Family, travel, mom blog | Theme Park Mom (Leigh Caldwell)

A weekend at the beach in Jacksonville, Fla., provided a great opportunity for me to evaluate the Verizon Palm Pre Plus camera and share the results with you here.

This device has a 3.0 megapixel camera with an LED flash. Two things like about it:

• There is an easy way, right from the camera screen to turn the flash on, turn the flash off or leave it on auto. With my previous cell phones with cameras, I refrained from taking pictures in “no flash photography allowed” situations, because I didn’t know how to turn off my flash.
• The camera takes multiple pictures quite rapidly. There is no real lag time between shots.

One thing I don’t like about the camera:

• There is no zoom capability. This is likely a choice of the developer – speed over a digital zoom – and if you have to make the choice, I guess I would lose the zoom, too. But it would be nice to let the user make that choice on a case-by-case basis.

That said, overall I am happy with the Verizon Palm Pre Plus camera. Here are some pictures I took with it. They are completely unedited, and you can click them to see the actual size the camera takes.

The view from our hotel room at the Quality Suites Oceanfront in Jacksonville.

Taken in a dark room with the Verizon Palm Pre Plus camera flash, at the Museum of Science and History in Jacksonville.

Outside with the sun overhead, at the Jacksonville Beach Pier.

As I mentioned in my last review post, an update to Palm’s webOS last week gave the Verizon Palm Pre Plus a camcorder function. I am very pleased with how it works! Not only can you shoot video on the Verizon Palm Pre Plus, there is also an edit function that allows you to trim the ends of the video easily. Here is a video I shot, edited and uploaded straight to YouTube from my phone. It was shot at the Jacksonville Museum of Science and History in a room with the lights turned off.

Disclosure notice: Verizon paid for my Palm Pre Plus and is paying for one month of my service in exchange for me trying the phone and posting about my experiences on my blog. I’m still thinking for myself, though, and you can count on me to provide my honest opinion of this product.

Wow! You came back! I hope you find my site helpful. Please contact me if you have any suggestions or story ideas.

I have now been using my Verizon Palm Pre Plus for about two weeks, and I am becoming increasingly convinced that this is THE mobile device for me.

I did not know much about the Palm Pre Plus before I started using it, but one thing I had heard about was the webOS operating system Palm had developed. I heard people were raving about it.

Now I see why, and that’s what I will be covering in my next few posts about the device.

The big news is that my phone told me there was an update of webOS that needed to be installed yesterday. This update was “pushed” to my phone; I didn’t have to go anywhere and download it. That’s great for me because I am terrible about taking the time to download software updates and get them installed. One click to give the OK to install, and the Verizon Palm Pre Plus did all the work.

And then I went to use the camera. And lo and behold, the only major thing I had been missing in this phone was there: Video! The Palm Pre Plus can now take video! And not only does it shoot video, you can edit it right on the device and upload it to YouTube. I was going to give it a try yesterday and upload a video to share, but mama was having a very bad hair day. I will be shooting a video to share on my trip to the beach this weekend.

So, that’s the big news. There were many other feature updates with the new webOS upgrade. The sheer number of them tells me Palm is serious about improving their operating system continuously to make it easier and easier for its users.

On to the Web browser, which is, in a word, fantastic. With my old phone, I used to constantly try to load a Web page and then just give up when the browser would hang on a script it didn’t want to run. The Verizon Palm Pre Plus has loaded every Web page I have tried in the past two weeks, and that has to number in the hundreds by now.

I also like that the Palm Pre Plus Web browser loads the whole page as it would appear on a larger screen. Then, I double tap on the area I want to zoom in on and read. This saves me a surprising amount of time. Other mobile devices I have used broke up the information on Web pages to load everything in a readable size first, so I had to scroll through a mile of sidebar information to get to the blog post I wanted to read.

The speed of the Web browser seems lightning quick to me on Verizon’s 3G network. Last week, I took a trip to a rural area not yet covered by 3G, and the speed was still noticeably faster than it had been with my old device in the same area.

Next up: I will be talking about how Palm’s webOS uses “cards,” and why this system is great for busy moms. And I’ll show you a video taken with the Verizon Palm Pre Plus.

Disclosure notice: Verizon paid for my Palm Pre Plus and is paying for one month of my service in exchange for me trying the phone and posting about my experiences on my blog. I’m still thinking for myself, though, and you can count on me to provide my honest opinion of this product.

Smart Destinations, the company behind Go Cards, has added SeaWorld San Diego to its Go San Diego Card lineup.

The Go San Diego Card already included admission to 50 attractions and tours in Southern California, and now you can visit one of the premiere theme parks in the country with the card, as well.

If you have never had a Go Card, they are different from those free discount cards or coupon books you pick up when traveling. The Go Card is actually a ticket you use to get into your choice of the participating attractions. You pay one (discounted!) price, and choose whatever you want to see for the number of days you need.

For example, a 3-day San Diego Go Card costs $169 for adults. Use that card to visit three top attractions in San Diego — Legoland California, SeaWorld San Diego and the San Diego Zoo — and you will save yourself $26. Hit up another attraction or two, like the San Diego Museum of Art of a Whale Watch Cruise, and you will save even more.

In fact, there are more than 50 attractions, museums, theme parks and tours to choose from with the Go San Diego Card.

You can order the card for 1, 2, 3, 5 or 7 consecutive days of fun.

Good news!

You know how I always tell you to check for discounts online before you go on a trip? Well, right now, Smart Destinations is offering a 10 percent discount on Go San Diego Cards when you buy them online. For a family of 4, this sale adds up to a savings of almost $59 on the 3-day cards.

And yes, you can buy the Go San Diego Card online before your trip. Just be sure you use it within 1 year of your purchase.

Better news!

The folks at Smart Destinations want to give one lucky Theme Park Mom reader a 3-day Go San Diego Card!

Here’s how to enter the Go San Diego Card giveaway:

Required for entry:

Check out the Go San Diego Card Web site, then come back here and leave a comment telling me about two attractions you would use your card to visit.

Extra entries:

You can earn one extra entry for doing each of the following. Be sure to leave a separate comment for each thing you do:

• Subscribe to my blog.
• Follow me on Twitter.
• Tweet about this giveaway – SeaWorld San Diego is now part of the Go San Diego Card! Enter to win one @themeparkmom’s blog: http://bit.ly/b9F59f

The fine print: Entries for this contest will close at 9 p.m. Eastern on March 15, 2010. I will announce the winner with an update on this post on March 16. Open to U.S. winners only. The winner will be chosen by Random.org; odds of winning depend on the number of entries received.

Disclosure Notice: Smart Destinations is providing the prize for this giveaway.

SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment has posted the video tribute shown before the Shamu shows at its parks this weekend. I wanted to share it here, too.

I have not commented much about the tragedy at SeaWorld Orlando, largely because a fellow wife and mother is dead, and I believe in letting her family grieve in peace.

I have always loved the “Believe” show, and I will never watch it again without thinking of Dawn.