Supporting Palmtop & Mobile Smartphone Users
"20 years
experience with handheld mobile devices"
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BLACKBERRY BLOG |
| Blackberry Watch!
27/10/09 Courtesy of crackberry.com, it seems to now have been confirmed that we should be seeing a Blackberry Watch next year. It has been designed specifically for use with BlackBerry Smartphones from the ground up – developed by a new BlackBerry-dedicated accessory company. It features an OLED screen that we hear is “big, bright and beautiful” and optimized for displaying text clearly, |
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| and thanks to
OLED has solid battery life. It’s designed to show you notifications
and previews of messages arriving on your BlackBerry. Judging by the
filename of the photos as they were sent in to us, we’re thinking
it’s going to be branded the inPulse smartwatch. See http://crackberry.com/first-images-blackberry-watch-real |
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| Blackberry Upgrade - Beware!!!
22/10/09 |
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| ATTENTION
ALL BLACKBERRY USERS! 06:22 A word of warning to those Blackberry users who are prompted to execute an upgrade. I did just that last night only to find this morning that the upgrade has screwed up my Calendar!  An upgrade is meant to potentially improve software stability, performance and features; so why is the Calendar on my Blackberry 8820 now limited to a range of 9 Sep 2009-8 May 2011!
I can’t access my appointments <08/09/09. I damn well hope that
Outlook Calendar back on my home PC still has my appointments…..?So, am I just the unfortunate one or has this happened to other Blackberry users having just carried out an upgrade? 19:30 My fear has been confirmed! RIM “I AM NOT PLEASED!!!” I’ve just checked Outlook Calendar and the upgrade has resulted in all my appointments <08/09/09 being deleted! I’m so angry! So, a lesson leart: 1st – Make sure you back up your data regularly, luckily I backed up the Outlook.pst file that contains all the data in Outlook. 2nd – Don’t do an upgrade before looking on Google (www.google.co.uk) for some feedback from people that have carried out the upgrade. So I hope this Blog might just save someone from data loss! Before I did the upgrade, my Blackberry Sync was set to sync all appointments between Outlook and Blackberry, NOT to delete old appointments! So why did an upgrade force the Sync to delete old appointments before 08/09/09? |
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| Q&A: Searching on a
Blackberry
16/10/09 |
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| Question:
Can you search for an address in the Blackberry Address Book? Answer: Unfortunately not, it appears that you can only search for a name, telephone number and text within the note fields. Addresses and email addresses will not be found when using the search feature. |
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| Faulty Blackberry Roller
17/09/09 My Blackberry 8820 on Orange recently
developed a fault with the downwards movement of the roller ball! |
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| difficult to
get any movement of the cursor in a downwards direction. Having thought that it had developed a hardware fault, I found my receipt (within a year of purchase) from CEX (Computer Exchange, www.cex.co.uk) and popped along to my local store in Tottenham Court Road (near Googe Street) in Central London. I showed a member of staff the fault and he popped my Blackberry into their workshop. A few minutes later, the friendly/helpfull member of staff presented me with my Blackberry with a smile on his face 
My roller was fixed!He went on to say that this is a very common fault and the fix was simply to rub the roller ball with a rubber/eraser, which takes off any greasy/oily residue from the roller. Obviously in my case a build up of residue was effecting the downwards movement. Thank you CEX. |
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| Blackberry Desktop
Manager for a Mac
08/09/09 |
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| BlackberryBlast
Mac and BlackBerry users have been waiting for a Desktop Manager and
it’s finally here. BlackBerry Desktop Manager for Mac is available,
see http://blackberry.pdablast.com/articles/2009/9/200996-BlackBerry-Desktop-Manager-for.html or straight to the download page http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CGR9QN2S. |
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| Copying & Pasting on
a Blackberry
04/09/09 |
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| The copy &
paste facility on a Blackberry can be very useful. For instance, some
examples of use are: 1) You receive an address in an email or a text message which is related to a calendar appointment; 2) You write some notes using MemoPad and then want to email/text them to someone; 3) You recieve an email/text from someone and you want to keep some of the text in a new MemoPad entry. The process of ‘Copy & Paste’ is simple, the steps are shown in screenshots 1-5 from example 1) above, as follows: a) Open the email that contains the address (Screenshot 1); b) Press the menu key (left of roller-ball) and pick ‘Select’ (Screenshot 2); c) Move the roller-ball to select, the required text, e.g. the address (Screenshot 3); d) Press the menu key and pick ‘Copy’ (Screenshot 4); e) Go to where you want to copy the text to, e.g. the note field of a Calendar appointment; f) Press the menu key and pick ‘Paste’. In this example you will now have the address text that was emailed to you copied in to the note field of the calendar appointment for the meeting. |
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| Blackberry Desktop
Manager - a marked improvement!
04/09/09 |
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| I have
struggled to accept my synchronisations taking, on my last
count 8 minutes 35 seconds using v.4.7 for my Blackberry 8820
containing: 1,106 Contacts, 941 Calendar entries, 294 Tasks & 166
Memos. Having just accepted the prompt to upgrade to v.5.0, Wow! what a marked improvement, the same volume of data now takes only 28 seconds! Well done RIM! I strongly recommend this upgrade to existing users of pre-v.5 ‘Blackberry Desktop Manager’. New Blackberry users should especially take note as the CD ‘in-the-box’ is very likely to be an older version of this software. So, before you install an older version, just go to https://www.blackberry.com/Downloads/browseSoftware.do;jsessionid=1ZNiicNZHMwBLFBJIte9fg and download the free latest version 5.0. |
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| Google Maps on a
Blackberry - Introduction 03/09/09 |
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| Google Maps is
freeware and widely available, I’m currently using v.3.0.2 on my
Blackberry 8820. It gives you two views and an opportunity to share
your position online, called ‘Latitude’, this screen shot shows
the ‘Map’ view. This view shows road names/numbers, one-way
streets and railway stations. Although not what I’d call SatNav
software, Google Maps gives a simple but effective route tool. Another
nice feature is to ‘Search Map’, I tried “cash point”,
“cafe” and “bank” and I was very impressed with the results!
When you find what you’re looking for it gives you a full address,
telephone number, puts a map pin at it’s location, let’s you save
it as a favourite and even see directions to it from where you are.
There are even three route modes: Driving, Public Transport and
Walking. See Google Maps-Route tool. Continued on my Wordpress Blog. |
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| Switching between
Blackberry Applications
03/09/09 |
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| PC users may be
familiar with the ‘Alt+Tab’ hotkey to switch between running
programmes, if you didn’t well you’ve just learnt something! So,
switching between applications on a Blackberry can be achieved by
pressing the ‘Alt+Esc’ keys; the Esc key is the key to the right
of the navi-ball. When a horizontal list of apps appears, release the
‘Esc’ key and scroll left/right using the navi-ball to select the
app you want, releasing the ‘Alt’ key with launch the app you’re
after. |
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| Tube2 on a Blackberry, a
must have for underground travelers
03/09/09 |
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| For travellers
who use the London Underground regularly, will find this app very
handy for those occasions when you need to plan/take a journey on the
London Underground that you’re not familiar with. ‘Live
Information’ (I assume, underground service reports etc; but when I
tried it for the first time, the server had a problem) is also
available but can’t be used underground as it requires an internet
connection to VisualIT’s website via 3G/Wi-Fi. Tube2 is available from http://www.visualit.co.uk/. |
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| Quickpull for Blackberry
03/09/09 Not much to say about ‘QuickPull’ for Blackberry, other than it’s what I categorise as a ‘Must Have’ app, it’s free and let’s you perform a soft reset as if you had temporarily removed the battery. |
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| The benefit of
performing a periodic soft reset, frees up memory and keeps the
Blackberry running as efficient as possible. QuickPull can also be
configured to perform a daily reset at a pre-set time. It’s
available as a free download from, yep, you’ve guessed the
‘Blackberry App Store’. |
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| Blackberry Desktop
Manager v.4.7 (Working Damn slowly!)
02/09/09 |
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| Ok, so I’ve
used PDAs for some 20 years! As a ‘power user’ utilising most of
what my latest gadget has to offer and generally always in-sync with
Microsoft Outlook (currently 2003). I generally aways say that the
best and fastest sync is between a PC & Microsoft Pocket
PC/Windows Mobile device. I think I’ll stick with my statement
having just actually put a stopwatch to a regular (daily if possible)
sync using the ‘Blackberry Desktop Manager’ (version 4.7) between
Outlook & my Blackberry 8820. So, a line by line process log…
(watching paint dry! YES!
) RECOMMENDED STEP ONE, Go and put the kettle on, wait for it to boil, make your tea/coffee…… 1) Reading from Device Address Book (1106 records); 2) Processing Device Address Book (1106 records); 3) Reading from Microsoft Outlook Address Book (1102 records); 4) Reading from Device Calendar (941 records); 5) Processing Device Calendar (941 records); 6) Reading from Microsoft Outlook Calendar (943 records); 7) Reading from Device Tasks (294 records); 8] Processing Device Tasks (294 records); 9) Reading from Microsoft Outlook Tasks (294 records); 10) Reading from Device MemoPad (166 records); 11) Processing Device MemoPad (166 records); 12) Processing from Microsoft Outlook MemoPad (166 records); (dunno about you but mine’s called ‘Notes’); 13) One moment please…. (the cheek of it! as though I haven’t waited long enough) Finally, 8 minutes 35 seconds! You might even have drunk your cuppa Someone please convince me that this is acceptable…. |
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| Garmin Mobile on my
Blackberry
31/08/09 |
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| I’ve been a
keen user of digital mapping/SatNav on PDAs for many years now; way
before the first car Satnav devices came to market. I started off with
an old GPS CFD (Compact Flash Disk) used in an old Compaq iPAQ Pocket
PC; in those days connecting to SatNav satellites was very slow.
Through the years I’ve used various SatNav software on a variety of
PDAs/smartphones including TomTom, Navigon Mobile Navigator, MioMaps,
CoPilot and Garmin Mobile. Garmin Mobile EU, v.5.2.2 for Blackberry is the SatNav software I’m putting through a rigorous trial, with high expectations. I intend doing some tests in the next few weeks on how much it costs to navigate with streaming map data via 3G/GPRS, being the way all? Blackberry SatNav software works. I’ve blogged before about my conversation with a Orange data support guy, when he assured me that occasional use of SatNav software should not exceed my 250MB monthly data allowance; er… We’ll see. He couldn’t however give me any data costs due to the diversity of navigation. I believe that this one main issue would be the make/break factor about such smartphone set ups challenging the conventional car SatNavs. Well, I intend to do three tests over the next few weeks: 1) Motorway driving navigation at an average speed of 50-60mph for 30mins; 2) Town driving navigation at an average speed of 15-25mph for 30mins and; 3) Walking navigation at an average speed of 2-3mph for 30mins. Based on Orange data usage logging and their co-operation, I hope to blog about what volume of mega-bytes my three tests resulted in. Ok, now let me focus on Garmin’s Mobile EU software. When you launch the software, you’re presented with the ‘Main Menu’ screen giving: Where to, View Map, Traffic, Weather, Settings & Exit. ‘Where to’ is where/how to find a location, navigate to etc. ‘View Map’ let’s you see where you are, once you connect to a few satellites. ‘Traffic’ I’ve not seen in use yet but hope it’ll pick up the standard traffic broadcasts over-the-air from organisations such as the RAC in the UK; like the way my traffic dongle works with my in-car Garmin Nuvi 300 SatNav. ‘Weather’ see later Part.16 & 17. ‘Settings’ and ‘Exit’ need no explanation. Whilst navigating the main menu has a ‘Stop’ (navigation) icon. Continued in Part.02+ on my Wordpress Blog. |
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iPlayer on a Blackberry?31/08/2009 |
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Is there an iPlayer for
Blackberry’s? |
| Blogging from my
Blackberry 31/08/09 Running a very busy life, I find it difficult to find time to update my website, which is why |
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| www.palmtopman.com was
reduced to just one page. So a few weeks ago I decided to give
‘Blogging’ a try. I started with http://palmtopman.blog.co.uk,
then tried http://palmtopman.blogspot.com but
now primarily use this one http://palmtopman.wordpress.com
(but then you know that, it’s where you’re reading this, I hope
). I have found the time to blog by using little bits of free time and
typing into my Blackberry either directly via the good sized QWERTY
keyboard on my 8820 or now using a portable fold up Bluetooth
keyboard. As for the text tool, I try and keep things simple, so I am using the Blackberry ‘MemoPad’, which sync’s with Microsoft Outlook Notes; one memopad note for each blog. Managing my notes, I have three categories; Blogs, Blogs-Ready and Blogs-Posted; so when I’m drafting a blog, I use the category ‘Blogs’, when a blog is ready for posting, I change the category to ‘Blog-Ready’ and if you haven’t guessed, when I’ve posted the blog to blogger.com, I change the category of my note to ‘Blog-Posted’. That way with a busy period of blogging, e.g. lots of free time, I know where I am with my blogs. With my blogs within MS Outlook Notes, I can easily copy, paste and post to blogger.com from my PC. To end on a high, blogger.com let’s you post blogs by just sending an email to Mail2Blogger; which I’m just about to do to post this one whilst away with my Blackberry. Ed. And so does www.wordpress.com, blogging by simply sending a quick email, how kool is that!
This blogging thing might just go on and on and on (oh Nichola,
yes, I’ve reached 100!), well I’ve got lots to blog about
gadgets that I just love playing with. |
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| Blackberry Apps installed
on a MicroSD card 31/08/09 |
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| Does anyone
know how to install applications on to an onboard MicroSD card on a
Blackberry? By default, when I install additional apps they’re being
installed on to the internal memory; which I’m running out of! Can I
move an app from the internal memory on to the MicroSD card?
Comment… I’ve had a reply from a guy on the www.everythingberry.com forum confirming that you cannot install Blackberry apps on a memory card! |
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| Blackberry Application
Installation
31/08/09 |
| My heart almost stopped and
I had a deep feeling of anxiety during my first installation of a
software application (Tube 2) on to my Blackberry 8820. Towards the
end of the installation, it was going though an initialisation stage
with my Blackberry appearing to restart, e.g the turning hour-glass.
It seemed to hang for ages, during which my thoughts returned to the
last crash during a flash upgrade! I quickly turned off my AVG
Anti-Virus software in case that was causing a problem. I am releaved
to say the install completed perfectly. Now, would it have been so
successful if I hadn’t turned off AVG? |
Blackberry Search-note within contact30/08/2009 |
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Just used the
‘Search’ functionality on my 8820 to find something
entered as a note within a contact. It took 20 seconds to
search through my 2000 contacts! Not bad eh…
As shown in the screenshot of the ‘Search’ facility, you can select which areas on your Blackberry that you’d like to search. |
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| TIP: Multi-Tasking on a
Blackberry
30/08/09 |
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A very useful
key-press to switch between the last two running apps is ‘Alt+Esc’.
Esc being the key with the curved arrow, to the right of the track
roller ball. Pressing ‘Alt+Esc’ shows all running apps, but
specifically will toggle between the last two used apps; especially
useful when copy/cut and pasting text etc.
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| Car Finder for Blackberry
30/08/09 We’ve all done it, haven't we, parked our car and upon return couldn’t find it! At that point it seemed |
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that half the cars in
the huge car park just happened to be the same colour as yours
or really at the time
So fear not, there’s a handy little free programme for your GPS
enabled Blackberry, ‘Car Finder’. You simply save the location
of where you parked your vehicle (not excluding motorbikes, vans and
lorry's that aren’t known as cars) in ‘Car Finder’, then if
you can’t remember when you parked it amongst the rows and rows;
simply use ‘Car Finder’ to assist you. It shows you a large
directional pointer showing you in which direction you should be
walking and how far in metres you are away from your car/saved
location. This app is available from the ‘Blackberry App Store’. |
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| Lost Hidden Folder
30/08/09 A warning for fellow
Blackberry users! The other day I was organising my picture library,
moving some photos around and creating a few new folders to organise
my library of photos/images on my Blackberry 8820. Beware of going
into the ‘Properties’ of a folder and selecting/ticking the
‘Hidden’ box! It does “what it says on the tin!” My folder
vanished! Damn! Now, RIM could have made it possible to somehow show
hidden folders so that the properties can be un-hidden; or am I
missing something? I even tried downloading and installing two
different ‘file managers’ to see if I could see the folders to get
to the properties and un-hide the folder; no luck!. Then I thought, my
last chance is via a connection with my Blackberry to my PC… YES it
worked! Want to know how??? |
| Windows Live Messenger
for Blackberry
30/08/09 |
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For users of MSN Instant
Messenger on a PC, this is a ‘must have’ free app for your
Blackberry. Instant Messenger enables you to keep in contact with
friends, relatives and work colleagues by sending/receiving
messages. The ‘Windows Live Messenger’ app is once again
available from the ‘Blackberry App Store’. Once configured/set
up with your account username/password and you’ve signed in, this
great little app will put across your contacts as though you were
signed in on your PC. It neatly shows those ‘Online’ contacts on
the top of the screen, with those offline, listed below. A neat
little feature called ‘Alert Me’ can be set to let you know when
a contact comes online. As per the PC version, you can change your
‘Status’ if you don’t want to be disturbed; e.g. Busy, Be
Right Back, Away, In a Call, Out to Lunch or Appear Offline.
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Bluetooth Keyboard & Blackberry30/08/2009I’ve
recently had problems trying to get a Freedom Universal Bluetooth
Keyboard talking to my Blackberry 8820. The two devices seemed to
‘pair’ using the standard default pairing code of 0000 but when I
tried to activate the keyboard from the keyboard software on the
Blackberry, I got the warning pop-up “Keystroke Injection not
allowed on your device”. At times, a soft reset was needed! I really
thought that I had incompatible keyboard software on my Blackberry. |
| TIP:
Blackberry ‘SPACE’ key – more than just spaces
30/08/09 |
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The ‘SPACE’
key on a Blackberry smartphone has two other uses: in the Calendar,
(Web) Browser & Email applications, the space key doubles as a
‘Page Down’ control. |
| Blackberry
App World
30/08/09 In my opinion the biggest thing that’s happened on the handheld world of gadgets has to be the online (from the device) facility to browse and download apps (applications) straight on to your device! |
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| iPhone users have the
great online ‘App Store’, where hundreds of apps are available to
download, many of which are free! others only cost a few pounds (£).
Nokia users have recently been introduced to the ‘Ovi store’. Now, back to the subject. By default, your Blackberry web browser homepage should show a link to download the ‘Blackberry App Store’. Once installed, the store should exist as an icon on your desktop. Once the ‘Blackberry App Store’ is opened, best via a Wi-Fi connection, you can look through the top downloads, sorting by price etc. You can also search for a particular app by a name(s). Many apps found in the online ‘Blackberry App Store’ are free but others are not expensive. UPDATED… BlackBerry App World – now available via the WWW (World Wide Web). I can say is that it is about time. RIM (Research In Motion) have launched a web based version of their App World that lets you browse for applications via your computer. It has everything you would expect to see in a basic store. Applications are separated into categories. There is also a breakdown of Top Paid, Top Free, Featured. |
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