Enter Sixxac Software's Pocket Dial4Me. This little program allows you to dial a phone by producing the dialing tones right from your H/PC's speaker. No big deal right? There are already several programs that do this right? Well, that is correct, but Pocket Dial4Me does a great job of making this task very simple.

The setup is very simple although if you have a previous version installed you are advised to remove it first, before installing. All the appropriate files are downloaded to your H/PC and you have the option of placing an icon on your desktop.

When you launch the program, you are asked to setup a few options to tell the software how to read your contacts. This is fairly simple although you really should read the help file if you are unsure. One of the nice things about the software is it automatically imports your contacts list for you. In fact, you have the option of making the program look exactly like your contacts list but with an extra toolbar at the top of the screen.

Sixxac has really thought this one through as they allow several customizations. You can customize the look of the program meaning you can determine the columns that are shown, and even whether or not the dial pad is visible. You can also have the program wait a specified number of seconds before it starts dialing to give you time to get the speaker near the phone.

Also, you can determine how fast the tones are sent, and even how long to wait between phone numbers. Basically, you have complete control of this program. For a simple phone tone dialer, Sixxac has really placed a lot of thought into giving people the flexibility they need.

Pocket Dial4Me works with long distance calling cards and other complex dialing schemes. Basically, you can set this thing to dial however you wish. By placing commas in the dialing patterns you can add pauses to the dialing strings. One thing I did have trouble with was getting my credit card number to play correctly. For some reason it left off one number every time it sounded my credit card number. I placed a comma in front of the credit card number and it worked fine. Perhaps this is just a bug? In any case, with the fix it worked flawlessly.

Here are some other cool features that I found in this program. You can have a list of Favorites just like in Internet Explorer. You simply choose from the Favorites list and it dials away. You can use filters to let you only see certain contacts in the list, and under the File menu you can see your last 3 or 4 numbers that you dialed.

I wasn't ever a fan of these kinds of programs even on my desktop. I've always been good at remembering numbers and it was easier to just dial the phone manually. But, this program could really come in handy if you just like expensive toys, or if you're a frequent traveler. I often find myself in airports where I have to dial in my credit card company's 800 number, then my account number, and then the number I'm calling. I can usually remember all that, but someone can look over my shoulder and steal my number (there's been a lot of these cases reported recently). With Pocket Dial4Me the H/PC does the dialing so nobody can see what you're doing. And, if you tell the program to dial rapidly, it's a lot quicker. You could setup several people that you know you're going to call as Favorites. Then, when you arrive at an airport you're on your way.

So congratulations to the folks at Sixxac for making a very useful program. This one defenitely deserves our button.