Chapter 11. Customizing Your Palm Pre

In this chapter, you learn how to tweak the way your Palm Pre is set up. You can change the wallpaper, set the sounds, and learn how to keep using your Palm Pre safely while flying. Topics include the following:

→ Choosing a different wallpaper

→ Enabling Airplane Mode

→ Changing the system sound volume and ringtones

→ Setting a device password

You can tweak a few things to personalize your Palm Pre. You can change the wallpaper, change the system sound volume, and set what happens when you use the ringer switch. The great thing about this is that you can personalize your Palm Pre and make it your own. You can make your Palm Pre stand out from the pack, instead of it looking and sounding just like every other Palm Pre. For example you may want to put a picture of your family, pet, or loved one in the background of your Palm Pre by making it the wallpaper image.

Using Your Palm Pre While Flying

When you fly, you are always told to turn off all electronic devices during takeoff and landing, and never to use cell phones, which can be a problem if you want to use your Pre during a flight to watch movies, listen to music, and so on. Fortunately, you can continue to use your Palm Pre during flights by engaging Airplane Mode. Airplane Mode turns off all radios inside the Pre, which include the cellular radio, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.

Step-by-Step: Toggling Airplane Mode On and Off

If you want to use your Palm Pre during a flight, follow these steps.

1. Tap the top-right part of the screen in the area of the signal strength meter and battery indicator.

   

2. Tap Turn on Airplane Mode.

   

3. After you enable Airplane Mode, you see an Airplane icon in place of the signal meter. To disable Airplane Mode, tap the Airplane icon and choose Turn off Airplane Mode.

   

Changing Your Pre’s Configuration

Your Pre has a host of different settings that let you tweak how it operates to better suit your needs. Let’s say you bought your Palm Pre from someone who speaks a different language than you, or uses a different currency. The first thing you’d want to do is change the language and currency your Palm Pre uses. You might also find yourself needing to change the default country so that things like currency and time are displayed in the appropriate formats. In the following sections we take a look at everything you can do to tweak how your Palm displays information.

Step-by-Step: Set Language and Formats

If you want to change the language or the number formatting that your Palm Pre uses, follow these steps.

1. From the Launcher tap Regional Settings.

   

2. Tap Language to change the language.

   

3. Tap the language to which you want to change.
4. Your Pre then asks you to confirm the language change by presenting you with the option to keep the current language or switch to the language you selected (English or Spanish in this example). Tap the new language you selected in step 3 to change.

   

5. Your Palm Pre automatically reboots itself. After the reboot, it uses the language you selected.

Changing the Country or Region

In addition to changing the language your device uses, you can change the country or region. This affects numbering, currency, and time and date formatting.

1. Tap formats to change the country or region. This enables you to set the number formatting, currency symbol, and date-and-time format based on the region you select.

   

2. Choose a country to which you want to switch formats. You can find the country quickly by starting to type its name on the keyboard.
3. When you tap the country or region that you want to change to, you will be prompted if you want to switch. Tap the green button, which is labeled according to the country to which you want to switch (Albania in this case). Your Palm Pre automatically reboots. After the reboot, it uses the country or region’s settings you selected.

   

Screen and Lock Settings

You can configure the way your Palm Pre’s screen behaves and set a password or PIN that must be entered before you start to use your device. This prevents your information from being stolen if your Palm Pre is lost or stolen.

1. Tap Screen & Lock from the Launcher.

   

2. To change the screen brightness, move the slider left and right.
3. Tap Turn Off After to change how many minutes must pass before your Palm Pre locks.
4. To change the wallpaper, which is the picture that sits in the background on your Palm Pre, tap Change Wallpaper.

   

5. Choose a new picture for your Palm Pre’s wallpaper. Browse the different albums if necessary.

   

6. After you choose a picture, zoom in and out of the picture using the pinching gestures, and slide the picture around the screen until just the part you want to use as the background is visible.
7. Tap Set Wallpaper to change the wallpaper.

   

8. Slide the On/Off button next to Switch Applications to enable a special gesture that allows you to switch applications. This special gesture is difficult to get used to, so it is advisable to leave it turned off.
9. Slide the On/Off button next to Show When Locked to enable or disable notifications while your Palm Pre is locked. When this is disabled, notifications such as new emails will not display.

   

Password Protect Your Palm Pre

You can protect your Palm Pre’s data with either a numeric PIN or a password. This helps to thwart prying eyes, or even outright thieves looking to steal your device, from seeing your personal information.

1. Tap Secure Unlock to set either a numeric PIN or password that must be entered before your Palm Pre is unlocked. If you choose PIN or Password, you will be prompted to enter them.
2. Tap Simple PIN to enter a new PIN number.

   

3. Enter a new PIN number using the numeric keypad.
4. When you tap Done, you will be asked to re-enter your PIN. Re-enter it and tap Done again. If you had tapped Password instead of Simple PIN, you would have been shown a new screen where you could enter an alphanumeric password.

   

Sounds & Ringtones

The Sounds & Ringtones app allows you to set the behavior of the Ringer switch on the top-right part of your Palm Pre. It also lets you adjust the ringer volume and enable or disable system sounds.

1. Tap Sounds & Ringtones from the Launcher.

   

2. To control how your Palm Pre reacts when the Ringer switch is set to the Off position, tap Ringer Switch Off. Your choices are Vibrate and Mute. Setting this to Mute means that when the Ringer switch is in the Off position, all notifications are silenced. Setting it to Vibrate means that your Palm Pre will vibrate for all alerts.
3. To control how your Palm Pre reacts when the Ringer switch is set to the On position, tap Ringer Switch On. Your choices are Sound & Vibrate and Sound.
4. Tap to change the default ringtone.

   

5. Slide to adjust the ringtone volume.
6. Scroll down to clearly see the rest of the options on the screen.
7. Slide the On/Off switch to enable or disable system sounds.
8. Slide to adjust the system sound volume.