Method 1: Keyboard
Hold down the Orange, “R” and “Sym” keys simultaneously.
I learned this method from the Sprint customer service when they were helping me transfer my old number over to my Palm.
Method 2: Power switch
Hold down the power switch and toggle the Ringer Switch (next to power switch) 3 times. I’m not 100% sure but this method seems to turn off the unit immediately without saving anything, then booting up.
After crying myself to sleep on Saturday, I woke up to a text message on Sunday from a friend that told me that he was able to get a Pre at a Radio Shack downtown. What!? Sure enough, I called one and Jared tells me that they have one last Pre left. Why didn’t I think of this before? Unfortunately, the Lakers game was about to start so there was some traffic but I managed to get there in time to pick up my Pre.
As you can see, it’s a lot smaller than my Palm Pilot, which I still had from the 90′s. While I was buying my Pre at Radio Shack, no less than 2 people came in to buy one. Unfortunately, because of a previous identity theft problem, the first Sprint rep did not approve my account. Jared was nice enough to let me try again with the Sprint supervisor and after being asked about what company I worked for in the 80′s, I finally was able to open my account and buy my Pre.
This shot compares the size of the LG enV2 (my current phone) to the Palm Pre. As you can see, they are almost the same size.
My first impressions:
Some reviews are saying that the bottom of the phone is as sharp as a Katana. Although it is a little sharp, it’s not a deal breaker for me. Since I mostly text message, the keyboard is an important feature for me. Yes, the keys are pretty small and strangely sticky, but after 2 days, I’ve gotten used to the feel of it. However, keep in mind that I have small hands, so this may not be the case for you if you have large hands.
So far, the Sprint service is okay, although I only get 3 out of 5 bars at home, whereas I get 4 out of 4 bars with Verizon.
After using it for almost 2 days, I love the multi-tasking, iPhone like touch screen and combined IM/SMS messaging screen. The multi-tasking allows you keep all your applications running, like playing music. This is clearly one of the best features of the Pre. My LG couldn’t even make calls while I had the Navigation application going. With the Pre, when a call comes in when you are listening to music, the music will stop automatically. Then when you are done with your call, the music re-starts.
However, unlike music, if you are watching a video, it will pause when you switch applications. As for the sound, the speaker is on the back. So, although it is loud, it’s not as loud as my LG enV2 which has the speakers inside where the screen/keyboard is located.
So far, nothing has crashed but I have been able to get the contact screen to become blank. Cut and paste works but controlling the location of the cursor could be better with an iPhone type magnifier.
The turn by turn Navigation is better than the one from Verizon. The voice is easier to understand and the “ETA” is shown along with the remaining mileage.
The camera is pretty good for a phone and the flash is actually fairly bright. The images are certainly good enough for posting on myspace or using as wallpaper for the phone. There’s no video recording for the Pre yet. I’ve only used that feature once on my LG so that’s not very important for me.
After using it a lot for one day, the battery was below 10% by 7pm. This is with the screen bright, and WiFi on, but Bluetooth off. I’ll have to try it again but the level seems to go down pretty fast. This could be a problem.
There’s not really a lot of applications to download for the Pre (especially compared to the iPhone’s 35,000). What’s a little strange is you cannot queue multiple downloads. You’d think with the multi-tasking, they would let you at least queue the downloads.
Palm already released version 1.0.2 yesterday (Sunday), which I downloaded and installed. I’m not sure but I think it just adds an alarm clock and fixes some bugs.
After using the “Sync” feature, I got all my contacts from my google account into the phone. Actually, there were a lot of junk email addresses that I had to go in and manually delete. My facebook account is hardly used so I didn’t even bother syncing that with the phone.
The phone automatically backs up all your data once a day, which is a great feature. I had this feature with my Verizon account so I’m pleased that it is available with my Palm Pre.
So far so good. I’ll keep using it and reporting back here with any problems or thoughts.
Well, it’s June 6th and no Palm Pre for me. After finding out that my grease didn’t work, I tried going directly to the Sprint store and they put me on their waiting list. I played with the demo unit at the Sprint store and the keyboard does feel sticky as the early reviews say, and the bottom of the unit is scary sharp and could easily cut cheese as the video shows. I’m starting to have second thoughts about this unit.
In a desparate move, I even returned back to Radio Shack to see what they had to say again, and they too now had a waiting list so I got on that one too.
I’ve been waiting patiently for the Palm Pre to come out for months now. Is it an iPhone killer? I don’t know. It’s certainly not going to have the kind of 3rd party software that’s available right now for the iPhone. One thing seems to be clear. This is probably Palm’s last chance to come back as a viable contender in the handheld marketplace.
Upon visiting Best Buy, I was told there was a very long waiting list and I probably wouldn’t get one on June 6th. After visiting Radio Shack, the guy there told me there was no waiting list because there would be no shortage. Huh?
A friend of mine tells me that her friend’s friend can get me one on the 6th but I’d have to grease some “palms.” I’ve had marginal luck with these types of deals. But desparate situations call for desparate measures, and so I gave the green light. Either I’ll have one on the 6th or I might be on TV being led away in handcuffs by a Palm Pre sting operation.
In either case, I’ll be posting something here.
If you want great sound to come out of your laptop, or you’re a mobile DJ, you can either get an external sound device (via USB) or a PC Card (PCMCIA) to plug into your laptop. PCMCIA cards are about the size of credit cards but thicker. Below are some laptop cards that are on the market.
Creative Audigy 2 ZS (left), Echo Indigo DJ (middle), Creative ExpressCard X-Fi (right)
Currently, Creative Labs no longer support their old Audigy 2 Z5 PCMCIA card (left most card in picture above). This is too bad because it works really well. You can find some on sale on Ebay but it’s hard to find.
Only the new X-Fi Xtreme Audio ExpressCard is available for $79.99 (right most in picture) from Creative Labs. The X-Fi requires a ExpressCard/54 slot and will not work with the old PCMCIA or PC Card slots. But since my Toshiba Qosmio has the ExpresCard slot, I decided to try it out.
The Echo Indigo DJ is also available, bust you must have a PCMCIA slot on your laptop (see below). So the choices are pretty much down to the Echo or Creative and it just comes down to which type of slot you have on your laptop.
When I got my Toshiba, I wasn’t even aware that there were 2 different types of slots available. The 2 styles are: the old style PCMCIA slot, and now the newer ExpressCard slots. So be aware of this before purchasing your laptop.
Echo Indigo DJ close-up
What I like about the Echo (pictured above) is that only the larger portion sticks out of the laptop and the head phone jack is on the side. Therefore, if your slot is on the side of your laptop, you can have your cable plug in very close to your laptop without it sticking out.
The picture below shows a close-up of the Creative card with the following features:
Creative ExpressCard X-Fi close-up
Since the output equipment I’m connecting to are not state-of-the-art stuff, I really couldn’t tell any difference in qualty. Even with good head-phones on, I really couldn’t tell any difference between the units. But keep in mind, I’m not a sound engineer, or expert in this area. Both produced what I would consider quality that is above what would be needed for normal use by any consumer, and maybe even some pro-sumers.
One thing that is a problem for me with the Creative and my Toshiba is that when you press the card in, it pops out. At first, this seemed like a great feature to remove the card. However, when using it, you have to be very careful not to bump it or it will get unplugged. If you are doing a live performance, this is way too risky. Even if your cable gets pushed against your laptop, this could cause your card to be unplugged. I’m not sure if this is only a feature of the Toshiba or if that’s the way the ExpressCard slots work.
The other smaller problem with the Creative is that the jacks are located on the outside. If your slot is on the side of your laptop, and your Creative sticks out, and your cables come out from there, you will need a lot of space on the side of your laptop. If you’re cramped for space, this may not be the best solutin for you.
The bad news is, that’s all that’s available out there. Alternatively, you can get an external USB sound output device from just about anywhere from $2.90 on Amazon up to $40 or so. The Xitel MP3 Streamer is a little more expensive ($49.95 MSRP) than the cheap ones, but works just as well as the internal cards. It’s a little more expensive but it comes with a 30′ audio cable so keep that in mind when pricing.
So, if you have a PCMCIA slot on your laptop, I would go with the Echo. If you have a ExpressCard slot, I cannot recommend the Creative Labs X-Fi card unless your laptop puts the card internally. If you want to use an external device, I would recommend the Xitel MP3 Streamer, which is what I use with my Toshiba.
According to an article in the March issue of “Nature” magazine, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a new “beltway” for the battery material, lithium iron phosphate, that could be used to create new batteries that would charge in seconds, and hold more power in a smaller space.
This new method, if it becomes commercially available (possibly in 2-3 years), would allow cell phone batteries to be smaller and charge in 15-20 seconds, according to the article.
If this becomes reality, this would be a big breakthrough for gadgets. Laptop batteries that currently last 45 minutes would last hours. Cell phone and iPod batteries that last a day would last a week or longer.
The new Palm Pre phone slated to come out in June-July of this year has a wireless battery charger. If this technology could be combined with this new MIT battery technology, you could simply charge your cell phone at a Starbucks, while waiting for your coffee, without needing a charger or cables.
Needing to charge gadgets at home might become a thing of the past. Like casette tape, and Standard Def TV, kids in the future will be asking the question, “What’s a charger?”
You may recall that I had a heck of a time getting an adapter for my LG EnV2 from Best Buy. Well, unfortunately for me, after only 24 hours of use, the adapter started to make scratching noises. It got so bad, it became useless in just 2 uses. What a quality product.
To make sure nobody buys this piece of crap product, I’ll put it’s picture below once again. You can find it at Best Buy in the car & GPS section of the store.
Well, I still needed a working adapter so I finally broke down and checked the Radio Shack website. Unlike the prices at Fry’s or Amazon, their price was a little more at $11. That would be on the high side compared to the other places, but then it’s Radio Shack after all. That’s what they’re known for. But like 7-11, it’s really close. In fact, there are no less than 4 Radio Shacks close to me.
Upon entering the store, the lady (yes, a female clerk at Radio Shack!) walked up and I explained what I wanted. She went to the adapter section and they had everything there, including a Y adapter, 3.5mm to 2.5mm, female to female, except for what I wanted.
Interestingly, the one I wanted was placed in the cell phone area of the store, of all places. The place that I would automatically assume it should be located, is exactly where Radio Shack put it. The clerk told me that they had moved just that item over to the cell phone section recently.
These guys are a little smarter than Best Buy, that’s for sure. Maybe there’s a reason why these guys have been around so long. The item is shown below on their website.
Although this adapter isn’t as slick looking as the one from Best Buy, at least it works. So this round goes to Radio Shack of all places.
As you may know, I downgraded to the LG EnV2 because I hated the touchscreen on the Voyager. In any case, the headphone jack on the EnV2 (and probably all LG) is 2.5mm, and not the 3.5mm for normal headsets. This means that I need a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter to use a headset to listen to my music on the LG. I decided to take a look on Amazon to see what was available.
The list below shows what pops up on Amazon when you search for “2.5mm 3.5mm.” Some items were only $2, up to around $12, but with shipping, it would be more like $7 to $19 or so. And of course, I’d have to wait for it in the mail, which I wasn’t in any mood for.
Next, I did a search on Fry’s website and got the following list with the same search. On here, they have adapters from 99 cents up to $5. Of course, the problem with Fry’s website is that there’s no direct connection between the online items and what’s available in their stores. You can call them, but sometimes it’s very hard to find out if something is in stock at the store. There’s no Fry’s close to me so I decided to keep searching.
Next, I did the same search on Best Buy’s website and came up with the following list.
As you can see, Best Buy’s search sucks big time. It lists 4 items which have nothing to do with what I was looking for. For that matter, I couldn’t figure out how my 2.5mm search was matched with those items. If you have any online store, rule #1 is to make sure that your searches work properly so people can find what they want.
In any case, being the Internet savvy guy that I am, I googled Best Buy’s website by using the search “site:bestbuy.com 2.5mm 3.5mm” and came up with the following list:
As you can see above, the top item on google’s list is exactly what I wanted. I clicked on it and found the following item below on Best Buy’s website:
Interestingly, the item is under “Car & GPS”, then “Antennas & Adaptors.” Sure. I would have easily found this. NOT! Unfortunately, this item comes with a bunch of other adapters that I don’t really need, along with the one that I do need. But since Best Buy is close, and they do have the “pick up at store” option, I decided to go ahead and pay $15 for the conveinience.
This last decision turned out to be a big mistake.
The closest Best Buy did not have this item in stock. However, all the other ones did. So I ordered it for pickup at the second closest store in West LA. The following email came back 20 minutes later telling me the store did not have it in stock and that I would have to call their 888 number.
After going back on to the Best Buy website and figuring out that there is no way to cancel the order, or to even change it for pickup at another store, I was forced to call their toll free number. After going through their bot, the nice lady on the phone changed my order to the Culver City store, which is the 3rd closest.
After another 20 minutes, I got another email telling me the Culver City store was out of stock. OMG! Now, I’ve already spent almost an hour with this crap. I could have almost driven to Fry’s and back in that time.
Once again, I call Best Buy and this time, another nice lady answers the call but she can tell that I’m getting pretty frustrated by now. She tells me that the online inventory is separate from the in-store inventory and that she will check the in-store inventory for me. After a few clicks, she tells me that the West LA store does indeed have 6 in-store and that I can simply go to the store and pick it up. So she cancels my online order, and out the door I go.
So next time, I’m just going to call the toll free number and ask for the in-store inventory instead of using their stupid website. That’s the lesson I learned here.
I wish my story ended here but it goes on a little more. When I got to the store, I decided I wanted to test the in-store people to see how smart they were. At the entrance, the cell phone section had 3 live clerks helping people. I went to the first one and asked if they had a adapter for my LG EnV2 so I can use a headset. She told me no. So, I showed her the SKU number for the item I was looking for. She told me to ask the second guy there. So far, this is a fail.
I go up to the second guy and ask the same question. He types in the SKU number but it doesn’t come up because unknown to me, I wrote it down wrong. He does a search on the Best Buy website and comes up with the same stupid list that I got. BWAHAHA! I tell him how to use google to find it and he’s amazed how well google works.
He sees the item on his computer but can’t figure out exactly where it is. We walk to the MP3 area and it’s not there. He asks the Geek Squad guy walking by and he knows that it’s in the car adapter area. He walks me there and finds the item.
Basically, this last guy is the only person that really helped me find my item. The online store pickup, didn’t help me, except to tell me to go into the store. The first lady at the store didn’t help me. Only this last guy helped me.
Most people would have given up BEFORE the second call to Best Buy. That should be an indicator to Best Buy that something is wrong with their setup and they will soon be on their way holding hands with Circuit City if they don’t do something about it.
Dont’ say I didn’t warn you, Best Buy.
So now that I have my new JVC HD camcorder, I wanted to improve the images by getting a lighting adapter. After looking around the “Interwebs,” I came accross this interesting Ring light from SR Electronics called the Digi-Slave L Ring 3200 (MSRP $269.95). After ordering online, the unit was shipped very quickly.
L Ring 3200 with LED cover on
This LED based close-up photography light/flash can be used as a continuous light source for videography. In my case, it’s for making home made pr0n and other indoor activities where the lighting conditions are not great. The “ring” is made up of a bunch of white LEDs and is amazingly bright.
The unit uses 4 AA batteries or you can plug it into an adapter (not included) but that would make it less portable when you’re moving around.
With the brightness setting at the highest level, it’s very bright and might be too bright for using in close-up situations, especially pointed at the face. At the lowest setting, it’s still bright enough for normal close-up situations.
Left side close-up showing brightness control and left/right on/off switch
The picture above shows the knob for the brightness control. It’s a bit small for my taste but I suspect that most people who use this may not be changing the setting all that often. The little switch causes the left/right side of the ring to turn on/off. This is for photography where the objective is to make the item look more 3D. For most uses, one would normally have both sides turned on.
Right side close-up showing on/off DC input and sync
The picture above shows the on/off switch, the DC input and sync plug if you are using this unit for still photography.
L-Ring LEDs on
The picture above shows the unit with the LEDs on at full brightness. As you can see, it’s pretty bright and will be able to light up objects or people 10-20 feet away.
The following pictures show the light in action. The first picture below shows an object with regular indoor ambient lighting. The object is about 12-15 inches from the camcorder.
Ambient lighting only
The following picture shows the same object using the built in LED light of the JVC unit. As you can see, the small LED causes uneven lighting, not to mention a blue-ish tint.
JVC built in LED light
The next photograph shows the Digi-Slave with the LED brightness setting to it’s lowest level. As you can see, the lighting is more even than the previous picture. However, there is a similar blue tint as with the JVC LED. This might be something that could be reduced or removed via white balancing on the JVC but this test was done with the automatic setting.
L-Ring set to lowest level
In the following last picture, the Digi-Slave unit is set to the brightest level. Now you can see that the lighting is much more even and the blue tint is gone.
L-Ring set to highest level
All in all, I’m happy with this product which operates and works exactly as advertised. It’s a little bit on the expensive side but if you want your amateur pr0n to look good, you have to pay the piper.
Not satisfied with the lens that comes with the JVC Everio, I decided to get a wide angle conversion lens from Raynox (model HD 6600Pro-43), a Japanese lens company. If you’re wondering why you’d need a wider lens, it can be great for buildings, long exterior shots, and of course, home made pr0n. The last use is what I’m going to use it for mostly.
The Raynox website listed the US distributor as Digital Distributors. The U.S. distributor had it in stock for $141.75 and after ordering it online, they sent it out the next day via UPS.
This wide angle lens screws onto the Everio without any adaptors so it’s a good match. The mounting thread is 43mm and the front filter size is 72mm.
The first picture below is with the Everio set to the widest setting without the Raynox lens. Click on the pictures to see the full resolution version.
This next picture below is the Everio with the Raynox wide angle lens. Again, click on the image to see the full resolution version. You’ll notice some blur and distortion on the left side of the image. This is a common problem with wide angle adapters, and I’ve seen it even on semi-professional pr0n and even cable TV content. The blurring is not so much that it’s annoying but you can notice it. If you zoom in, the middle area is sharp.
The picture below is the Everio with the Raynox lens and the Digi-Slave L-Ring light attached on the Raynox. This is the way it would be used if I was indoors needing a light. Of course, in real use, I would zoom in to remove the ring in the picture.
This last picture is the same setup as the one above except that I’ve zoomed in to eliminate the appearance of the L-Ring in the picture. As you can see, the end result is about the same as the setup without any extra lens.
So far, I’ve used this lens about 4 times with good results. The blurring is there, but not so noticeable that it ruins the image. If you were shooting something for commercial use, it may or may not be acceptable quality. For the price, it’s more than acceptable for home use.
One problem with the lens is that it blocks the built in LED light on the JVC. In fact, if you have the setting on the JVC for automatic lighting, and the LED comes on, it will cause a strange half light on the right side. So be sure to have the setting on the “off” setting before starting.
All in all, I can recommend this lens for light semi-pro use, home pr0n use, and any amateur use.
