Just got finished trying out the Palm™ Pre Plus these past two weeks and I actually had a great experience with it. It was very different experience from the Palm Pixi Plus which I had previously reviewed. I found that many things crossed over from the Palm™ Pixi Plus review because it runs on the same webOS.

Photo by Evan Travers

Before I get started I’d like to thank BIG for letting me try out another phone.

Let’s dive right into the review! The Palm Pre Plus is a nice size at 3.9 inches tall, 2,3 inches wide and 0.67. As you can see it fits nicely in my hand. It feels much better than the Pixi Plus which was just too small for me.

Photo by Evan Travers

The Palm™ Pre Plus has a full QWERTY keyboard that is tucked away behind the screen. So you only have to access it when you need to type something. The Palm™ Pre Plus actually has a better camera at 3 megapixels (with LED flash) than the Palm Pixi Plus. The screen is 3.1 inches with a 320×480 resolution HVGA display.

Photo by Evan Travers

The pricing on Palm products has recently dropped dramatically in the past few months. The Palm Pre Plus is only $29.99 if you get a Verizon Wireless plan. However, it is priced highly at $149.99 if you buy a Sprint plan. I still don’t know why Sprint is pricing the phone higher.

What’s inside the box

Media Syncing

3G Mobile Hotspot

Photo by Evan Travers

I was able to try this feature in a meeting where there was no internet access. A coworker and I were easily able to connect through our macs. Everything seemed to work fine until I realized that if you stop browsing the internet and leave the connection idle for a few minutes, the internet connection will timeout. The connection with the Palm™ Pre Plus was still going strong though. I had to then turn Mobile Hotspot off and on to get an internet connection again. That is the only bug I’ve found while using the Mobile Hotspot feature. Caution: The phone gets very warm when it has multiple devices connected to it through Mobile Hotspot!

Camera

Photo by Evan Travers

Here are a couple video examples:

Inside

Outside

I can see only a small improvement in video quality from the Palm™ Pixi Plus examples videos.

The Palm™ Pre Plus camera allows recording of VGA quality video at 30 frames per second. But with the resolution at 320×480, videos look better than the Palm™ Pixi Plus. The compatible video playback formats are MPEG-4, H.263, H.264.

Conclusion

Photo by Evan Travers

I hope this review helped you and be sure to leave comments if you have any questions!

Extra content

Photo by Evan Travers

Photo by Evan Travers

Photo by Evan Travers

Photo by Evan Travers

Palm™ Pre Plus full specs here

Big thanks to the photographer and friend, Evan Travers , be sure to check out his blog!

(Note: I was not compensated by BIG in any way for reviewing this phone. These are my own thoughts and opinion.)

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I’ve posted these tools to my twitter account but am now putting them here for easier access and to show the feedback I received.

(Note: Some of these tools are not free or Windows specific )

(Note: These apps are just my personal opinion and I did not receive compensation for recommending them)

Add your feedback to the comments!

#1 Fences - desktop organizer

feedback from facebook:

#2 twhirl - Twitter client – Less complicated than tweetdeck

feedback from twitter:

#3: Beyond Compare - best comparison tool I’ve ever used. Period!

feedback from facebook:

#4: MagicDisc - mounting ISOs with greatest of ease

feedback from facebook:

#5: DeskSpace - virtual desktops – just found the other day, best i’ve used so far

#6: LogMeIn - connect to your remote machine from PC, Mac, and smartphones

feedback from facebook:

#7 – NotePad++ - my fav alternative to the original notepad

feedback from facebook:

feedback from twitter:

#8: Paint.NET - superior to mspaint in every way

feedback from facebook:

#9: Pandora - the invaluable distraction blocker

#10: RD Tabs - tabbed remote desktop organizer – I couldnt live without this!

feedback from twitter:

#11: UltraMon - multi-monitor organizer

#12: PowerCommands for Visual Studio - adds more functionality to the VS IDE

#13: WizMouse - get mouse wheel scrolling in any window with no clicking

#14: Xobni - adds better email search and organization to your inbox

#15: 7-Zip - much better archiver than the one that comes default with Windows

feedback from twitter:

#16: OneNote - best note/screenshot taker that natively integrates with Microsoft Office

Console2 - a nice cmd.exe replacement

@robbihun

@benpike

@joelance

@jaandrews

@tbmiller

@allenblair

@idisposable

@kwsanders

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I recently got my hands on the Verizon version of the Palm Pixi Plus from BIG. Being an iPhone use, my first impression was “Wow, this is a very small device!”. But the Pixi Plus actually has a wide range of features packed into it’s small body(only 4.37 inches tall, 2.17 inches wide, and 0.43 inches thick), features such as a full QWERTY keyboard, 2 MP camera with flash, and 2.63 inch multitouch screen. The Pixi Plus runs on Palm webOS, an embedded Linux operating system. The Verizon version is listed at $79.99 while the Sprint version is priced lower at $49.99 if you buy it with a service plan.

Photo by Evan Travers

What’s inside the box

The only thing you will find in the box other than the Pixi Plus is a MicroUSB Cable with AC Phone Charger. According to my personal tests, it takes 3 hours to charge the Pixi Plus with the MicroUSB cable but only takes about 2 hours with the AC Phone Charger.

Photo by Evan Travers

However, I personally think more accessories should be included, such as the $17.99 Touchstone Back Cover which allows connector-free charging with the $44.99 Touchstone Charging Dock.

Media syncing

Photo by Evan Travers

Palm Media Sync is a feature of webOS that synchronizes with iTunes. All you have to do is connect the Pixi Plus to your computer with the MicroUSB cable, select the media sync (Video: how to enable media syncing) and iTunes will launch. However, I was unable to do so and after some help search on the Pixi figured out that Media Sync only works with iTunes version 9.0.1 or earlier(I had version 9.0.3). But fret not because here are 2 alternative options to transfer media files to your Pixi Plus.

• You can simply drag and drop media or data files to your Pixi using USB drive mode.
• Use a third-party application to transfer media files or other data. The applications that Palm recommends are listed here.

Note: You cannot make or receive calls and text messages when your Pixi Plus is connected to your computer in Media Sync mode.

Camera

Photo by Evan Travers

The Pixi Plus sports a 2MP camera with a LED flash that allows recording of VGA quality video at 30 frames per second. The compatible video playback formats are MPEG-4, H.263, H.264. Here are a 2 sample videos showing the quality:

Conclusion

Overall, I had a good overall experience on the Pixi Plus. The only thing I didn’t like was the QWERTY keyboard.  Buttons are too small so I made quite a few mistakes while typing. This phone was definitely made for children or people with small hands.

Photo by Evan Travers

You may have realized that I did not mention anything about the phone feature of this device. The reason is that I absolutely had no trouble with the phone reception! I hope this review helped you and be sure to leave comments if you have any questions!

Extra content:

Here are some size comparison photos with the iPhone:

Photo by Evan Travers

Photo by Evan Travers

Photo by Evan Travers

Photographer Evan Travers blog

(Note: I was not compensated by BIG in any way for reviewing this phone. These are my own thoughts and opinion.)

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Estimated completion time: 30 seconds

A few days ago, I decided to drop the Delicious bookmarking system for the far superior Evernote save-anything(My own definition) system. Delicious has served my needs for a long time but I’ve gotten tired of it lately.

I’ve been using Evernote for over a year now and have not looked back. I’m very impressed that I can access it on any device, anytime and anywhere. The only thing that was holding me back from going to Evernote completely was my old Delicious bookmarks. I wanted to import them into Evernote. It took me a few hours of online research to realize that there were many complicated ways but I just wanted a simple way. Evernote used to have a way to import delicious bookmarks but it seems to be no more.(What is up with that?)

However, I accidentally found an very simple way to import all your Delicious bookmarks into one Evernote note.

Here are the steps:

1. Go to delicious.com and export all bookmarks – Settings -> Export / Backup Bookmarks

2. Save the Delicious exported file – ex. delicious-20100206.htm

3. Open the downloaded Delicious htm file in your browser and press the Evernote webclipper button

Firefox (Evernote extension download)

Google Chrome (Evernote extension download)

Safari Mac (Evernote clipper installs with Evernote for Mac)

Internet Explorer 8 (Evernote clipper installs with Evernote for Windows)

4. All your Delicious bookmarks will then be imported into your default Evernote notebook!

Add any questions you may have to the comments and I’ll get back with you as soon as I can! Thanks!

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So I got back from a 2 week vacation at the beginning of this year and started thinking about the great times I had in 2009. Here are seven of my most memorable  moments of 2009:

7. First 5k run

I did my first 5k run for Susan Komen Race for the Cure. It was a blast! There were tons of people and even a big group of people from work(in the above photo) that ran this race. It was a very muggy day but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. There were many concession stands that had free food, free water, face painting, and funnel cakes! I’m looking forward to running this race again this year and for many years to come.

6. Skydiving

I took a 14,000 foot leap of faith in 2009.

5. iPhone Development

I decided to start learning how to develop iPhone applications in 2009. Each night I would learn a little bit more about iPhone development and moved toward my goal of creating my first iPhone app. All my hard work paid off in December 2009 when I released my first iPhone application, Bham iCamp, for iphonecampbham. I was also able to give one presentation about iPhone development at BarcampMemphis and two presentations at iPhoneCampBham. I’ve also been privileged to do some iPhone dev work for my friend Brian Cauble, owner of AppsoluteGenius.

4. One year anniversary at work

I am so thankful to have an awesome job in this economy!

3. Inspirageek

My friend Tom Miller and I started inspirageek in 2009. We started it to help people learn about success, technology and inspiration. My favorite moment that came from the creation of this  site has to be when I was able to interview Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress! The interview was also put on the WordPress.tv website and has 721 plays so far.

2. Graduation

Yup, I finally did it. After many ups and downs, I have finally earned my Bachelors Degree in Computer Science from ITT.

1. Conferences

I attended more conferences in 2009 than I ever have in my life! My travels led me from Alabama to Georgia and Tennessee. The first conference I attended was the third annual BarCampBirmingham on May 2nd 2009. It turned out to be my favorite conference of the year because I got to develop many meaningful relationships with many of the attendees, of which I still maintain to this day. Here are some of the cool people I was able to meet:

• Wade Kwon, an excellent blogging teacher
• Andre Natta, the hyperlocal guy and WordCamp Birmingham organizer
• Brian Cauble, iPhone developer and owner of AppsoluteGenius
• Andrew Crawford, developer and fellow racquetball player
• Dave Barger of Lunaweb
• Mitch Carter, Designer / General Web Developer and owner of studionashvegas.com
• CommonThread guys
• Brandon Morgado of FitHacks.com

I also attended Social South, RubyConf, BarcampMemphis, BarcampNashville, CodeStock, iPhoneCampAtlanta, iPhoneCampBham, SqlSaturday, and Alabama Code Camp

In conclusion, I challenge all of you to look back and write down your favorite life moments of 2009. It will show you if you are really living or just doing meaningless things with your life. I’ll be back next year to share my favorite life moments of 2010! Until then make sure to live your life!!

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I just got the news about the location and date of iPhone Camp Birmingham! The speakers include myself, Brian Cauble and many more!

I’ll update this post as I get more information about the event!

Location: Daxko

Date: December 12th

Time: 8am – 1pm

Price: $20 Donation! Any amount!

Website: http://www.iphonecampbham.com

Update: You can now signup here!

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Welcome fellow iphone developers! If you are searching for a way to create checkmarks in a UITableView then you have come to the right place. I had to search high and low to figure out how to do this.

Let’s get to it then!

Problem: How does one create checkmarks in a UITableView for an iPhone application?
Solution: Set the accessory type of the UITableViewCell when it is selected or deselected.

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tblView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
   NSUInteger row = [indexPath row];
 
   [tblSelections deselectRowAtIndexPath:indexPath animated:YES];
 
   if ([[tblSelections cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath ] accessoryType] == UITableViewCellAccessoryCheckmark)
   {
      [[tblSelections cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath] setAccessoryType:UITableViewCellAccessoryNone];
      [selectedValues replaceObjectAtIndex:row withObject:@"0"];
   }
   else
   {
      [[tblSelections cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath] setAccessoryType:UITableViewCellAccessoryCheckmark];
      [selectedValues replaceObjectAtIndex:row withObject:@"1"];
   }
}

Note: You must also create an array in the viewDidLoad method to hold values for each option that is selected. Here is code to do that:

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
   NSMutableArray *arrayValues = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithObjects:@"0",@"0",@"0",nil];
   self.selectedValues = arrayValues;
   [arrayValues release];
 
   [super viewDidLoad];
}

I hope this is as helpful to you as it was to me!

Have a great day and remember we coders always have enough work to do!

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Dang, there is so much Twitter hype these days. So I’ve decided to a post about an example I put together with some scraped twitter data. Here is the basic concept: I scraped data from localtweeps.com to get all the twitter users in the Birmingham, Alabama area. Then I put each user as a point on a google map that shows their user info when clicked.

How did I do this? I used jQuery, YQL, and google maps in addition to 2 awesomely helpful blog posts!

Here is the my working example: http://joshgrenon.com/examples/googleMap.html

Feel free to use the code how ever you like. Take it and create something even more awesome! I hope you enjoy this because it was so much fun to make! Please leave some awesome feedback in the comments!

Note: This example is not perfect and map points are random.

First helpful blog post:

Title - jQuery and Google Maps Tutorial: #1 Basics

Author – marc grabanski

Comment: This great post helped me learn the basics of using the Google Maps api with jQuery. It’s a great, straight forward, lots-a-code post! I highly recommend that every beginner read it!

Second helpful blog post:

Title: Data scraping with YQL and jQuery

Author: kevin luck

Comment: I learned what YQL (Note: You must have a yahoo account to access the YQL Console.) was and how to use it to scrape data from any webpage I want! Another cool thing I learned was that a JSON call allows you to get around cross-domain AJAX issues. Isn’t that awesome? This guy nails it with a great example!

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Welcome fellow programmers! First of all, I want to say this is the easiest and most noninvasive way, that I have found, to set a log file name and location without modifying an App.config file. Any other way would require modifying the source on the Enterprise Library itself, but that would corrupt its integrity. I tried to modify the source myself but it was too complicated for me.

Here is a brief description of the Enterprise Library: “Enterprise Library consists of reusable software components that are designed to assist developers with common enterprise development challenges. It includes a collection of application blocks and a set of core features, such as object generation, configuration, and instrumentation mechanisms.” Go here for more detail.

Alright, enough talk and more code! Let’s dive right in!

The problem: I needed to be able to set the name and path of a log file dynamically as a logentry is written for each category(eg. Debug, Trace, and Error). I did setup a MSMQ listener for each category but I needed to create a log file for each category, username and process id (eg. DEBUG_JKOG_1234.log) One feature of the Logging Application Block is that you specify one log file and location to where you want to write your log statements. Writing to one log file is okay for a small applications but not work in my case. I tried to modify the MsmqDistributor service’s App.config by to saving a new file location into it for each log call but there was a problem. There is a small delay when App.config is being saved and this delay caused log info to be written into the incorrect log file. This is a big problem if you rely on your logs for debugging purposes. You can see the discussions where I was doing my initial investigation for this problem on codeplex here and here.

The solution: The final solution was to set an extended property with the filename and location for each LogEntry object created. Now each LogEntry object knows where it is supposed to log itself,  you can modify the MsmqDistributor service to handle the writing to the appropriate log file.

Let’s just take a look at the clientside code:

private void btnLogIt_Click(object  sender, EventArgs e)
{
   //Create container for extra properties
   IDictionary extraProperties = new Dictionary;()
   extraProperties.Add(“filelocation”, @”C:\Logs\Test1.txt”);
 
   LogEntry logEntry = new LogEntry();
 
   //Set the category of the LogEntry
   logEntry.Categories.Add(“DEBUG”);
 
   //Set the message of the LogEntry
   logEntry.Message = txtMessage.Text;
 
   //Add any extended propties, such as filename and path
   logEntry.ExtendedProperties = extraProperties;
   Logger.Write(logEntry);
}

Lines 25 and 26: Here a container is created for the extra properties which hold the file location. You could also add as many properties as you like by us doing this:

extra.Properties.Add(”pathOnly”, @”C:\Logs”);
extra.Properties.Add(”newLocation”, @”E:\Logs”);

This code is adding two extra properties to the dictionary object. The reason to use properties instead of putting the filelocation in the LogEntry.Message is that its easier to extract it this way. You wouldn’t want to have parse through each Logentry.Message to get the filelocation, now would you?

Line 31: This property is where the category is set. The category tells us that the DEBUG MSMQListener, which sends the Logentry to the myQueue private queue, is going to be used for this Logentry .

Line 38: This line calls Logger.Write method which is passed an LogEntry object.

Those are all the steps needed for the client side of your program. Now onto the MsmqDistributor service project!  This Windows service, provided by Microsoft, removes messages from a specified Message Queue and logs them where ever you want!

The code modifications that you will need to do are:

1. Open the MsmqLogDistributor.cs file, remove the code from line 217 and replace it with the following code:

Line to remove:

logWriter.Write(logEntry);

Line to add:

WriteOutToLog(logEntry);

2. Add the following code after the ReceivedQueueMessages() method:

private static  object  syncRoot = new object();
 
private void WriteOutToLog(LogEntry logentry)
{
   try
   {
      //Get the filelocation from the extended properties
      string fullPath = Path.GetFullPath(logentry.ExtendedProperties["filelocation"].ToString());
 
      //Create the directory where the log file is written to if it does not exist.
      DirectoryInfo directoryInfo = new DirectoryInfo(Path .GetDirectoryName(fullPath));
 
      if(directoryInfo.Exists == false)
         directoryInfo.Create();
 
      //The lock is here to prevent another process from using this file
      //as data is being written to it.
 
      lock(syncRoot)
      {
          using(FileStream fs = new FileStream(fullPath, FileMode.Append, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.Write, 4096, true))
          {
             using(StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(fs, Encoding.UTF8))
             {
                 Log(logentry, sw);
                 sw.Close();
             }
             fs.Close();
          }
      }
   }
   catch(Exception ex)
   {
      throw new LoggingException(ex.Message, ex);
   }
}
 
public static void Log(LogEntry logMessage,TextWriter w)
{
   w.WriteLine("{0}", logMessage.Message);
}

And that is how you modify the MsmqDistributor Windows service to write to any location you want. Thanks for reading this everyone! Please leave a comment if this was helpful to you or if you have any questions. I will try to get back with you soon!

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