Palm Pre for Dummies hits the bookshelves 11
by Robert Werlinger Wed, 14 Oct 2009 1:56 pm EDT
If the multitude of online resources fail to enlighten you to all of the the ins and outs of using the the Pre, Chris Ziegler of Engadget Mobile fame has contributed to the popular "For Dummies" series of books by writing nearly 300 pages of hints, tips, and how-to's all about setting up and using the Palm Pre. Palm Pre For Dummies, which is similar in scope to the recently released Palm Pre: The Missing Manual, can be had for $16.49 over at Amazon.
via engadget
11 Comments
I wonder if they got all their 'tips' from this site.
lol, I wonder who'll buy this?
I assume that this book has the same market as a lot of the other "Dummies" books: people who don't like to do their own research on gadgets and want one place to get the general gist of what the device is about. That kind of person probably wouldn't ever find their way to this site, and wants something a little more user-friendly than what you find in most manuals.
I actually don't think a "Dummies" book is a terrible idea for this kind of thing. It serves its purpose. I actually would consider buying a "Dummies" book for Mojo, if there was such a thing. Much to my embarrassment, I have looked at the online documentation for Mojo development for the Pre, and there are still things I can't get a handle on.
I am a developer and find the mojo stuff to be hard because I am not all that familiar with the environment (dev environment I mean). I just don't have time to figure it out right now with a full time job and college, but if there was a simple book (with a quick reference guide) with more than one sample app, that would help out a lot.
This is about using, not developing for, I believe.
My understanding is that this book is for users only. I was just reacting to the question of who "Dummies" books are for and what kind of "Dummies" book I'd like to see for the Pre.
This current "Dummies" book has its place, but it's not something I think people who frequent this site could relate to.
I as a technical user I got the Missing Manual book for my wife who is non-technical and does not do forums. As big as preCentral is, it only gets a small percentage of the total pre population. There is certainly a market for such books, especially "For Dummies" which has a lot of brand recognition.
The only problem being that WebOS is evolving so fast, with a release every month or two from Palm, that this book is already obsolete. Probably doesn't have the new Copy and Paste.
And this differs from any other area of technology how? Using that logic you should never have bought a computer, smart phone, etc. since they are all instantly obsolete. I can guarantee you that a large percentage of current pre owners do not know how to do any form of cut and paste. preCentral's population consists of the power users.
I wonder if they mention homebrew.
I agree that this book is probably already obsolete. While it is true that the whole area of technology makes any book obsolete when published, The Pre is evolving at a pace that is quite rapid given its short history. Of course at lot of the problem is that it is just catching up to functionality that should have already been built in to a device that was rushed to market.