Nothing makes tracking your SMS conversations easier than the Treo's threaded messaging (complete with a smoking emoticon!). You'll remember who said what and when.

And when the Treo 750v became the first windows mobile gadget to support this feature, hackers eagerly copied it to other WM devices. Unfortunately, that's technically illegal, and Palm's lawyers sprung into action. A reasonable reaction actually, since the function makes the company's smartphones stand out from the competition.

That may not be true for long, since Ben Hirashima made TxtMan, a utility that gives your Windows Mobile 5.0 smartphone or PDA phone threaded messaging. It has some quirks, like not working with the second Motorola Q update, but it's free.

Then again, especially if Ben pursues his plans to release a "more robust" commercial version, Palm may hit him with an infringement lawsuit.