The Palm Foleo

The folks at TreoCentral are beside themselves. Palm just announced a new ... something ... called the Foleo, and I don't think I've ever seen such a negative reaction to a new product before it's even in the stores. This from people who are heavy Palm users -- people who had been waiting semi-breathlessly to see what Palm would come up with.

The Foleo is essentially a $500 subnotebook that is intended to work with Palm's Treo smartphones. But the questions that everyone's asking are:

• What is this product?
• Who will actually buy it?
• and...what kind of silly name is that, anyway?

Vive l' Edselio!

Great Upgrapes of History: Upgrades that Weren't

Everybody has their favorite stories of the upgrape that either had major bugs; was slow, bloated or both; had reduced functionality; or didn't work at all.

Some perennial favorites from the mists of the past:

• dBase IV
• Quicken 200x
  
• MS-DOS, any even-numbered version (2.0, 4.0)
• Windows Millenium Edition (ME)
  
• WordPerfect 6.0

Special award:

• anything from Microsoft x.0 (but let's be fair, lots of other companies could compete for this one!)
  

Add your "favorites"!

Is the Treo 755p smartphone an upgrape?

It's really too soon to tell, since reviews are just being published today, and the Treo 755p phone itself isn't supposed to be available until Monday, May 14. But many Treo 700p users who have been disappointed with the performance of that phone are waiting to see whether the 755p will be "new and improved," or just an "upgrape."

Reviews:

• Brighthand
• CNet
  
• Engadget
  
• GadgetsOnTheGo
• Gizmodo
  
• InfoSync
  
• Laptop Magazine
  
• MobileBurn
  
• MobileTechReview
• MyTreo
• PalmInfoCenter
  
• PC Magazine
• PhoneScoop
  
• SlashGear
  
• TreoCentral
• ZDNet
  

What's an upgrape?

Back on October 14, 2006, the Voice over IP telephone service Sunrocket announced on their web site that they were planning a "system upgrape." Well, geeks have a notoriously low sense of humor. A whole discussion ensued as to the nature of an upgrape on the Sunrocket board at Broadband Reports. Unfortunately for Sunrocket customers, there was a major, nationwide outage the next day. The Broadband Reports posters, of course, blamed the "upgrape."

Ever since, it's been a bit of a running joke, both at Broadband Reports and at the Sunrocket Forum: every time there is a problem, someone wonders whether Sunrocket is performing another "upgrape."

So, a definition:

upgrape (n., high-tech slang). An equipment or software upgrade that goes sour, by causing a system failure or other undesirable side-effects.

This site is dedicated to finding upgrapes everywhere. Post your favorites!