(FORTUNE Small Business) – A bare-bones personal digital assistant is like an ice cream sundae without toppings--it's what you put on it that shows who you are. Today's burgeoning crop of software for handhelds offers more useful tools than ever, plus a few sprinkles on top.

Build yourself a better Palm with two apps from Communication Intelligence Corporation (www.cic.com), Jot ($39), and WordComplete ($24.99). Jot's a nifty alternative to Palm's built-in Graffiti language, letting you write in your natural style and enter capital letters and punctuation without the tapping or shifting that Graffiti requires. Best of all, you can write anywhere on the screen--not just in the small box at the bottom.

Writing on a Palm one letter at a time works better for memos than for memoirs. And short memos at that. Enter WordComplete. It looks at the first couple of characters you input and anticipates what you're writing. A window pops up with suggestions; pick one, and it's inserted into the text. If there's no match, keep going, and WordComplete will try again. But it will usually guess correctly the first time.

Both programs will work just fine on a Handspring Visor, too, which uses the Palm operating system. The Visor's allure is the Springboard slot in the back, where you can insert modules that turn the device into more than an organizer.

Particularly compelling is @ctiveLink, a new two-way messaging module from Glenayre Electronics (www.glenayre.com; $428, including Handspring Visor Deluxe). You'll need a wireless service provider (another $25-$60 per month; @ctiveLink works with SkyTel) to access e-mail and Web-based information from anywhere. You can compose and send messages to any e-mail address or pager and receive alerts when there's an incoming message.

The InfoLink application brings you bits of Web info (stock quotes, news headlines, and package tracking) while you're on the go. Like other wireless apps, it's a little slow, but it's a handy way to stay in touch with the world--or at least with your FedEx delivery.

If you think you might need something a bit beefier than a Palm, Hewlett-Packard's new Jornada 720 ($999) is more minicomputer than PDA. You get a 6.5-inch color display, along with a keyboard, so you can bypass any handwriting issues. But the keys are just three-quarter size (that sounds bigger than it is), so if your fingers are thicker than a stylus, you won't be typing much.

The Jornada runs on Microsoft's new Windows for Handheld PC 2000, and it includes pocket versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Internet Explorer, and Access. All are stripped down (Pocket PowerPoint lets you use existing slides but not create new ones) but still compatible with the full versions (handy for editing Word files on the go) and far more powerful than any Palm-based applications. Sure, you'll work harder on your Jornada, but it won't go unrewarded: The built-in Windows Media Player will play your entire MP3 collection--even Tom Waits' Ice Cream Man.