Category: Blackberry

Yesterday when I was paying my T-Mobile bill I checked out the downloads section for my BlackBerry phone and found that they had posted a new software version for my phone. The Desktop software was the same version. So I downloaded the new version and updated my phone. The good news is that it added some nice features. The bad news is that the browser was missing, I was having problems syncing with Outloook, and both PocketDay and Opera Mini are broken.

I cleaned up the browser problem by downloading new service books. This also created new icons for my business and personal email accounts. This feature I liked! I cleaned up the Outlook error by deleting the offending contacts(i.e. They were mistakes!). I did find a newer version of the Desktop software on BlackBerry’s website but it did not fix anything. I fixed the PocketDay problem by downloading a new version. I still have not gotten Opera mini to appear. When I try to download it from the website I get a HTTP 500 server error with the error detail referring to a javalang.NullPointerException error.

Yea, I know I am a bad boy. I use a Blackberry rather than a SmartPhone. SmartPhone is real intriguing but the Blackberry works for me. The big reason I got the Blackberry was to synchonize my address book with Outlook. It is hard to call someone when the updated phone number is not on your phone but is still back in your office. A PDA is a solution but I prefer the phone format. The secondary reason was to read my Yahoo email in my spare time. A month ago I decided to setup my Blackberry to download my business email, too. Blackberry works fine with OWA. An updated calendar and task list is nice but not critical I have occasionally used the web browser and Opera Mini but they are painfully slow.

Although my phone is only two years old I have started looking at replacements. The biggest feature I am interested in is faster web access via T-Mobile and a phone modem capability for my laptop. The new phones are nice but I can wait.

Opera Software today announced a new version of its awesome micro HTML-browser for non-smartphones, Opera Mini 2.0.

Lots of new features like: change browser’s visual skin, search engine improvements, speed dial for bookmarks, and quick horizontal and vertical panning when browsing backwards or forwards.

[Via digg]

I tried using several previous versions of Opera Mini on my Blackberry in the past and the quirky usability killed me. The thumbwheel was useless. Performance was sluggish, too! This version fixed those quirks. You can use the thumbwheel to click on a link now. Usability has dramatically improved and the performance is pretty good. So far I like it and I suspect I will start using it over the built-in browser.

Opera Mini is the mobile version of the popular Opera web browser, which is available for many mobile devices including the Blackberry handhelds. What’s great about Opera Mini is that it uses an inbetween proxy server that strips and formats the regular website, optimizing it for mobile platforms which makes browsing faster and saves on data cost. It has all the regular features expected of a browser, such as bookmarks, browsing history, and ability to split large pages into smaller sections for faster browsing.

Best of all, Opera Mini is free.

To download visit the following site on your Blackberry:

http://mini.opera.com

* Note, users running 4.0+ will have issues installing Opera Mini for the Blackberry, you will get a JAD error. What you need to do is find the link for the ‘Low memory version’ and install that version. We have already contacted Opera regarding this error.

[Via BlackBerry Cool]

The good news is that the browser is real nice and free. The bad news is that it is so slow I have already removed it from my phone! Other people have already commented on the slowness problem on their phones. I had to put wap.voicestream.com in my TCP configuration and download the low memory version to get around the “907 invalid jar” error message. This is a much nicer browser than the built-in browser but on my Blackberry this browser appears to be a work in progress.

T-Mobile – Downloads

I downloaded the upgrades to my Blackberry phone and desktop yesterday. It said it was fixing a variety of small problems including an extended search for the network. It did seem to fix my Error 3 problem I was getting on the Week View. The upgrade to the Desktop went without a hitch. The upgrade to the phone was more of a problem. I had updated Pocketday online. That version was replaced with the version connected to my Desktop which unfortunately was a much older version. It also reset all of my settings. I had to:

1. Change the TCP setting so I could get the weather and stock ticker to work.
2. Change the zipcode so I could get weather for my location.
3. Add a stock ticker for Dow Jones. The stock ticker was blank.

PocketDay

Cross River Systems is pleased announce that PocketDay is now available for the BlackBerry platform. PocketDay is a full featured Personal Information Manager and Utility application suite developed specifically for color BlackBerry devices. It supports all color blackberries with OS version 3.8 and higher.

I have been playing with PocketDay for the last couple of days. I see it as an enhanced and supported version of the now defunct BBToday. The Summary screen is a little better than BBToday while the Detail is a very useful once you get rid of the missed calls in your call log. The shortcut keys are nice but they must be customized for the 7100t which has fewer available keys. The communication error I got frequently in BBToday is not present in PocketDay. The number of unread email displayed on the Summary screen is wrong on my 7100t but that shouldn’t be too hard to fix. Overall PocketDay is a nice package and I am buying it. You can try it out for free at their web site.

PocketDay Detail on 7100t

I was looking at my webstats today and realized that some people had found my site via my Blackberry posts on BBToday. I looked at my previous posts and realized that I did not include a link to the sourceforge site BBTools. So here is the link, SourceForge.net: Project Info – BBTools.

Now for the bad news,

As of 2005-04-16 23:11, this project is no longer under active development.

Where or where art thou!

Pocket PC users familiar with the Today Screen program would instantly recognize BBToday. BBToday is a program that overrides your home screen and displays some of the more important information. Currently BBToday can list your 5-day forecast, new and total emails, tasks, appointments, plus battery and signal strength all on one screen. The best thing is that the program is completely open source and free.

The program does override your home screen so you will need to press the ESC button to exit to your regular home screen. The BBToday screen is not as pretty as your normal home screen but provides a lot more functionality. It would be nice if there was an option to not have the program over ride the original home screen.

Download BBToday

View more screenshots

[Via Blackberry Cool]

Hey, this is cool even if you cannot get the weather portion to work with your phone service. I added an APN entry of wap.voicestream.com to get it to work on t-mobile. It works most of the time. When the weather portion does not work, I get a malformed address error message. Most of the time when I select “Update Now”, the error message will clear up.

After upgrading to the latest version of the Blackberry OS I was testing out several features and I found I could not send email from my Blackberry. It said my service was blocked. I do not send email from my Blackberry very often but I would like that option to work if I needed to use it so I called T-Mobile support yesterday. They recommended that I modify my installation since I should be using the webclient access rather than the enterprise access. That fixed other problems I was seeing. When she asked me to go into the service book and remove the desktop CMIME that fixed the service blocked problem.

T-Mobile users with the 7100t can upgrade their handhelds from 3.8 to 4.0.

Click Here To Upgrade

[Via Blackberry Cool]

I took a trip on the wild side and upgraded my Blackberry to 4.0. It works but…I am having problems sending emails. I don’t use this feature but in testing it I found out that it does not work I tried resending the service book but it does not appear as a message so I am not sure it was sent. I also had to re-enter my speed dials and the info in Berry411. I guess I will have to call support to get the email sending workiing. I know they have changed stuff but they did not change anything I am enterested in. My #1 feature I would like is being able to read html email.

Berry411 Search Tool

Now this is a useful tool! I am still developing my opinion on the userfulness of web access via a webphone. A good webphone application I have used is looking up local vendors. A couple of years ago when we were building the farm I kept an old copy of the Yellow Pages in the car just for this purpose. Recently I went out to get the supplies to fix a broken window. I went to Home Depot and found all the supplies that I needed except for the glass pane. For some reason Home Depot does not sell glass. So as I was walking back to my car I looked up local vendors using Yahoo. It took me several menus to get to the search screen but I finally found a local glass supplier. The Berry 411 Search tool gets me to the answer several screens faster and formats the results better. It provides gives you quick access to yellow pages, white pages, movie times, Google, and Froogle results. Now thats what I call a cool webphone application!

Actually it is a Christmas gift from my parents. Well, sort of…. Today it was finally working right. It took me a day for T-Mobile to configure my account properly and another day for web access and BlackBerry web client to get worked out. I can know read most of my Yahoo mail. Some HTML mail is not readable. The PIM features are pretty usable.