I’ve made the Palm Pre my summer project. When it was released in June, I waited in line for it. This kind of excitement is the spice of life for me. I was happy with phone, but still was wanting more.

Later that month, the phone got rooted. A new sense of joy to find out the device is Linux-based, so the code is easily readable. But more interestingly, a little community started to form. IRC channels went up, we all shared what we saw. The possibilities now became endless with what we could do with this phone.

Last weekend (August 8), we had PreDev Camp. This event was held in various locations all over the country and the world. I am amazed by this grass-roots effort. In Kansas City, Derek Gathright stepped up and lead the effort. He readily admits he had help, but he did an awesome job. There were about 70 people in attendance.

We met in a hall-like room at The Screenland in North Kansas City. We could not have asked for a better space. We had an Internet connection, a few of us brought WiFi routers, and we even had some MiFis from Sprint.

We set up a session area with a projector and screen to do presentations and a coding area which had round tables to work at. The round tables helped up huddle together and talk more.

Palm donated Mitch Allen’s book which was a great guide and reference to all of us. People like Mike Gaffney, Rick Boatright, and Kevin Williams from Handmark gave presentations and generally helped all of us with our questions. Ram Koya from Sprint gave a presentation on the Sprint Sandbox.
Barbara Ballard from Little Springs Design gave a talk on mobile design.

All in all, it was great experience. The most valuable part was the networking with other Palm/webOS developers. I’m sure it jump-started interest in developing on this platform for most of the attendees.

I plan to blog about my Palm/webOS development experience in upcoming weeks.