Fahgedabout This Dictionary of Idioms

If you love to write well, you probably have a library of resources on your mobile device to help you ply your craft.

My own PDA is loaded with dictionaries, spell checkers, encyclopedia, and various other references (in far too many formats, but that is another rant for another day).

And as a "real" writer, I own, and use on my desktop machine, the Oxford English Dictionary on CD-ROM---two editions of it!

So with great anticipation I tried the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms from Oxford University Press offered by Mobipocket.

The short-take on the experience: The makers of this product don't give a tinker's dam for its usefulness. That tinker's dam phrase, for example, isn't in the "dictionary" and neither are most other idioms I looked up. And those few that were included had extremely anemic explanations.

If you have a fairly good command of the English language, this reference is just about useless. (Though it may be helpful to non-native English speakers.)

Not only is the content less than one would expect, the interface was flawed--no scroll bars appeared on the screen, and the search function (on my iPAQ running PPC 2002) did not work.

I deleted the free demo version from my PDA after just two days of disappointments. And I'm not the only curmudgeon who views the product as not-ready-for-market. According to its own web site, Mobipocket customers have rated this promising but disappointing e-book reference a mere "2" out of a possible "5" score.

Do you have some references on your PDA that you find useful? Share your recommendations with us all.