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!