Saving Companies Thousands. Be One!

I love my Blackberry and there are not a lot of moments it is out of my hand. So I think sometimes, what can I put on my Blackberry to make it more productive?

One of my favorite apps is Viigo, as I have said before. It makes me more productive because it brings my favorite news to me. It is delivered in a nice clean little package. Now Viigo has movie times, sports scores, and podcasts (coming soon).

I have Sprint, and another super handy thing my Blackberry allows me to do is use my Phone as Modem. There are times when your internet connection may crash, and Blackberry to the RESCUE…… I just fire up my Sprint Smartview connection manager software, plug in my Blackberry, and start surfing the web again. This has literally saved me on numerous occasions when the old internet goes down. It lets me continue to help my customers (at work).

The last thing I really like and recommend everybody does on any phone they have with a memory card is put some portable applications on it. I love the website PortableApps.com. I use Firefox portable which lets me keep my bookmarks with me at all times, and it also lets me keep all my Firefox extensions which really lets me take my browser with me. I also highly recommend CC Cleaner portable, VLC Media Player, and ClamWin AntiVirus.

These few tips and tricks will hopefully help you love your Blackberry a little more than you already do. Hey who knows, maybe your Blackberry can come to somebodie’s rescue. If you have any questions direct message me on Twitter @gizmoalex or contact us.

Our phones do so much for us now. Some of us do online banking, read our local newspapers with RSS Feeds, and a million other things. The Apple iPhone(3G) really upped the ante, by giving us a cool all in one device that looked nice and was pretty functional. Don’t get me wrong I love my Blackberry 8830, but the iPhone has really become a very popular multi-faceted device.

So I was reading that cameras will be getting another boost in the near future in cell phones. Of course this is an evolutionary thing and was bound to happen, but with 32GB SD cards becoming available at retail, our phone will soon also be our camera and our multi-media device. It is bound to happen, and when our kids get older and have these all in one devices they will make fun of us for carrying 5 things around.

So we are not where I hope we will be yet, but I can squeeze hours of entertainment out of my Blackberry when I need to. I know people can do the same with iPhones and high end Nokias, Helio Oceans, and so on. If you have an iPhone sync your Itunes and put some music on there, or use the great Roxio media manager for your Blackberry and let it convert your files for you.

So hopefully next year, I will be writing this blog on my phone, uploading high resolution pictures to Myspace, and be able to use a super intuitive interface to control all my media.

I am always looking for ways to help increase my productivity, or just generally looking for cool new ways to do things on the computer or my phone. With that said one of my most commonly visited websites is LifeHacker. Most articles related to Lifehacker have to deal with PC shortcuts and cool web applications to make life easier. I read about a very helpful mobile tool that should help many people.

The tool they wrote about was BitPim. BitPim is basically an application that allows you to backup your data on many regular phones. If you have a Blackberry, Treo, or Windows Mobile Device, backing up data usually means connecting to your computer with USB or the device does it by itself wirelessly. With regular phones these tasks are not so simple. Thankfully there are backup tools like “Wireless Backup” that Sprint is offering that helps back up contacts, but what if you need a little more?

With BitPim it can back up most of your data, help synchronize your calendars, and even help you put ringtones on your phone. As far as I know there are not many other products out there that do this. Make sure you read the article, because there are very detailed instructions of what you need to do. So try it out and see if it works for you. There are some phones that need a special cable and if you need to order one contact us.  Or if you are ready for a Smartphone let us know and we will help you out!

I just finished reading an article from our good friends over at Blackberry Cool and they say that almost 400,000 small businesses (defined as a business with less than 99 employees) are either using a Smartphone or are planning on purchasing one in the very near future.

Now why would a small business do this, why would a small business customer invest the money into a more expensive device? Once you have seen what Smartphones can do the answer to that question is easy; a Smartphone will allow you to compete with your larger competition. One of the biggest problems small businesses face is real-time communication. A Blackberry, Palm, or Windows Smartphone allow you to e-mail, talk, and use the Internet in a nice little package. We feel Blackberrys are the best for e-mail integration. I almost always receive my e-mail on my Blackberry before it hits my Microsoft Outlook. Think about it,  your most important client sends you a time sensitive e-mail at 2:45 and you are out of the office. You do not get back until 4:30, you walk to your computer and you missed the deadline your client gave you. That is a lost client opportunity and your client has a little less faith in you. With your Smartphone you get the e-mail at 2:45, respond instantly, and you become your client’s hero.

Let me tell you, as I have said before my Blackberry has really made my life easier. It is a little easier, but the more important thing is that my customers are more satisfied. That is so important for a small to medium business, give your customers a reason to do business with your for life and that little extra cost for a Smartphone will be a no-brainer. Still not convinced click here.