If you own a Pre and have a WordPress blog, now you’ll be able to manage your blog on the go. Alex King, who designs and develops custom WordPress themes and plugins, has just released WordPress Mobile Edition 3.0.5.

This new version adds support for the Palm Pre (and other Palm webOS devices). Version 3.0.5 also added the Palm Pre as a touch device and fixed a CSS bug that was referencing a non-existent image. Plus a new version of Carrington Mobile is included as well.

Head on over to the WordPress Plugins page to get the download and more info. 

[via IntoMobile]

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The Pre isn’t even for sale yet, but it seems that the Touchstone can be bought right now at some Sprint stores.

artap99, an everythingpre forum member, is on the waiting list for the Pre at his local Sprint store. He got a call from the store today letting him know that everything will be on a first come, first serve basis. Plus, they are already selling the Pre accessories.

So naturally artap99 drove over to his Sprint store to check things out, and he was able to buy a Touchstone and the back cover for $49.99. The price is supposed to be $70 for both items, but artap99 was told by more than one sales person that the price was $49.99, so that’s what he ended up paying.

If you’re planning on buying a Pre, why not call up your local Sprint store and see if they’re already carrying the Pre accessories? It sure wouldn’t hurt to pick up a Touchstone ahead of time and be ready for your new baby when you bring it home.

Thanks to Ryan for the tip!

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We told you about Best Buy’s June Buyer’s Guide having a large Palm Pre ad in it. Plus, we let you know that the Pre is already on display in a Best Buy in Puerto Rico.

Well, looks like some Best Buy inventory sheets for the Palm Pre were leaked and popped up in the everythingpre forums. So you might want to check out those inventory sheets and see if you spot your nearest Best Buy, or at least one within driving distance.

Seems that the largest amount of Pres on order is 42 Pres for Alamo Ranch, Texas.  HooWee, those of you living in that area will surely want to check out that Best Buy location! Also: *gulp*, I’m sure you see that $849.99 full price is still in effect.

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Last month we reported about Palm being close to the final stages of their European strategy and mentioned how Palm had hired Palm Ghent back in January to run sales for the European market. There remain only three main questions for the GSM flavored Pre: Which carrier, how much, and when?

Well, according to the Guardian, O2, the UK’s largest mobile phone operator, might have knocked out its competitors Vodafone and Orange to get the exclusive on the Pre. The Guardian says that the Pre on O2 will be available in the UK in time for Christmas. O2 refused to comment (naturally). I look forward to hearing more on this.

Thanks to manifold and everybody else that sent this in!

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Over at our sister site The iPhone Blog, our pal Rene has written up an excellent article entitled "iPhone 3.0 vs. Palm Pre: Which One Should You Buy?"

The article takes a very fair and unbiased look at both smartphones, giving you the pros and cons of each. Rene talks about the pros and cons of the keyboard, network, cloud support, ecosystem, and apps.

Those of you reading this have most likely already chosen the Palm Pre of course. But for those on the fence, Rene’s article will give you lots of insight into how the Pre and the iPhone 3.0 both have particular strengths and weaknesses.

We, of course, fall into the camp that believes both products can coexist peacefully – but that doesn’t mean what we’re above pointing out how much we enjoy true multitasking on a smartphone.

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As Dieter mentioned Tuesday when he reported that the Pre will be released on June 6th, it’ll be at Best Buy stores along with Sprint Stores, Radio Shack, and Wal-Mart. And Derek let us know that Sprint CEO Dan Hesse told shareholders at in investors conference on Tuesday that there will probably be a shortage of Pres for awhile.

Boy Genius Report got word from their ninjas that there will only be about 4,250 Palm Pres available for Best Buy stores on launch day on June 6th. And since there are around 1,000 Best Buy locations that’ll be selling the Pre, that leaves around 4 Pres per store.

The latest rumor is that Best Buy Mobile’s own Pre launch guide lays out a two-stage launch: Phase 1 will be from June to July where inventory will be extremely low and marketing will be minimal, and Phase 2 will be in late July or early August when the inventory of the Pre is expected to increase.

It also appears that RadioShack will have thin inventory as well, BGR guesses 721 stores with about 2 Pres per store.

Update: Looks like Best Buy is also giving away Palm Pre Phones.

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Derek told us about Sprint holding launch parties for Premier customers on June 5th, but they won’t be happening in every city.

Well, looks like some Sprint stores that aren’t having launch parties are still going to be staying open late on June 5th and will be selling the Pre. Forum member midmofan (and Fyremn76 too) let us know in this thread that he had spoken to someone at a local Sprint store and found out that the store wasn’t near any of the cities that are having Pre launch parties, but the store was going to stay open until midnight on June 5th to unload their Pre Phones. The person in that particular store said that she knew of no restriction to only sell on the 5th to Premiere customers.

Forum member kmod called his local Sprint corporate store and was told:

[...] The associate said that they weren’t having a party but would have extended hours the day before launch. She then said if you signed up on Sprint.com to be notified about the Pre, you will get an email from Sprint to come in and buy the Pre on June 5th, and you needed this email in hand to buy the phone on 6/5. I then asked if this was only a Premiere customer thing and she said no, it’s open to everyone that signed up online. Hope this is true!

pogeypetey also started a thread about Sprint stores selling the Pre on the 5th. There seems to be some confusion about whether or not one has to be a Premiere customer in order to snag a Pre on the 5th though. Some people have heard that you do and some are hearing that it’s first come, first served.

Have any of you gotten emails after signing up at Sprint to be notified about the Pre? Is your local Sprint store going to be open late on June 5th and selling Pre’s even though they aren’t having official launch parties? Let us know.

Also, there is a Poll in the threads where you can vote: Sprint Premier Customers- Received an invite for June 5th?   So far, 92.73% have NOT gotten their invites, and 7.27% have.

Update: A tipster lets us know that the aforementioned Premier Customer launch parties are meant for Premier Customers only and apparently there will only be 10 of them nationwide.

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We know that Sprint employees have been training with the Palm Pre. And looks like a Sprint employee (referred to as "Freedom Fighter") who got his hands on a Palm Pre decided to take some pics of himself showing off Palm’s upcoming beauty in the back office. Not only did the guy take photos of himself holding the Pre, he posted them on twitter (since gone) for the world to see! Oops! I guess if we can all see the pics, so can this Sprint employee’s boss. 

We’re going to go ahead and use the disguise that Engadget gave the "Sprint Freedom Fighter."  It all really exploded in our Palm Pre forums after the "freedom fighter" contacted one of our forum members and said that he might have lost his job already.

We always appreciate seeing all the great photos during silly season, but please be careful if you’re going to actually post pics of "yourself" holding the Pre.  As much as we love seeing the Pre in the wild, we don’t want people losing their jobs over it!

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If you’ve been craving Palm Pre news, you’ve most likely been scouring the Web for all the details you can get. I bet you even frequently check out Palm’s Facebook and Twitter pages. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you have your own Facebook, Twitter, or some other social networking account from which you share your daily goings on and opinions.

If you enjoy that sort of thing or if you’ve been thinking about finally joining the social networking world, you’ll be happy to hear this:

The Official Palm Blog is reporting that they’re looking for "Real Reviewers" to share their opinions about Palm smartphones across the blogosphere, social networks and beyond.  If you’re willing to talk about the Pre on the internet for 6 months, they’re willing to send it to you.

Of course, if you want to do something a bit splashier to win not only a Pre but a pack of accessories to go along with it, there are only hours left in our What Would You Do for a Palm Pre Contest.  If you haven’t entered yet, time is running out!

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Chapter 5 of the Palm webOS book by Mitch Allen is now available from Safari Books Online.

Chapter 5 completes the review of the Mojo widgets with a look at Indicators, Pickers and Viewers, the Filter List and the Scroller. Not all applications will use the Mojo widgets because they’re each designed for specific use cases. The widgets are just as simple to work with as the widgets that were previously discussed in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4.

First up, Chapter 5 talks about the Indicators. We’re all familiar with Indicators. They show that activity is taking place even if it’s not visible, and in some cases, to show some measure of the progress that the activity is making. I’m sure those of you who use a Windows computer are used to seeing that hourglass indicator, showing that something is happening. By reading in Chapter 5, we can get a feel for what the Indicator widgets will look like on the WebOS devices like the Pre.

Read on for a couple screen shots

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Mojo has four indicator widgets, but they belong to two types:

1. Activity indicator, or Spinner, which spins without showing progress
2. Progress indicator, which shows both activity and progress

Below is an example that Chapter 5 shows of a Spinner on a Google News feed item.

Even though the Spinner is the only activity indicator, there are 3 Progress indicator widgets:

1. Progress Pill, a wide pill which is styled to match the View menu and the .palm-header scene style
2. Progress Bar, a narrow horizontal bar with a blue progress indicator
3. Progress Slider, which is intended for streaming media playback applications

Here is an example of a Progress Pill.

Looks familiar, huh? I’m used to seeing similar progress pills at the bottom of my screen on Web pages all the time.

Chapter 5 goes on to explain how the other widgets such as the Scroller, Picker, and Viewers work. You’ll see examples of code views and read about how to put in and use all the widgets.

Even though I don’t know a thing about developing apps, I found the reading to be pretty interesting, and it’s written in a way that you can actually understand what is being discussed.

Head over to Safari Books Online and check it out. For $17.99 you can read Palm webOS, 1st Editon, Rough Cuts online.

Thanks to Chris for the tip!

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