1. A method of decompressing an electronic image at a handheld computing device, comprising the steps of: receiving a compressed electronic image at a handheld computing device, the electronic image comprising compressed image data and an associated set of prefix codes; at the handheld computing device, compiling machine code from the prefix code set for execution directly by the handheld computing device, the machine code implementing a binary prefix code tree corresponding to the prefix code set; and decompressing the compressed image data by traversing the prefix code tree, the prefix code tree traversing step comprising executing the machine code at the handheld computing device.