It is with great pleasure that I announce the merging of epic proportions!

That’s right, folks. Just as I was getting comfortable with having my blog on WordPress, I’ve decided that having a whole bunch of scattered webOS websites is full of SUCK for readers.  Thusly, THREE sites dedicated to webOS will be joined together as webOSroundup.com!

David Baxter, creator of webOSroundup, is extremely talented in the ways of web design and has already made a name for himself from his stellar webOS app reviews.

Roy Sutton, creator of pre101.com, is a dedicated member of the webOS community and an excellent writer of news and events related to Palm and what they mean to you.

Throw Totally Palmed into the mix, and you suddenly have one awesome trifecta. With our combined ideas and love for webOS, we’ve already come up with a TON of super cool stuff that we could never do when we were separate websites.  Seriously, I’m uber-excited about it. You should be too. That’s all I’m gonna say. 8)

Who’s the big winner in all of this? 
YOU!  Now you only need to go to one place for app  reviews, hot webOS tips/tricks, and so much more.

Is this the end of Totally Palmed?!
Not by a long shot! Totally Palmed will continue doing its thang, and even has its own nook on the site. It’s our new home.

Bookmark http://www.webOSroundup.com right now!

(RSS Feed Address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/webosroundup)

I love Palm and I love my Palm Pre, but I’ve never minced words when it comes to Palm’s advertising: results have been way under par.  In my opinion, Palm squandered a golden opportunity when the Pre originally launched. With the loss of that opportunity, came the loss of precious momentum.  This, along with a few other grievous missteps, is why Palm finds itself in not-quite-but-almost-dire straits.  All you had to do, Palm? Was forget the Borg Queen, forget the Shaolin monks… and release a commercial like this, created by YouTube user IcerC (@IcerC on Twitter).

In my readings of Palm Pre forums and Twitter posts I noticed several common issues kept popping up, leading many people to return their Pre’s as "defective."  This is a shame, because many Pre’s are returned when in fact they don’t need to be. With just a little bit of research you’ll find the majority of the Palm Pre’s "little gremlins" can be sorted out quite easily.

Plus, rest assured because Palm seems to have listened to its customers and is making improvements to the Pre’s hardware.

Read my list of several of these common problems and their fixes after the break…

1) PRE SHUTTING OFF UNEXPECTEDLY!

This is probably the most common issue that I saw. Fortunately, it’s a very simple problem, one that can be easily fixed.  It is due to a "battery wiggle" issue.  A minor manufacturing "snafu" was made when the battery was designed…  it’s juuuuust small enough that when the Pre is jostled, or if the slider is open or closed, the battery may come off of its contacts momentarily.  This can cause the Pre’s screen to flicker, shut off, or even shut the Pre down completely.  Another problem that comes from this is that this "battery cycling" actually causes the battery to wear down faster!

The solution? I’ve been telling owners to cut a small piece of double-sided foam tape and install it at the area of the phone where the top edge of battery makes contact.  Others have resorted to business cards and stuff, but I don’t find that it’s ideal. Not surprisingly, Palm has addressed this issue on newer builds by … *gasp!* installing a small piece of foam in exactly the same place. (I swear when I saw that I felt like such a genius! … I know… geek is more appropriate!)

Palm also redesigned their stock battery, presumably for a better fit.  (The old battery is the one on the left with the grooves, the new one is on the right.)  If the above fixes don’t work for you, then you can march right up to your Sprint store and demand a new battery.  I’ve been reading that they’ve been generous in exchanging them. Our Canadian friends to the north should have the newer builds, so this is hopefully a non-issue for them.

2) THE OREO EFFECT!

Many people have noticed that when the Pre is closed, it seems to have a little wiggle if you twist it like an Oreo (hence the name).  THIS IS NORMAL: the vast majority of Pre’s do this to a negligible degree. But some report that their Pre gets little too loose for comfort.  It happened to me once and I discovered an embarrasingly simple fix.  See if it works for you.

UPDATE: oasis9389 on the precentral.net forums has noticed that if you close your Pre from an upper left to bottom right fashion, that it has the same effect as the fix above.  This is likely due to the asymmetrical design of the original rail system for the slider.  I’ve read that Palm is fixing this with newer builds as well. Thanks!  Final tip: don’t fiddle with your Pre after you do this maneuver. If with minimal pressure you notice your Pre is tighter, leave it alone… or you’ll go blind!

 

 

3) EARPIECE AND PROXIMITY SENSOR STOPPED WORKING!

After a long road trip listening to Pandora, Sprint TeleNav, and taking calls by bluetooth, I let my Palm Pre go to sleep mode, unplugged the AUX wire out of my Pre, and went up to my hotel. I tried to call my wife to let her know I had arrived safely, but to my horror I couldn’t hear anything on the other side.  I also noticed the proximity sensor (the sensor that shuts off the Pre’s touchscreen so your cheek doesn’t inadvertently hit a button during a phone call) wasn’t working anymore.  I did notice, however, that my speakerphone was working just fine. … And then it hit me:  my Pre still thought there was a wire plugged into it! All I’d have to do is plug/unplug any standard headphone into the jack!  (Funny part was, I had left the AUX wire in my boss’ car… it wasn’t until the next day that I sheepishly asked a total stranger at the airport to borrow his headphones… after plugging/unplugging my phone, I was in business!)
 
 
 
 
So… the solution? Don’t unplug your headphones while the Pre is OFF or in sleep mode!

Others have said that if that doesn’t work to try this trick while your music player is ON.  I didn’t need this trick, but maybe it’ll work for you.  … It’s worth noting that this problem existed on the iPhone when it first launched.  Hopefully this will be corrected by our friends at Palm, too.  … But I wouldn’t mind visual voicemail, first! ; )
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Some people have reported more resistant problems, and if the above fix doesn’t work for you, then try this (this is what they do in the repair shops!):
1)   Shut off your Pre. To be safe, I’d take out the battery, too.
2)   Take a Q-tip
3)   Remove some of the extra fluff
4)   Wet the tip with alcohol
5)   Insert the tip into the headset jack and clean it really well.
6)   Let it dry (compressed air works even better)
7)   Turn your Pre back on
8)   Go to "Device Info" in your launcher
9)   Open the menu and select "Interactive Tests."
10) Select "Audio" self-test.  You should be done! Try it now…
 
 
 

4)  MY KEYBOARD IS ALL CREAKY WHEN I TYPE ON IT!

I hadn’t seen this for myself until my wife got a brand-new Palm Pre. It didn’t creak out of the box but when I replaced the back-cover on it, the creaking started and wouldn’t stop no matter how I installed the backplate.  Luckily, there’s a simple solution for this as well: just apply electrical tape to the inside portion of the backplate, as shown here…

5) I CAN’T SEE MY MESSAGING CONVERSATIONS!

This problem probably occurs more commonly than it should.  Essentially, this is caused by the awesome "Synergy" feature on the Pre that links profiles (Google, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn) of people all together.  Problem is, it can cause a glitch in the messaging app:  for some reason, the Pre gets confused and can’t find the contact associated with that conversation.  There’s a few solutions for this…

a)  Unlink your contact.

Say you’ve lost the conversation with your mom.  Go to her contact, and tap at the top of her contact to see all her profiles (see pic on left).  If she has only ONE profile (my mom has 3), skip to the next step. Once all the profiles pop up, tap one of them.  This will pull up a menu. Tap the "Unlink This Profile" button.  Repeat for all of the profiles in Mom’s contact listing.  Reboot your Pre.

b) Delete your contact.

Pretty self-explanatory.  Find Mom in the contacts, delete Mom’s contact (sorry, Mom).  Reboot.  Then, re-enter mom’s contact. Try an SMS or IM conversation with her again and see if it shows up in the messaging app.  If all went well, it should work.  If not, proceed to the final step.

c) Do a PARTIAL ERASE.

6)  MY SCREEN FLICKERS / GOES BLACK WHEN I USE THE PHONE!

This is a problem I found on my wife’s brand-new Palm Pre: when I’d open the phone app, the screen would flicker on and off and wouldn’t stop until I closed the phone app.  It was very worrisome, but turned out to have a very simple fix: take off the screen protector! Normally, the proximity sensor on the Palm Pre and Pixi deactivate the screen when your face comes close, to avoid accidental pushing of buttons while on a call.  In my wife’s case, the screen protector was "fooling" her Pre into thinking that her face was close to the phone.  After removing it, cleaning the screen really well, and replacing the screen protector, the problem never returned.

 

  
 

If you don’t have a screen protector, try cleaning the screen’s surface really well.
 

 

 

 

7) MY KEYBOARD STOPPED WORKING!

This happened to me one morning. Scared the hell out of me.  I had just switched out the battery when this occurred. So, I powered the phone off, pulled the battery out and placed it back in, and voila! My keyboard was working again.  I have no idea what caused it, but at least there’s a simple fix for it!

8 ) MY TOUCHSCREEN STOPPED WORKING!

This has not happened to me, but I have read in a couple forums that some people were able to get their phone working by doing a battery pull, just as in solution #4 above.  It didn’t work for everyone, but hey it’s so simple it’s worth a shot.

9) MY POWER BUTTON STOPPED WORKING!

This is sadly a pretty common problem. Turns out the little metal clicker that lies under the Pre’s power button can get bent if pushed too hard, such as by the Pre falling on it. Luckily, the solution is simple, easy, and safe. Just follow along.

First, remove the back cover off of your Pre. 

 

Next, using a paper clip or safety pin, gently pop out the power button. Careful… that little plastic piece may go flying if you push too fast! Easy does it. (Left)

Looking down where the power button used to be, you’ll see the contact where the plastic button pushes. You may try to *gently* lift up on the metal contact to “unbend” it. (Right)

 

 

  

 

 

 

Fold a tiny piece of paper (no more than 2-3 sheets thick) and rest it flat on top of the metal contact. Pop the power button back in. That should do it! If it doesn’t work, you may try gently lifting up on the metal contact as described above.

There. You’re done.  
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 

 

There you have it. Nine simple problems with simple fixes for the Palm Pre.  I’m not claiming these fixes will work for everybody, but heck they’re so easy it’s worth a shot before running back to your Palm retailer. If you have any other simple fixes that you’d like me to feature, leave a comment!

Thought I was gonna end my Tips & Tricks without including homebrew, didn’t ya?  Actually, homebrew makes excellent “encore” material because, even though you might feel it’s not your cup of tea (heavens, why?!)… every webOS user should still be aware homebrewing exists.  Why?  Because homebrew simply has taken webOS to the next level, arguably more so than has been done on any other mobile platform.

What is homebrew? Essentially, homebrew is like “hacking” your phone. Before the word “hack” makes you run for the hills, don’t sweat it: homebrewing a Palm Pre is nothing like hacking a computer or jailbreaking an iPhone.  Why?

• Homebrewing is easy, even for amateurs (trust me, I’m one of ‘em!).
• Unlike Apple, Palm is not against homebrewing. We don’t even call it “jailbreaking” or “hacking.” We use words like “homebrewing,” “tweaking,” or “patching.”
• It is virtually impossible to “brick” a webOS device.

Does the picture above even make you the slightest bit curious? Then read on after the jump!

In this article, I’m not gonna show you how to homebrew. The experts at Precentral have already put together great how-to article. The title of this series is “Tips & Tricks Every webOS User Should Know.” That means it’s my job to make you aware of what homebrew is, and all the cool things you can do with it… rather than just repeating the work of others.

Homebrew Apps!

Before the Palm App Catalog began taking off, many early adopters subsisted on a steady diet of homebrew apps to keep them happy.  Homebrew apps currently number over 400 and even have a catalog of their own. Many of them go on to be published in the App Catalog.  The cool thing about homebrew is you get to see the apps and their updates quicker with homebrew than in the App Catalog. Since the App Catalog is much more robust these days, this has become less of a selling point. Still, there’s a bunch of homebrew and beta apps people swear by.  For example:

DrPodder

If you like podcasts, then this app beats anything in the App Catalog to date, in my opinion.  It sports a very easy-to-use interface, it’s fast, and best of all… it’s the only webOS podcasting application so far that allows you to download entire podcasts. It’s been the consistent favorite of many a webOS user. I highly, highly recommended it.

Music Player Remix

This is by far the most downloaded app in all of homebrew.  It basically takes the rather anemic webOS MP3 player and puts it on steroids. It supports a full-time scrim bar (for skipping to parts of a song), allows you to customize the background, lets you do a wikipedia search on a particular song/artist, pulls up lyrics for particular songs, and best of all… supports Flylists, where you make playlists on the fly! It’s totally replaced the stock music player on my Palm Pre.

Autocorrect Edit

Now here’s an app you likely won’t ever see in the App Catalog. Basically, this app allows you to program autocorrect dictionaries for your most common typos. For instance, even though I’m pretty fast and accurate on my Palm Pre’s keyboard, I still make some recurrent typing mistakes, such as “rhe” instead of “the.” Thanks to AutoCorrect Edit, that mistake is a thing of the past.

An even better application of this app is typing shortcuts. For instance, I type “omw” and it becomes “on my way.” Typing “wcgm” turns into “wanna come get me?” … I’ve used this for quickly typing webpages and entire sentences. I love it.

JSTop

This is another app that likely won’t make it into the App Catalog, but I use it daily. Basically, it’s a task killer and resource monitor.  While that doesn’t sound (or look) very sexy, it’s become an indispensible tool for me. Sometimes, apps don’t close completely and lead to what’s called a “memory leak.” This bogs down the phone, won’t let you open new cards, or rarely even leads to crashes. With JSTop, I just have to see which apps are open, which are consuming more resources, and kill ‘em! It’s really great. I’ve hardly ever had to reboot my Pre to speed it up.

… Okay so that gives you just a small taste of the homebrew apps that I love to use. What else does homebrewing bring you?

Patches!

Patches are tweaks that we apply to our webOS phones that give us a whole new level of customization.  Want the phone to hang up a call when you close the slider? There’s a patch for that. Or how about viewing your emails in landscape mode? There’s a patch for that. How about blinking notifications when you get a text or an email? Have your icons show in a 4×4 manner instead of 3×3? Add up to ten launcher pages rather than just three? Turn your camera’s flash into an LED flashlight? … Yeah, you get the idea.  It’s pretty cool.

I use like 25 patches, but here’s just a few that have been particularly useful for me:

Device Menu MegaMix

If I tap the upper right hand corner of my screen, I’m instantly given access to:

• screen brightness: A nifty control slider pops up to quickly control screen brightness
• my phone’s radio: I can shut the phone off (aka airplane mode), shut off just phone data (save battery), force roam only
• GPS: toggle on/off easily
• Flashlight: quickly turns camera flash into a LED flashlight!

Virtual Keyboard

Okay, I’ll admit I don’t use this patch that frequently, because I’m quite satisfied with the Palm Pre’s keyboard. But it’s cool to show off what homebrew can do, and it’s nice to have the convenience of both physical and software keyboards. It’s slightly janky and has no autocorrect whatsoever, but it does come in handy when typing next to your sleeping spouse who doesn’t like to hear the clicking of keys! Also works in landscape.

Oh yeah… there’s different themes, too.

Delete From Notification

Discreet notifications are all well and good, but if I have ten emails, and the top one is junk mail, that’s all I see.  I’d have to tap the message to open the email app, just to delete it! But what if I had a patch that allowed me to just hit a trash can icon to delete the message right then and there? Wait… there is a patch like that!

… And yes fellas, Jessica Alba is totally following Totally Palmed. That’s not Photoshopped at all.

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Advanced Power Options

This is a patch for people who do a lot of homebrewing.  It gives you quick access to Luna restarts (a “quick reboot,” if you will), Java restarts (basically resets all the phone’s radios) and so on. It also gives you quick access to the basic restarts with one tap, rather than having to do it in three.

So much more…

4×4 icons.  Extra launcher pages with page labels.  Battery percent meter.  I really wish I could show you all the tweaks I have.  Guess you really need to join the homebrew party!

… And no I have no problem with the game “Blocked.” The “x” just happened to land on top of it! It’s really a fun little puzzle game. As proof, I even recommended it on my favorite webOS games article!

Themes!

Themes have been such a fun part of homebrewing for many webOS users.  There’s currently almost 1200 themes for webOS.  You can make your phone look like an iPhone (as shown at the top of this article), or…

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… a Blackberry!

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… a Mac! 

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… Support your

favorite team!

(Who dat!)

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… Show some 

webOS love! 

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… couldn’t resist!

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Want to see more themes? Hop on over to prethemer.com

If you’re feeling creative, you can design and submit themes of your own! I personally designed the Blackberry, Palm, and Tiger Woods themes… ya like? A friendly tip on themes: Always remember to delete a theme before installing a new one!

Well, that covers homebrew! This basically scraped the tip of the iceberg, but I hope it gave you a good idea of what you can do.  Want to get in on the action? Then head on over to Precentral for their excellent how-to article on getting started with homebrew.  Set up takes a few moments, but you’ll thank me later!

This also formally concludes my “Tips & Tricks Every webOS User Should Know.” If you found it helpful, please send cash. LOL. Just spread the word. That’s good enough for me!

We’ve come to our final entry in our Tips & Tricks series but don’t despair, kids.  Because Totally Palmed has brought out the Big Guns and you will leave satisfied, I assure you.  Today, we are going to talk about the final two things every webOS user should know about: battery life and media sync!

If you’re just joining us, you’ve got some serious catching up to do.  So march on over to Parts 1-4, and then come back to us.  We’ll be here waiting patiently.  The journey’s worth it!

• Part One: System and Launcher
• Part Two: Phone and Contacts
• Part Three: E-mail and Messaging
• Part Four: Calendar, Browser, and Camera

Okay… done? Welcome back.  Let’s do this!!!

BATTERY LIFE

Look, let’s not sugar-coat this:  the battery life on the Palm Pre sucks.  While we’d all like to place the blame squarely on Palm, it’s a sad reality that battery technology simply has not kept pace with mobile technology…  until that happens, pretty much all smartphones (not just the Palm Pre and Pixi) are going to have to make compromises.  That said, there are ways to make make your Palm Pre or Pixi more “Prius” and less “Hummer” when it comes to battery consumption.  Lots of sites out there (like Precentral) explain this in detail, but here’s the top 5 tips that have helped me the most:

1) Carry a spare

Yeah. I know how bad it looks when this is my first recommendation. I do it on purpose because I don’t want you to be under any delusions, here: sometimes it will feel like no matter what you do, your battery is dying faster than   (insert clever analogy here)   .  Still, it’s nice that the Pre has the option to slap in a spare battery, unlike other phones *cough* iPhone *cough*. Plus, spare batteries are small and tough enough to stow in a pocket or purse. There are plenty of options out there:

• Palm Pre battery (1150mAh)
   
• Palm Centro battery (1150mAh): Same size and juice as Pre’s battery, dirt cheap. Many have reported success with this, but Palm discourages it on their website.
   
• Seidio batteries: Seidio makes two flavors of spares:
  • 1350 extended: ~10% more juice. Same size as stock. Touchstone compatible.
  • 2600 hi-capacity: Doubles capacity. Makes your Pre 5mm fatter.

   

• Amzer batteries: Amzer produces even more power choices:
  • 1400 extended: ~10% more juice. Same size as stock. Touchstone compatible.
  • 2800 hi-capacity: Doubles capacity. Makes Pre 5mm fatter.
  • 3800 ultra hi-capacity: 3x capacity. Makes your Pre are-you-kidding-me fat.

   

• Mugen Power batteries: same exact power choices as Amzer. Many folks like this brand.
   
• Extended batteries on eBay: These come in all shapes, sizes, and pretty much all from China. I cannot vouch for these batteries personally, though some of my Twitter followers have used them and are very pleased.  To my knowledge, none of the larger capacity batteries requiring a different back plate are Touchstone compatible.  

  

2) Charge frequently 

You cannot “overcharge” the Pre’s battery. In fact, with time, frequently charging these lithium ion batteries actually improves their performance, while it being at low charges hurt performance. No need to “run it all the way down" to then recharge. Don’t be afraid to charge your battery overnight or have it constantly plugged into your laptop or wall charger. Me personally? I carry a Smartphone Experts retractable USB charging cord at work. Ten bucks. Very handy.

3) Turn screen brightness to minimum

In my experience, one of the single biggest battery killers is having the screen on really bright.  Whenever you’re indoors, my advice would be to reduce it to a minimum. Not 50%, not 40%, I mean ALL the way down.

4) Turn GPS and Bluetooth off, wi-fi ON

If you’re not using these features, then just say “no.” Unless you use a device menu patch (what’s a patch?  See homebrew below!), GPS can be a hassle to access on a regular basis. My advice would be to move the “Location Services” to the first page of your launcher.  Fortunately, Bluetooth is easy enough to turn on and off by tapping the upper right hand corner of your screen to bring up the device menu.

Wifi is another matter. Supposedly, wifi sucks less juice than your network connection. If you’re in a wifi hotspot, leave your wifi on. (I’ve had mixed results with this, but others swear by it.)

Of course, the best battery saver is putting your phone in “Airplane Mode,” which shuts off ALL radios.

5) Connect to the “cloud” as little as possible

• Email fetch: make it less frequent. There’s a difference in the type of email that you use, too.  EAS Exchange sync uses less battery then Gmail, which uses less battery than POP3 clients, such as Hotmail.
• Internet messaging: If you’re not actively using it, switch it off.  It keeps you constantly connected to the internet when left on. Just tap “buddies” in the messaging app and tap the green icon where it says “Available.” Select “Sign Off.”
• Background apps: Deal search apps, Twitter notifications, RSS readers, weather apps… these are all great (I use ‘em a lot), but if you want to minimize battery consumption, then these need to have their background processes switched off. Not only do they connect to the cloud, they also use system resources even when they’re not connecting.

 

MUSIC SYNC

When the Palm Pre launched in June 2009, Palm had hoped Apple would allow their iTunes customers to use the program on different platforms, including webOS.  Unfortunately Apple had other ideas, and deliberately blocked direct sync with the Palm Pre after iTunes 9.0.1.  This makes things a tad more difficult for iTunes customers, but there’s  still ways for you to sync music (as well as other media) to your webOS device. I won’t go into much detail about each method here – that’s coming in a future article – but as a webOS user, you should at least know about the different options available to you.

Wait… before we start, what’s the difference between Media Sync and USB Drive?

Media Sync is basically the way the webOS phones spoof themselves as an iPod to your computer. This is great for people who are used to the iTunes system of managing files. The biggest downfall of this is, it organizes your media using the iTunes file structure on your phone. If you ever need to “dig” in your phone’s files to find a particular song, good luck.

USB Drive basically converts your phone into a flash drive. This is great for users who would rather create their own file structure, and just transfer their media in a drag/drop fashion. The huge problem with this is that playlists do not transfer using this method.  I hope Palm addresses this.

… Okay, satisfied? Let’s move on to different media sync methods…

1) Good ol’ drag and drop

As I stated in Part One of my Tips and Tricks series, you can use your webOS device as a flash  drive. This is awesome for moving pictures, videos, important documents, and yes… music! Just plug your phone in, select “USB Drive,” and just drag your music files to your phone. If properly tagged, the songs’ album art and tag info (artist, album) will transfer as well.  Unfortunately, playlists do not transfer.

2) Stick with iTunes

Downgrade to iTunes 9.0.1 

If you haven’t updated iTunes lately, great! Don’t do anything! If you have updated, no worries. The most recent version that successfully past version 9.0.1, you do have the option of downloading iTunes 9.0.1 at http://www.oldapps.com/itunes.php. I recommend you read up on how to do this properly before diving in head-first.

iTunes Agent

If you swear by iTunes but are nervous about “downgrading,” then this might be an option. iTunes Agent basically interfaces other non-iPod devices with iTunes and forces them to shake hands.  It’s pretty bare in terms of features, but it does what it says. Just connect in Media Sync Mode and away you go.

Salling Media Sync 

Available for free for Mac and Windows, Salling Media Sync provides a another iTunes sync option. It syncs music, podcasts, playlists, photos, and videos, and can even sync automatically when you connect your phone in Media Sync mode, just like iTunes would do with an iPod.  A paid version ($22) does faster syncs.

GoGadget for webOS

This is the newest entrant for iTunes sync.  It’s not free ($19.95), but GoGadget for webOS does more than just sync to iTunes… it also allows you to create ringtones, converts video formats to play on your phone correctly, sync pictures to iPhoto, and sync documents. A free 7 day trial is available.

3) Try other sync programs!

Double Twist

Double Twist is probably one of the most widely-used music sync options for webOS  users. Not only does it sync with iTunes, but you can also download music from the Amazon MP3 store, and convert videos to compatible formats. Also: no iTunes? No problem. Double Twist does direct native sync with your phone… no iTunes needed.

J. River Media Jukebox 

Media Jukebox is the free component of J. River’s robust MediaCenter. It basically serves as a direct sync with pretty much any device. Anythingbutipod.com wrote a glowing review about this program here. Among one of the things they really liked about Media Jukebox was an excellent podcast library. I won’t go into other specifics, but I will say this program utilizes the Palm Pre’s impersonation of an iPod really well.

MediaMonkey

MediaMonkey is the favorite media handler and sync manager for many webOS users.  In addition to direct sync with your Palm phone, it provides excellent music-tagging features and can find the album art to pretty much any music you own.  The interface is slightly overwhelming at first, but if you work at it, you just might find it to be your favorite media organizer. Anythingbutipod.com wrote a review about and older version of MediaMonkey here, though much of what they say still applies.

WinAmp

One of the oldest media player/organizers to date, WinAmp has been my primary music handler for years.  It sports a very easy-to-use interface and lots of fun plugins and skins. Up to now, its one weakness was good sync with MP3 players. Thankfully, this has been addressed and it syncs with the webOS devices.  If you’re familiar with this program but left it because of sync problems in the past, perhaps you should give it another try.

Songbird

This is the ONE media organizer I have not tried yet, but Songbird deserves some mention since its the favorite music handler of many people, especially those who like listening to podcasts.  Sync with iPods and iPhones is sort of buggy, but it syncs with webOS phones juuuuust fine!

That does it for music sync.  Which method you choose is a matter of personal preference.  I’ll get into which one is my favorite and why in a future article.  Promise.

Well, our “Tips & Tricks Every webOS User Should Know” series has come to an end! I hope I helped you learn a few things about your webOS device.

… But wait…

I seem to be forgetting something.  What is it?  What other thing could a webOS user POSSIBLY need to know that hasn’t been covered yet? … Click here for the encore…  Trust me.  I’m saving the best for last.

Just joining us?  Then do your homework first!  Check out Parts 1, 2, and 3. Then come back.  No worries, we’ll all be here waiting patiently for you. Here’s what we’ve covered so far:

• Part One:  System and Launcher
• Part Two: Phone and Contacts
• Part Three: E-mail and Messaging

As you can see, we’ve covered quite a bit. Let’s keep this ball rolling, shall we? Read on after the jump!

CALENDAR

1) Google Calendar. Use it. Love it.

2)  Quickly delete an event

3)  COMPRESS your calendar into one view

WEB BROWSER

1) To access the URL, scroll ALL the way to the top

Many people ask me how they can copy a URL from a browser.  There’s several ways to do that.  If you’re ON the page that you want to copy, just scroll ALL the way to the top of the page. When you do that, the URL will pop down.  Just tap the top bar once and you will see the web address highlighted in yellow.  All that’s left is copy and paste! 

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2)  Copy a URL from a link

Well, what if you want to copy a link?  That’s easy, too.  Just hold down the ORANGE button on the Pre (it’s gray on the Verizon Pre) and tap the link.  You’ll get the menu as shown in the picture.  Just choose what you want.

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3)  Download a picture from a web page

Apply what you just learned with copying URLs from links, and do the same thing with pictures!  When you do, you will see the menu as shown in the picture on the right.  You’ll notice that you can even share photos directly from a webpage.

By the way, you can share entire web pages by tapping the main menu (upper left corner) in any webpage and tapping “Share.”  This will send you directly to the e-mail app, so you can send someone a direct link to that webpage.

4)  Copy text in a web page

There’s a way to copy text from a web page, though I admit it’s a little… janky. You can only copy whole paragraphs of text at a time, rather than just one word. Hopefully Palm will refine this, but until then, this is how you do it. Hold the "Shift" key and tap the text you want to copy. If you want to copy several paragraphs, scroll down (still holding the shift key) and tap the bottom paragraph. You should see a bunch of text highlighted. After that, just copy and paste!

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4)  Page scroll while in landscape

If you like reading your web pages in landscape mode (sideways), know that you can do quick scrolling using the gesture area…  just flick your finger across half of the gesture area up or down, depending on where you want to go.  It’s more convenient than regularly flicking the screen line-by-line…  I use this feature pretty frequently.

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That’s it!  Part 4 of 5 is now concluded…  Check out my GRAND FINALE of “Tips & Tricks Every webOS User Should Know,” where we cover BATTERY LIFE and MUSIC SYNC! … Trust me when I say you won’t wanna miss it.

Welcome back to possibly the most important "Tips and Tricks" entry in our series: e-mail and messaging!
If you’re just joining us … where the hell have you been?  Heh heh. No worries.  We’re just getting warmed up.  Here’s what we’ve covered so far:

• Part One: System and Launcher
• Part Two: Phone and Contacts

Today, we’ll cover possibly the most important tips and tricks for many people… e-mail and messaging.  Let’s get right to it.

E-MAIL

1) “All Flagged” Folder

This is a really cool feature that a surprising number of people don’t know about.  Certain messages are more  important to me than others, and that’s why I “flag” them, so I don’t lose them in the flood of emails I get every day.  Not only Palm has conveniently incorporated an “All Inboxes” folder in the email app for viewing multiple email accounts all in one folder, they’ve also included an “All Flagged” folder, which lets you see all your important messages from all accounts.  This has been an indispensable tool for me.  I thought everybody knew about it, but when I recently showed my cousin that she could do it with her Pre after owning if for six months, I figured I’d let you know about it, just in case.

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2)  Gesture Area shortcuts!

Just as we use the gesture area to cut, copy, and paste, we also use this for really cool shortcuts in the e-mail app.  These consist of holding one finger on the gesture area and one finger to tap a letter key.  These shortcuts apply to both reading and writing of emails…

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a. READING an email:

Gesture area + K = “Mar(K) as unread”

Gesture area + G = “Set Fla(G)”

Gesture area + M = “(M)ove to Folder”

Gesture Area + S = “(S)how Recipients”

Note: You can also access these commands via the menu (as shown) if you don’t want to use the keyboard.

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b. WRITING an email:

Gesture area + J = “Set As High Priority”

Gesture area + D = “(D)iscard Message”

Gesture area + S = “(S)ave as Draft”

Note: You can also access these commands via the menu (as shown) if you don’t want to use the keyboard.

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3)  Type Using Italics and Bold face!

Yes, you can type in bold, italics, or both when typing an email.

Here’s how:

SYM + B = bold … (It will want to type ~. Delete and resume typing.)

SYM + I = Italics … (It will want to type í. Delete and resume typing.)

SYM + B, then SYM + I = both … (Yes, it will type ~ and í also.)

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4)  Delete whole words at a time

Here’s a quick way to delete a bunch of mistakes:  hold down the "Shift" key and press backspace.  You’ll delete that entire word.  Make sure there’s a space in between the word in front of it. Sometimes it deletes that word, too. I make plenty of mistakes. I use this feature pretty darn frequently.

5)  Check email less often to save battery life!

In Palm’s words from their website:

“How much power checking email uses depends on a number of variables, including the type of account, how many email messages you receive a day, and whether you are downloading a lot of attachments. These guidelines may help you:

• Using an Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) account that is set to receive email as it arrives is generally efficient. However, if you receive many email messages each day, you may be able to reduce power consumption by using an interval such as every 15 minutes or longer.
• Using a web-based email account that is set to receive email as it arrives is not as efficient as using an EAS account. This is true even if you are not receiving a lot of emails. You can reduce battery consumption by using an interval such as every 15 minutes or longer on web-based accounts.”

MESSAGING

1) Emoticons!

It amazes me how many times I’ll send a text to a fellow webOS user, and they ask me “how did you do that smiley?”  … So for your viewing pleasure, I joined together the screenshots of ALL the emoticons available for webOS.  Learn ‘em.  You’re welcome. Go nuts.

2) Change the alert sound for texts

Many users are a little sick of the alert sound the Pre and Pixi make. I don’t really blame ‘em.  Palm has made this easy enough to do:  just open the menu and select “Preferences & Accounts.”  There, you will be able to select from System Alert, Ringtone, or just mute texts altogether.  You can even shut off text notifications entirely if necessary.

3)  Quickly find the person you are texting

Since I’m such a popular guy (*snort*), I text a lot of people.  Finding a conversation you’ve had with a person can be a pain if you text a whole bunch of people in a day.  The solution?  Just start typing the recipient’s name.  In the example pictured on the right, I wanted to find the conversation I was having with my friend Ericka. So, I just typed "e" and boom, there she was!  Now I can read the conversation we had or text her again.

(Of course, another method of quickly finding someone to text is using Universal Search.  Just type someone’s name and their numbers will pop up, with a tiny "SMS" button.)

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4) Forward texts

The Pre did not come with this capability originally, so some users still think it doesn’t exist. Well, it does! And it’s easy: just tap the particular part of the message you want to forward. A menu will pop up. You should be able to figure out the rest…

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5) Copy ENTIRE conversations

You’ve already seen that you can copy the text of individual parts of conversations (look at the picture in #4 reeeeeal hard), but what about ENTIRE conversations? This option is tucked away in the "Edit" menu in messaging, so it’s not obvious to everyone. If you want to copy ALL the text of a particular conversation, just go to the conversation you wish to copy, open the menu (upper left), tap "Edit," and then tap "Copy All." Bing! You’re done. Paste the text into a memo or an email.

6)  Delete whole words at a time

Yeah I know I already mentioned this in e-mail, but it applies to texting, too.  Just hold down the "Shift" key and press backspace.  …  Just wanted to make sure you were paying attention.

7)  Delete parts or a whole conversation

By swiping from left to right, you can delete parts of a conversation, or entire conversations. Totally up to you.  (Note: Rarely, some people have had problems with future conversations displaying properly when deleting conversations.  This has happened a whole lot less since Palm fixed this bug, but I’ve read the occasional complaint.  If this happens to you, it’s really no big deal. Just check out my simple fixes article on how to deal with it and you’ll be just fine.)

8)  Log off IM to save battery life!

We all know the Pre’s Achilles’ heel is battery life.  Unfortunately, being continuously connected to the web for Instant Messaging eats up battery life like crazy (this is particularly true of AIM).

This tip should be obvious to most of you.  Tap where it  says “Buddies” on the upper right hand corner of the messaging app.  (Why it says “buddies” and not “IM” is beyond me.) Then, tap the green button where it says “Available.”  Your options will be “busy” and “Sign Off.”  Tap “Sign Off.” Bear in mind that even if you have your account set to “Busy,” you are still online, and battery is draining.
Don’t have an IM account? Just open the menu and set one up.

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That’s it for e-mail and messaging! Want some more? Check out Part 4 out of 5 of my Tips and Tricks series: Calendar, Browser, and Camera!

PHONE:

1) Useful phone codes!

a. Find out if your phone is refurbished.
Type ##786# in your phone app, and you’ll see the picture  on the right pop up. Look where it says “Recond status.” If the answer is “no,” then your Pre is new, not refurbished. If it says “yes,” look above at the “Recond date.” That tells you when your Pre or Pixi was refurbished.

b. Get a GPS Fix.
Type ##477# in your phone app and you will be presented with a dialogue that says “Get GPS Fix.” Tap it, and you will get the following info: latitude and longitude, speed, elevation, and GSP accuracy.  I’ve read in some forums that if the GPS in your webOS device does not seem to be working well, this may fix the issue.

c. Force your phone into broadband or 1x speed
Typing ##3836# in your phone app gives you the option to force your phone into EVDO (broadband) or 1xRTT (“slow” … think Edge for AT&T).  Most phones will be in “Hyprid Rev A” by default, which means the phone automatically detects when a broadband signal is available. Make sure to take note which default setting is on your particular device! You can always switch back to it if needed.

• EVDO only: For those who live in an area without EVDO coverage, life can really suck when trying to do anything data-intensive, like browsing or tethering. Switching to “EVDO only” can give you broadband data speeds! Bad news: you lose voice calling. So make sure to switch back when you are done.
• 1xRTT only: So why the heck would you wanna select a slower speed?  Easy:  conserving battery life.  Broadband connections (even when not actively in use) consume battery life much faster than 1x.  So, if you don’t plan to use your phone or are in an area of poor reception, you might want to consider switching to 1x.  You can always switch back to your default.

Another thing: in this pic, Data Roaming is turned off: if you are roaming, you’ll be able to use your phone for voice only.  Mine is usually on. If you have Sprint, no worries: you can use voice and data roaming pretty much all you want (up to 5gb data.)

3) Dialing Shortcuts!
Work in a hospital or office and you wish you could just dial the extension instead of the WHOLE NUMBER? You can. Many phones have this feature, but I didn’t realize the Pre/Pixi had it until I discovered it recently by accident. In Phone prefs, just tap “Add New Number” where it says “Dialing Shortcuts.” Pretty sweet.

4)  Maximize your phone’s signal: open the slider!
Most people don’t know this, but the Palm Pre’s phone radios are located in the bottom portion of the phone, where the keypad is located.  So, sliding the phone open effectively acts like extending an antenna! To optimize your signal, especially in an area where it is weak, make sure to keep your slider open.  (Same goes for wifi and data, by the way.)

4)  Ignore call and send caller to voicemail:
Tap the power button twice to send an incoming call to voicemail.  It’s that simple.

5)  Mute ringer WITHOUT sending caller to voicemail:
While the phone is ringing, tap the power button or one of the volume keys once. Ringer will stop and caller will go to voicemail after four full rings.

1) Send your contacts to various places:

a. Send contacts to car via Bluetooth. If you own a car that allows for hands-free Bluetooth  calling, you can export your phonebook to the car via Bluetooth. If you want to send all of your contacts in one go, just tap the menu in the upper right hand corner of the main contacts screen and select “Send All To Car Kit.”  If you’d rather send just a few contacts, select the contact you want to send, open menu –> Send Contact –> Send To Car Kit.

b. Send contacts to Launcher. If you want instant access to a contact, tap “Add to Launcher” and it will do just that. No need to use Universal Search or open your contacts anymore. Just open your launcher and there’s your contact.

c. Send contacts to someone else via MMS or email. You can send an individual contact as a .vcf file to someone else via email or MMS, as shown on the left.  Anyone with a phone able to read .vcf files (like webOS phones) will be able to see your contact information as though it was included in their contacts. To add it in their phonebook, all they’d have to do is tap “Add Contact.” This is a great tool for sending your personal business card, like old Palm phones used to do.







2) Add Contact Reminders:
This is an especially handy tool. If you have an important  message or question for a contact, you can enter a reminder on your webOS device. The next time you and the contact are in touch (by phone call, email, or text message/IM) the reminder pops up as a notification! Kinda cool, huh?  The quickest way to do this is to type the contact’s name and find them via Universal Search. At the very bottom, you will see a selection that says “Add Reminder.” Away you go!


(No I don’t really know the Hollywood actress Shannon Elizabeth… but she does happen to own a Palm Pre Plus, in case you didn’t know!)

3)  Set speed dials:
Every single letter key on your webOS device can be programmed as a speed dial.  That’s 25 options, when you take away the “E” key, which is taken up for voicemail.  All you have to do is tap the menu button when you are displaying a contact.  This makes dialing a whole lot easier.

a. Log in to Gmail

• For Palm Profile:  Try the 3rd party app Echo for Palm by Chapura. (Syncs with Palm Desktop!)
• For Outlook: Try PocketMirror for Microsoft Outlook by Chapura.
• For BOTH Palm Profile and Outlook:  Try CL USB Sync by CompanionLink Software.
• For Mac Address Book:  Try The Missing Sync by Markspace.
• For Facebook:  There’s no formal sync option but this article shows you how to sync these contacts with Google so you can then sync them to your computer. (Thanks, @jjshore)

Again, Palm has indicated that “full phonebook transfer” (whatever that means) is coming with webOS 1.4 … so if you’re not desperate to sync this information just yet, I’d wait.

My next goal is to turn you into a power webOS user! You can handle that, right? So let’s get started! This is my very first installment out of five in my “Tips and Tricks” series. Hopefully you will find these articles very helpful.  Some tips you probably know, while others are less well-known.
Read on after the break, where we cover system tricks and tips for using the launcher.

SYSTEM:

1)  Quick Reset:

There’s different ways to make your Palm Pre reboot, but here’s a quick way:  press these three keys at the same time: ORANGE, SYM, and R! Boom.  Your Pre is now rebooting. (Better go make yourself a sandwich. This doesn’t make it actually boot faster! Just an easier way to do it.)

2)  Take a screen snapshot:

Here’s a cool trick! (Even the Motorola Droid can’t do this.) All you need to do? Press ORANGE, SYM, and P at the same time.  In your pictures app, you will find a new folder was created, called “Screen captures.”

3)  Easily wake up device:

When I first got my Pre, I would always try waking it up with the power button.  When the slider was open, this presented a challenge as the button is hard to access.  I discovered I could wake up my Pre by pushing any key on the keyboard.  I default to the spacebar.

When the slider is closed, the easiest way to wake the device?  OPEN the slider!  It skips the "slide to unlock" step.

4) Turn your phone into a FLASH DRIVE!

You no longer have to carry around that dorky flash drive tethered to a shoelace around your neck! Just connect your webOS device to your computer and select "USB Drive" from the options.  You will now be able to access your phone’s files directly. This is great for quick transfer of files, music, videos… you name it.

This came in really handy for me: one day, I was in an area with no wifi and I had to send a file to my boss from my laptop. Using my quick "McGruber" thinking, I connected my Pre to my laptop in USB mode, transferred the file to my phone, and then sent the phone using Sprint’s network.  It took me all of thirty seconds.

5)  View active card information:

Want to know extensive details about a particular app you are using?  There’s a way to do that. While in an open card, just hit ORANGE, SYM, and I.  Detailed information will pop up in the upper left hand corner, as pictured.  If you do this in card view, detailed information will pop up in the launcher. Repeat the keystrokes to switch it off. Is it useful for the average user? Nah, not really. Just nerdy fun. Sorta.

6) Want a better signal? Open the slider!

Quick anatomy lesson of the Palm Pre:  the wifi and network radios are in the keypad portion (not the top) of the phone!  So, opening the slider works much like extending an antenna. Whether I’m talking or web browsing, I almost always have the slider open on my Palm Pre to maximize the signal.  I think you’ll find a noticeable difference. I’m always on my wife about this, who for some reason has the habit of chatting with the slider closed.

6)  Advanced Gestures

Here’s a cool trick… Normally, to switch from card to card, you have to zoom out into card view and flick your cards around. With Advanced Gestures activated, you can directly slide between apps by dragging your finger across the full length of the gesture area.  This is particularly useful for copying something in one card (say, email) and pasting in another, like SMS or Twitter.  I leave it on all the time.  In order to activate this…
a. Go to “Screen and Lock”
b. Find where it says “Advanced Gestures”
c. And turn ON "Switch applications."

7) Force Reset:

In the rare event that your Palm Pre crashes and your screen becomes unresponsive, you can force it to do a soft  reset (a basic reboot). Just follow the directions in the picture. Then go make a sandwich.

LAUNCHER:

1) UNIVERSAL SEARCH!

Your launcher does more for you than just show off your cute app icons. It’s actually a powerful search engine built into your phone.  The folks at Palm were the pioneers in this feature, beating Android and even the famous iPhone to the punch. So…  Here’s a hot tip for beginners: learn to use Universal Search… all the time! I can’t stress that enough. It will really speed up everything you do. Seriously. If I catch any of you flipping through your contacts or opening the browser to do a Wikipedia search, I’m gonna slap you upside the head! Below is a video on how this works.

Universal search: live it, love it.

Palm recently baked some extra keyboard shortcuts into Universal Search:

• Typing “store” takes you to the App Catalog
• Typing “pic” takes you to Photos
• Typing “sms” or “text” takes you to Messaging
• Typing “time” takes you to Clock and Date & Time
• Typing “add” (as in address) takes you to Contacts
• Typing “todo” takes you to Tasks
• Typing “eve” (as in events) takes you to Calendar
• Typing “note” takes you to Memos
• Typing “net” takes you to Wi-fi settings

Update: For those asking, no… you cannot use universal search for calendars, tasks, or e-mails.  However, emails CAN be searched within the email app, and there is a FREE app called Google Calendar Search that allows you to search your Google calendars. It’s slick and easy to use.

2)  Change your Quick Launch icons:

Your Quick Launch icons are for the apps that you use the most  frequently. Or, you could do what I do: leave the apps you use most frequently open as a card… then you have four more options quickly available to you in the Quick Launch bar! How do you customize it? Like this:
a. Open your launcher
b. Tap and hold an icon in the Quick Launch bar. It will light up.
c. Drag it to wherever you want in your launcher
d. Drag an icon from the launcher to the Quick Launch bar.  You’re done!

3) View app info or delete an app:

Easy.  Open your launcher, then hold down the orange button on your keyboard, and tap the icon of an app.  This will allow you to see the app version, its developer, and file size.  You will also be given the option to delete the application.

That was just a taste! Want more? Stick around.

Next up? Part 2: Phone and Contacts.

So you just got a brand-new shiny Palm Pre, and you know the basics.  Let’s put some cool ringers on this bad boy! How, you ask? I’ve gotten this question a lot of folks, so I jotted down all of my methods for getting ringtones and will now pass this on to you.  Why?  Because that’s the kinda guy I am.  Now pay attention!

1)  GET LOUDER RINGTONES!

- CLICK HERE to download the Pre’s ringtones (via Precentral.net)
- Plug your Pre into your computer.
- Select “USB Drive.” Your Pre now acts like a flash drive.
- Find the files that you downloaded to your computer.
- Drag these ringers to the Palm Pre’s folder called “Ringtones”
- You’re done! Safely disconnect your Pre from your computer.
- Go to “Sounds and Ringtones” in your launcher. If you did this right, you should see the screen to the left.


EDIT: After my wife dumped her HTC Hero for a Palm Pre, I promptly snatched it up to upload louder ringtones.  To my surprise, the stock ringtones were just as loud as the “louder” ones! I guess Palm fixed this issue with newer builds. But if you find your ringers are not loud enough, you still might want to look into this.

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2)  USE YOUR OWN RINGTONES!

This is usually the next thing people wanna know. If you have already transferred your music to your Pre, you can do this easily by clicking on the little icon to the bottom left of the “Sounds and Ringtones” folder. (You can see it in the picture for #1).

3)  DOWNLOAD YOUR OWN RINGTONES!

Any ringtone that’s an MP3 file will work with the Pre. So pretty much any of your favorite download sites will work. Just download them to your computer, and transfer them to your Pre while in “USB Mode” to the “Ringtones” folder on your Pre. You’re done. Follow the steps in #2 to choose that ringer.


One cool site for free ringtones that I’ve found is Myxer.com. Read their detailed instructions on how to download their free ringers to your phone.  It shouldn’t surprise you that their instructions are almost exactly like mine!

4) CREATE YOUR OWN RINGTONES!

Okay, so you want to do more than just add a song as a ringer… you want the phone to start ringing RIGHT when Juvenile says “Back that Ass Up!” … Fine. This is pretty easy, too, but may take a slight bit of time to get set up…
- CLICK HERE to go to the download site for a program called “Audacity.” No worries, it’s free.

- Open your favorite MP3 with Audacity, and edit it. (Recommended ringtone song clips are ~30 seconds)
- When you’re finished, connect your Pre to the computer in “USB Mode.”
- Under the file menu of Audacity, click “File”, then “Export as MP3.”
- If you get some message about a missing “lame encoder” that needs to be downloaded, don’t fret… the folks over at Audacity explain how to do it (and why it’s necessary).  It’s easy, just one extra step. You’ll only have to do it this once! Click here to download the lame encoder.
- Okay… now export the MP3 to your Palm Pre’s “Ringtones” folder. You’re done!

THAT’S IT FOR NOW! TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR LOTS MORE GOOD STUFF… If you have any more questions drop me a tweet! … @vara411