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DriveGain app claims $205 annual fuel savings

Driving greenly is one of those things that should be easy to do: treat the accelerator and brake pedals like eggshells and generally keep your speed under control. For drivers who need a little more help or motorists who are obsessed with eking every last mile out of a gallon of fuel, there will always be apps and gadgets that claim to boost your fuel economy. For example, the DriveGain app for iPhone aims to coach drivers toward higher MPGs with visual and audible prompts that encourage greener driving. The developers of this app go so far as to claim … Read more

Simple stock helper

Stockwatch is a very basic way to view and monitor your stock values. With a setup that is incredibly simple to navigate and provides just the essential numbers, this is a great tool for beginning stock traders.

We had no trouble with the program's interface, since it was built with Excel and is basically a well-designed spreadsheet. At no point in running this program did we feel like we needed any guidance. We enjoyed the simplicity of Stockwatch; it contained simply a tab for Current stocks and one for Sold stocks. The program smartly included a box to fill … Read more

You really can take it with you

You know that USB drive you're carrying around with you? Toss it. What you may not know about the Palm Pre is that it works as a storage device which you can connect to practically any USB connector that has proper generic storage device drivers.

If you've connected your Palm Pre to your computer (Mac or PC), you've probably noticed three options: Media Sync, Just Charge, or USB Device. If you select USB Device, your Pre acts just like any USB storage device. You can copy files to and from it, and you can even install ringtones … Read more

The Pre and Google Voice

A few years ago, a little startup called Grand Central sought to allow people to have one number that they can set up in order to not only protect their real phone number, but have one number that could ring more than one to be sure that the person gets the call. It was such a smash hit that Google bought them in 2007. Now called Google Voice, it integrates voice mail with the rest of Google's tools.

I got my Grand Central phone number about two years ago, but I didn't really use it much. At the … Read more

Customizing your Pre

When I buy something, no matter what it is, I consider it mine. In the United States, there are some cell phone companies that don't allow you to customize your phone the way you want like most cell phone companies do. What this means is that they might disallow you to put on a custom ringtone or wallpaper without going through their service to do so, or you'll have to find a way to hack the phone to put the media on yourself. Thankfully, Spring and Palm don't make you go through that trouble to put wallpapers … Read more

The honeymoon isn't over, but I'm finding flaws in our relationship

WebOS update When I got the Palm Pre, it was loaded with WebOS 1.0.2, and the Updater app told me that 1.0.4 was available. I'm always very leery about firmware updates since you always hear stories about how someone bricked their device by doing a simple firmware update. All it takes is the update to glitch and the device won't know how to boot properly.

Either way, I updated the phone and it went very smoothly. There weren't any changes worth noting here, but being up to date sometimes has features you don'… Read more

Palm Pre Test Drive makes me want to keep the keys

The advantage of having technology as a big part of my life is seeing some of the wondrous creations that companies produce. Fifteen years ago my first cellphone was an unfriendly Motorola with an LED display and couldn't send text messages. Today, cell phones are akin to the communicators on Star Trek. We are truly living in the future.

Unboxing I had received my Palm Pre from CNet last night and was thrilled to be testing a new piece of technology. I've heard so many things about it and I wanted to try this out for myself. Opening … Read more

Hawking makes Hi-Gain Wireless-N adapter

Most new laptops have built-in wireless, but if you still have an old laptop or desktop that you want to connect wirelessly, Hawking Tech has something for you.

On Thursday, the company introduced its first Hi-Gain compact Wireless-N USB adapter, the HWUN3. This little device comes with a removable antenna that can be replaced with one of Hawking's Hi-Gain Wi-Fi Range Extending antenna.

The HWUN3 supports 802.11n and connects to a computer via a USB 2.0 connection. According to Hawking Tech, when coupled with one of its Hi-Gain antenna, the HWUN3 can boost the range of a … Read more