Palm Pre WebOS 1.2 Update Available Today

For those of you without a Pre, this means nothing. For the rest of you, the latest WebOS update is finally here. This adds a few things that I'm glad are here like copy and paste within applications and an updated App Catalog. Just go to "Updates" from your Pre's launcher and download the approx. 74Mb update.

webOS 1.2.0

• Version information
  
• New applications
  
• Feature changes to existing applications
  

Version information

• Version: webOS 1.2.0
  
• Release date: 28 September 2009
  

New applications

NONE

Feature changes to existing applications

Amazon MP3

• Songs can now be purchased from Amazon MP3 over a phone network connection. A Wi-Fi connection is no longer required.
  

App Catalog

• In preparation for e-commerce in the App Catalog, to purchase apps, you can enter credit card information by selecting Preferences & Accounts from the application menu in App Catalog. Credit card information is stored with the Palm profile, not on the phone. You can choose whether you need to enter their Palm profile password each time you make a purchase, or for the first purchase in any four-hour window.
  
• If you want to reinstall a purchased application you previously deleted, you can open App Catalog, search for the application, tap the app name, and tap Download again for free. You do not need to pay for the application again.
  
• A new Share button enables you to send a link to the app page in an email or text message.You can select whether to enter comments anonymously, using your first and last name, or using your first initial and last name.
  
• You must accept an end-user license agreement to purchase apps.
  

Backup

• Web browser bookmarks are now backed up to your Palm profile. After a restart or partial/full erase, the bookmark is restored in Web when you go to the web page.
  

Bluetooth

• If you are on the phone, get in a car with a previously paired car kit, and turn on the car, a notification appears asking whether you want to continue talking directly into the phone, or transfer the call to the car kit. Previously, the call was automatically transferred to the car kit.
  
• The types of car kits to which contacts can be transferred has been increased. You can transfer contacts to Toyota and Lexus car kits.
  
• You can make a Bluetooth connection to a computer even if the computer's Bluetooth device name field is blank.
  

Calendar

• On the event details screen, the Map Location application menu item is now called Event Location and has two submenu options: Show On Map, which displays the location in Google Maps, and Get Directions, which provides directions from the current location in Google Maps.
  
• The options for changing a calendar's display color and choosing whether to show or hide a calendar in All Calendars view are now accessed by opening the application menu > Preferences & Accounts > Calendar View Options, or by tapping the Calendar View Options list item in the list where you switch between All Calendars and an individual calendar.
  
• If you tap Snooze on a calendar event notification, the notification no longer reappears after the event end time.
  
• If a calendar note contains a phone number, you can tap the number to dial it.
  
• In Day view, you can press and hold the orange key/Option and tap an event to delete the event. Options displayed include deleting just this event or deleting the whole series for recurring events.
  
• Calendar now recognizes the 7th day of a given month as the first Monday/Tuesday/etc. of that month, not the second. If you choose a repeat option for an event on the 7th, the list correctly shows the option Monthly on 1st [day]. Previously, the repeat list for an event on the 7th of the month showed the option Monthly on 2nd [day].
  
• Untimed events included in calendar data migration from your desktop now appear on the correct date in Calendar.
  
• If you create an all-day event and then switch the phone's time zone, the event continues to display correctly.
  
• When you select a month for a birthday, the month displays correctly.
  
• Responses to meeting invitations are correctly sent back to the organizer. If the organizer of an event requests not to receive responses, responses are not sent to the organizer.
  

Clock

• The volume of alarms set in clock matches the ringtone volume, not the system sounds volume.
  

Contacts

• On a contact details screen, a Send Contact option is available on the application menu, with options to send the contact to a car kit or send it as a vCard attachment to an email or multimedia message.
  
• On a contact details screen, a Copy All option is now available on the Edit submenu in the application menu. Selecting this option copies the entire contents of the contact entry as plain text.
  
• LinkedIn is now available as an online account in Contacts. As with Facebook, a LinkedIn account set up on the phone enables you to download contacts from that account. LinkedIn contacts cannot be created or edited in Contacts.
  
• If a contact contains an instant messaging (IM) address, the contact is linked to the IM account buddy entry.
  

Email

• You can search for messages in any email folder simply by opening the folder and typing. Search returns any matches found in the subject, From, To, or CC field.
  
• If a message contains an inline image, you can act on the image by pressing and holding the orange key/Option and tapping the image. For all images, an option appears to share the image as an attachment to an email message. If the image is in JPG, BMP, or PNG format, a second option appears to copy the image to the Photos app.
  
• Support for paragraph text selection, copy, and paste is now available in Email. A yellow highlight appears to indicate paragraph selection.
  
• If you have multiple Exchange accounts, you can now use Exchange policies on all these accounts; previously this was restricted to one account. Additionally, IT administrators no longer have to deselect "allow non-provisionable devices" on the Exchange server in order for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync policies to work on the phone.
  
• If you change synchronization of email in a POP account to Manual, the account no longer continues to sync email automatically.
  
• When addressing a message, searching for a linked contact whose contact entry does not contain a complete last name (such as John S.) now returns the contact match correctly.
  
• When you accept a meeting invitation, the response is now correctly sent.
  
• Forwarded messages now correctly display the original message text with the formatting maintained.
  
• When you save an attached file—for example, a Word file attachment saved to Doc View—the file appears with the correct name in the application.
  
• An error message appears if you cannot send a message from an Exchange account because the account mailbox is full.
  
• The Email application always enforces EAS security policies—such as entering a password—when you try to access your Exchange account in Email.
  

Media Sync

• Media sync now allows for synchronizing photos without requiring the full-resolution originals. This provides faster display of high-quality full screen images and enables you to store more photos on the phone.
  

Memos

• Tapping text in a memo moves the cursor to the point that was tapped.
  
• When you send a memo using the Email Memo menu option, the memo formatting is maintained in the copied memo.
  

Messaging

• When you are in a conversation with an IM buddy, the buddy's online status and custom message are displayed on the conversation screen.
  
• In Conversations view, a Copy All option is now available on the Edit submenu in the application menu. Selecting this option copies the entire contents of the conversation as plain text.
  
• When addressing a message, searching for a linked contact whose contact entry does not contain a complete last name (such as John S.) now returns the contact match correctly.
  
• If a contact contains an instant messaging (IM) address, the contact is linked to the IM account buddy entry.
  
• You can receive vCard contact entries as part of a multimedia message.
  

Music

• If playback of an audio file is paused or interrupted, when you resume playback, playback resumes at the point where it was paused. This applies to audio files for which the Genre field is defined as podcast, speech, spoken word, netcast, or audiobook only.
  
• You can use music playback controls on the dashboard even if the screen is locked.
  
• If the ringer switch is turned off, music playback is not interrupted by an incoming call.
  

Phone

• You can now turn carrier data services on or off in the Phone application by opening the application menu > Preferences > Data Usage > tap on/off.
  
• Default ringtone volume has been increased.
  
• Adjusting the volume of a call now works even if the screen is off. Reducing the volume level to zero sets the call volume to zero.
  
• Contact entries in the call log now show both the phone number and type.
  

Photos

• The Photos app can now display photos in JPG, BMP, and PNG format.
  

Sprint Navigation

• Sprint Navigation now pulls Google contacts from the phone, as well as Exchange and Palm profile contacts.
  

System

• You can open either the application or connection menu by dragging down from the upper corner of the phone onto the screen, as well as tapping the upper corner of the screen.
  
• When you press and hold the orange key/Option and drag onscreen, the cursor now moves one word at a time instead of one character at time in Email, Memos, and other apps. The cursor still moves one character at a time in the Web address bar and Messaging body text entry field.
  
• Notifications, including incoming phone calls, now show above the onscreen lock icon, so they can be seen when the keyboard is locked.
  
• Notification sounds play softly when you are on a call, regardless of the system sounds setting.
  
• If you copy text from an application and open the Launcher, you can paste the text to start a universal search.
  
• Universal search contact matches include an Add Reminder option that allows you to add a reminder to the contact.
  
• In universal search, pressing the orange key/Option + a letter key now searches on the letter key's alternate character (for example, 5 for F), not on the letter key.
  
• In universal search, you can enter keywords to search for applications. For example, entering "addresses" returns Contacts, "SMS" returns Messaging, and "pictures" returns Photos.
  

Tasks

• Tasks that are assigned a category now retain the category when they synchronize between the phone and your desktop. Other information including start date, status, reminder setting, and privacy setting is also retained.
  
• A new Hide Completed menu option is available. If you select this option and mark a task as completed, the task disappears from the current view.
  
• A menu in the upper-right corner of the screen showing all tasks enables you to sort tasks by due date or priority. You can also manually reorder the tasks.
  

Web

• The browser now supports downloading files from a web page. To download a file, tap the file name.
  
• The browser now supports paragraph selection, cut, copy, and paste on web page text. A yellow highlight appears to indicate paragraph selection.
  
• You can press and hold the orange key/Option and tap a link or image. Options displayed include opening the item in a new card, sharing the link or image via email, or copying the URL. For images in JPG, BMP, or PNG format, an additional option to copy the image to the Photo app is displayed.
  
• If you tap on a text field, the page zooms to a level at which it is easy to read the text being entered.
  
• If you copy text in the address bar or in the body text of a web page, a notification appears stating that the text was copied.
  
• You can accept self-signed certificates through the browser.
  

Security

This release addresses several security issues with Palm webOS software.

Palm Pre and iPhone Top Market Mindshare

If you haven't heard me say it by now, I love my Palm Pre. As a power user of many gadgets I have come to know exactly what I want a device to do and how well I think it should do said function. I've tried many devices and without a doubt the Palm Pre and iPod Touch are two of the best devices I've ever owned. They are intuitive, functional, stable, and they just seem to do things right.

At current time, the iPhone is obviously the most sought after phone available and for very good reason. About the only flaw I see with an iPhone is Apple's decision to go exclusively with AT&T and their terrible data network. The best alternative for a phone that shows as much promise as the iPhone is the Palm Pre, and it is evidenced in the following case study:
PDF: Signature Smartphones: Gaining Mindshare in Order to Gain Market Share

To sum it up, the report reveals how Palm has managed to get a huge slice of mindshare with the Pre despite being massively disadvantaged in the market. It is second only to the iPhone 3GS in the metric, which looks at three driving factors behind smartphone purchasing decisions: 1. A belief that the phone is "smart", 2. A belief that the phone is "hip or cool", and 3. The belief that the phone will make them more productive.

They rated lots of phones ranging from the BlackBerry Curve and Storm, to the Google G1, and Windows Mobile phones. The report found that only the iPhone and the Pre balanced the three factors so well that they actually deserve the price tags associated with the devices. In fact, only the Pre and the iPhone were able to even strike a balance of the factors at all, the other phones were lopsided in their balances.

There's not much more info in the study, but it is interesting to see how Palm managed to put itself back into the forefront of handheld devices. I guess having a product that is actually cool helps a lot.

Kanye West Will Let You Finish…

So by now I'm sure you all have heard about Kanye's latest award show antics, but if not, here's a quick rundown.

This year at the MTV Video Music Awards, the award for best female music video was given to 19 year old Taylor Swift. She won against Beyonce and some others. Taylor was extremely humble and surprised. In giving her acceptance speech she was saying how shocking it was for a country artist to win that award. She starts thanking people and Kanye storms the stage and snatches the mic from her in mid-speech. He says "Taylor, I'm really happy for you, and I'm gonna let you finish…..but Beyonce had one of the best videos of ALL TIME!", shrugs, then walks off stage to an eruption of boos. Taylor Swift just stood there and had no idea what to say or do. They panned to Beyonce and she looked mortified! She's obviously far too classy of a woman to appreciate what 'Ye did. He got kicked out of the show right after and immediately it seemed like the entire world was fed up with him. Here's the scene:

(Captions anyone? LOL)

At the end of the show, Beyonce won the award for video of the year, the main award, making it absolutely pointless that she didn't win the best female video award and making Kanye's actions even more senseless. Beyonce said she remembered being 17 and being nominated for her first VMA with Destiny's Child. She remembered how special that moment was to her and then told Taylor Swift to come out and have her moment. Beyonce gave up her time so that Taylor Swift could come out and gives her speech. Very cool on Beyonce's part.

Kanye immediately posted an apology on his blog during the show, and another one on the next day. Coincidentally Kanye was to be on Jay Leno's new show with Jay-Z and Rihanna performing Jay's new single. Instead of cancelling (as celebrities do with public appearances when drama pops off) he held the commitment and appeared on the show. Jay gave Kanye some time to talk about it and even asked him, "what would your mother think, and what would she say to you?" Kanye knew the answer to the question but struggled to say it. He seemed remorseful for his actions IMO, but I believe part of it has to do with him realizing he was dead wrong and part of it has to do with the huge backlash he's getting. Either way, he seems really sorry and has since reached out directly to Taylor Swift and apologized directly to her. She forgave him and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they're going to work on a song together.

So of course the internet has been going crazy with the jokes as it does anytime someone does something completely beyond stupid and as a result, some hilarious pics are coming out featuring Kanye and his now famous "I'm gonna let you finish, but…" phrase.

Enjoy:

Even President Obama laughed at the stupidity:
Obama says Kanye's a jackass

My Co-worker’s Car Makes the Cover of EuroBerge Magazine!

 

Arapahoe County's very own Michael Suoo from A/D Works made the cover of EuroBerge magazine with his Mini Cooper. He's had the ECU reflashed and keeps the exterior in stunning condition. Mini Coopers are pretty fun to drive and Michael's is no exception. The car has had the ECU reflashed and the car tuned by Revolution Mini Works and he's about to put a turbo-back exhaust on it. Currently it has a whopping 261 ft. lbs. of toque but a turbo waste-gate issue is keeping the horsepower down to only 191 HP. He's getting that fixed though and the HP will increase once that's done. He says even the wife is impressed with the modification and performance of the car. "It's harder to take the keys out of her hands now…" he says. I'll bet.

You can check out the entire issue online here: http://euroberge.com/?p=20
or here: http://issuu.com/euroberge/docs/euroberge_issue4_high?mode=embed&layout=http%3A%2F%2Fskin.issuu.com%2Fv%2Flight%2Flayout.xml&showFlipBtn=true

Congrats Michael! Nice car.

 

2009 CAMA Tournament Sparring Vids

In case you missed it, here are the full results of the tournament. As promised, I posted up the videos of the sparring matches from our tournament. Here they are in all their Youtube glory!

DMAC 1^st match of the day. He went on to win the gold in sparring

Here's RMAC making light work of his opponent in the finals of his division

This is my instructor and sparring/competition team coach Stan-O in the black headgear and an instructor from another school in the white headgear. This was the final match in the Black Belt division...I think Stan got robbed, but I can admit I'm probably a little biased. Who won? You judge...

My semi-finals match against Jeremiah, a fellow FMAC'er

The finals. JMAC v Esco

The match went to sudden death overtime. Unfortunately I do not have the video of the sudden death round, but I swear I won! LOL J

Weezer and Blink-182 at Fiddler’s Green

Over the weekend we hit up the Weezer and Blink-182 show at Fiddler's Green in Denver, CO. Chester French and Taking Back Sunday were also there. Great show!

We got to the venue about an hour early…forgot the tickets though! DOH! Had to run back home and grab them so we missed the first band, Chester French. We claimed our spot (lawn seats) before Taking Back Sunday performed though so it turned out to be all good!

There was quite a line of people trying to get in, apparently we weren't the only ones who didn't really care about missing Chester French.

The tour busses:

Almost inside!!

As the band Taking Back Sunday played, the sun created a gorgeous backdrop:

I didn't even know who these guys were or any of their songs. As they played though I think I recognized one of the songs. These guys were pretty good and I'm gonna check out more of their music for sure.

I personally wanted to see Weezer more than Blink-182 and their set was way cool! They played a lot of songs I knew, Troublemaker, Pork and Beans, My Name Is Jonas, Buddy Holly, Island In The Sun, and Beverly Hills just to name a few. They rocked, and Rivers Cuomo was way entertaining, very animated, dancing awkwardly, and at one point even "tripped" on stage.

Their backdrop was a big yellow thing that said Weezer on it and it changed colors as they performed songs from either the Red, Blue, or Green albums.

Here's the band rockin out. I snuck down to the side area to capture this shot:

This is a shot from our spot on the lawn:

Couple pics of the fam:

We all were having a GREAT time at the show!

Weezer killed it for sure! Now we were waiting for the headliners, Blink-182.

Finally Blink-182 comes on and gets right into it. They did a lot of their most popular songs and mixed in 2-3 less known tracks. We all love Travis Barker and were super excited to see him the most. He KILLED it the entire time.

Blink-182 was pretty entertaining. Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge bantered back and forth between just about every song making mom jokes and other juvenile humor-ish comments. DeLonge kept talking about how he wanted to hook up with John Elway and at one point they broke out into a random group hug. They also kept commenting on the smoky haze that blanketed the venue, "we've heard stories about Denver…" they said. J

The actual music performance was phenomenal and the crowd was really feelin it.

They played the "last song" and closed the curtains but the crowd stayed there cheering and screaming for more. After about 2 minutes of cheering and screaming the curtain opens back up and out comes Travis on a rolling stage!! He starts into a drum solo that lasted for about 3+ minutes where the stage raised up about 20 ft. off the ground and then swung from one side to the other. Then the stage started spinning around (all this was at a slow speed) and Travis was just playing this SICK solo the whole time. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen!

Posted it up on Youtube, check it out:

Travis Barker Flying Drum Solo:

Overall it was a real cool show and the whole family had a great time. It was my first time at a concernt that wasn't R&B or Hip Hop and I must say, I was more entertained at this concert than I have been at most of the rap shows I've been to. I loved all the energy the bands put into their performances and while I'm glad that I saw Blink-182 (mainly Travis Barker) I'm really happy that I got to see Weezer.

Mac Family Hosts Labor Day Weekend BBQ

Thank you to everyone who came to our BBQ this weekend. We had tons of great food and me and the family will be eating leftover BBQ for a few days. I had a great time and I hope you all did too. Didn't get as many photos as I would have liked to, but I got some keepers for sure.

Enjoy!

Brandy and Sophia

RMAC and Auntie

Three of my nieces

RMAC and cousin Isiah

Hangin' out with a couple Guitar Heroes! Check youtube for beberle2 and dmac1999 if you wanna see these guys get down. They're INSANE good.

There's BMAC and his cousin hugging him standing along with RMAC and his pals.

That's a mean crew right there. From left to right: Vic, Jay, Esco, Tee AKA Dirty AKA Caddyryda, and yours truly.

Had to get big Pat in there too!

Cousin James loved the food! That was a bomb pork chop there!

Brandy's brother Jason and our newest niece

Hangin out in the back yard.

Again, a big thanks to everyone who came. It was really nice hanging out and having fun together. Can't wait for the next one!