Auto On/Off on your Berry

Another built-in goodie that I thought everyone would already know about, but found out last week that's not the case. At a training session for our region I had a short-lived issue with my Berry which I asked someone about. That someone was a lead service guy for our area and carries a Berry himself, so I asked him if he had ever seen what was happening before (the issue is not important and turned out to be a problem with my magnetic case, not my berry). He said no, and another service guy sitting with him asked me if I ever turned my device off. I politely answered that I did and even pulled my battery once a week or so for good measure. I said that I had my auto on/off set during the weekdays, to which I got "you can do that?". For those of you who don't know, your Berry (or any cell phone, for that matter) should be power-cycled regularly. They're mini-computers these days and need to be restarted just like your desktop or laptop to run smoothly. RIM has conveniently made that easy by including an automated feature to do this for us. Just go to Options>Auto On/Off and you can set an automatic time for your Berry to turn itself on and off. There are separate settings for weekdays and weekends to accommodate your work and personal schedule. Now go and set it so you'll have less Berry hang-ups!

Review: iheartradio for Blackberry

There are several radio apps out there for your Berry, all with different pros and cons. My current favorite is Slacker, which does quite well for me. Other options are Flycast or Nobex RC, which I haven't tried. Now we can add iheartradio to the mix.
iheartradio has a little different twist to the internet radio which could be considered a negative by some: it streams terrestrial radio stations. You read that correctly. Seems kinda strange considering most of us tech-savvy folk are going with satellite radio or internet radio to avoid commercials and ridiculous banter from dj's that just takes up our precious music-listening time and annoys us to no end. While I get commercials on the free version of Slacker, it is one at a time for 20 seconds, not several minutes of commercials for every 20 minutes of music (plus the talking). I can only imagine that they are marketing to those out there who are somehow unaware of Slacker or Flycast. I suppose, however, that there are still people out there who find their disc jockey talk endearing, and for those this is a good app, because it supposedly culls the best stations from around the country (based on whose opinion I don't know). So if you used to live in Charlotte, NC and really miss 106.5 the End, here's your way to hear it on the go, just like the good old days.
I don't mean to criticize iheartradio so much. It's the idea of terrestrial radio that annoys me, not the delivery service here. All-in-all it's a good app for what it does, and I may wind up using it some. But not as much as Slacker or the music on my memory card.

Lock your Keypad, Pocket Dialer!

I see people on forums all the time asking how to quickly lock their keypad and I also see lots of responses on how to make sure the lock icon is on the main screen or setting one of the side convenience keys to the lock function, which I did for a short time until I realized what I'm about to tell you. I have a Curve 8330, and I know this works on some other models, but I'm not sure if it works on all or not. The mute button on top of the Curve puts the Berry into standby mode (locked and screen off to save power) until it is pressed again, unless of course a call comes in. Notifications still ring, but the screen stays out until taken out of standby. This is the simplest way to make sure that you are not dialing someone when you throw your Berry in your pocket or purse (this is sooooo annoying). It doesn't require any setup, it's a single keypress, and it leaves your convenience keys freed up for other things. Perfect! If you have your Berry set up for shortcuts from the main screen rather than home screen dialing, you can also use the "k" key to do the same thing.

Tons of Shortcuts on Your Blackberry Keypad

Most people, I think, leave their keypad settings as they come out of the box on their Berry. A few months ago I was introduced to an alternative option that I really like. If you turn off dialing from your home screen, it turns your keypad into a smorgasbord of shortcuts! To do this, go into your Phone options by Send Key>Menu Key>Options>General Options> and set "dial from home screen" to "no". The only downside (I am used to it now and it doesn't bother me) is that you now have to press the send key before you dial a number on the keypad, but here is a list of shortcuts you now have from your home screen:
r = alarm
t = tasks
u = calculator
o = options
p = call history (phone)
a = address book (contacts)
s = search
d = memo pad
f = profiles
g = Gtalk (Gmail chat if you use it)
h = help
k = lock (everyone seems to always be looking for a 1 touch lock shortcut)
l = calendar
c = contacts (address book, not sure why there are 2 options for this)
v = saved messages
b = browser
n = Blackberry Messenger
m = messages
All this is in addition to the 2 side convenience keys that can be set for whatever you want, so you have a lot of options for navigating to the most commonly used functions in a much quicker manner .
One last thing: if you download a small program called Qsms from here, you get a shortcut on "q" to compose a text message (except on the Pearl, where the shortcut key won't work). Enjoy!

Making GPS on your Blackberry Useful

With Verizon customers getting their GPS on now that the overly-restrictive wireless carrier has finally unlocked the feature to 8130 and 8330 customers, I though it a good time to write a post about how location-based services can be very helpful and fun. Obviously RIM includes Blackberry Maps as an app with its OS, and it works fairly well, but personally I find it to be an inferior product in many ways to some third-party apps that are available.

The first mention has to go to Google Maps. It is a superior (IMHO) replacement to Blackberry Maps and offers search and approximate location based off cell tower triangulation when indoors or whenever GPS positioning is unavailable. I use Google Maps not only for mapping directions to or from somewhere when traveling, but as my information service as well. While Beyond 411 and other similar apps work well, I don't see the point when you have google maps. You simply choose search from the menu and you not only get a spot on the map that you can navigate to, but the phone number, typed address, Ratings, link to their website, and information like types of payments accepted and store hours, depending on the information available. You can also save the search result as a favorite for future reference. The one feature that is lacking that would be nice is the ability to save a result directly to your contacts, like Microsoft's Live Search mobile app has. The newest feature for Google Maps is a social feature more than a business tool. Latitude allows you to broadcast your position to whoever you have friended through the service. For example, two people at, say, Disneyworld, could see where each other are in order to meet up after being separated during the day. There are tons of useful applications for this service that I can think of, but you can use your own imagination to apply it to your lifstyle and activities.

If you travel a lot and want a GPS navigation system such as the in car systems, you can purchase a lifetime subscription to Garmin's mobile system for Blackberry for only $99.99. This gives you turn-by-turn voice instructions and allows you to use the navigation while talking on the phone.

Another brilliant feature that I wish RIM would integrate into their system is location-based alerts. Until they do, this can be handled by got-2, which is primarily a task management application which bundles your tasks and calendar events from the native Blackberry apps into a single list. This function of the app is a bit cumbersome and slow to me, and cannot be disabled, which is why I deleted it eventually. But the location-based alerts part I loved, and I wish that I could get it separately. With this you can set your current location or search for a location and set a task or reminder to alert you when you come into close proximity of the location, for instance, to pick up milk when you drive near the grocery store. This could be a real lifesaver for those of us who need lists and reminders to remember what to do throughout our day.

There are many other services out there which use the internal GPS on your Blackberry for different things, like geo-tagging photos when you upload them or tracking your travels. Are there any good apps I'm missing out on? Comment to let me know or catch me on Twitter(@petersonwally).

Saving Pictures To Your Blackberry's Memory Card By Default

Using the camera on your Blackberry is fun and useful both as a business tool and for personal stuff, but the pictures can eat up memory quickly on the device, particularly some models with less internal memory like the Pearl. The answer to this is to have a memory card inserted and to set your options so that your pictures save to your memory card automatically, but people often look in the wrong menu to try to do this. I got this question from a follower on Twitter the other day (I am @petersonwally if you want to follow me, btw), and they were doing what a lot of folks try to accomplish this, which is Media>Pictures>Menu>Options. This makes sense logically, but it is not where the option is found. The correct place to do this is Camera>Menu>Options, scroll down to Store Pictures: and choose On Media Card instead of In Device Memory. This will send pictures to the card every time you save one, freeing up your device memory so that your Berry can run smoother.

Help with your BlackBerry

Does anybody ever read the "about?" file for their software? What about the owner's manual for your cell phone? Most of us will figure these things out through trial and error or just asking someone how to do this or that. When it comes to a Blackberry, you can do the same to a degree. However these amazing devices are so feature-laden that even those of us who constantly play and explore with them and their capabilities still never master all of the intricacies embedded in them. They don't even come with a user's manual, do they? Just a CD or DVD with some general info, but not what you were wanting to find. So what's up?

The answer is pretty great as far as instructions go. The Help feature, shown as a question mark icon (not "Blackberry help", which takes you into the browser), is a fairly complete instruction manual built right into the device, so you can look up what you need anytime and anywhere without the need for some badly written glorified pamphlet, like most phones get. When you open the help app, you get a fairly detailed list of options ranging from basics to shortcuts to third party application control, and everything in between. Click on a subject and you get a sub-menu for that topic. For instance, if you click on Phone in the main menu, you get sub-topics like phone basics, speed dial, conference calls, call logs, smart dialing, etc. Click on one of these options and you get fairly succinct but good explanation of how to do whatever it is you're trying to do. A built in owner's manual that is easy to navigate and actually tells you what you need to know most of the time. Genius. But most people will never know it's there, because most of us never look at the help files :-).