On Saturday, June 6th, Palm and Sprint released the Palm Pre. I’ve been waiting for this phone ever since it was announced at CES in January so I was pretty anxious to finally get my hands on it. So in this post I just want to give my thoughts about the Pre so far.
First off, I’ve been using the Palm Treo 755p for the last 2 years. Before that I used the Treo 700. So I’m somewhat familiar with Palm and was hoping the Pre would be able to live up to the hype.
Bottom line up front, this phone is awesome. Granted, it has its flaws but for version 1 of a phone (and a new OS to boot) it is amazing. Ok, now for a few things that I would like to see added or changed (I’ve been keeping a list as a memo on my phone):
1. The first thing I had was that the keys were not backlit because during the day you can’t tell at all. So I was very pleasantly surprised tonight when I opened my phone in the dark and saw that they are indeed backlit. So my first issue was fixed already :)
2. The only sounds that are able to be changed by the user are the ringtones. You cannot change any of the system sounds to include notifications, alarms and text messaging alerts. This is kind of a big deal to me because the text msg alert is just a brief beep and I usually end up missing it unless it’s relatively quiet where I’m at. So I would like to be able to change that sound to something more likely to catch my attention.
3. Along the same lines, the speaker is rather quiet. So ring tones, alerts, etc… are hard to hear.
4. It would be nice to have some kind of reminder for missed calls/messages. Granted there is a notification at the bottom but it doesn’t make any noise or vibrate or anything. So unless you turn on the screen you won’t see it. Perhaps this will be addressed by third party software because Butler accomplished this on the Palm OS.
5. When you are typing a text message there is no counter to keep track of how many characters you are typing. This is a big deal since text messages only allow 160 characters and Twitter only allows 140. So whenever I send a message to Twitter via text I never know if I went over the character limit.
6. Battery life leaves something to be desired. Today my battery only lasted maybe 7 hours with only moderate use. But I was roaming for about 2 hours so maybe this affected things. I’m hoping for a third party extended battery soon. Or maybe a firmware update will address this. And remember, even the iPhone had horrible battery life when it was first released.
7. The last thing on my list has also been fixed already. When I was roaming today I could not connect to any data network. So I thought maybe the Pre couldn’t roam for data. This would be a huge issue because the Pre loses a heck of a lot of functionality if it can’t connect to a network. But in the phone preferences there is a place to enable data roaming (it is disabled by default apparently).
I also wanted to cover a few apps. The app store is very nice and quite functional. I think once it is populated with more apps it will be top of the line. I think it’s just as nice if not nicer than the app store for the iPhone/iPod Touch. I only have a few apps so far but this is what I think of them:
Where – I think this app has potential but I couldn’t get it to work right. Today when I was in Charleston, SC it could never figure out where I was. It would just continue to search for my location. I tried to enter my location manually but I couldn’t get it to stop searching. So I just closed it and gave up.
Google Maps – Wow. This app is almost perfect. Very nice the way it finds me wherever I am and puts a little blue dot on my location. Easy to update my location and find things near me. I can search for something in the box at the top of the screen and Google Maps will find it and show me where it is and how to get there. My only issue was that sometimes if I left the app open and was doing other things, when I came back to the app it didn’t seem to want to update my location. But if I closed it and opened it back up it worked fine.
Pandora – Works just like you would expect. Almost identical to the web experience and other great app.
Tweed – This is a Twitter app. It does the job but it’s not as nice as Twitteriffic for the iPhone. But it is very useable until something else comes along.
Sprint Navigation – Works just like your portable GPS for your car. I’ve never used it before but it looks great on the Pre. Gives turn by turn directions via voice and even allows you to call in your destination so you don’t have to enter it by hand if you’re driving.
So that’s my opinion on the Pre so far. All the other nitty gritty info can be found on a plethora of other blogs so if you’re interested search through those (I highly recommend www.precentral.net). Even though I’ve only listed the bad things and the things I’d like to see changed, the list of good things greatly outweighs the bad. And 99% of the issues I have can be fixed with a firmware upgrade and/or third party program. So I fully expect this phone will only get better over time. I think Palm hit a home run with this one. Great job!
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Just wanted to mention that you can find me on Twitter as AllenKP. I am pretty late to the Twitter bandwagon but I have resisted for awhile because I never saw the reason for it. When my kids asked what it was I told them it was kind of like a website with just Facebook updates :) But really, I can see the value to certain people. If used properly it can give very interesting insights.
Anyway, can't promise how interesting my updates will be but if you want to follow me now you can. Oh, and for now anyway you can't find me by searching for me (a glitch in the system that has been going on for the past 8 weeks apparently). So to follow me just go to my profile page (www.twitter.com/AllenKP) and then click the follow button.
Anyway, can't promise how interesting my updates will be but if you want to follow me now you can. Oh, and for now anyway you can't find me by searching for me (a glitch in the system that has been going on for the past 8 weeks apparently). So to follow me just go to my profile page (www.twitter.com/AllenKP) and then click the follow button.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
DONE!!
Well it's been awhile since I've updated my blog but I just thought it would be appropriate to let everyone know that I took my last exam today and I am officially done with grad school. We have the hooding ceremony on Thursday, May 7th and then everything is done. Then I'll spend the next 60 days or so on leave while we move to Illinois and then I go to Alabama for an Army school for a few months.
So from now on I'll use this blog to talk about whatever happens to be on my mind :)
So from now on I'll use this blog to talk about whatever happens to be on my mind :)
Friday, March 28, 2008
Pictures!
Sorry I haven't updated this in awhile but things have been hectic around here lately. Seems like I've been gone every weekend and then busy with school during the week. But I just wanted to let everyone know that even if I don't update the blog like I want, I still upload pictures from wherever I go. For instance if you click on the link on the right, you will see pictures from my trip to Spain, Gibraltar, and Budapest, Hungary (and a few from Germany in that set as well). And I just finished uploading a set of pictures from southern Morocco which I think are amazing. We had a long weekend so Kara and I took a train to Marrakesh, then a bus down to Agadir (on the coast) and back up through the Atlas mountains to Imlil. If nothing else, check out the pictures from Imlil. This is a town in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco at about 6000 feet (1800 meters). It seemed really strange to be in Morocco and surrounded by snow capped mountains.
Anyway, enjoy the pictures and I'll have more in a few days because I'm going to the Sahara desert to see the dunes later today and I'll be there all weekend.
Anyway, enjoy the pictures and I'll have more in a few days because I'm going to the Sahara desert to see the dunes later today and I'll be there all weekend.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Exploring the Friouato Caves
Today (Saturday, Feb 16th) was a fun, muddy, tiring day. Five of us (myself, Hannah, Dustin, Jeff and Kyle) decided to go to Taza and check out the Friouato Caves (info about the caves can be found here).
We began the day at 8:00am by hiring a grand taxi. Now I had never taken a grand taxi before but I've heard about them and I knew they were more expensive and could hold up to six people. So I figured this would be some kind of SUV or van or something. Needless to say, I was surprised when a late 70's model Mercedes sedan pulled up to take us to Taza. In the U.S., we would say this car would hold five people. But in Morocco it holds seven. Two passengers share the front seat and four cram into the back. Luckily there were only five of us so Kyle and Jeff got cozy in the front while Hannah, Dustin and I were in the back. Here is a picture of the car and our driver, who, by the way, was very nice and I'd highly recommend him to anyone that needs a grand taxi. :)
The trip to Taza was fairly uneventful but it was amusing the way our driver didn't really know how to get to the caves. Once we got to Taza we would drive for a few blocks then pull up beside someone and ask for directions. Then we would drive a few more blocks and repeat the process all over again. We did this probably eight times until we finally got out of town.
Once outside of Taza the scenery was quite nice. Here are a couple of pictures of the scenery along the way and then a group photo of all us.
One thing I'd like to point out for future reference is that Hannah is wearing a nice white wool coat and as usual, carrying her white purse.
We arrived at the cave and paid 200 dirham (roughly $25) for a guide to show us through the caves. We walked through a small opening in the side of the mountain and then walked down 550 stairs to the bottom.
It was a pretty quick trip down and the bottom opened up into a rather large cavern. Here is the view from the bottom looking up.
And that is where the easy stuff pretty much ended. So far it had been a rather nice walk in the park going down stairs with railings and just enjoying the incredible view. Then the guide disappeared down a tiny hole in the ground expecting us to follow. And of course, being the uninitiated spelunkers that we were about to become, we blindly followed him into the hole. And speaking of blindly....you might notice in some of the pictures that there are power cables and lights on the walls for part of the way. However, these lights were never turned on so the only lights we had were the flashlights we brought with us. And Tina, in case you're reading this, my $50 flashlight was worth every penny today (Tina is my wife by the way, the same wife who thought I had lost my mind for spending $50 on a crazy flashlight...but I do like my gadgets).
The view from inside the cave was spectacular. Many of the walls were wet with calcite deposits dripping and forming on the sides of the walls.
In the beginning it was very nice. Lots of wide open caverns, fairly dry on the ground and easy walking. The stalactites were many and varied. Not only the kind you see on TV but many odd shaped ones as well. Quite a few of the formations actually looked more like a blanket of wavy rock hanging from the ceiling.
But then the easy part was over. Instead of smooth dry surfaces to walk on, we got smooth, wet, muddy rock. And we were literally climbing up and down slopes to continue on the trail. In quite a few places a simple misstep would have you falling 10 or 15 feet straight down onto nice hard rock. And one spot was a 50 foot drop-off (16 meters according to our guide) but that had a rail in front of it to keep people from falling in. Here is a picture of Kyle climbing down a slope being helped by our guide.
But this part of the trail was no joke. It was very steep, very muddy and very slippery. The climb up was equally hard and if you were to slip it would be a pretty bad trip down.
Now we were at the end of the tour and it was time to turn around and head back. I don't have quite as many pictures from the return trip because a) it looked almost exactly like it did going out, only backwards, and b) I was very muddy and didn't want to get my camera any dirtier than it already was. And speaking of muddy, here is Hannah at the half-way point. By this time we were all so muddy it didn't really matter anymore. It's a little hard to see but the bottom half of her coat was no longer white :)
Nothing terribly exciting happened on the way back except I kept hitting my head on the low-hanging ceilings (and was bleeding from the forehead by this time), Kyle took a wrong step and stepped into a big pool of water and I nearly fell into one of those 10 foot crevices. Luckily when I reached out into the darkness to keep myself from falling there was a rock there that I was able to grab onto.
And no trip to the caves would be complete without bats. These were the only ones we saw; thankfully they didn't wake up and bite us and turn us into vampires or anything.
Then finally, three hours after we started, we were back out into the large cavern. It was then that it dawned on us that those same 550 stairs that we so easy to go down also went up. Here are a few pictures of the stairs. Two of them are pretty much the same shot, only one is zoomed in but I couldn't decide which one I liked better so I am including both. And yes, I know they look remarkably like the same stairs I posted at the beginning of the blog but after hiking and climbing for three hours they looked much more daunting :)
Once out of the caves were were filthy and muddy but the taxi driver just laughed and said no problem as we climbed back in the taxi. We stopped part way down the mountain to take one more set of pictures. This is a view of the city of Taza and then another group photo, this one being the "after" picture.
And what better way to end this story than by showing a picture of the part of us that got the dirtiest :)
If you want to see the rest of the pictures from this trip, and ones that are larger in size, click on the link to the right to go to my photo albums.
We began the day at 8:00am by hiring a grand taxi. Now I had never taken a grand taxi before but I've heard about them and I knew they were more expensive and could hold up to six people. So I figured this would be some kind of SUV or van or something. Needless to say, I was surprised when a late 70's model Mercedes sedan pulled up to take us to Taza. In the U.S., we would say this car would hold five people. But in Morocco it holds seven. Two passengers share the front seat and four cram into the back. Luckily there were only five of us so Kyle and Jeff got cozy in the front while Hannah, Dustin and I were in the back. Here is a picture of the car and our driver, who, by the way, was very nice and I'd highly recommend him to anyone that needs a grand taxi. :)
The trip to Taza was fairly uneventful but it was amusing the way our driver didn't really know how to get to the caves. Once we got to Taza we would drive for a few blocks then pull up beside someone and ask for directions. Then we would drive a few more blocks and repeat the process all over again. We did this probably eight times until we finally got out of town.
Once outside of Taza the scenery was quite nice. Here are a couple of pictures of the scenery along the way and then a group photo of all us.
One thing I'd like to point out for future reference is that Hannah is wearing a nice white wool coat and as usual, carrying her white purse.
We arrived at the cave and paid 200 dirham (roughly $25) for a guide to show us through the caves. We walked through a small opening in the side of the mountain and then walked down 550 stairs to the bottom.
It was a pretty quick trip down and the bottom opened up into a rather large cavern. Here is the view from the bottom looking up.
And that is where the easy stuff pretty much ended. So far it had been a rather nice walk in the park going down stairs with railings and just enjoying the incredible view. Then the guide disappeared down a tiny hole in the ground expecting us to follow. And of course, being the uninitiated spelunkers that we were about to become, we blindly followed him into the hole. And speaking of blindly....you might notice in some of the pictures that there are power cables and lights on the walls for part of the way. However, these lights were never turned on so the only lights we had were the flashlights we brought with us. And Tina, in case you're reading this, my $50 flashlight was worth every penny today (Tina is my wife by the way, the same wife who thought I had lost my mind for spending $50 on a crazy flashlight...but I do like my gadgets).
The view from inside the cave was spectacular. Many of the walls were wet with calcite deposits dripping and forming on the sides of the walls.
In the beginning it was very nice. Lots of wide open caverns, fairly dry on the ground and easy walking. The stalactites were many and varied. Not only the kind you see on TV but many odd shaped ones as well. Quite a few of the formations actually looked more like a blanket of wavy rock hanging from the ceiling.
But then the easy part was over. Instead of smooth dry surfaces to walk on, we got smooth, wet, muddy rock. And we were literally climbing up and down slopes to continue on the trail. In quite a few places a simple misstep would have you falling 10 or 15 feet straight down onto nice hard rock. And one spot was a 50 foot drop-off (16 meters according to our guide) but that had a rail in front of it to keep people from falling in. Here is a picture of Kyle climbing down a slope being helped by our guide.
But this part of the trail was no joke. It was very steep, very muddy and very slippery. The climb up was equally hard and if you were to slip it would be a pretty bad trip down.
Now we were at the end of the tour and it was time to turn around and head back. I don't have quite as many pictures from the return trip because a) it looked almost exactly like it did going out, only backwards, and b) I was very muddy and didn't want to get my camera any dirtier than it already was. And speaking of muddy, here is Hannah at the half-way point. By this time we were all so muddy it didn't really matter anymore. It's a little hard to see but the bottom half of her coat was no longer white :)
Nothing terribly exciting happened on the way back except I kept hitting my head on the low-hanging ceilings (and was bleeding from the forehead by this time), Kyle took a wrong step and stepped into a big pool of water and I nearly fell into one of those 10 foot crevices. Luckily when I reached out into the darkness to keep myself from falling there was a rock there that I was able to grab onto.
And no trip to the caves would be complete without bats. These were the only ones we saw; thankfully they didn't wake up and bite us and turn us into vampires or anything.
Then finally, three hours after we started, we were back out into the large cavern. It was then that it dawned on us that those same 550 stairs that we so easy to go down also went up. Here are a few pictures of the stairs. Two of them are pretty much the same shot, only one is zoomed in but I couldn't decide which one I liked better so I am including both. And yes, I know they look remarkably like the same stairs I posted at the beginning of the blog but after hiking and climbing for three hours they looked much more daunting :)
Once out of the caves were were filthy and muddy but the taxi driver just laughed and said no problem as we climbed back in the taxi. We stopped part way down the mountain to take one more set of pictures. This is a view of the city of Taza and then another group photo, this one being the "after" picture.
And what better way to end this story than by showing a picture of the part of us that got the dirtiest :)
If you want to see the rest of the pictures from this trip, and ones that are larger in size, click on the link to the right to go to my photo albums.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Pancakes and lemon.....who knew?!
First of all, happy pancake day! Now a little background.
Yesterday I was pouring over my studies like I always do (and I use the word "always" very loosely here) when out of the blue Hannah messaged me on Skype (ok, yes we live in the same building but we are lazy and talk on Skype) and exclaimed, "OMG, it's pancake day tomorrow!!!". I wasn't terribly alarmed because I know she gets excited over the strangest things sometimes but curiosity got the best of me so I had to find out what she was talking about. So I asked her what in the world she was talking about. She said, "you know, Shrove Tuesday!". Hmmm....this wasn't helping any and by now I was convinced she had probably drank too much tea and it had gone to her head. But she persisted with this line of conversation so I had to check with my friend Google to figure this one out.
Well imagine my surprise when I found out there really is such a holiday (in case you're curious, click here). Apparently in the U.K. they celebrate the day before lent by eating pancakes. That doesn't sound too bad; I'm always up for some good pancakes. The only problem was it is hard to find good maple syrup in Morocco so I didn't have anything to put on them. After explaining this dilemma to Hannah she told me in that rather matter-of-factly tone of voice that of course you put lemon and sugar on the pancake, not syrup. I was a little appalled because nobody puts lemon on a perfectly good pancake. That sounds absolutely disgusting (or minging, if I may use British slang).
But now back to today. We looked up the recipe, which is fairly simple and planned our pancake day party to start at 6pm sharp. Unfortunately only two other people wanted in on the festivities but that just meant there were more for us. We mixed up the flour, eggs, salt and milk then started cooking. And here are some pictures of Hannah flipping the pancake without using the spatula:
As you can see from the pictures, these weren't big fluffy pancakes like I'm used to, these were very thin pancakes, more like crepes. But now came the moment of truth. We put the pancakes on a plate, then squeezed the juice out of the lemon onto the pancake and followed that with sugar. I rolled mine up and doubtfully took my first bite. Pardieu! This was one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted! I would never have thought of adding lemon juice and sugar to a pancake but now I don't know if I'll be able to eat it any other way.
I'm becoming more and more convinced that the British kept all their good secrets and holidays from us in retaliation for leaving but this is one I'll take back with great joy. So thanks Hannah, future generations of the Allen family will be thanking you for pancake day....and lemons!
Yesterday I was pouring over my studies like I always do (and I use the word "always" very loosely here) when out of the blue Hannah messaged me on Skype (ok, yes we live in the same building but we are lazy and talk on Skype) and exclaimed, "OMG, it's pancake day tomorrow!!!". I wasn't terribly alarmed because I know she gets excited over the strangest things sometimes but curiosity got the best of me so I had to find out what she was talking about. So I asked her what in the world she was talking about. She said, "you know, Shrove Tuesday!". Hmmm....this wasn't helping any and by now I was convinced she had probably drank too much tea and it had gone to her head. But she persisted with this line of conversation so I had to check with my friend Google to figure this one out.
Well imagine my surprise when I found out there really is such a holiday (in case you're curious, click here). Apparently in the U.K. they celebrate the day before lent by eating pancakes. That doesn't sound too bad; I'm always up for some good pancakes. The only problem was it is hard to find good maple syrup in Morocco so I didn't have anything to put on them. After explaining this dilemma to Hannah she told me in that rather matter-of-factly tone of voice that of course you put lemon and sugar on the pancake, not syrup. I was a little appalled because nobody puts lemon on a perfectly good pancake. That sounds absolutely disgusting (or minging, if I may use British slang).
But now back to today. We looked up the recipe, which is fairly simple and planned our pancake day party to start at 6pm sharp. Unfortunately only two other people wanted in on the festivities but that just meant there were more for us. We mixed up the flour, eggs, salt and milk then started cooking. And here are some pictures of Hannah flipping the pancake without using the spatula:
As you can see from the pictures, these weren't big fluffy pancakes like I'm used to, these were very thin pancakes, more like crepes. But now came the moment of truth. We put the pancakes on a plate, then squeezed the juice out of the lemon onto the pancake and followed that with sugar. I rolled mine up and doubtfully took my first bite. Pardieu! This was one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted! I would never have thought of adding lemon juice and sugar to a pancake but now I don't know if I'll be able to eat it any other way.
I'm becoming more and more convinced that the British kept all their good secrets and holidays from us in retaliation for leaving but this is one I'll take back with great joy. So thanks Hannah, future generations of the Allen family will be thanking you for pancake day....and lemons!
Sunday, February 3, 2008
A devastating revelation
Friday was a tragic day for me. If you recall from my previous post, I enjoy going to the market and talking to the chicken guy because he seems to understand my Arabic and by some miraculous feat of language I'm able to converse with him. Plus he sells good chicken and it's a lot cheaper than beef.
On Friday Hannah and I went to the market to get some chicken and a few other things. Hannah, whose Arabic is slightly better than mine (and by slightly I mean light years) ordered first. But the chicken guy didn't use the same meat as when I order. So being the nice guy that I am, and not wanting Hannah to get the wrong stuff, I told her that she'd better ask and make sure she is getting the good chicken. They talk for a minute, then Hannah turns to me and politely (she's British so she knows no other way) tells me that in fact, the other "chicken" is actually turkey. I knew that she must be mistaken but remembering a lesson I learned many years ago (you know, the one that says women are never wrong), I asked her to check again because surely it was chicken I've been eating for the past month. So she asks him again, this time in French. Then she looks at me with that sly grin on her face and informs me that indeed, it is turkey that I've been eating.
I wasn't sure how to take the news because all this time I've been calling him the chicken guy. Now what was I going to do? It just didn't seem right to call him the turkey guy. So after ordering my "chicken" (it's still hard to think of it as turkey) I asked him one more question....
The chicken guy is now known as Mohammad.
On Friday Hannah and I went to the market to get some chicken and a few other things. Hannah, whose Arabic is slightly better than mine (and by slightly I mean light years) ordered first. But the chicken guy didn't use the same meat as when I order. So being the nice guy that I am, and not wanting Hannah to get the wrong stuff, I told her that she'd better ask and make sure she is getting the good chicken. They talk for a minute, then Hannah turns to me and politely (she's British so she knows no other way) tells me that in fact, the other "chicken" is actually turkey. I knew that she must be mistaken but remembering a lesson I learned many years ago (you know, the one that says women are never wrong), I asked her to check again because surely it was chicken I've been eating for the past month. So she asks him again, this time in French. Then she looks at me with that sly grin on her face and informs me that indeed, it is turkey that I've been eating.
I wasn't sure how to take the news because all this time I've been calling him the chicken guy. Now what was I going to do? It just didn't seem right to call him the turkey guy. So after ordering my "chicken" (it's still hard to think of it as turkey) I asked him one more question....
The chicken guy is now known as Mohammad.
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