Feeder

A big consumer of my time (and battery life) lately has been Feeder. It what I read the most after email and FaceBook. In fact some of my email and FB I now read on Feeder. 

I do most of my info intake through rss feeds. I have a number of favourite sites, bllogs, newsletters and FB friends who I subscribe to using Google Reader. Which feeder integrates with flawlessly. For a human-sponge like me, this app is so useful It's become essential. It allows me to follow allot of information in a lot less time. I love it and couldn't imagine not having feeder available any where I am.

http://ferenczyram.blogspot.com - my personal blog
http://ferenczypre.blogspot.com/ - webOS & Palm
http://ferenczymu.blogspot.com/ - youtube mashups

-- Sent from my palm Pre

Welcome to Vancouver HP

I took a walk downtown today to visit the new HP store. Despite the cool (but sunny) weather, allot of people were out and about. An early start for the Canucks (home) game may have also played a part.

The new store is pretty cool. It's small and a bit out of the way (across from the Shagri-La). Inside it sort of reminds me of a Bell store. Same size and feel. But much cooler gear.

They don't carry any phones and won't be for few more months when HP launches "their own" phones. The really didn't know much at this time about phones, webOS or Palm. The Pre2 really is nothing more than the last gasp of the old Palm.

They did have some other really cool stuff though. The Envy with Beats notebook was particularly awesome. So was the printer with the Android Tablet. 5" is perfect. Sort of reminded me a bit of a (way cooler) PSP. I can't wait for some webOS Tabs.

I will make a return visit next week to enter the draws again. They've already given out quite a few awesome prizes!

http://ferenczyram.blogspot.com - my personal blog
http://ferenczypre.blogspot.com/ - webOS & Palm
http://ferenczymu.blogspot.com/ - youtube 

-- Sent from my palm Pre

The Second Coming

Arrival is imminent. I seen this in the Sun today. This has got to be the closest thing to an official announcement that I have seen so far. Still no real advertizing that I am aware of - but then again it could easily escape my notice.

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Tech+Toys+Palm+enters+smartphones+fray/3929437/story.html

I see that we now have an official HP store here in Vancouver. I plan to go there tomorrow and hopefully get some of those answers I've been waiting for. Especially whether or not I will be able buy a Pre2 without having to leave Bell.

http://www.hp.com/canada/hpstore/

My Pre continues to deteriorate. I no longer have an "increase volume" button. Dropping the phone into the toilet a week ago probably didn't help. Now I need to remove the back and then use a metal pin to raise the volume.

http://ferenczyram.blogspot.com - my personal blog
http://ferenczypre.blogspot.com/ - webOS & Palm
http://ferenczymu.blogspot.com/ - youtube mashups

-- Sent from my palm Pre

Pre2 soon?

I was talking to my friend on Sunday who works for Wireless Wave (the women through whom I have sold many Pre's to quite a few friends) and she tells me she will have Pre2's in the second week of December. She is skeptical of it only being available on Rogers. We shall see I guess.

I sure hope I can get one for Bell. It's available from HP in the states. I haven't been able to figure out if I can buy it and if it would work for me if I could. I won't have an extra $500 until after christmas anyways...

AccuWeather

It's that time of year when the weather get's really unpredictable, and often very unpleasant - especially here in Vancouver. My last apartment was in the basement, and actually didn't have any windows that allowed me to see outside in a way that I could know the weather (I couldn't even tell if it  was raining). I often left the building quite innappropriately dressed for the day. Which was when I first picked up AccuWeather.

It's a weather app available for free in the App Catalogue. It does everything I need a weather app to do, and a little more.

It gives the current conditions as well as daily forecasts for the next two weeks and hourly for next day (twenty-four hours). It also gives you a satellite/radar view of the region's weather. There are also a few dozen "categories" (such as asthma, golfing, mosquitos, etc.) that it gives recommendations / ratings for.

Being free there is of course advertising. But it is very unobtrusive and only appears for brief moments.

This was the first weather app that I tried and I have never tried another. I've never seen the need. Considering that we are in the coldest November weather ever recorded here in British Columbia, AccuWeather is getting allot of use lately.

http://ferenczyram.blogspot.com - my personal blog
http://ferenczypre.blogspot.com/ - webOS & Palm
http://ferenczymu.blogspot.com/ - youtube mashups

-- Sent from my palm Pre

Whendle

I have slowly begun to explore some of the many apps I have installed but never really used.

One of them was Whendle. Whendle is a "world-time" clock app with a few nice extra bells. I've had it sitting on my phone for awhile now and I don't really remember what drove me to snag other than a vague feeling that "it might come in handy one day". It looks like that day has finally come. Now that I have made a few friends scattered across the great Earth, I felt it wouldn't hurt to know a little more about some of them. Especially the time difference between us (to help me better understand when people write to me).

It turns that I am able to learn a little more than just what time it is in other places. I can also see what the weather is like. But the real icing on the cake is the "local photos" option that puts up random pictures recently posted from the area. Which you can then tap a button for to have google maps show exactly where the picture was taken. Pretty cool stuff.

Overall I think it's well worth the price for this little app - freeJ

http://ferenczyram.blogspot.com - my personal blog
http://ferenczypre.blogspot.com/ - webOS & Palm
http://ferenczymu.blogspot.com/ - youtube mashups

-- Sent from my palm Pre

Facebook Redux

Despite growing performance issues, my Pre continues to grow in the significance of the role it plays in my daily life. This is because of the Notes app (which I am using even now to write this) and because of FaceBook. I really love FB. I hear many people complain about how much time they "waste on CrackBook" but I am not a member of that whiners club.

"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." - Bertrand Russell

I have a growing circle of great friends that I communicate with on a regular (daily) basis. Sometimes we just clown around, and sometimes we get down and dirty on serious issues. Either way it is always enjoyable. I occasionally feel that it steals time from my writing. But then I remind myself how much writing I am actually doing on FB and the feeling goes away. 

I find love, inspiration and allot of information (data, shared experience and tonnes of wisdom) on FaceBook, while making my own (appreciated I am told all the time) contribution. I participate in many great discussions and my overall FaceBook experience could best be described as enriching.

I've had to learn allot of tricks to get the most out FB on my Pre. But lately something has happened that is really frustrating. I can no longer share links directly to FB. I can only do it if the original page has a "share with FaceBook" button. There are many great sites that don't.

The worst inconvenience is YouTube. There is no share (with FB) button on either the app or the mobile site. The full site is non-functional and useless on webOS. I have a Mashup blog which uses YouTube primarily and I love sharing good mashes directly as well. I discover many on my phone, and it's a pain in the arse having to wait until I'm on a computer before sharing. 

Sharing links directly has never been possible in the FB app or the mobile site. But certain FB pages will not load in either (such as CANUCKSFANZ or PRACTICAL ENLIGHTENMENT) so when I do select notifications from those pages (the only way I can get to these pages) I will load the desktop FaceBook. This is the only way I can load it this way. From here I could load my profile (still on the full version) and then post and share links the same way I would on any computer.

But now, as of a week or so ago, the options that appear under "what's on your mind" no longer appear on my phone, even though the page (in full desktop mode) appears "normal" in every other way. I have no clue why this is but I don't like it. I hope this prroblem goes away, and soon!

http://ferenczyram.blogspot.com - my personal blog
http://ferenczypre.blogspot.com/ - webOS & Palm
http://ferenczymu.blogspot.com/ - youtube mashups

-- Sent from my palm Pre