Chinese-pinyin-english translator

Hello-

First time caller; long time listener.  I was wondering if anybody could give me advice on where to find some useful software.  In addition to listening to Ken and Jenny everyday, I am also trying to use my Chinese in conversation.  I've got a QQ account and have managed to acquire 30 friends in a week, simply using the tagline 我想学中文

When my Chinese friends send me a message, I can usually only make out a couple of characters (I'm at the ele stage), so I usually have to put the sentence into Babelfish translator.  This is functional, but it would help me a lot more if I could get both the pinyin and English translations.  That way, I can see the pronounciation and sentence structures of my friends' writing.  I was wondering if anyone could recommend a translation toolbar which translates both from Chinese to English and Chinese to pinyin?

Also, can anyone recommend a Chinese to English dictionary which I could put on my PDA.  I'm using one from Declan's software, but I'm often told that the words I use are either old-fashioned or not often used in China.

谢谢！