Results tagged “Blackberry Storm” from Green Mesh

If I hear one more news clip calling the Droid an "iPhone killer" or a blogger saying it's not, I'm going to throw up.

Verizon's Motorola Droid Android 2.0 smart phone was released yesterday.

After a weekend with Verizon's Droid, I have concluded that the phone is an evolution of things.

I see bits and pieces of other phones that are successful and departures from corporate philosophy of competitors that Verizon and Google have attempted to capitalize on.

I was a Blackberry Storm user for the past year. I loved the phone. The multitasking, the great camera/flash, the integrated multiple pushed email and SMS/MMS. That is what I use 90% of my phone for. I'm not much of an app person beyond using core apps like Facebook and Twitter.

I like to create and spread content and that end needs a strong blend of hardware and application.

If RIM can be be criticized for anything with the Storm 1, it is that they tried to make it do too much before their hardware and operating system could handle it. The hardware in the Storm 2 seems to address these issues.

Potential that needs to be executed with care is an asset and sure beats limitations and walls.

The first thing a Blackberry user notices about Droid is a return key and the list of multi-tasking programs off a long press of the home key.

Droid has unified email, like BlackBerry, but oddly the home base Gmail account is a separate feed. Although, I haven't set up other email accounts to see how this works. I tried.

My Microsoft Outlook web work email didn't work (need to wait for IT for exchange help Monday) and using it to connect to Yahoo web mail requires that you pay Yahoo $20 a year premium for POP access. The Droid unified email says it supports POP3, IMAP and Exchange. My BlackBerry synced with all of these from day one with little effort and no extra expense.

Update 11/11/09 Yahoo is working in the combined inbox for free.

Update 11/09/09: Synching 2000 Exchange via IMAP was easy with the right information. Both Gmail and the integrated inbox holding me work account have the same look so it has an integrated feel.

The Android (App) Market is easy to use and allows you download apps outside the market after checking a security warning. BlackBerry also allows you to download apps from the wild.

A nice feature of the Android Market is a refund if you uninstall an app within a short period of time. This takes the question out of trying apps that may not be designed for different hardware and OS builds. And some Android Market Apps just don't work with this phone.

I love getting the whole chemistry set to play having no rules with no risk.

Verizon learned that some people don't like to see their branding and red menus. Aside from a Verizon logo at the bottom of the Droid, there is absolutely no Verizon in this phone.

The Verizon has been replaced with Googleness.

It's refreshing to see a different influence in the software integration on a Verizon phone and I already use many Google services so it feels comfortable.

However, try and get rid of the Amazon MP3 store icon and it just reappears and I really don't understand why there isn't an app for Yahoo Mail. There are a list of other Yahoo content apps in the Market. You would think someone would build something.

I guess we will wait and watch the Google evolution.

For the IPhone folks used to an integrated one stop shop of apps and Itunes created especially for their devices and running them one at a time in singular memory management bliss, the Droid will hardly be a killer. This is not a plug and play device.

Shall we start with hunting for USB drivers Motorola/Verzion? This phone operates entirely wirelessly, so the drivers and tethering really aren't necessary. I would still like to back up the memory card without pulling it.

If you are looking for a screaming fast science experiment on a great network, that runs with the multitasking idea, in a light Linux operating system with a growing app base this will excite you.

You like to go, Wow, that's cool... how do I figure out how to do that with no big, fat paper Verizon manual, then you will probably like this Droid.

Check back for more on taming the Droid and follow me as I run wild with the beast.

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

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.

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.

Ubertwitter is a beta program that you won't find in Blackberry's App World, but it's my favorite Twitter app for the Blackberry Storm.

You can download it directly from their site by pointing your Blackberry web browser to their download link.

The program pushes an alert to the handset, while running in the background, and allows you to link a still picture or video from the camera or archive.

The coolest option is tagging the tweet and Facebook link with a general GPS location.

If you link Facebook to Twitter, the picture/video/GPS links mated to your pictures also appear in Facebook.

Some care in sizing photos will speed transfer times as Ubertwitter will transfer the full file size. I either set the Storm's camera down from 2048x1536 down to 640x480 or push the photo into a MMS text message and copy paste the photo back into the archive. The MMS message system will automatically downsize a photo suitable for texting.

Same with video: I usually shoot a MMS video at 176x144 rather than the 480x352. Huge files aren't any fun with twitter.

Ubertwitter reprocesses the video in Quicktime and embeds it off the status link looking like this http://mypict.me/50DS in a standard web page.

Ubertwitter has undergone two upgrades in the past week that work well with the most recent Blackberry Storm operating system upgrade.

The picture at left is a picture Tweet in Ubertwitter.

A software upgrade last month on the Storm made the global copy and paste more functional. A dot to define the beginning of the selection has been replaced with a floating window that increases the contact patch and smooths navigation. The method of copy and paste remains the same allowing the user to transfer between any field in the phone.

1. Select window appears in any field that you can copy by depressing the screen. Place the window where you want to select the text.
2. Blackberry key/ SELECT
3. Drag the select window to the the end of your selection
4. Blackberry key/ COPY
5. Swap application or open a new applications and place cursor in field to paste
6. Blackberry key/ PASTE

RIM's podcasting platform on the Blackberry Storm starts with a blank slate. Pick your software, find your streaming sites and download via the wireless network.

In 1968, you did this with an AM transistor radio powered by a 9 volt. People would sift the airwaves, make choices and listen for free.

There are several pieces of software that can stream podacsts to your Blackberry available from the wild and though Blackberry App World. I use PodTrapper downloaded via App World simple because it had a free trial and I didn't go further with software research. It works well, has a directory of hundreds of podcasts or you can copy and past the URL of your choice after searching the internet.

You aren't limited in file size for downloading over the wireless connection. Once your podcasts are chosen or URL's are loaded into your player software, the program can run in the background updating ready for you when you want to listen.

About this series

The recent OS upgrade appears to have added a pause feature when pushed content (email, facebook, IM, txt) is sending an alert. The podcast pauses, the alert sounds and the program leaves off where it stopped without missing anything. You can continue to listen and multitask by replying to pushed content.

I find myself never using the headphones as the external speaker on the Storm is petty good and i can just set the unit down in a room, or while working in the garage and not get tangled in headphones.

I almost never stream video, but I also never watch television. It's information while you are working in the garage, or hanging laundry or your eyes are ready to explode because you have been on a computer for 10 hours, but you still want more information.

Podcasting on the Blackberry Storm is a self contained information streaming device harnessed by your imagination.

A major OS upgrade was pushed to Verizon's Blackberry Storm tonight. The phone can be upgraded over the network. The push alert came via the integrated data stream. I used the Blackberry Desktop Manager instead, which syncs the phone via the USB cord and backs up all apps and user data such as email, old txt messages, photos/video and restores it to the upgrade.

The backup, download and restore took about 30 minutes without a hitch. This time will vary with the amount of user data on your phone. Several applications were upgraded with this update. You can have an option with both the network or desktop upgrade to choose the apps and some aspects of the operating system you wish to upgrade or remove. I opted to remove Asian language support.

Only two options were available for Blackberry's Facebook App, remove or downgrade.. I have been given the option to downgrade since a day after I upgraded. I have never had any issues with the upgrade in question.At first glance there is an improvement in the speed of the camera and video and the black mask at the bottom of the viewfinder has been replaced with a semi-transparent one.The universal select/copy/paste has been enhanced to allow a more precise control of the selected content.

A full QWERTY option has been added to portrait mode.

The return key have become a green "go" button on the keyboard when using the Blackberry browser.

Few things are more annoying about large, flat, touch screen phones as carrying it and activating it unintentionally or manually locking and unlocking all the time to keep it from randomly communicating with the world from your pocket.

The leather Blackberry Storm holster has a magnetic strip embedded in the spine that interacts with the phone telling it that that it's time to go into holster mode.

When the phone is pulled from the holster, it automatically wakes up and unlocks. The optional password protection can automatically be activated when entering the case.

About this series

When the phone is placed in the holster it automatically goes into a low power mode. The sound alerts and calls can automatically go to vibrate via options selected off of the SOUNDS button. It isn't immediately obvious that you can scroll down in this menu.

The magic case is also perfect for streaming music while at the gym as there is a cut for the headphones/hands free jack. The power to the hungry screen is shut off and you don't have to carry this stupid box around wondering where to put it. The top of the case enclosure protects the head jack connection while in use.

The high quality leather case snaps closed with a magnetic leather tongue. Amazingly after two months of crawling, grinding and catching on things, I haven't broken this yet.

I arrive at the scene of a car into a house, two minutes later there is a picture waiting across town for the web editor. Before noon yesterday, all of my pictures were published from my camera phone.

Two news events back to back, little time to waste using laptops, cords and legacy cameras. The irony of this speedy turnaround is that the Blackberry Storm contains a very slow camera, and would normally be unsuitable by photojournalism's 8 frames per second world. The operator of a Graflex Speed Graphic in 1920 would have all the skills to anticipate the use of this camera.

About this series

So you are at the gym streaming internet radio via Pandora on your Blackberry Storm and you hear an alert for an email. Without stopping the music, you answer the email, then swap to your Twitter application, then send a text message and this all works fine. You still have Blackberry App World and VZ Navigator running from this morning in the background and decide it would be cool to shoot and upload a video of your feet moving on the elliptical via UberTwitter to Facebook.... and the world freezes.

The Storm has the ability to do alot of things at the same time and it has the ability for the user to destroy that experience pretty quickly. Some phone manufacturers increase stability by only letting you run one application at a time, RIM decided to give you the option of running everything and letting the user sort it out.

Multitasking operating systems have been around a long time. Windows Mobile, Android and Palm are other examples of a multitasking operating systems. It's a nightmare when designing a phone. Decreased battery life and draining memory. On the Blackberry, the ability to download applications from third party creators not necessarily approved by RIM adds a new twist of freedom and horror to the mix.

You learn pretty quickly how far you can push the phone and multitasking is probably the most common reason people hate the phone. "It's so slow !!" "It's crashing !!" This is also the reason why the store display phone is generally horrible as the day grinds on. Everyone who has walked by starts running a new application.

The Switch Application tool bar is your friend (see photo above). From the Blackberry button, this is accessible while running any application. It provides a widow into what is running similar to Crtl-Alt-Delete/Applications on a PC. This window allows you to jump between applications and CLOSE THEM DOWN if you don't need them.

So it is possible to listen to music and text and email, especially when running multiple email accounts though the Blackberry mail server system rather than using dedicated applications like Gmail, just shut down the navigation application you were using six hours ago.

I like the free application (Blackberry App World) QuickPull. It simulates a battery pull complete boot for the Blackberry Storm. You can schedule this complete cycle automatically in the middle of the night and it doesn't affect your alerts or wake-up
alarm.

Purge your email and text/picture/video messages. Multiple accounts with multiple attachments combined with text, pix and video left in for days eats up memory and makes the phone sluggish.

You can select the number of days you want to keep in the mail in each account automatically. I prefer a 15 day window automatic deletion window and to pick a moment when I have time and Delete Prior for each account. While you can delete messages from your native mail account account via the Blackberry mail server system, the mail that appears in the phone from your Gmail, Yahoo, corporate mail server, etc. is a mirror of that mail. All that garbage still looms on a server somewhere unless you decide to manually select a group of emails in your Storm and delete at the same time.

About a month ago, I decided to move over to a smart phone from a good 3.2 megapixel still/ video phone, a Samsung ACH-990. I wanted to forward between a work/home phone without cost, so my decision was slanted toward the Verizon offerings.

This isn't an endorsement or an ongoing comparison, but rather an observation of using a Blackberry Storm for better or worse to help anyone with one or considering options for a phone application.

I considered the iPhone 3G from AT&T, as it is the dominant player in the smart phone game. Other smart phones in the running were the Samsung Omnia (5 megapixil !) and the HTC Touch.

Why I picked a Blackberry Storm

A phone is a tool. Like my plumbing, electrical and woodworking tools, I use the tool that works best for the job. I am photojournalist who is always looking for new ways to refine and speed up the process of transmitting still photos, video and data. I use multiple email accounts, picture/video and text messaging extensively.

I was intrigued by the iPhone but it quickly fell out of the running. No video capability, no picture/video messaging and a 2 megapixel camera with no flash or mechanical auto-focus. No multi-tasking of applications, no multi-threading of multiple server and web email accounts all running at the same time. No turn-by-turn navigation. No insurance. No replaceable battery. I have been going through a couple of phones per year. One got destroyed at a fire last year.

The iPhone is a fine tool for people dedicated to the Apple platform and find innovative uses sifting through a billion applications, but there were basic necessities of being a picture/video phone that I needed before considering all else.

The Samsung Omnia had a horrible screen and I never could get the Windows Mobile based phone to work right at the store. Like the Blackberry Storm, this multitasking phone usually has every possible application running opened in odd ways by every person who has touched it that day. The Verizon salespeople wouldn't let me cold boot the phones and they were tethered to an alarm/power source The Windows Mobile HTC Touch with a slide out keyboard seemed flimsy and cheap with a tiny screen.

Why I am writing this

While I have nothing against the iPhone, most of the reviews for the Blackberry Storm appear to be written by iPhone users comparing everything to their iPhone without connecting to the philosophy behind the Blackberry's design.

I want to share some tricks and observations that I figured out along the way without comparing the Blackberry Storm to anything.

Here's the tool, lets make it work.