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As many other people have been, since it was announced, I’ve been obsessed with reading everything I can on the Palm Pre

With the Pre comes the whole new WebOS, a completely brand new operating system.
Among many other things the OS treats applications as ‘cards’ that can me shuffled, flicked off the screen to close and represent your currently running application.

Well, a little bit ago my iPhone died so I’ve been using my friend’s Treo 650, so that’s how I came accross TealOS.

TealOS is a WebOS-like launcher for the Palm that kind of gives a glimpse of a portion of what’s coming with the upcoming Palm Pre.

Loading the launcher is just like any other application, you just install the prc, through HotSync, on your Treo or Centro and launch it.

When you first run it, it will set itself as the default launcher, but that can easily be undone through the ‘Tool’ Menu

On initial launch you’re greeted with the main launcher window that has status at the top such as; Time, mute icon, bluetooth status, signal bars and battery status.
Along the bottom is a quick launch bar that has, by default; phone, Contacts, Messaging, Calendar and Launch window.

The application buttons launch directly into those apps, where the launcher icon brings up the full screen launcher. You can also access this launcher by swiping up from the bottom of the screen to the top.

What about the ‘wave’ launcher that’s on the Pre?
Yep, it’s there too.. animated and everything and it looks beautiful.

The great thing is that all of the launcher options are 100% customizable, in that you can add whatever apps you want to the launchers!

When you launch an app it launches as it normally would, then when you exit the application it shows as the ‘cards’ like on the pre / WebOS.

Once you’re at the card window you can move them around, move back and forth between them and flick them up to close the app.. all the cool stuff you saw in the Palm Pre videos.

I’m using it on a Treo 650, so it’s a little sluggish at times, but it’s still a VERY well done launcher and they put a lot of time into the design and customizations; there’s menu items for just about everything.

There is a downside:
Palm forced teal to stop selling the app so, as of March 30 2009, you can no longer buy it.

It can, however, be found out on the net if you know where to look, but you’ll have to figure that one out yourself.

I have been a BIG fan of Apple products over the past few years.

About a year ago I owned an iMac, a MacBook, an iPhone, two Airport Extremes and an Aiport Express… now, I still have the iPhone and the Airport Express.

The iMac:
I wanted to upgrade things like my hard drive and video, so I built a custom ‘Hackintosh’ to run Leopard on it. I got it working, but also installed Vista on the machine to dual boot… well, Vista is MUCH faster on this machine than Leopard was.
Now Leopard isn’t even on the machine anymore, just Vista and Ubuntu

The MacBook:
I just needed a basic laptop, but Apple doesn’t make a basic laptop so I sold the Macbook, bought and Acer Aspire One.

The Airport Extremes:
These things are just HORRIBLE.
I had two hooked together and got REALLY low throughput (2.5 MBps), plus the one hooked to my cable modem would lock up all the time with large transfers and streaming media.

Because there is no external antenna, the range is REALLY limited, which is one of the reasons to go with 802.11n. Because of the limited range, that also affects the transfer rate.

I bought a $60 Airlink Wireless N router and get more than twice the transfer rate and haven’t had any lockups since I got it.

The iPhone:
I love it, it’s a fantastic device but it will most likely be going on Ebay when the Palm Pre comes out.

The Airport Express:
This is a great little device.

I’m by no means ANTI Apple, but there are severe limitations in a lot of their hardware and they’re mostly just pretty… they’re really not any better than some lower price stuff you can buy or build yourself.

As far as OSX, it’s time for an overhaul.. the OS is just stale and getting a bit old.
My install did lock up and crash, regardless of what they tell you, it’s susceptible to the same problems as any other OS.
Can’t say there’s no viruses for OSX anymore, a Trojan hidden in a iLife 09 torrent has been all over the news. While I don’t condone piracy of any kind, it’s still the first major “virus” for the Mac OS.
Snow Leopard is supposed to be an overhaul from a speed perspective, hopefully it is.

Anyway, I used to be Pro Apple and LOVE everything they did. Now I’m indifferent and see that their stuff is pretty but not really any better than any other product.

[starreview]

First Spore Origins came out for the iPhone, which focuses on the first stage of the full blown Spore.

Then on 9/7/2008 the full blown Mac / PC version was released. Not only is it supported for both Operating Systems, but it’s just one disk that has both versions.

There are several stages that you bring your creature through, from an amoeba to a space faring civilization.

Each stage is a different type of gameplay.

• ‘Cell’ stage – Like an old school arcade game, eat the good stuff and avoid the bad guys.
• ‘Creature’ stage – 3D game (almost a first person shooter). You can make friends or make / attack you enemies.
• ‘Tribal’ stage – Real Time Strategy (RTS) game with limited weapons
• ‘Civilization’ stage – RTS with more weapons, vehicles (air, see and land) and spice mining
• ‘Space’ stage – Space exploration and trading. Again make friends / allies and enemies.

I’ve read some complaints that the different stages aren’t as good as other games that do that type of game. For instance the Civlization RTS isn’t done as well as a full blown RTS game. They’re right, it doesn’t and it’s not meant to be.

It’s important to look at Spore as a whole game, not the individual stages.

The most fun part about Spore is you build you creatures and items as you go.

In the early stages you evolve your creature as it grows to make it more adaptable. In the later stages, you build your buildings and vehicles.

Along these lines, there’s also the Sporepedia. This is an online database of things that other players have built that you can download and use in your game!

For me, I played with the creation tool for a while, but in the later levels I would just go to the Sporepedia and browse through the thousands of creations out there until I found one I like.

This game is a blast as you can follow your creature up through the different layers of evolution and shape the path you want the creature to go down – You can have a peaceful herbivores, war-like carnivores, explorers, etc… or any combination of them, it all depends on your (creature’s) actions.

I personally love the game, the Space stage is my favorite but I really loved all the stages.

This is definitely a game I could see myself playing over and over, creating more creatures and leading them down different paths.

[starreview]

My family and I recently went out of town on vacation and the one thing we forgot; our sound machine.

Over the past few years we’ve gotten so used to having a sound machine that I usually set a radio to a static station when I’m out of town on business.

Thanks to Ambiance, I don’t need to do that anymore.

I downloaded the app from the App Store and was really impressed with the number of audio samples an the quality of them.
Plus the option to set a timer and / or use it as an alarm clock is just beautiful!

This is a new one for my iPhone top 10.
Below are some screenshots I just took.

[starreview]

I have been keeping my eyes on SplashMoney in the app store for a few weeks now.

A lot of people wrote some negative stuff about it and they haven’t released the Mac desktop client yet, so I decided to hold off.

The thing is I’m going out of town and needed a money manager…. In fact I’m in the airport right now, using the Wordpress app, on the airport’s free wireless… Sweet…

Anyway, a new version of the app was released (4.02) that is supposed to have fixed a lot of issues.

I downloaded the app, entered all my account info and the app ROCKS.
For me it has been very stable, is very fast and is more feature-rich than most desktop apps I’ve used!

It has budget setting and tracking, you can get graphs of where you’re spending your money and it has multiple types of accounts,so far I’m lovin’ it!