My quick and dirty review of the Palm Pre

A friend of mine who works for Sprint asked me through Facebook today how I liked my Palm Pre. It’s been two weeks and one conference since I bought it, so here’s what I told him. This is directly copy/pasted from my comments on FB. If I’m inclined, I’ll add some screen shots, pics and more updates to this later. Feel free to ask me questions in the comments.

hmmmmm…okay. Overall, I LOVE it. Such a vast improvement over PalmOS (or POS as I like to call it). Email handling is awesome, Calendar is fantastic, the camera is great, contacts are great, web browsing is excellent.

You can load mp3s as ringtones…very cool. You can take screen shots (which I have since forgotten how). The flash on the camera has made me the envy of many iPhone users.

The app store is still lacking in a wide range of apps. Most of them are tools to use in place of visiting websites (craigslist, opentable, etc). I’m hoping that there will be camera apps and other functionality apps in the future.

Where is it lacking? Cursor placement can be very frustrating. You have to tap very precisely to move the cursor to the beginning of a line and I miss most of the time. There’s no joystick ring around the one button to aid in cursor movement, which is stupid imho.

Also, You can’t highlight text you’re not typing. So, if there’s something in an email you want to copy paste into a text message, you’re SOL. I hope that changes soon. You can copy text in a text edit area.

I’d also like to be able to map the virtual camera shutter button on the screen to the actual button on the phone face. It’s incredibly difficult to snap a self portrait….or a pic with a friend. I wound up looking like a tard several times last week at the conference I attended because of this.

Oh, and big whoopsie. I forgot to mention battery life. The Pre is always updating, syncing, checking email. Definitely buy the car charger to juice up on the road. And always plug it in at night. The battery goes from completely dead to full charge in about 3 hours. I made it about 6 hours of what I’d consider heavy use on a charge.

There are some extended life batteries out there, but none made by palm yet, so I’m going to wait…wouldn’t want to void my warranty or insurance.

I haven’t splurged for the touchstone yet, so I can’t tell you about that.

USB and media sync are pretty rad. iTunes recognizes it as an iPod and iPhoto sees it as a camera, so very easy to sync/import.

Thanks to (jeff)isageek for inadvertently prompting me to write a blog post.

Google AdWords Email Phishing Scam

Thanks to @aimclear for being quick to post the info on this scam. Here’s an email that I wrote to all of my AdWords clients based on the tweets that @aimclear posted with the text from the email he received. Feel free to copy and reuse for your clients.

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Dear Client,

I’ve heard from colleagues today that there is a phishing scam targeting Google AdWords account users. This scam is an email with the following (or similar) text:

" Dear Client, Your Google Adwords account has expired. You must renew it immediately or your account will be closed. If you intend to use this service in the future, you must take action at once!. To continue click here, login to your Google Adwords account . Thank you for using Google Adwords! Google Adwords Services DEP. COPYRIGHT Google Adwords Services 2009 (C) "

The email includes a link that will take you to a log in page that looks no different from the Google AdWords log in page you are familiar with. Please do not log into your account via this link. The URL is *not* on Google’s secure servers.

If you think that you’ve been a victim of the scam, please try to log into your account immediately via https://adwords.google.com and change your password. If you are unable to log in, please contact me as soon as possible and I will contact a Google representative on your behalf.

Thanks,
Sally Burke
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Spinach and Artichoke Casserole

spinach and artichoke casserole

1-12 ounce jar marinated artichoke hearts
40 ounces frozen chopped spinach
1 large onion, chopped
5 tablespoons butter
4 eggs, beaten
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons garlic salt
1 1/2 cups Parmesan/Romano grated cheese
2 to 3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 cup fresh bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350f degrees. Lightly spray 9×13 glass casserole with non-stick spray.

1. Defrost spinach in microwave or on range top. Once defrosted, spoon spinach into a strainer and press as much liquid as possible out. Transfer spinach to a mixing bowl.

2. Drain artichoke hearts in strainer and press as much oil out as possible. Add to bowl with spinach.

3. Saute onion in 4 tablespoons of butter over medium heat until translucent and soft. Add onions to Spinach and artichokes.

4. In small mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, sour cream, cheese, garlic salt and lemon juice. Pour over spinach mixture and combine well. Transfer mixture to greased casserole dish.

5. In pan that onions were sauteed in, add last tablespoon of butter and melt over medium heat. Add breadcrumbs and toss to coat. Sprinkle buttered breadcrumbs over top of casserole.

6. Bake for 20 – 30 minutes.

Notes: This casserole can be made ahead and refrigerated. Just leave the breadcrumbs off until ready to bake. I usually leave the breadcrumbs off until the last 10 minutes of baking so they don’t over brown. I’ve had times where I didn’t drain the spinach enough and there was liquid on the top of the casserole…just keep baking until it evaporates.