Palm Pre and Pixi for TOTAL Beginners!

A while back, I wrote an article titled "How to: Get Ringtones on your Palm Pre."  It had a lot of good stuff on there about... well, setting up ringtone! I also wrote about simple, safe, and easy fixes for the Palm Pre's most common problems.  But as I helped beginners with their Palm Pre's, I noticed how lot of people felt TOTALLY LOST on doing even the most BASIC functions (like copy/paste... hello?), even after having owned it for a while!

Fear not, friends, because TOTALLY PALMED is your mejor amigo. ... That's "best friend" in Spanish...... never mind.  Read on after the break to learn how to do the most basic things with your Pre.  (P.S. These lessons can apply to the Pixi as well!)

How-to: Erase Your Palm Pre and Palm Pixi

Sometimes in life, you just gotta go back to a fresh start... a clean slate... a new beginning... square one... tabula raza... you get the idea.  Being a Palm Pre owner since June 2009, I can tell you that this certainly applies to webOS devices. Those of you "in the know" are aware that you can do many cool things with webOS homebrew... you can make the Pre look like a Blackberry, for example.  You can patch the Pre to hang up when you close the slider.  All very cool stuff, but I noticed that after getting carried away with patches (I used upwards of 30!), my "Precious" was really starting to slow down.


Many of you have noted that your Palm Pre has slowed down dramatically since Palm's infamous 1.3.1 update.  While this update provided us with cool things under the hood (laying the groundwork for Flash, video recording), on the surface many felt like they were robbed of some of the Pre's snappiness and stability.  And we can't have that!


Fear not friends, because TOTALLY PALMED is on the case!  More after the break...

"The Palm Pre is no iPhone Killer..." Blah, blah, blah.

The moment Palm birthed the Pre into this world, it was immediately thrust into the shadow of a giant. Much like David facing Goliath, Palm's Pre stood toe-to-toe with Apple's colossal iPhone.  Although this analogy has been used time and again, people - including those who should know better! - expected the Pre to be a Goliath from the outset.


Well, it's not.  Try a pre-pubescent David with zits, and you wouldn't be far off.  Tired and seemingly hopeless biblical references aside, I think that Palm is in pretty good shape.


Allow me to explain my logic here...  after the break!

Which is the BEST Twitter App for the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi?

If you like using Twitter and have a Palm Pre or Pixi, you're in luck:  there are currently SIX full-featured Twitter apps available for webOS.  They are all very different, and suit different needs.  These choices can be a bit overwhelming, but fear not!  Totally Palmed has got your back.  I own and have used all of these apps extensively, so I can pass my impressions on to you.  Hopefully it helps you make a decision, based on your needs.  These apps are listed in the order that I downloaded them. Have a look, after the break!

HOUSE DIVIDED! Palm Pre vs. HTC Hero!

Those who follow me on Twitter know... I'm a Palm Pre fanboy.



My wife?  A bonafide iPhone fan.  Try as I might to explain to her why the iPhone is worth leaving, ultimately it was Benjamin Franklin who made the strongest case: thanks to Sprint's low rates and their Any Mobile, Anytime feature, we were able to dump our landline for good and save over two grand over two years. Not chump change.




Casting aside my strong recommendation that she get a Palm Pre, my wife instead opted to get the HTC Hero.  The reason?  She actually wanted a virtual keyboard, because it would be the closest thing to her precious iPhone.  The Palm fanboy in me was disappointed, but the geek in me was overjoyed.  And hey, with Sprint's 30 day return policy, if she didn't like  the Hero, she could switch to the Palm Pre, a phone she already knew well...  thanks to yours truly never shutting up about it! 


So how did the HTC Hero fare against "The Pre-cious?" Read on to find out.

TOTALLY PALMED INTERVIEW: Does Developing for the Palm Pre Really Suck?

If you've been following any of the daily Palm Pre gossip, you may have caught wind of a brewing controversy surrounding a certain developer named Jamie Zawinksi (jwz).  Mr. Zawinksi has an accomplished history as a developer, and was one of the first on the homebrew scene developing a tip calculator and a Dali (morphing) clock for Palm Pre's webOS.  (I personally used his tip calculator and liked it.)  But suddenly, things turned sour... he had become so upset for some reason that he announced on his blog that he would no longer develop for Palm's webOS.   Wow! Where did all this come from?  You can read his blog here.


So I got curious. Are other developers having these same misgivings? I went right to the source and struck up an IM chat with a webOS developer, Jordan Gensler (kesne).  Mr. Gensler is the founder of Keen Studios, an upstart software development group.  After the break, see what he had to say about the whole situation...