TuneCast II, from Belkin, about $50.

What it does: Like a good Hollywood sequel, the TuneCast II takes the good parts from the first version and adds features to improve the product. The device connects to the headphone jack of any MP3 player and broadcasts the content to any nearby FM stereo receiver. This lets users listen to their digital music when they're in a car or via a stereo system.

Why it's cool: The device lets users choose the frequency at which to broadcast, as opposed to a choice of only four pre-set frequencies in the earlier model. This gives users more flexibility, on the off chance the lower frequencies on the radio dial are taken up by college radio or public radio stations. This feature also comes in handy when you're driving - when you're in range of a station, you can quickly change frequencies to continue listening to your music.

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256MB + Wi-Fi card, from SanDisk, about $130.

 What it does: This secure digital I/O (SDIO) card combines 256M bytes of storage capacity with a Wi-Fi (802.11b) wireless LAN radio. The card works with Pocket PC 2002, 2003 and Windows Mobile 2003 handheld PDAs to provide wireless connectivity (and to give extra storage space). Security features such as Wired Equivalent Privacy, 802.1X, pre-shared keys and Wi-Fi Protected Access are supported.

Why it's cool: Combining the two technologies onto one SDIO card can save a lot of time as well as battery life. (SanDisk says combining the storage and wireless functions onto one card will help minimize battery drain.) More importantly, the combination lets you store content on the card while maintaining a wireless connection, as opposed to switching between a wireless radio card and a storage memory card. Installation was relatively simple (we had to install drivers and software before inserting the card into the handheld), although we had to remember which operating system our handheld was currently using.

On the down side, the card won't work with SDIO card readers, so it becomes a bit more difficult to transfer data stored on this card. Still, if you're looking to add wireless to your pocket PC without sacrificing storage memory, this card is worth a look.

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Viewpoint Toolbar 2.0, from Viewpoint, free.

What it does: Like several other Internet Explorer toolbars, the Viewpoint bar is a plug-in that helps you quickly search for items on the Web.

Viewpoint adds a visual element to the search results, letting you see a thumbnail photo of a Web site in a horizontal scrolling window. When you roll your mouse over the thumbnail preview, the window gets slightly larger so you can see more. This lets you decide whether to continue to the site or go to the next search result. The toolbar also takes your favorites file and creates a visual representation of all your bookmarks.

Like other toolbars, the Viewpoint model includes a pop-up blocker, but instead of just blocking ads it throws them into a visual folder, so you can scroll and see what pop-up ads you're missing.

Why it's cool: Sometimes reading descriptions of your search results isn't enough; sometimes you want to see what the site looks like before you go there. In that respect, the Viewpoint Toolbar succeeds in saving you from wasted clicks.

Our favorite part of this toolbar was the visual bookmark feature, which lets you refresh the page and see if there is any new content. If you scan a bunch of Web sites daily, setting it up so you can scan all of the sites at once (at a quick glance) is pretty valuable.

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Shaw can be reached at kshaw@nww.com.