Recently in Blackberry Storm Tips and Tricks Category

Sifting through today's BlackBerry OS upgrade, I keep finding improvements and tweaks.

With 5.0, the upgrade via the handset is no longer an option attaching us to the tether and Desktop Manager. A new option appears during the upgrade for an email alert which replaces the handset push.

The entire operation of backing up and restoring data, preferences and apps is accomplished by the desktop manager. Always do a backup first.

Blackberry OS 5.0 finds.

• A new startup screen with a status bar that measures the entire boot-up process


• Menus feather in and out with bouncy scrolls that are more responsive


• Horizontal word correction replaces the vertical making it easier to see all entries


• Larger icons in the media folder for photos


• A touch icon to send email


• Auto-focus now has a maco mode letting you focus almost down to an inch


• The camera responds quicker and the option to customize a physical trigger key is in the camera interface


• You can scale photos sent out via email. The scaled down .png files are as crisp at the full rez. Great for blogging! and direct posting


• Permission approval for apps appears before the download


• MMS/SMS is identified by a bubble instead of the email icon


• SMS has gone fancy with smiles and bubble threading - grouping a thread in the directory. MMS remains utilitarian. I'm not too thrilled with the tiny scrolling windows in the SMS. Pretty takes up too much space. (I have always wondered why if MMS costs the same as SMS and has a longer word limit, why not use MMS all the time?)


• The BlackBerry web browser has been updated


• Steaming radio volume adjusts with the physical buttons while running as a background program.


• The Alert icons have been updated so you no longer confuse medium sound with calls only

Best of all, the upgrade was flawless, free and the phone hasn't crashed or bogged down since I upgraded. So maybe the memory management has improved.

It's great to get a major upgrade just BEFORE RIM releases the Storm 2 giving Storm 1 users a taste of something new before the dulling the sting of hardware envy.

Now on to see how many programs I can run at the same time before it crashes....

Slacker streaming radio has improved, skipping past Pandora as my favorite free streaming radio for the BlackBerry.

The ability to create your own channels and saving music station content to the phone's memory add extra features to Pandora's core idea of grouping music types into channels.

Multitasking pushed content, email, SMS/MMS, browsers, and other programs remains in tact on the BlackBerry as with Pandora during the music stream maximizing the use of your 3G data stream and time.

A paid version offers unlimited skips, no ads, unlimited song requests and complete lyrics for songs. However, the commercials on the free version are few and short as compared to traditional radio.

Add a set of stereo blue tooth headphones and you have a mobile concert hall, multitasking office all for the price of your data plan.

Download the free version of Slacker from BlackBerry App World via your handset.

Using the 3G network to download podcasts/stream, a flash/video light, a great external speaker you want to use instead of headphones are energy hogs. Add to that pushed email and multi-tasking several applications plus using GPS with apps all suck power out of your BlackBerry Storm.

I looked at a number of ways to conserve power with the standard battery, but all of them detract from the reasons I wanted to use this phone in the first place. If I am at a news event wildly picture and video tweeting, the last thing I need is a dead battery.

My random internet choice for an extended life battery was the Seidio 2600mAh battery. It's available from many suppliers.

The company says that the battery provides 90% more battery life than the standard BlackBerry cell. The catch is that it comes with a replacement phone back to accommodate the larger size.

The battery replacement is as easy as performing a warm boot to the phone.

I found Seidio's new plastic cover a bit more finicky to latch than the OEM BlackBerry metal cover, but oddly enough it seems to go easier after it's been on and off a few times. I found that just closing the cover and slipping it into the BlackBerry leather holster seems to be the best method for latching it.

The cover only adds about 3-4mm to the thickness of the phone and doesn't impede the magnetic auto-lock/sleep feature with the leather holster. It's a tight fit, but it fits into the OEM case.

I actually like what the extended case does for the handling and desktop use of the phone. The plastic has a rubbery feel that makes the phone easier to handle and it sits more firmly on a flat surface as compared to the OEM case's touch points. As an added benefit, the case brings the external speaker away from a flat surface and maybe adds a little bass to the normally crisp sounding speaker.

I still tether up the phone for a charge while driving, but the added buffer gives me a piece of mind that I can tweet away into the wilderness at any time.

Flash video is a universally compatible format for desktop browsers and a universally lame format for mobile phones.

YouTube fixes this by processing dual streams - Flash for the desktop and 3gp for mobile applications.

Solution: Publish a high resolution video (480x382) from the BlackBerry Storm directly to Twitter (via YouTube) using only the handset.

1. Create a YouTube account.
This provides you with an email address specific to you (xxxxxx@m.youtube.com) that you can send your video to YouTube for processing.

2. Upload the video from your phone via your email account. The BlackBerry email system that synchs all your email accounts allows for a maximum attachment of 3 mb with Verizon. A stand alone app for an email service might have larger download capability. I find that 45 seconds of 480x382 video is under 3 mb.

3. Go to your YouTube account in the BlackBerry browser after the download and copy the page address of your video to the clipboard in the phone.

4. Using Übertwitter, I paste the YouTube URL of my downloaded video into the Tweet. Übertwitter supports embedded link shrinking using bit.ly. It's a one operation click off the BlackBerry key after pasting in the long link.

5. Send video tweet

Now you have a shortened link to a mobile browser page that will open and play your mobile video from any mobile browser and most desktops.

On Mac destops the 3pg video file opens in QuickTime. On PC's you will be asked to open the file in whatever video player on your PC that plays 3gp files, like QuickTime or RealPlayer. You may already have this file type associated with a player on your computer. Windows Media Player traditionally doesn't play 3pg files out of the box.

As an added bonus, you can track statistics and promote your video. It is universally search-able, can be sent and embedded by viewers.

paulkuehnel Youtube direct download tweet test via BlackBerry http://bit.ly/2hOxQ3 http://myloc.me/NMkt

I just tried the beta version of the Opera's Mini 5 beta mobile browser released September 16.

It can be downloaded at http://m.opera.com/next

I am impressed with the speed of the downloads !

It has some nice features like tabs and the look of the big brother's home page with Opera's "speed dial" function.

When you download through the BlackBerry browser on the Storm, a warning comes up from Opera saying the beta version Mini 5 has not been tested to run on the BlackBerry Storm, but it downloads and runs just fine.

Another beta tester for compact browsing that runs on the BlackBerry is Bolt

Now we need a browser on the BlackBerry that runs Adobe Flash. It's rumored to happen next year.

Interesting study by the Environmental Working Group that rates radiation of hundreds of cell phones. The Blackberry Storm was rated as a low emitter while the study hinted that many very popular phones like the Apple iPhone 3G and Blackberry Curve 8330 emit much higher levels of radiation.

These studies, usually not very popular with the cell phone industry, have been going on for years.

Recent studies find significantly higher risks for brain and salivary gland tumors among people using cell phones for 10 years or longer. The state of the science is provocative and troubling, and much more research is essential. (ewg.org)

The effects of electromagnetic radiation is a long-term health study, which translates into the reality that those of use who use handsets the most next to our heads are the test subjects of future clinical studies.

With any phone limiting exposure to the head can be accomplished with using a blue tooth ear piece (that emits a fraction of the radiation of handsets), the phone's speaker and texting.

Maybe 30 years from now we will be talking about the effects of electromagnetic pollution.

The recent ban of the Google Voice app by Apple / AT&T made we want to try it on my Blackberry Storm to see what the big deal is. My conclusion: It does indeed "replace the core functionality" of the phone's voice and SMS and with that comes a great value for the phone consumer.

You can download the Google Voice application on a BlackBerry by typing m.google.com/voice into the BlackBerry browser.

If you don't have an Android-powered device or a BlackBerry you can use Google Voice on your phone by visiting: www.google.com/voice/m However, the web application lacks integration with the phone.

On the Storm, the contact list gives you the option of calling and texting your contact via Google Voice right from the contact drop down menu. These links remain integrated after booting the phone so that there isn't an app to load every time you want to make a call.

And since the phone multi-tasks, the GV program is always running in the background ready to route your calls and SMS via your huge "unlimited" data plan and out of the realm of voice minutes and text message plans.

Incoming calls just ring into your phone like a traditional call when using your Google Voice phone number.

After originating a SMS text message in the GV app, the replies to that message and the thread move over into the the native Blackberry SMS stream. The GV app SMS runs in full keyboard, reduced keyboard and multi-tap, but only in portrait mode. The thread continues in portrait or landscape mode using the native Blackberry SMS.

Voice mail is translated into text and pushed into the native SMS stream.

This gives you integrated calling without using your precious phone minutes in the U.S and free to Canada. This could mean dropping down to a minimum plan. There are also some really cheap international rates. Try calling Spain on a traditional cell phone plan for $.02 a minute with using no minutes.

You would think every phone company would want to ban something that gives the consumer such value. The way I look at it, I am already paying a large sum for the data plan, Google has just helped me get more value out of my phone's ample data plan.

Other features of Google Voice

Tetherberry (tetherberry.com) is a software solution that utilizes the data plan you already pay for on your Blackberry phone. There is a free trial and then a $49 one time fee.

Free trial means testing.

I was up and running in a couple minutes with a Blackberry Storm and a Windows XP laptop. You don't even need to boot the phone.

Download the application to the phone (http://tetherberry.com/d/tetherberry.jad) using the Blackberry browser and run the app on the phone.

This is the beauty of not living at the mercy of app stores. I wonder if Verizon can block such a program because it competes with their own monthly tethering plan of $30.

Select your operating system (MAC or PC) and download the desktop application from the developer's website.

Connect the Blackberry to the computer via the USB cable. Run both programs and enjoy the data plan you already pay for.

The multitasking continues to function in the Blackberry allowing all push processes to run on the phone while it's connected.

If you receive a call, data transfer will cease. Data transfer continues when you hang up.

In the event you loose or destroy your phone, tetherberry says it's covered.

Beware that you have a 5 gig data cap on "unlimited" data plans with Verizon. It is the same data cap if you were to pay the monthly subscription for a USB wireless plan. You can monitor your data use via your online billing. It would be very hard to max out 5 gig on a smart phone, but using a phone to stream large amounts of data through a computer might be a different story.

Over the past week, family and co-workers have bombarded me with cheerful questions and ugly comments about Twitter. This forced me to think about and explain this seemingly stupid activity.

THINK YOU ARE ALL HEADED FOR THE LOONY BIN WHERE THE FOLKS IN CHARGE CONTROL THE OTHERS WITH ELECTRONIC GAMES. THAT TWITTER AND FACEBOOK STUFF AIN´T FOR US FISHING FOLK
- My uncle

Twitter is scaled texting. You can talk to one person or you can talk to thousands. It is dynamic conversation unlike email, instant messaging or texting.

Twitter is free from the confines of cell phone company text charges and text multi-media messaging for pictures and video. It travels as pure data.

You choose the portal (desktop or phone) and mode of transmission. You can sent tweets from text, the twitter website or an application on your phone.

twttr is abt compressing yr thoughts & efficiently communicating the moment.

Twitter identifies with a generation of short attention span thinkers who grew up texting. They don't read the newspaper and won't wait for our website to load. It's reading the newspaper without taking your Ritalin.

Twitter is more about a concept of communication than it is about locking you into software, phone carrier, or App store.

I use a Blackberry Storm smart phone and the application ÜberTwitter.

ÜberTwitter is a beta program downloaded from an independent vendor not tied to your phone carrier or your phone manufacturer.

Using ÜberTwitter, I can expand my tweet by embedding videos and still pictures that I create on my phone and tie them to my relative GPS location.

Using bit.ly, I can tell the world about web links and track who is looking at them.

With ÜberTwitter, I can search the world, or my GPS location, or my friends, for other people who are thinking what I am thinking at any given moment.

Twitter uses all this freedom from monopolies to harness free choice which sparks innovation.

Twitter is a raw communication tool to help the mind expand rather than a button to push or a pill to pop. Perhaps this is why it is a hard concept to grasp and a definite reason to try Twitter before it is harnessed for revenue streams, gobbled up and repackaged for the masses to consume (understand) without question.

scanR is an App for the Blackberry Storm that harnesses the phone's sharp auto-focus, flash and excellent exposure control and turns it into a copier and character recognition tool.

The App is available via App World and via the scanR website, but via App World appears to be the better deal.

The image is captured via the camera and transferred to scanR where it is transposed into either a JPG, PDF or a text file.

Business cards can be automatically downloaded into your address book.

Long pages of text can be copied and processed into text.

It makes a great portable copy machine that can be interfaced with any printer via the web interface.

Documents can also be sent to a fax number from the handset.

scanR "turns the stuff we have to deal with in our daily lives--receipts, business cards, faxes, jottings on the back of napkins--into something digital. ... It's practical. And it's simple. wsj.com

scanR is one of those applications I keep using over and over. If you go to the effort to shoot a straight image the copies look pretty close to a dedicated copy machine.