If you have read anything on my site you know that I have the Palm Pre. I have had it for quite a while now and did an extensive review of the device. Through the short time that I have owned this device I have had quite a few problems. At first it was the Oreo Effect and the Volume Key sticking. These may seem like small problems to you but once you experience them they are not. When the volume key is stuck you cannot get the device to do anything because it constantly interrupts you to show that the volume is increasing or decreasing.

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I am not going to outline all of the details of what took place in this post. Rather I am going to be posting the entire letter that I am sending to the Board of Trustees or CEO of Sovereign Bank. The activity outlined in the document that is being sent unprofessional to the point that I never want to even hear the name Sovereign again. Please read the letter to read about a very detailed incident that took place this morning at one of my local branches. To read the document click the following link: Sovereign Bank Experience

** UPDATE **
About an hour after I sent that letter to corporate I was again called back by the gentleman named Craig. When asked he informed me that Jonathan is *not* a member of the management team and that he was going to take care of this issue to his fullest extent. He told me that he could not tell me what actions would be taken due to corporate policies. I explained that I was not trying to tell him how to do his job and was not saying fire the guy. All I want done is whatever your corporate guidelines mandate. If that means he will get written up then that’s what it means. If it means he gets fired then so be it. However I wanted something done. He apologized deeply and stated that he knows I am not a customer of the bank but if I go into that branch (or any other) and do not receive amazing service he wants to hear about it. I am going to let things be as they should after a situation like this but I can sleep now knowing that something will be done because at-least now Craig’s bosses know about this situation so he will have to do something.

Once the AppStore opened on the Palm Pre I put my card in place so that I could order apps that I may want. In the past I have had no problems while purchasing apps. I have bought Tweed, Spot the missing pieces, JogStats, Air Hockey, Spot the Difference, and Conmigo. However while on the train this morning I decided to buy an app and as an end user it seemed like everything went smooth. It asked for my palm password, asked if I wanted to purchase the app and then it downloaded the app. Nothing out of the ordinary happened during the transaction, however when I got to the office this morning this is what I found in my in-box.

Transaction Failure Notice

Your previous transaction could not be processed. Please contact your financial institution should you have any questions.

You will still be able to purchase more applications in the Palm App Catalogue in the future. To do so, update the payment information in your account before placing a new order.

We appreciate your patience and hope you continue to enjoy using the Palm App Catalogue.

Best regards,
Palm App Catalogue Team

It seems like Palm is allowing all transactions failed or not to actually download the app as if it were paid for… Let’s hope they fix this problem real soon, I have already reported this to the palm app catalogue support team.

** UPDATE **
On a side note Palm, I suggest that you look into other live chat applications for your website. Using something that is Windows only is not very smart since there are a lot of Linux / Mac desktops out there now. I had to load up Vista in a Virtual Machine just to contact your support reps. At the very least provide an email address where your support staff can be contacted. I searched for support and all I came up with was the Live Chat with your reps.

If you have never heard of DropBox then you have been missing out. It is a file synchronization service which allows you to have 2GB of free space on their servers. The BEST news is that it has clients for Windows, Mac and Linux. When you install DropBox on your computers it reaches out to their servers and synchronizes your computer with the server. I am not exactly sure how all of the internals work this is just from my perception. The more computers you add the better things get. For me I have both computers at home linked and also my work computer. When I add a file to my DropBox at work it is synchronized with my other computers so when I get to them the files are just there.

There are many reasons why you would want to use this service. What if you wanted to have all of the books you bought that came with digital copies accessible by you from any computer you install DropBox on. What if you have files that you need both at home and on the go? A mock-up for a client that you created at home or work and when you go there with your laptop you don’t have to worry about making sure it’s on the laptop, no fumbling with cd’s etc. The files are synchronized and you are all set to go and show the client on-site.

There are a few things I think they could do better with the service and I will outline them here. You can share folders with other DropBox users however you cannot share a sub-folder. This should be corrected, if I wanted to share a single file with another user I have to create a folder and share that folder with them. Why did they not make a shared folder under your user account that would have sub-folders for the users who are sharing with you? I could see something like /Shared/User1/[files here], /Shared/User2/[files here]. When you share a folder with another user they also have the ability to delete the files. I don’t want to share a lot of files with a friend to find out they got mad one day and deleted all the files now I don’t have them. They could work on this sharing system and I would hope that one day they will implement a permissions system. UserA has the ability to read/write and UserB has the ability to read only. Something like this would boost my interest in the system even more.

When you share files with a friend it also consumes space in their DropBox account. So let me get this right the files are stored on the server once but if you share the folder with 5 people all 6 of you are taxed for the space those files take up on the disk. This seems bad to me because the files are in my account. I shared them with the other 5 users, why are they getting billed for the space as well?

Even with the few things mentioned above they have the VoteBox which is where you as a member can go vote on features that you want the developers to work on next. Whatever features are ranked the highest is what they work on next. I love this idea as it brings the community into the development process.

I have personally been using DropBox Since March of 2009 so I am not just blindly asking people to sign-up for a useless service. This is a service that I really find useful and would like to have all of my readers at-least try out.

If you have not tried DropBox yet I urge you to get an account and install the software. If you don’t like it I would love to hear why. I love using DropBox personally but even if you don’t please at-least install the software and link it to your account. I will get 250MB of free space for each person that does so. YOU will also get 250MB extra free. Sign-up and invite your friends you can increase your storage space up to 5GB from the 2GB that you get for free.

After buying the Palm Pre last month and discovering Pandora Radio I just had to find a bluetooth headset to use with the device that would allow for listening to music and for making/receiving calls. I was using some cheap wired headphones that I would have to unplug every-time a call came in. I would also have to unplug the phone from the computer and try to answer the call. Most of the time I would either be too late answering the call or I would hit the wrong button and ignore the call. I needed an easy way to answer calls and listen to music. Introduce the Plantronics Voyager 855.

I was browsing around the internet looking for a bluetooth headset that would first of all support music. Finding one that came in stereo was even better. I am not sure I would be able to listen to music in one ear leaving the other wide open to surrounding noise. At first I thought I was going to have to wear one of the over the head style headsets like I had owned in the past. However Plantronics has engineered a headset that allows you to use it in one ear, or you can attach the adapter that gives you the earbud for the second ear. So let’s move on to the review.

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With the release of the Palm Pre it seems like everyone is trying to learn how to develop applications for the platform. I have found some great resources on-line for using if you wish to learn how to develop your own applications.

I will start off by talking about The WebOS Book because that is the first thing I looked at. When I first looked at the book it was in the “Rough Cuts” phase which means the data is bound to be incorrect as they are still working on finalizing the book. The book was a mess when I first bought it, I tried to get through the first few chapters but I could not because the code would not work. In order to make the code work you had to do your research and that was tough to do since the on-line documentation was still in rough shape. I decided to stop using the book and wait until it was closer to a final version before writing a review on it, The other day they removed the book from the “Rough Cuts” phase. As of today I really am hoping that it is not on the way to the printing press because there are still quite a few errors in the book which I have reported in the Errata. Currently I have only gone through the first 100 pages of the book however I have found 15 errors which equates to be 1 error for every 6.6 pages. There are 2 different Errata sections for you to browse. The Confirmed Errata and the Unconfirmed Errata.

I am not going to say that this is a bad book however if you are just starting out you might find it to be quite difficult to make your way through this book. I have had to spend a lot of time debugging code that is in the book and also reading between the lines to fill in some code that was not provided when it should have been. If you do happen to fall upon one of these errors in the book I would suggest you check the Errata to see if someone else has hit the same problem and what they did to solve it. The WebOS Book has been very good at teaching you how to use widgets and explaining why they are having you do what they are. It seems to be very easy to follow. It is structured well so far meaning it is teaching you as if you knew nothing about Mojo or Pre Development which is the way it should be.

As I stated above I am not going to say that this is not a good book. I do however feel they have rushed the process a bit too much because I have never read a technical book that went to production with an error every 6.6 pages. Spelling errors are one thing but when you are missing code or providing code that will not run, that is another. I am actually a bit upset that my printed version will have this many errors. I mean I bought the “Rough Cut” version which means I paid to help find and correct errors. I think this is a way the publishers are trying to save money. They do not have to pay several people to scour the book and find all the errors. People are paying to do that job. I am really hoping that this book is not on the way to the printing press but what can you do?

The next resource that I have found to be useful is Palm’s Developer Website. You can find documentation on the individual widgets as well as the Mojo Framework which will come in handy. The documentation is not in a book form so it is more of a reference you will find yourself visiting quite often.

The last resource has been the most valuable. The Unofficial IRC channels which you can find on the Freenode IRC Network. I have gotten help from several people there. The regulars in #webos are very knowledgeable when it comes to Mojo, if you are looking for deeper knowledge about the internals of the platform you can check out #webos-internals which goes beyond that and dives deep into the internals of the platform. I like IRC for help related questions because generally you get an answer in real time, like instant messaging except your message is seen by everyone in the room. Everyone on the IRC channel have been a great help to me as I go through the learning process.. For that A BIG Thank You goes out to the following people (no particular order): rwhitby, Templarian, blau-mikeDG, oc80z, PreGame, Pre101, PuffTheMagic, anyone else that I might have failed to list here.

One thing that I want to mention which is not a resource is actually a toolkit for use with the Komodo IDE. Templarian created the toolkit and is also working on a plug-in which makes development for palm WebOS much easier. Check it out by going to his website.

Over the last few weeks I have been fiddling with trying to learn how to develop applications on the WebOS platform that Palm released on their Palm Pre. If you are not familiar with WebOS it is an operating system that Palm, Inc. has created for the Palm Pre and their future line of phones. From this point forward they are not going to release a phone that is not running WebOS. This means that the old Palm OS is going away. You use technologies such as JavaScript, CSS, HTML to develop applications on the devices. Mojo is the JavaScript framework that allows you to access core functionality of the phone such as the location services, calendar, contacts, etc.

I have been looking through the applications source code for the apps that are bundled with the operating system when you buy a phone so that I can learn. I have also been reading the “rough cuts” version of the WebOS Book. The book has not been much help since it was in “rough cuts” which means it is still being written and a lot of the code was out of date as the framework continued to evolve as the book was being written. I believe the book is in production and if not will be soon. The latest version of the PDF still has some errors but they are not complete show stoppers while learning. I do suggest that if you own the book or are buying the book that you check both the Confirmed Errata and Unconfirmed Errata as well because I have found several errors even in the latest version over the last 2 days.

As I begin to learn more and more about the Mojo framework you will be able to find tutorials on my site. I will probably start out with the List widget because that was the first widget they created and the rest of the framework evolved around it. I want to dig into the API a bit deeper before I start writing anything to make sure that I completely understand how to use it and do not mislead anyone.

I do have my first app planned however I cannot reveal what it is going to be for fear someone else will steal the idea and release before I do. However if you are a designer and would like to partner with me on the project we could split the profits. I am learning more and more about CSS as I have been going but I have not used it on a daily basis so what you can do in 5 minutes would probably take me 20.

I am honestly amazed at the things you can do with JavaScript and am loving the fact that I can use this as an excuse to learn a lot more about it.bs

First I have to say I have not been following the rumours about the Pre so I was not that knowledgeable on what it was prior to last week. However I had been reading quite a bit on it lately and decided to go buy one a few nights ago. In this review I am going to cover both the Pro’s and Con’s that I have found.

In my opinion the phone is so great I am not even sure where to begin. The overall look and feel of the device is amazing. They definitely spent quite a bit of time on the design. They have said that the phone feels like a polished stone and the curvature of the device does make it sit well in the palm of your hand. I have noticed that the device does contain a proximity sensor and a light sensor which work as you would expect. When you put the phone to your ear the screen goes off to save on the battery power. On the top of the device there is the power button, a switch for turning the phone into silent mode and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. This means you can use any headphones with the unit rather than having to buy a special pair as most phones require.

I noticed that they had created “gestures” just like the iPhone has, you can zoom in and out by pinching your fingers, you flip through the cards by swiping your finger across the screen. This is all very nice and after seeing that I had to google only to find that Apple is suing them over Intellectual Property rights. I do feel however that the keyboard could have been made a bit larger. I personally have not had any problems with the keyboard myself but I could see some people having a bit of a hard time hitting the proper keys. I am actually amazed that I have had no problems, my fingers are not small and the keys are so it does have a good design to it. When you push the screen upwards to reveal the keyboard you will find that it gives you a hard time if you try to push up from the bottom of the screen. You actually have to place your thumb in the center of the screen and push up to get the nice smooth feel. On the left side of the device there are buttons to turn the volume up and down. On the right side there is a plug for the cable to connect it to your compute r or the AC adapter.

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I am writing this to let all of my readers know that I will be temporarily offline for a bit. Due to being out of work I have had to resort to turning off the internet and going to the coffee shop down the street to use the internet. If you are looking to talk to me about a potential Web Developer position you can grab my resume from the site. It contains all of my contact details.

I have been doing nothing more than interviewing the last few weeks. The interviews have all been set-up by technology recruiters for the most part. I am finding that I am being sent to interview for jobs that are not under my skill-set for the most part. For instance I interviewed with a company who told me the position was a front end developer position. I could have completed the tasks required for this position however when I was on the call I was asked only one question about front-end development.

Have you ever used the Blueprint CSS Framework?

I had never heard of this nor had I heard of a CSS Framework. Really all CSS is are definitions so a framework struck me as odd. I was also interviewed by a Java Developer who said our backgrounds have nothing in common so he was not sure what to ask me for questions. This is when I went over my background and what I had been working on.

My question for my readers is this. Since most interviews are not asking technical questions, how can I probe for them to show the Interviewer that I have the knowledge necessary for the position? What are your thoughts and what have your experiences been?