Palm Pre and Me: Networking Fail

Because in the land of milk and honey all is not milk and honey. That is: with the Palm Pre.

Don't get me wrong; I'm still blown away by what it can and does do. For instance, I get a hell of a lot more done in clearing emails on the run, blogging (coming soon from me through the phone), and once you get the hang of the zoom gestures, fully-rendering web pages are a breath of fresh air.

But this morning I woke up and tried to check my AccuWeather app as the rumblin' was a-comin' from the west and the phone stalled out. When I jumped on my email to do some early brush-clearing, it told me "The network is not available. Please enable networking in order to continue. Activate Wi-Fi?" Wait - what? Shouldn't the Sprint Network be rocking out?

Later I made phone calls without issue, but the "network" would still not respond to my desire to check my facebook or Gmail. I just figured it was down for a time and went through the rest of my morning.

Once I got settled into my work after some AMA and some networking with a good friend, I tried again. No dice. "Well," I thought, "The internet is not working on my phone. Perhaps I should just click the 'Help' function on the interface."


Apparently a search of help for the internets is an Auto-FAIL because the base Help product ...requires an internet connection.

(apologies for the fuzzy image - despite my Pre early adoption, my digital camera is still an older 2.1 megapixel Sony Cybershot. That is officially 0.9 megapixels LESS than the phone I took a picture of

UPDATE NOTE: Thanks to @FlipTheOrg for the following tip: "Take screenshots of your Pre by pressing orange+sym+p at the same time, then check photo album." Hawt.)

So still perplexed, I went through the [enter any cell phone provider name here] hoops. I called the store I bought it at. They didn't have tech repair people. I called the people at the tech-repair-capable store. They didn't have the tools to troubleshoot over the phone. So I called the national tech assistance line.

While I was on hold to speak with the HelpDesk CSR, the message announced something and I just about smacked my own forehead - on purpose - into the corner of my desk: "If you have not yet turned off your device and turned it back on...." Damn.

Condensed: I did that and my internets worked fine.

I'm not sure if it's my tenacity and practice of sometimes searching thousands of lines of code for a misplaced period, comma, or curvy bracket, but every once in a while I hit myself in the head because when I run into a computer or phone problem I can't get right away, my brain (or caffeine) turns on the "Solve!" center before the Procedural System is booted to say "Hey, um, did you reboot?"

I'm very good at what I do, but sometimes it's nice - and humbling - to be reminded that you are human. I certainly am.