Japanese (depending on which modules you have installed) in topics such as lodging, transportation, and dining. The program includes a long list of questions that a traveler might need to ask. Tap the screen, and the question is given in the foreign language with a list of likely responses. The person you're talking with can pick a response and, in some cases, point appropriately. The program should work quite well in practice, although if you're traveling in a place with a low literacy rate it wouldn't be the ideal tool. The cost at the time of this writing is $79, although significant discounts are offered at times. If you use this program, please post a review on the bulletin board.
BDicty — Beiks Ltd. sells a basic dictionary engine as well as modules in a variety of languages, and modules also may be available from third parties (or you can develop your own). The Spanish-to-English module, for example, has 19,000 words and is available for $10 (a smaller demo module is free). This is a choice worth considering if you don't have the memory available to handle a larger dictionary, or if you wish to load your Palm OS device with several languages.
Dictionary Pro — This dictionary, available for $9, has about 25,000 entries optimized for business users. Check the demo before buying, as the word selection might seem somewhat offbeat, at least to Americans.
Software for reading — If you're looking for reading for Spanish-language e-books that can be read on your Palm, your choices currently aren't plentiful, although there is some Spanish reading material in such general-purpose document sites for the Palm platform such as MemoWare. But there is software available, some of it free, that can be used to translate plain text or even HTML (the language of Web pages) documents into documents in the popular DOC language. For example, if you wanted to have the the text of Don Quixote de la mancha on your Palm, you could could download it, save it as a text file, then convert it to a format the Palm can understand.
Discussing Palm software for reading and making text documents would be beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that I regularly use CSpotRun, a freeware reader available in Spanish, for reading documents in the popular DOC format for the Palm OS. MakeDocW is a freeware utility for making DOC documents from text or HTML, although the HTML converter doesn't understand all Spanish characters. See the software archives at About.com's Palmtops site for more information about software.
Another approach to getting Spanish reading material on the Palm is through AvantGo software, which can work either as a Web browser (if you have a modem for the Palm unit) or as a means of transferring Web pages from from your PC to a Palm OS or Windows CE unit for later reading. Although the software has its limitations (it doesn't handle JavaScript, for example, and frames require a workaround), you can get use it to get Spanish-language Web pages. I use it, for example, to get a frequently updated news summary in Spanish. Once pages are downloaded to the Palm, you can read them at your leisure.
Games — Finally, no article on software would be complete without a mention of games. One of the most addicting Palm OS games available in Spanish is NoMess, a time waster where the object is to move pieces around a board so there are five in a row of one design. The program is free to try, and for $8 you can get a registered version that has more capabilities.
A game with a little bit of Spanish in it is Cuarenta, a computerized version of a card game popular in Ecuador. The game uses a modified deck with 40 cards, and you need to score 40 points to win. Although this game comes in English, it uses a few Spanish terms. And if you learn the game, you'll impress people next time you visit Ecuador.
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