Ever wonder how fast you type on your pre/pixi keyboard? You can quickly find out for free with the Two Thumbs Up Typing Test now available in the Palm’s application catalog. Just download the app, press the “Begin Test” button at the bottom of the instructions after reading them, take the quick one minute test, and then view your typing speed.

To make things more interesting, Sierra Blanco Systems has teamed up with preCentral.net and webOSroundup.com to sponsor what is probably the first ever thumb typing competition and survey. After seeing your score, please press the continue button and take a brief (seven question) survey, and then submit your typing speed and survey. It only takes about an additional minute or two. After Labor Day, Sept 6^th, random drawing of survey participants will be held. Prizes include gift certificates and webOS t-shirts. On the sponsor page there is also a discount code good for 10% off on preCentral store purchases. In addition, the fastest typists will be invited to compete in a, hopefully live, “type-off” to see who is fastest. Prizes will also be awarded to the top typists.

After Labor Day, the date and other details of the type-off will be announced.  SBS will also start posting tables and graphs of the survey results. You can then find out interesting thumb typing statistics like where your speed ranks compared to others. Labor Day is next Monday, so please download and take the test and survey as soon as possible.

It was a lot of hard work but version 1.0 of the Two Thumbs Up Typing Tutor (TTUTT) is now available for purchase in the Palm Application Catalog. Our deep appreciation to the many beta testers who reviewed TTUTT and made sure it was ready for release. In order to celebrate, we wanted to make the introductory price as low as possible. So taking advantage of Palm's half-off sale, the price is just 50¢ until the sale ends on July 23rd. TTUTT is available as an an English language program in other countries, but our understanding no half-off pricing outside the USA. Since the sale ends in less than a week, watch the video (links are in previous post) and buy TTUTT now.

We are almost ready to release the Two Thumbs Up Typing Tutor (TTUTT). We are waiting on Palm to release webOS 1.4.5 so we can test TTUTT on devices actually running 1.4.5 before final submission to Palm. Hopefully, TTUTT will be in Application Catalog by the 16th. Introductory pricing will be just 99 cents through the end of the month. With the half-off special, this means you should be able to get the Typing Tutor for just 50 cents. We also have a short promotional video. One version is for viewing on PCs and one version is for viewing on your smart phone.

It's official! Palm is now part of HP. Most anyone visiting our site probably already knows this, but as of today, Palm is officially part of HP. In case you didn't, this is HP's press release. You can read more about it preCentral or webOSroundup as well as several other places on the internet. As webOS developers, we at Sierra Blanco Systems ar really excited about this acquisition and HP's public commitment to "double down' on webOS development. I'm also personally glad that they are planning to keep the Palm brand. To paraphrase the end of one dynasty and the beginning of another "Palm is dead, long live Palm!"

We've created a separate twitter account just for Sierra Blanco Systems. SBSCentral was created you can find out when we have new releases, are looking for testers, etc. You can also send us a direct message us or post a Twitter message with @SBSCentral as another way to ask us a question, request a feature, report a bug, praise or complain, etc. Of course support@sierrablanco.com can still be used for that as well with out the 140 character limit. -- Greg