James has been tinkering with working hard at reviewing that Viliv S5 UMPC, and he settled on the UBoard virtual keyboard for text input. Unfortunately, that application is hosted by a possibly defunct Yahoo! Group for the Sony U-series and appears difficult to get. Many folks suggested looking at the Zero Weight Keyboard, which is still under development, but there’s also the Hot Virtual Keyboard, which just saw a new release earlier this week with these added these features:
- Added an ability to make simple skins.
- Added new themes: Vista, Office 2007 Blue, Office 2007 Silver, Office 2007 Black, MacOS.
- An on-screen keyboard on the Windows log-on screen has been improved (you have to completely reinstall the program for this feature).
- Added a new button to emulate the CTRL+ALT+DEL key combination on the log-on screen (Windows 2000/2003/XP).
- Added a new option for the on-screen keyboard: “Show On-Screen Keyboard when the text cursor is visible”.
- Added new on-screen keyboard types: FullScreen1024, FullScreen1440.
- Now you can use your own actions inside keystroke macros.
- Added a new action “Minimize the active window to the system tray”.
- Added a new action “Set the active window as always-on-top (on/off)”.
- Added a new action “Use the specified input language or layout while holding down the key”.
- Added a new action “Change the input language or layout of the last typed word” (two words, three words).
- The “Eject/Close CD” action has been improved. Now you can specify the drive to use with this action.
The application offers word auto-completion, which could speed up input just like on mobile phones. Is HVK hot enough to buy for $29.95? You’ll have to be the judge, since it’s your wallet. At least the free demo isn’t virtual. It’s the real thing for you to try, so have at it UMPC fans!

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