Comparison of the Pre and iPhone

The iPhone has been out for a while now, but if you're currently a Sprint customer, the Palm Pre is definitely worth a look if you're in the market for a Smartphone. Which is the better choice? Let's see...
Obviously, Mac users and those who first went gaga over the iPhone jumped at the chance to get one when they first appeared. Others that waited were seduced by the hype of the Pre. When you break down the pricing, features and service it looks like this:
The Palm Pre, available on Sprint, costs $200 after a $100 rebate. For a fee of $70 a month, you get 450 minutes of talk time with unlimited messaging and data. For $90 per month, you get 900 minutes and unlimited messaging and data. Splurge with $100 and you get unlimited everything.
As for Apple's latest iPhone, the cost ranges from $200 to $300. AT&T is the sole signal provider, and $90 per month entitles you to 450 voice minutes, unlimited messaging and data. $110 gets you 900 minutes and unlimited voice, messaging and data will cost you $150.
Both require a two-year contract and when you add up the numbers for unlimited plans, iPhone owners will pay $3,600 while Pre users will only spend $2,400. That's a savings of $600 per year. But is that enough to convince you to buy a Pre over the iPhone?
Features!!!
Let's look at features. Both have Bluetooth compatibility, camera, video player, speaker phone and music player. They both provide access to email, 3G speed, WiFi and GPS. But there are also some differences. The Pre has a real slide-out QWERTY keyboard, as opposed to the iPhone's virtual one. That's a big plus for fat-fingered people like me who have trouble pecking out the keystrokes on a touchscreen. Pre owners can access Sprint's 4G network in some areas while AT&T will not have that speed until next year.
The Pre's 3 megapixel camera has an LED flash while the iPhone 3GS has a 3mp cam with autofocus, auto-macro and improved low lighting performance. When it comes to video recording, only the iPhone has the capability and basic editing is available.
The Pre is shorter and thicker than the iPhone while the Apple Smartphone has a larger display. The iPhone can be purchased in 8 GB, 16GB and 32GB models; the Pre only comes with 8GB of internal memory. How much memory do you need? Here's a rule of thumb: 8GB will allow you to store about 1800 songs OR 10,000 photos OR about 10 hours of video. Mix and match any way you like.
The Pre comes with an easily removable battery -- not so with the iPhone. The Pre but doesn't support Flash video, which means no YouTube for you. But Palm has promised to support the Flash 10 Player by the end of 2009. Both phones can be synched with iTunes, but the Pre is restricted to tunes that are not DRM protected. But most songs on iTunes are DRM-free now, and of course you can download MP3s from Amazon and other places. The Pre allows you to combine phone numbers, calendar entries and email from MS Outlook, Gmail and Facebook in one place and the multitasking WebOS allow multiple apps to be open at once.
It goes without saying that iPhone App store is way beyond any other competitor's. Palm has its own online app store but it will be some time before the applications can catch up to Apple. And of course the "There's an app for that" campaign is far superior to the creepy young woman on the Pre ads.
The bottom line... the Palm Pre is sleek, slick and designed well. But the biggest problem with the Pre is that it's not an iPhone. Apple has created a cult of coolness around the iPhone, while the features of the device speak for themselves. Any device that's serious about playing the role of "iPhone killer" will have to make coffee in the morning, take the dog for a walk, and predict winning stock market picks. The iPhone actually makes people smarter and sexier. How do you compete with that?

Fall In Love with Your PC Again

Few relationships between individuals and their electronic devices are as intimate as the one they establish with their personal computers. If you're like most, you probably have very vivid memories of when you first acquired your PC. You probably had dreams about all the things you could do and would do with your new computer. It was lightning fast and uncluttered. It had that fresh "new" smell. The screen was pristine and there were no dust or cookie crumbs embedded between the keys.
Then, of course, time goes by. You've had a good year or more together and you've accomplished a lot. But now things aren't going so smoothly between you and your PC. It is performing slowly and maybe even suffering from occasional hang, freeze, or crash. You are starting to think that maybe you're going to have to get rid of it and start all over with a new one. But wait! That's an expensive and time-consuming proposition.
One simple but important way of restoring your PC's performance and reliability is to clean the registry - the tool that Windows® uses to keep track of information about the many software pieces your PC uses.

Your IT professional can check the registry for entries on programs that are no longer in the computer, verify that cross references are valid and accurate, and eliminate the empty spaces to make the list more compact and efficient to use. It can also rearrange registry entries to streamline program execution.

The benefits of cleaning the registry are immediate and obvious. Your PC will boot faster and activate programs more quickly. Programs may also execute more quickly, improving such things as video playback and game performance. Most importantly, many of those annoying freezes, glitches, and crashes could simply vanish.

Cleaning the registry doesn't solve all computer problems, but it will go a long way toward restoring your computer's performance and reviving your affection for it.

Want to Give Your PC a Different Look?

Many people like to give their PC a different look. You can, too, by using sites like http://www.customize.org to update icons and Windows backgrounds.

The themes and icons on customize.org are submitted and judged by PC users. Be sure to check the comments on each submission to make sure they have received a good review before uploading them.

You can also use https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:2 to update your Firefox browser look and feel. These add-ons are safe and easy to use.

Should You Upgrade from Vista to Windows 7?

You might be content with Windows XP and might have even gotten familiar with Windows Vista, but now Windows 7 is on the horizon. Should you upgrade or stick with what you have? Let’s look at the differences in the two Microsoft operating systems.
When comparing Vista to Windows 7, the most important things to consider are performance, security, usability, compatibility issues. Many Vista users have experienced problems in these areas, and Windows 7 goes a far to address and improve each one.
Windows 7 Performance and Security Improvements
First, Windows 7 launches faster and has fewer start-up services. Those will run in parallel. Once you've booted up, you should notice that Windows 7 just feels a lot faster than Vista. The main reason for this is improved memory management. In Windows XP and Vista, every application that's open ties up video memory, even when minimized! In Windows 7, only visible applications consume video memory. If you normally run with a bunch of programs active, you should notice better performance. I could definitely feel the difference on my 4-year-old Sony VAIO laptop. And speaking of laptops, you can expect improved battery life in Windows 7.
Windows 7 builds upon all the security improvements that have been rolled into XP and Vista, as exploits are discovered and patched on an ongoing basis. There are also some new security features in Windows 7, most notably DirectAccess and BitLocker To Go. DirectAccess will be helpful to telecommuters, since it provides a seamless and secure connection to the office network. BitLocker To Go adds data encryption to USB flash drives and other removable storage devices.
Windows 7 Usability Enhancements
Windows Vista had a huge User Account Control (UAC) problem, making it annoying to install any program or change a setting. Microsoft has heard your cries, felt your pain, and has removed many of the annoying UAC prompts in Windows 7 UAC, making it quicker and easier to make system changes.
You'll also find that the taskbar on Win 7 is greatly improved. Instead of those little icons on the bottom right corner of Vista, you can decide which ones you want displayed. You simply mouse over an icon to get a full screen preview that disappears when you move the mouse, and the icons can be rearranged by click and drag.
Jump List is another new feature on the taskbar. Right clicking on a program that you used recently will show your most recent documents. For example, clicking on the Word icon will show Word documents. Another nifty plus is that you can put other files that you use often on the Jump List so that they are only a click or two away. Win7 also offers some nifty features to move and resize open windows
Windows 7 has included multi-touch for all supported hardware. If you like the kind of multi-finger screen and image manipulation you can do on the iPhone, you'll be happy to have those features in Windows 7.
And in the fun category, Windows 7 comes with online Spades, Checkers and Backgammon. The media center will feature Internet TV with MSN channels as its default and a sidebar for control. Just add a USB TV tuner and you have an instant TiVo.
HomeGroup is another feature new to Win7. Automatically set up when you run the first PC, you can add other computers to share files or peripherals. This means you can store photos on your main PC and view them with your laptop. View Available Network (VAN) allows one click access to available networks. Libraries will keep those photos, documents, and music organized as well.
Windows 7 - More Compatibility
One of the biggest complaints about Vista was that hardware and other peripherals that worked fine with XP wouldn't work under Vista. Windows 7 includes a more up-to-date set of drivers, so it SHOULD automatically recognize your printer, scanner, external drives and other devices.
And here's a feature that we think is very cool: application crash resiliency. If a program crashes, Windows 7 can actually figure out how to configure things so that program will run correctly.
Vista or Windows 7 - The Bottom Line
To me it looks awesome. The word from most reviewers is that Windows 7 is going to be everything we hoped for in Vista. It looks good AND it runs good. Performance and security have been beefed up. Win7 runs faster, with less RAM, than Vista. The user interface sports a bunch of improvements that go beyond eye candy. You can actually get things done more quickly with some of the new usability features.
The Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade goes for $119, but you will have the option to purchase a Windows 7 Family Pack, which allows you to install on 3 machines for $149. Oh, and if you purchase a computer with Vista now, you'll get a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it's released in late October.