Tong Family Blog

Blackberry has a few free games on mobile.blackberry.com, but pinstack has a bunch more with Tetris being the coolest.

You can also get free Java games from Mobilerated.com

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Posted by rich at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Here is what the blackberry can playback according to Pinstack and there is a freeware encoder for video that Pinstack recommends.

Music

The following Audio formats (including extensions) are supported:
- ACC - audio compression formats AAC, AAC+, and EAAC+
- AMR - Adaptive Multi Rate-Narrow Band (AMR-NB) speech coder standard Supported AMR-NB rates are 4.75 KBps, 5.15 KBps, 5.9 KBps, 6.7 KBps, 7.4 KBps, 7.95 KBps, 10.2 KBps, and 12.2 KBp.
- AMR files must conform to the standards specified in Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments (RFC) document RFC3267, Section 5, on the the Internet RFC Archive web site.
- MIDI - Polyphonic MIDI (.mid, .midi, or .smf)
- MP3 - encoded using MPEG Part 1 and Part 2 audio layer 3 Supported sample rates are 16Khz, 22.050Khz, 24Khz, 32Khz, 44.1Khz and 48Khz.
- WAV - supports sample rates of 8 kHz, 16 kHz, 22.05 kHz, 32 kHz, 44.1 kHz, and 48 kHz with 8-bit and 16-bit depths in mono or stereo Supports WAV files created using audio codec GSM6.10.

The following Audio file extensions are also supported:
- .avi containing PCM, MP3, and AAC, AAC+, and eAAC+
- .3gp containing MP3, AMR-NB, AAC, AAC+, and eAAC+
- .mp4 containing MP3, AMR-NB, AAC, AAC+, and eAAC+
- .mov containing MP3, AMR-NB, AAC, AAC+, and eAAC+
- .aac and .m4a containing AAC, AAC+, and eAAC+ Video

The following Video formats are supported:
- MPEG-4 Part 2 - Simple Profile + bvops (including DivX files in this format)
- H.263 Profile 0 and Profile 3

The way to get H.263 and then you select,
1.Select the Output Container= avi
2.Select the output Video codec=H.263
3.Aspect=11:9,4:3 or 1:1
4.Frame/sec= 14.985
5.Bitrate kbps= 64-576

The following Video file extensions are also supported:
- .avi containing MPEG4 Part 2 and H.263
- .mov containing MPEG4 Part 2 and H.263
- .3gp containing MPEG4 Part 2 and H.263
- .mp4 containing MPEG4 Part 2 and H.263
- .m4v containing MPEG4 Part 2 and H.263
- .mpg containing MPEG4 Part 2 and H.263

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Posted by rich at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Pinstack has an amazingly helpful list of things for the Pearl. The biggest and the incredibly bizarre keyboard shortcuts. They aren't intuitive anymore because the keyboard is so much smaller.

Keyboard Shortcuts
Basic Shortcuts

The following shortcuts can be used in many applications:

- To move the cursor, roll the trackball.
- To exit a screen or to move to a previous page in a browser, press the Escape key.
- To move upwards in a screen, press 3.
- To move downwards in a screen, press 9.
- To move to the top of a screen, press 1.
- To move to the bottom of a screen, press 7.
- To move to the next item, press 6.
- To move to the previous item, press 4.
- To move to a list item or menu item, type the first letter of the item.
- To select or clear a check box, click the trackball.
- To select adjacent items, hold the Shift key and roll the trackball.
- To delete a selected item, press the Delete key.
- To switch applications, hold the Alt key and press the Escape key. Continue holding the Alt key and select an application. Release the Alt
key.
- To return to the Home screen, press the End key.
- To lock the keyboard, from the Home screen, hold the asterisk ( * ) key.- To unlock the keyboard, hold the Send key and press the asterisk ( *) key. Type your password.
- To switch between the Default and Vibrate notification profiles, from the Home screen, hold the pound ( # ) key.
- To turn on a theme or notification profile, select a theme or notification profile, then press the Space key.

Phone Shortcuts
The following shortcuts can be used in the phone application or during a phone call:

- To answer a phone call, press the Send key.
- To place an active phone call on hold and answer a second incoming phone call, press the Send key.
- To view the contact list, hold the Send key.
- To insert a plus sign ( + ) when typing a phone number, hold 0.
- To add an extension to a phone number, press the X key, then type the extension number.
- To assign a speed dial number to a key, from the Home screen or in the Phone application, hold the key you want to assign. Type the phone number.
- To check your voice mail, hold 1.
- To view the last phone number that you dialed, scroll to the top of the Phone screen, then press the Enter key. Press the Send key to dial the number.

Camera Shortcuts
The following shortcuts can be used in the Camera application:

- To take a picture, press the Right Convenience key.
- To zoom the camera in, press the Volume Up key.
- To zoom the camera out, press the Volume Down key.
- To turn flash on/off in camera mode, press the Space key.

Message Shortcuts
The following shortcuts can be used in the Messages application:
- To compose a message from the message list, press the comma ( , ) key.
- To reply to a message, press the exclamation point ( ! ) key.
- To reply to all, press the question mark ( ? ) key.
- To forward a message, press the period ( . ) key.
- To view received messages, hold the Alt key and press 3.
- To view call logs, hold the Alt key and press the period ( . ) key.
- To view voice mail messages, hold the Alt key and press 7.
- To view SMS text messages, hold the Alt key and press the question mark ( ? ) key.
- To view your message list again, press the Escape key.
- To move up a message in the list, press 2.
- To move down a message in the list, press 8.

Typing Shortcuts
The following shortcuts can be used when typing text in an application:
- To type the alternate character on a key, hold the Alt key and press the character key.
- To type an accented or special character, hold the letter key and roll the trackball left or right. Click a selected character.
- To type a symbol, press the Symbol key. To view more symbols, press the Symbol key again. Type the letter that appears below the symbol to enter the corresponding symbol.
- To insert a period, press the Space key twice. The next letter is capitalized.
- To capitalize a letter, hold the letter key until the capitalized letter appears.
- To turn on NUM lock, hold the Shift key and press the Alt key.
- To turn off NUM lock, press the Alt key.
- To insert an at sign ( @ ) or a period ( . ) in an email address field, press the Space key.
- To type a number in a number field, press a number key. You do not need to press the Alt key.
- To type a number in a password field, hold the Alt key and press the number key.
- To type a letter in a number field, hold the Alt key and use the multi-tap input method to enter the letter.
- To switch typing input languages, hold the Alt key and press the Enter key. Select a language, then release the Alt key. Note: To allow this functionality, on the Language screen, verify that the Use Input Method Shortcut field is set to Yes.
- To select a line of text, press the Shift key and roll the trackball.
- To select text character by character, hold the Shift key and roll the trackball left or right.
- To cancel a text selection, press the Escape key.
- To cut selected text, hold the Shift key and press the Delete key.
- To copy selected text, press the Alt key and click the trackball.
- To paste your cut or copied text, press the Shift key and click the trackball.

Search Shortcuts
The following shortcuts can be used when searching in an application:
- To search for a contact in a list of contacts, type the contact name or initials separated by a space.
- To view the criteria of your last search, in your list of searches, press the Menu key. Click Last.

Attachment Shortcuts
The following shortcuts can be used when viewing attachments:
- To search for text in an attachment, press Q.
- To switch between the table of contents and the full content of an attachment, press O.
- To change the size of a column in a spreadsheet, press Z.
- To move to a specific cell in a spreadsheet, press A.
- To view the content of a cell in a spreadsheet, press the Space key.
- To view a slide show presentation, press A.
- To stop a slide show presentation, hold the Escape key.
- To switch presentation views, press Z.

Browser Shortcuts
The following shortcuts can be used in the browser applications:
- To insert a period ( . ) in the Go To dialog box, press the Space key.
- To insert a forward slash ( / ) in the Go To dialog box, hold the Shift key and press the Space key.
- To open the bookmark list from a web page, press 5.
- To add a bookmark from a web page, press the question mark ( ? ) key.
- To view a thumbnail version of a web page, press X. To return to the normal view, press any key.
- To stop loading a web page, press the Escape key.
- To move to a specific web page, press the period ( . ) key.
- To hide the banner on a web page, press the exclamation point ( ) key again.
- To close a browser, hold the Escape key.

Media Shortcuts
The following shortcuts can be used in the Media application:
- To pause a video, press the Mute key. To resume playing the video, press the Mute key again.
- To zoom in to a picture, press 3.
- To zoom out from a picture, press 9.
- To return to the original picture size, press 5.
- To rotate a picture, press the comma ( , ) key.
- To pause a slide show, press the Space key. To resume the slide show, press the Space key again.
- To pause a song, press the Mute key. To resume playing the song, press the Mute key again.

Maps Shortcuts
The following shortcuts can be used in the Maps application:
- To zoom in to a map, press L.
- To zoom out from a map, press O.
- To view the status information at the top of a map, press Q. To hide the status information at the top of a map, press Q again.

Calendar Shortcuts
The following shortcuts can be used in the Calendar Day view:
Note: To allow shortcuts in Day view, in the Calendar options, set the Enable Quick Entry field to No.
- To schedule an appointment, press the period ( . ) key.
- To move to the next day, press 6.
- To move to the previous day, press 4.
- To move ahead one hour, press 2.
- To move back one hour, press 8.

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Posted by rich at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What a pain, this shift in Daylight Savings Time has burned more IT cycles for less benefit than anything I can remember. In any case, a Blackberry is completely messed up, so check Blackberry for the patching needed. You have to download something to your PC and then sync it to your blackberry.

And the patch only works under IE. Ugh.

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Posted by rich at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Exclusively from T-Mobile, the new BlackBerry® Pearl™ 8100™ makes staying connected via e-mail to friends, family and life as easy as calling. You can combine up to 10 personal and work addresses and have them automatically delivered – right to the palm of your hand. The BlackBerry Pearl is a full-featured quad-band world phone, with 1.3 megapixel camera, real Web browser, Bluetooth® 2.0 connectivity, and a media player with extra storage

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Posted by rich at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Connie has exactly this problem right now. In reading this long thread, it looks like the keys are somehow out of sync. Folks have tried installing a new version of the desktop manager, deleting all the service books and reregistering and sometimes that fixes it. Others have just tried regenerating these keys. So, I guess I'll try that.

The mails come to me fine. However, I am unable to reply through my bb. When I reply, initially the message appears to be transmitted fine, but shortly, it returns with a Message Status of "Transaction error-decryption error."

Posted by rich at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Right now the carriers are only giving a $100 rebate on Blackberrys, so if you are going to use it and don't want to get locked into a plan, it makes more sense to use mpire to find one. I see one for $400 right now, whereas Cingular has a similarly new one for $300.

Posted by rich at 9:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a picture of the followon to the Blackberry 7100 line. It is based on the same platform as the 8700 so has Edge modem support and an amazingly beautiful screen.

Posted by rich at 8:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Blackberry has just about the strangest user interface for synchronization I've ever seen. They don't seem to document it anywhere that I can find. Here is what I've learned:

The synchronization interface is completely different for mail vs. calendar vs. tasks/memos. It seems like they did these at different times, so figuring out how to do things is quite hard.

BES vs. BIS

First thing is to make sure that you have enterprise Blackberry activated at your wireless carrier. This is very confusing, but there are two forms, one is BES, Blackberry Enterprise Server, where you actually run Blackberry software in your company on a server someplace and BIS, Blackberry Internet Server, which is run for you by Blackberry or your wireless carrier. Quite confusingly, the BES is a super set of BIS, so the Enterprise server gives both access to Exchange/Domino inside your company and IMAP/POP3 servers outside. If you really want to get confused, BIS also has an option for those companies that don't make their Exchange servers visible to scrape Outlook Web Access to just get your mail. The main difference between BES and BIS is that the BIS only does mail, while BES will sync mail, contacts, calendar, notes (a.k.a. memos in Blackberry speak) and tasks.

VPN vs. RPC over HTTP

Make sure that when you use the Desktop Manager that you have a VPN account or are in your corporate firewall. Although the Exchange provide in Outlook supports HTTP only access, this doesn't work with the Blackberry Desktop Manager, so if you use the HTTP proxy, then you can have this strange circumstance where Outlook is connecting, but the BDM is offline. So you have to disable the HTTP over RPC to make the BDM work. Go figure. If you don't know what I'm talking about don't worry, we are using RPC over HTTP rather than MAPI over IP and that's pretty unusual.

Mail Synchronization

This is a complex topic mainly because you have to get two things right, first is the plan for BES service vs. BIS. The problem is that different carriers have different terms for the two. Normally BES is $50/month while BIS is $40/month is one way to tell.

Once you have that, you can look on the Blackberry, the late model ones with Blackberry OS v4 or later, let you start the sync over the air, that is you don't need to connect with the semi-strange Blackberry Desktop Manager. (which btw should really be named the Manager for your Blackberry running on Windows, which is what it does). On your Blackberry, you will find something called Enterprise Activation. This is confusing, because that icon can appear and disappear and carriers have it appear in different places. For cingular for instance, it appears as the first icon, with T-mobile, you have to go to Options/Settings/Enterprise Activation for versions of the Blackberry OS 3.x or earlier, but it moves to Options/Settings/Advanced Settings/Enterprise Activation in Blackberry OS 4.x. Blackberry seems to love to move icons around, so you really ahve to look carefully. Also, this icon will disappear if you don't have a plan.

You then go to your system admin and have him reset the Blackberry password on BES. This will be different from any password you've ever used and only lasts two days, so as soon as you do, type in and go. This is because of some security things they are worried about. The thing should then start syncing everything over the air if you are lucky. Once email sync is done, I have not found a way to undo it other than by deleting service books, but that's another post

Calendar Synchronization

OK, Calendar sync is handled very differently. If you do an Enterprise Activation, it will then work as above, but if you don't, then you can still get your calendar by using the Blackberry Desktop manager, you can set if for Outlook wireless synchronizatoin and then the calendar syncs.

Note that if you do this, it will wipe everything you already have in your blackberry rather than merging entries, so what you have to do is to first sync it non wireless then use the Wireless sync, so that your Exchange account has the master.

Memo/Notes Synchronization

This works even more differently. You can't change the sync from the Blackberry Desktop Manager, instead, you set the wireless or not on your Blackberry. Go to Memo/Options/Wireless Synchronization and toggle it on. If you do this btw, it will wipe your blackberry's memo contents, so you actually first want to sync it normally to Outlook, then turn on wireless sync.

The Blackberry Desktop manager will complain bitterly about not being able to sync memo and tasks, but won't tell you that you set it on your Blackberry. Confused yet?

Recovering Memo, Tasks, etc from a Backup

Blackberry doesn't let you recover data from a backup you made with the Desktop Manager if you have wireless sync on. They assume that Exchange is correct, so if you had a bunch of data on your Blackberry loaded and want to sync, it you have to use regular sync (e.g., turn wireless sync off), then restore and sync with BDM and then turn wireless sync on.

Posted by rich at 8:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Most folks only seem to have the very rudiments of a protection on their PC. At most you might have the anti-virus software your OEM put on your computer. Duane reminded me it is hard to figure out what you need in today's world. Here is what I put on every PC that I own. These are all free utilities, but they are quite good:

• Antivir. This is free for personal use and gets updated regularly. It seems to work decently as an anti-virus package.
• Zone Alarm. Thi s is a free firewall that I like to use instead of the Windows XP firewall. It is more complicated to setup but tells you when you are being attacked. Many times, it is more valuable to know you are under attack so you can figure out why. For instance, we were using PPStream here and it turns out it automatically uses uPNP to open ports in our firewall, but never closes them down. So we could go in and do it manually. It is complicated to figure out though if you change networks alot because it will block DNS requests and other things that are benign, but if you ever to go a Wifi hotspot, you absolutely have to have this.
• Spybot. This is a free utility that blows out spyware and malware. It is free and you just have to make sure you also go into options and turn on TeaTimer so that you are protected all the time against registry changes and also from spyware 24-7.
• Final thing is to turn on Cookie acceptance in IE or Firefox. YOu really need in this day and age check out everything that is laying down a cookie on your machine.

Then there are utilities that you can add that help get more spyware out. That seems to be the least mature in terms of full protection. Here are the ones I use supplementarily when I have time:

• Yahoo Toolbar. Normally toolbars are terrible spyware themselves, but in this case, Yahoo bundles a very nice antispyware package in their IE toolbar. I think it is webroot who makes it. Finds somethings spybot doesn't
• Adaware. I don't use this as much since spybot seems to get rid of most of the bad stuff.

Posted by rich at 2:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, it is almost impossible to discover, but Blackberry has for its latest models running Blackberry OS 4.1 a very cool site that free games, ringtones and other such stuff. It called mobile.blackberry.com and for some reason is buried in the help menu. The best way is to type it into your blackberry browser and then bookmark it.

Posted by rich at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hat tip to the folks at Blackberrycool.com for these tips that give you the equivalent of CTRL-ALT-DEL for your Blackberry:

• If you have a 72xx, 75xx or 77xx then if the Blackberry crashes, you get back by holding ALT+CAP+DEL to reboot the device if you have Blackberry software V3.x or earlier. These are usually Blackberry sold a year or so ago
• If you are using a late model 71xx or 85xx with the BlackBerry OS 4.x or higher then you have to do ALT+CAP+DEL twide. Once will do a short reset and when the buttons come back, hit it again for a full reboot.
• If all else fails, just take the battery out and put it back in again.

Posted by rich at 8:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I thought I had completely bricked Connie's 7100. But thanks to the wonderful folks at T-mobile (double credit for helping me, really bad that it isn't just on the web), I got it back. To review, I was installing new firmware, when I got, the dreaded, installation failed from the desktop manager and when I turned on the Blackberry, I got a blank screen and the red light just blinked twice to me.

Here's how to resolve this:

1. Plug the Blackberry into your PC. Hope that everything just lights up again and it is detected and the Desktop Manager says Connected.
2. If this doesn't happen, then see if you at least get the famous Windows "boing, boing" this indicates that the low level driver has at least seen the Blackberry. The firmward inside the thing should at least get you there. YOu can also check the device manager in Windows and see if the USB port sees a Blackberry. This is good and it means that at least something is alive
3. Go to the Desktop Manager and to to Tools/Options and try to hit DETECT. See if it sees it
4. If not, then to to the Application Download button and try to run Detect again, you should see it say something like USB:Pin Unknown so you know you've got a bare Blackberry
5. If this doesn't work, take the battery out while you have it on that screen and then plug the battery in, this starts the firmward inside the Blackberry again and you should connect
6. Now, you'll get the usual dialogs to reload everything.

Posted by rich at 8:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's a little known fact, but the latest Blackberry 8700 running the latest firmware, 4.1, can in fact use MP3s for ringtones. Its kind of nice for Blackberry to join the rest of the world. It can also finally suck down JPGs and make them backgrounds. The way to do it is just terrible though, you have to browse to it on the web from the Blackberry browser and then click on the link to download it, texting a ringtone appears not to work.

Also format wise, you can go as low as 64kbps it appears but you have to make them smaller than 507KB.

MP3 with 128 kbps 44100 Hrz Stereo and 64kbps 44100 Hrz Mono. Just had to cut them to be no bigger than 507k.

As another nerdy aside, Bell Labs has a text to speech demo that produces a .WAV file, you can convert to .MP3 and use as a ringtone. Kind of cool.

In the spirit of sharing,I used Motorola's Phone Tools to take a bunch of preset extreme MP3s into 32Kbps mono 1 minute clips that are short to be ringtones that work for the RAZR V3 and probably for the blackberry:

• :AC/DC - Back in Black. Good 1980s rock n roll and a nice ringtone now too :-)

Posted by rich at 8:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's a little known fact, but the latest Blackberry 8700 running the latest firmware, 4.1, can in fact use MP3s for ringtones. Its kind of nice for Blackberry to join the rest of the world. It can also finally suck down JPGs and make them backgrounds. The way to do it is just terrible though, you have to browse to it on the web from the Blackberry browser and then click on the link to download it, texting a ringtone appears not to work.

Also format wise, you can go as low as 64kbps it appears but you have to make them smaller than 507KB.

MP3 with 128 kbps 44100 Hrz Stereo and 64kbps 44100 Hrz Mono. Just had to cut them to be no bigger than 507k.

As another nerdy aside, Bell Labs has a text to speech demo that produces a .WAV file, you can convert to .MP3 and use as a ringtone. Kind of cool.

In the spirit of sharing,I used Motorola's Phone Tools to take a bunch of preset extreme MP3s into 32Kbps mono 1 minute clips that are short to be ringtones that work for the RAZR V3 and probably for the blackberry:

• :AC/DC - Back in Black. Good 1980s rock n roll and a nice ringtone now too :-)

Posted by rich at 8:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Posted by at 1:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

OK, I've been bad, I've never really tried to learn how Blackberry and BES works as a result, I've bricked Connie's 7100 and my buddy Duane has got really nothing working. So, here is what I've learned:

• Everything is about Service Books these are configuration parameters that provision the Blackberry. They are in Options/Advanced/Service Books if you've got Blackberry Version 4.1 on your hardware (if you bought it in about the last year), otherwise, they are in Options/Service Books in 4.0. Confused yet.
• They have lots of gobblygook, but there are three things to understand. First, your carrier has a bunch of service books they send down the pipe that tell the Blackberry things like where to find the Internet and that is how OTA provisioning works.
  * There is also something called the Blackberry internet Service. This is a confusing name, but it is essentially a server that your carrier runs that connects your Blackberry to any POP3 or IMAP mail server on the Internet or to Exchange via Outlook Web Access or Notes via their equivalent. This gives you wireless email synchronization to those sources which is kind of cool. To configure this, you either go to a magic web site that your carrier sets up, or there is hopefully an icon on the home screen called Internet Mail Setup. Unfortunately, RIM makes this carrier configurable, so it depends on what actual software load you run from the carrier. On T-mobile and Cingular, you should see that there.
• The big mystery is something called Enterprise Activation. This is an incredible pain in the butt for security reasons, but the white paper explains why. Basically, there is a strange icon called Enterprise Activation that appears on the home screen sometimes, but can disappear for mysterious reasons or which lives in Options/Advanced Settings/Enterprise Activation. This sets up the first connection and you have to call your administrator and there is a separate magic password for this that only lasts 48 hours from the time your admin gives it to you and will time out if you make 5 mistakes.
• If you get this working, then your Blackberry sends an email message to your account which something called the Blackberry Enterprise Server automatically sucks up (unless your spam filter finds it, unfortunately, Outlook 2003 by default will suck it up as Junk Mail, so you have to make sure that your junk mail folder doesn't catch these NTP messages.
• If that works, then the system sends down five service books from the BES to your Blackberry for syncing, email access and so forth and you should be off to the races.
• As a legacy thing, you can also load the Desktop Manager on your PC. This was used before the arrival of Wireless Enterprise Activation in BES 4.0. With this, you can set wireless synchronization only for calendar. The user interface is incredibly strange with iu.edu offering the best explanation of the different steps you have to take for each thing
  • For your calendar, you have to load Desktop Manager version 2.21 or higher and then make sure to select Intellisync/Configure PIM.../Calendar and select Blackberry Wireless Sync. This should then sync your calendar
  • For Email, it should happen automatically if you enterprise activiate or if you use the Desktop Manager you have to make sure the Redirector is set correctly
  • For Address Book, there should be a selection in Address Book/Options/Wireless Synchronization. If you don't see it then jibi recommends that you delete the SYNC service book in Options/Advanced Options/Service Books. This teases out the Enterprise Activate icon. THat icon disappears but the service book can get corrupted and you have to start all over, call your admin ,etc.
    ** For Tasks, the same drill, look for Tasks/Options/Wireless Sync and make sure it is on.
  • For Memos, same Memos/Options/Wireless Synchronization.
    
    
    
    

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Posted by at 1:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dumb me, I have a new 8700 and couldn't get it to enterprise activate, the whole activation process would hang with "Activation Server not found." So what's the problem, I have been gettings lots of NTP messages and put a spam filter on it, the way that activation works though is that email messages are sent from Cingular to Blackberry's home serves, these then send an email to my home account which our Blackberry Enterprise server then intercepts. The problem is that my spam filter saw these magic email messages first and then hid them in a junk mail folder, so the Blackberry Enterprise server couldn't find them.

Net, net, if you have problems with enterprise activation, see if your spam filter is consuming these magic Blackberry messages

Final point is that there are many free things on:

• mobile.blackberry.com from your Blackberry. Not well marketed, but there are all kinds of goodies that Blackberry has put there, you can download over the air with Blackberry operating system 4.0 or higher. Rimarkable has a whole list of free things and pointers such as using Skype on your Blackberry
• Pocket Express which is some sort of browser enhancement, go to http://pxme.us from your Blackberry for OTA download
• "Free411": by my buddy Phil Bogle
• Google Maps. This is one direction application that actually works
• Spider Solitair, it's on mobile.blackberry as a free game
• Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk for Blackberry.
• "Stock Quote Viewer" is nice although the BB Today freeware is a little easier to figure out

Posted by rich at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dan Harris notes that Blackberry will be in China in the middle of this year with its own Blackberry. About time. That would be truly great and let's hope pricing is reasonable too. Apparently, China Unicom will have a cloned service called the Redberry as well.

Posted by rich at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BlackBerryToday: Software: Games

Posted by rich at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BlackBerryTools OTA. Browse to this with your Blackberry and it downloads over the air. See Powertoys for more information about it.

Posted by rich at 8:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Turns out that Blackberry has done specific versions for each carrier as I noted before, but the Pinstack site was sometimes right, sometimes wrong. Google however seemed to be able to find the correct software downloads.

Just a warning, before you do a download, back everything up!

1. BlackBerry Software for Cingular All Cingular customers (including former AT&T Wireless customers) can view available BlackBerry software at this page. Download the desktop manager and the latest version of the Cingular software for your favorite device, say the 8700c.
2. BlackBerry Hong Kong CSL. These are downloads for the Chinese version of the Blackberry software download these and then install it. Good luck!
3. Pinstack has instructions for installing the Bharti 4.1 software, that should work for the Hong Kong software. Good luck. The main thing is to undelete vendor.xml from c:\program files\common files\research in motion\apploader and then install it.

Posted by rich at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Pinstack FAQ.

Cingular customers Try the free route first. Call International customer service (Cingular customer service number is 800-335-4685 24hrs) Tell them that you are traveling and need to roam using another SIM on prepaid. They will ask you for your Blackberry's IMEI and then give you the unlock code. Be sure to have free international roaming feature on your account.

There is also a list of services that will unlock for you on the site.

Posted by rich at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With a shiny new Blackberry 8700c, it's fun to see what the power nerds are doing to make it fast and personal, here are some great sites to follow:

• Blackberry Forums. This is pretty active and the 8700 forum has some good things on problems and new software like a video player.
• RIMarkable. A blog of rumors including that about a Wifi Blackberry.
• Perhaps the best news is that Cingular is relenting on unlocking with some folks just asking Cingular for an unlock code. In olden days, they were pretty difficult about it, but seems like they are more reasonable now.
• Cingular itself now has a decent set of forums for BlackBerry.
• Once you've unlocked your Blackberry, you can use other operating systems that are customized for other carriers like Bharti. Quite a few folks are using Hong Kong CLS since it supports Chinese language input and output. Pinstack OS listing even lists all the various carrier specific operating systems across the world so you can find CSL very easily.
• BTW, you can access everything on Pinstack from their wap.pinstack.com site.
• Ringtones. The 8700 takes some wierd MP3 format I haven't studied. Here are some ringtones. Not really clear how to get them down to the 8700 though.
• Video. SonaMobile has a video player for the 8700g in beta.
• Coolservice.dk. This is some sort of free uploader that takes your content, makes it a WAP site that the phone can then download.
• WirelessAdivsor.com. Another forum for cingular users.
• There are lots of folks who will for a fee ranging from $24 to $150 say that they will unlock your phone if your carrier won't. For instance there is superunlock
• ExchangeMyMail.com. This is one of a number of hosted solutions that lets you have an Exchange serve in the sky so if you are startup you get calendar sync mainly.

Finally I also now have an LG CU320 mainly so I could say I have a 3G phone. Its first to market so not clearly the best. No one for instance knows how to unlock it. Right now Cingular will give you the unlock code but LG won't tell you how to enter it if you can believe that!

Posted by rich at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The latest update to the Blackberry is coming. It is more rectangular than the 7100. It does have an EDGE modem and Bluetooth 2.0 and uses the SureType stuff. A minor upgrade really and makes the model technically comparable to the 8700 that Cingular and Rodgers have launched and T-Mobile is now stocked out on.

Posted by rich at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BlackBerryToday: Reviews. Hardware-wise, Blackberry has two interesting models that are just out.

There is the Blackberry 8700 which is the palm-sized unit. Only available from Cingular right now, but it has EDGE support so networks are faster and it is quad-band as well so it can go anywhere in the world. It is a little narrower too, but the main thing is the screen is much higher resolution and brighter, although battery life is down.

For those of staying just in the US, there is the 7130e. This is the 9-key version but it has EV-DO so it is very fast on the network side.

Posted by rich at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I haven't putzed with our various Blackberry's in a while, but here are some cool utilities:

• IM for AOL, MSN and Yahoo. This comes from your carrier, but it is an Oz application that let's you get IM from these sources. Depressing part is that it only allows you to login to one of these services at a time, so its not that useful. You have to pick your community.
• Google Local for mobile. They have written an application for this and Googletalk will also arrive soon. You get it by pointing the appropriate device on the appropriate network (basically just Java-based phones right now) to google.com/glm.
• Search Engine Watch recommends a bunch of other IM applications too including a dedicated mobile.yahoo.com set suite of applications that are mainly browser based applications for reading Yahoo Mail, Search and IM. mobile1.aol.com is their portal for applications at AOL. They use the OZ application mentioned above or you can see a WAP version of it at mobile.aol.com

Final by the way is that the new Blackberry's use the EDGE network and are much faster. So my old 7290 is looking long in the tooth. Now if only I could get a Chinese enabled one. But alas that's only in Hong Kong.

Sprint and Cingular subscribers: If you'd like us to send you a text message with this URL,

Posted by rich at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BlackBerryForums.com : Your Number One BlackBerry Community - Unwanted network messages - repost. Connie went to Canada and started getting these bizarre messages from Blackberry that looked like this...

From: network@etp01.etp.na.blackberry.net
Subject: RIM_bca28a80-e9c0-11d1-87fe-00600811c6a2

BEGINETP 122
ATkEsUUAAAAAIBAIMzAwNkIwNzAgH3JhbmR5LmhvbGxvd2F5QHNlY3VyaXR5Y29ycC5jb20A
VxYMV1AFQ01JTUUDQICAgIAyAAAwOUI4QUI3OEIrRysxALmsvmzicVWw4bBVsf9JkycAGUWq
p4T2XDKTUa0RuyXcH6w!
ENDETP 1486277911

Turns out this happens when Blackberry gets confused about whether it is using the Web Client or the Enterprise Redirector. There are two fixes:

1. You should uninstall the Desktop Manager application on your PC and make sure that when you reinstall, you select Blackberry Internet Mail or whatever and not the Blackberry Enterprise thingy. This message is actually something that goes to Exchange or Notes side of the house to coordinate what is on your blackberry and what is on the server.
2. You somehow got a screwed up "activation" CMIME record. I think Connie got this when she crossed into Canada and the servers over there assumed she was using enterprise. The solution is to go to Options/Setting/ServiceBook and delete the CMIME entry. Then you have to go to the Web Client on blackberry.net and buried in the Profile tab at the very bottom is button that says Send Service Book Hit it and it should now work.

Posted by rich at 9:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BlackBerryForums.com : Your Number One BlackBerry Community - 7230 3.7 os upgrade. Now that I'm stable and back to the original 3.7 from 2003, it would be nice to get some of the later features like calendar sync. Here is how...

This is because there are so many different versions of 3.7. Some of them are buggy. If you want the best version of 3.7, I highly recommend Cingular's 3.7.1.115 which is newest (115 is bigger than 37 and 41):
https://www.blackberry.com/SoftwareDownload/index.jsp?client=Rc4cZBaBN
Select the 7280 device. The 7230/7280 software is the same, but the site has both 3.7.1.115 and also 4.0.0.220. Use 3.7.1.115 for 7230s since they only have 16MB of memory while 4.0.0.220 works fine for the newer 32MB 7280s.

Other versions are:
3.7.1.37 (This is the version that I have right now from T-mobile)
3.7.1.41
3.7.1.91
3.7.1.115

If you have always been interested in trying instant messaging (VeriChat MSN/ICQ/AIM), it is time to upgrade to BlackBerryOS 4
http://www.blackberryforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=1995

Posted by rich at 9:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tong Family Blog: Prefetch Exception and Abort Exception. I'm developing a negative attitude towards blackberrys :-(

Since we last chatted about it, I've had more problems with the Blackberry 7230. First, I started to get Java Exception Errors when dialing and the phone application would crash.

Scott then tried to reload the software and the contacts. We pretty clearly have corruption in our contact database here, but worked to try to clean that (we don't run any cleaning on our public folders, Scott is smart not to run diagnostics unless there is a problem).

Post the reload things really got bad, first I got a Catastrophic Error and now I've got a Error 365 press reset and the thing loops.

This was the same error that forced a replacement of this Blackberry last time. Right now, by my count, I bought the original 7230, it died and had it replaced.

A year later, that 2nd one died, then the next one was DOA. This one has lasted two months and now need to be replaced, so we are on our fifth replacement. I swear, I don't do anything bad. Personally, I suspect the Blackberry 4.0 software has wedged the firmware, but who knows.

Posted by rich at 9:42 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

We just upgraded to Blackberry 4.0 clients at Ignition. Works for everyone but me. Here are my problems:

• I can't keep more than 50 or so emails. They just scroll off the bottom. I have never expires set, but it keeps happening. I've also noticed that I have only 100KB or so of free memory on the Blackberry whereas with Blackberry 3.8, I always had a couple of megabytes free. I turned off Automore and turned on compression, but this doesn't seem to help much. I'm guessing this is because the 4.0 client is bigger (it won't run at all in 8MB Blackberry's and mine is a 16MB 7230).
• Sync Issues/Local Conflicts explosion. I don't know what happened, but we are getting a zillion sync issues right now and things just disappear. Also, on the Blackberry, I am now syncing all of our spam folders which isn't real helpful when I can't keep enough messages as it is.
• Contacts are broken. Right now we can't used shared contacts, there is no longer a way to set which folders you use for Contacts that we can find. A big problem for us because we can't really share contacts anymore. Also, now when I choose new contact in Outlook on my PC, I get a cryptic, can't find form message, so something else has changed as well.
• Calendar entries created from the blackberry get double created on the Outlook calendar. This actually happened in version 3.7 as well and we've never found a fix.

On the plus side, Blackberry Forum and PDA Street seems to have finally arrived as a public resource to help. Given that Blackberry technical support is charge for and the server itself is so opaque, maybe they can help:

• "Getting More Memory":"Blackberry Forums":http://www.blackberryforums.com/showthread.php?t=5440&highlight=4.0+memory folks have the same problem and there is not enough memory in a 16MB device since 4.0 is fatter and email gets whacked as described by Blackberrycool.com. You need to have at least 50-100KB free otherwise, start deleting applications, everything you can.
• 4.0 Only for 32MB Blackberry's Remember 4.0 is a bit more memory intensive so be wary of installing them on 16MB series models of the BB. It will work very slow if you have a lot of emails, phone logs, contacts and calendar data. The 7290 and other 32mb BB’s are best suited for v4.0. 7290 runs (4.0.274) As usual you can choose what applications are installed saving more memory. Sigh, the T-mobile 7290 isn't here yet, so I'll have to wait.
• Or, Downgrading. Now if you wish to downgrade your device to a previous version, many of the above steps will apply. First, you will have to remove the newer OS from your PC. Do this by going to add/remove programs in the control panel and removing the software for the new BB OS. Make sure desktop manager is not running when you do this. After complete, restart the Desktop Manager. When you plug in your device, if everything went well, the Desktop Manager should tell you that your PC has an older version of desktop tools than is installed on the device. It will give you an option to keep the version on your BlackBerry or downgrade to the version on your PC. You will want to select downgrade and let apploader do the work. The trick now is finding an older version of Handheld 3.7.

Here are some other tips.

• BlackBerryForums.com : Your Number One BlackBerry Community - BlackBerry Internet - MSN/chat/web/telnet/TCPIP - No BES!. This post is all about how applications can now directly access the Internet, so a bunch of third party applications like a real web browser vs. a wap crap one can get used. You essentially have to go to Options/TCP and type in a valid apn (e.g., a proxy server) and a magic username and password that is carrier dependent. T-mobile is wap.voicestream.com and the username and password are what you use to logon to tmobile.com
• Shortcuts. ALT - Cancel (or back button, whatever it's called - the one under the scroll wheel). This is the same as ALT - TAB on your computer. It let's you navigate between open windows which is pretty cool and very hard to find. Means that you can in one command jump from the phone to look at your email and contacts.
• Rearrange the ribbon: In the Home screen (ribbon), hold the ALT key and click the thumb-wheel to bring up a menu. You can then select Move Icon, Hide Icon, or Show All. If you hide an icon, to show it again click Show all and it will appear with an X over it, bring up the menu on it and uncheck hide icon.
• While in a message, 'r' replies and 'f' forwards a message.
• All you need is to copy C:\Program Files\Common Files\Research In Motion\USB Drivers locally to get a 7230 to charge from a laptop via USB. Just copy it to your flash keyfob and you are set.
• This use to be known as BB Demo Portal. check it out http://mobile.blackberry.com/ it has some nice content on it.

Posted by rich at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)