Using a stylus on your tablet or touchscreen BlackBerry
Posted by Joe on February 16, 2012 | no comment | Filed under : BlackBerry Accessories
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“As soon as you have a stylus, you’re dead.” Steve Jobs uttered those words in the mid-00s, referring to the tablet computer ideas that circulated at the time. He spoke from experience, of course, having himself discontinued a stylus-based device, the Apple Newton PDA. He reiterated this at Macworld 2007, when he introduced the world to the iPhone. “Nobody wants a stylus,” he said. Since Jobs prided himself on telling consumers what they wanted, rather than asking them, everyone seemed to follow in stride. Yet times have changed. A stylus can be a perfectly useful tool these days. You might even consider one for your BlackBerry PlayBook or touchscreen BlackBerry smartphone.
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Get in more people’s address books with ContactMonkey
Posted by Joe on February 15, 2012 | no comment | Filed under : BlackBerry Messaging
Ever notice how some people have these elaborate email signatures that reveal every possible way to contact them — including the very email address they’re using to correspond with you? There’s a reason for that: they want to make it easy for you to add them to your address book. Having all that information, neatly organized, basically screams, “ADD ME!” Additionally, there are a number of programs that automatically scrape emails and add the information to your address book. If you want to make it easy for people to add you to their address books, but don’t want that elaborate signature, a service called ContactMonkey might work for you.
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Tips for Tuesday: Change and add fonts on your BlackBerry
Posted by Joe on February 14, 2012 | no comment | Filed under : Quick Tips
By default, your BlackBerry uses the most basic of basic fonts. This makes sense. Plain, boring fonts don’t offend people, and so they’re used as the defaults for most products and services. Still, some people like to spice up their displays a bit. One easy way to do this is by changing the system font. Your BlackBerry comes with a number of fonts by default, so you can browse through them and find one that fits you. If not, there are applications that can help you out.
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Saving money when buying a new BlackBerry
Posted by Joe on February 13, 2012 | no comment | Filed under : Deals
It’s a date most of us have etched in our minds. Two years — or in some cases 22 months — after buying a cell phone, we become eligible for an upgrade. Considering the sheer volume of handsets released every year, it’s understandable that people are antsy to upgrade. There’s a newer and better one on the market just a few months after you get yours, yet you have to wait those two long years to get a new one. (Bless you if you’re stuck with a three-year contract.) Yet at the end of those two years, you get the privilege of paying hundreds of dollars to upgrade. It could be worse, of course, but that’s still a lot of money. Thankfully, there are ways to save.
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Indecisive Joe: BlackBerry 7 sales, App World sales, and BBM Music
Posted by Joe on February 10, 2012 | 2 comments | Filed under : BlackBerry Issues
It’s Friday, which means it’s time to dig into some of the bigger BlackBerry stories of the past week. Normally I’ll pick one, maybe two, and focus on them. But this week I bounced among three stories. None is really big in itself, but each caught my eye. so without introducing the topics too much — they’re in the headline — let’s just get started.
Yesterday I saw the darndest headline on BGR: RIM’s recent marketing blitz deemed a bust; BlackBerry 7 sales weakened in January. Really, now? While I think there’s room for legitimate criticism of RIM and its marketing practices, I had a feeling, before reading the article, that this would be oversimplified number — not even number crunching. Number reciting, really. I was not disappointed.
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Using your BlackBerry while wearing gloves
Posted by Joe on February 9, 2012 | no comment | Filed under : BlackBerry Accessories
Winter is a tough time for BlackBerry users. As we bundle up, we lose the ability to effectively use our smartphones. Maybe a scarf doesn’t get in your way, but gloves sure will. It’s particularly frustrating for touchscreen users. Have you ever tried using a BlackBerry 7 smartphone while wearing gloves? If you have, you’d know that it simply doesn’t work. Thankfully, there are some companies that are all over this.
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Ever wonder how they test your BlackBerry?
Posted by Joe on February 8, 2012 | no comment | Filed under : BlackBerry Issues
As with any electronic device, BlackBerry devices undergo plenty of tests before they’re boxed up and shipped to dealers. The idea is to simulate a number of real-life hazards and see if the device can withstand them. At the Inside BlackBerry blog this week, Ryan P showed us a few of the more practical tests that RIM runs on its BlackBerry models. After the jump we’ll lay out the videos. They’re pretty neat, and they show just how durable a BlackBerry can be.
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Tips for Tuesdays: Use Word Substitution (AutoText) to speed up typing
Posted by Joe on February 7, 2012 | no comment | Filed under : Quick Tips
The name might have changed, but the usefulness has remained the same. In older versions of the BlackBerry OS, there was AutoText. Now it’s called Word Substitution. Under both names it’s a powerful tool that allows you to type more efficiently on your BlackBerry. You can use it for two purposes: to correct common mistakes, and to use fewer characters when typing common phrases. Let’s take a quick look at Word Substitution and how it works.
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Getting the BlackBerry music stores straight
Posted by Joe on February 6, 2012 | no comment | Filed under : BlackBerry Multimedia
As Bla1ze shared last week, RIM has finally made the BlackBerry Music Store available to all customers via App World. Well, that is, customers in Australia and Canada. Those of us in the US, UK, and other countries across the globe don’t have quite the same experience. You see, RIM has been flirting with a pair of music services, so there’s a difference in experience between them. That can create confusion — and it gets compounded when combined with the PlayBook. Here’s a quick rundown of the issues and what we can expect from them.
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Our first look at the BlackBerry London
Posted by Joe on February 3, 2012 | 1 comment | Filed under : BlackBerry Issues
Chance are you’ve seen this image before. It showed up on CrackBerry earlier in the week, and made its rounds to all the major tech blogs shortly thereafter. It is the most recent image of the BlackBerry London, and I have to say that it looks pretty spectacular. It appears ultra thin, and the screen looks to be along the size of the Droid X series, which is one of my favorite Android series. Kevin from CrackBerry calls it a “phonified” PlayBook, which, well, is exactly what RIM said the first BlackBerry 10 phone would be.
That wasn’t the only BlackBerry news of the week, though. There were a few other nuggets worth pondering, at least for a few seconds.
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