Saving Companies Thousands. Be One!

A few days ago Blackberry Messenger 5.0 leaked. It is available through download and install via desktop manager. Thanks to @0mie BBM 5.0 is available for download on most Blackberries as an Over the Air (OTA) install straight from the Blackberry Browser. Make sure you read carefully and you backup all of your information (especially your Blackberry Messenger Contacts) before you start this process.

I was so excited for the news, I installed immediately on my phone (Sprint 8330/Curve) and it worked like a champ. I installed on my wife’s phone (Verizon 9530/Storm) and  it worked like a champ. Once I did this I told everybody I knew that had a Blackberry to install the new BBM 5.0 and gave them a link to @0mie’s site. Of course one of my BB peeps @daytripper67 and a co-worker, Jeannette, lost all of their contacts on their BBM and lost BBM all together. I know this was hard for you ladies and I apologize it happened. Now for my initial thoughts on BBM 5.0

My first thoughts on the BBM were “very cool”/ It looked a lot better right from the start. Things seemed larger and fairly easier to scroll through. I remembered reading you could customize your avatar and I immediately did that. The cool thing is it lets crop the pic and as of now if you set an avatar your other BBM contacts will see it. If you want to add me my pin is 31A65D47 and my shirt says “I’m a Little Beach”.

You now have a tab that comes up for recent updates. Anybody that has updated their status, or their saying, or picture will all be listed here. I really like that you can pretty easily set group chats and you can also set a subject to the chat. You can still send a picture, voicenote, and file as before. You know can also send your location to a contact and you can even set up a proximity sensor. I leave mine off because the element of surprise is important to me.

I think contacts are easier to add now. I can add by e-mail, PIN, or can scan a QR Code. I love the QR Code and it is quite easy to do the first time you do it. You just have to choose “Scan invitation barcode from another Blackberry”, it will trigger your camera, and the rest is history. You now have the ability to back up and restore contacts on your memory card or device memory.You can now Broadcast a Message to all or a select group of your contacts, which I love because sometimes I feel I copy and paste the same message to several contacts.

Overall I love the new BBM 5.0. It was a little wonky the first day or two, but that is because I think it was on different servers. My BBM 5.0 experience has been very pleasant since yesterday. Two things I recommend doing before making the BBM 5.0 dive; back up your whole device, and make sure you have the newest OS on your phone. I think this may have had something to do with the contacts being deleted on the other phones. As always if you have any questions contact us, e-mail alex@thephonestoreinc.com directly, or you can message @gizmoalex or @phonestore.

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.

Ok, a few weeks/months ago I wrote about Slacker Radio coming to the Blackberry. I have been using Slacker and setting all my Blackberry customers up with it. Now comes Pandora, Pandora is a similar music streaming station.

When you log into Pandora the first time it asks you if you have an account (which I do) or if you are a new customer. You can set up your settings from here. I entered my e-mail address and password and pretty much hit the ground running. It had a list of my previously created stations (Bubblegum Oldies, where did that come from?). It has a pretty slick interface and seems to be very responsive.

I am on Sprint’s 3G network and after selecting my song it loaded very very fast. The main screen shows you the Album Art, Song’s Title and Album. There is a spot where you can “Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down” the song. This will play it more often, or stop playing it. You can also skip, I skipped twice before I didn’t want to try anymore (Creep Acoustic Version). The actual website only lets you skip 3 times an hour.

So if you like music and you have a Blackberry get this application. There are great alternatives like IHeartRadio which is really awesome because it lets you listen to some local radio stations. Slacker is awesome because it lets you cache your stations and listen when you are off network. Also, Slacker is only available for the Bold, Curve, and Pearl series phones. If you have any questions please contact us, or Direct Message @gizmoalex or @phonestore on Twitter.