The Rabapab Blog

Figured I better finish this set of posts, but to start off lets update the 1st post a little.  I am no longer currently using  Viigo, due to what seemed like a memory leak from the application.  It was also a really large application, and would entirely consume my phone while it was loading articles.  I now use the Mobihome webpage launcher that was designed for touch screen phones.  It has links to mobile news related sites from all over.  I will also be making some minor edits to the previous post to add links to the Google apps that were mentioned.

Now to move on thru some more of my current favorite applications for my Blackberry Storm.  Lets start off with browsers.  The BB Browser has been getting better with every new OS leak, but it is still got a ways to go.  3rd party wise there are a few to choose from currently available and another in the works.  Of the two available now (Bolt and Opera Mini) I personally prefer Opera Mini.  It is much faster than the Berry browser, and has several other cool features.  One turn off for some people on Opera Mini is the fact that SurePress is not involved in the link clicking process.  You just simply touch the link and it is selected.  Sort of like the iPhone.  It personally does not bother me, as I quite like the browser.  The browser being worked on by SkyFire will most likely become my new favorite browser once it gets released, as it will support Flash.  That will make it most likely the single greatest app available.

Moving right along, I have for quite some time been removing the Voice Activated Dialing files from my OS install packages.  I have replaced it with vlingo, which is essentially the VAD on crack.  Not only can it handle voice dialing, but it also support voice commands for the phone.  You can do things like search Google, update your Twitter or Facebook status, send an e-mail or SMS, and many other cool things.  Upon installing vlingo you will go thru a short setup process and then you will be able to begin using vlingo on your phone.  The only down side to vlingo is that it does not yet support Bluetooth headsets, so it does not respond to the headset dial command.

The next couple of apps I recently picked up thru the store as paid apps.  The 1st is called PeekaWho, and it provides nice pop-up messages showing a preview of e-mail and SMS messages with several quick actions that you can perform without needing to even go into the Messages folder.  The pop-up also contains your Contacts picture for the person if they are in your Contacts list and their name.  In addition to this great app, I also picked up another great one called FollowUp, which actually integrates nicely into PeekaWho.  FollowUp does exactly what its name implies, it provides follow features similar to Microsoft Outlook.  It integrates nicely into several of the standard BB menus, and makes it easy to set follow up reminders on things.

The last few apps that I will be covering are what I use for maintaining my Twitter feed from my BlackBerry.  The 1st is called SocialScope, which is currently in closed Alpha.  I cannot cover much about it as I am involved in the Alpha, but I can say that it is by far the best Twitter client I have used for the Berry.  It is full of features and in general just works wonderfully considering that it is an Alpha application.  The mass majority of my Twitter traffic actually comes from that client.  While SS is quite a wonderful Twitter client, I have also been checking out the ÜberTwitter public beta.  It seems to be quite nice as well.  I have been thoroughly impressed with it.  I really like its location tracking features, even though I chose to turn the location status update feature off unless I want it on.  It still seems to update my Location on my Profile which is what I have it set to do.  UT also includes a nice photo feature that allows you to post a picture taken from your camera phone and then have it hosted on a special UT web page.  The link to the photo is included in your status update.

So that is it for the App Picks series for now.  I will try to circle back around to this series soon to update it and potentially add additional parts.  More to come soon.

As previously mentioned I have developed quite the Crackberry addiction.  I love my Berry, I am not quite sure what I did without it all these years.  Needless to say developing an addiction to the things is quite easy, since they do everything.  I have never felt more connected and organized.  The unexpected part was that after I got the Berry I have become active in some of the Social Networking sites, which I never got into before.  I created and have been maintaining a Facebook page, and have a Twitter feed that I update quite frequently.  Of course that just means there are more things that I can do with my Berry.  Which brings us to the reason for this post.

Since getting my Berry I have tried several different applications.  One of the 1st apps that I picked up is called QuickPull, which is a must have application for any Blackberry owner.  The most annoying part of the Blackberry is that so many things seem to require you to “pull the battery”, which essentially reboots the phone.  The application allows the user to simulate a battery pull, eliminating the need to open the battery compartment.  The more recent versions allow the user to schedule reboots, which is nice to keep the phone running smooth.  The best part of QuickPull is that it is a free download.

Another great app that I found, and actually paid for is called MeterBerry, another must have application for any Blackberry owner.  MeterBerry provides all kinds of information to allow the user to see how their phone is running.  Detailed battery and memory information, including logs and the ability to reboot the phone.  Some would argue that MeterBerry replaces Quickpull, but I still find a use for both of them.  The icon for MeterBerry is also very nice as it allows the user to customize what data it displays to the user, and it can also be set to rotate thru all the possible options.  I think I have mine set to show Available Application Memory.

Another big must have Blackberry application is called Viigo, which is a RSS based reader application.  Viigo is pretty much my one stop shop for anything news related, as it has feeds available to it for pretty much any source.  Viigo is also a free applications which makes it definately worth picking up.  Poynt, which is a location driven local search application, allow the user to search thru SmartPages for business listings, locate movies playing in theaters near you, and provide maps to those services.  The business directory service seems to be somewhat accurate and useful, although there are some items that are out-of-date or not listed.

Of course you can’t forget the Google applications, like Google Maps w/Latitude and Google Sync.  If you have a Google account and make use of the Google Calendar service, then Google Sync is for you.  It will sync automatically any change that you make to your Berry calendar to your Google Calendar.  It will also sync your contacts to Google Contacts.  Maps is probably one of the best map applications out right now.  While it does not have turn by turn directions with voice support, it does offer satellite view and the ability to zoom into street view elements.  They have also built Latitude into the new Maps application, which makes Maps that much cooler.

That is enough for this post, stay tuned for part two of this series.

You see them everywhere.  At work, at school and everywhere in between, the Blackberry has become a social norm.  When you got that first cell phone, just having one was cool.  You could make a phone call without needing to dig a quarter out of your pocket, and find a payphone.  Then they started putting color screens on them, and using the phone to browse mobile sites became possible.  Then people started combining phones with PDA’s and they turned into Smart Phones.  Now you could keep all of your organizer data (ie. Calendar, Tasks, Notes) in the same device as your phone. 

I had always had regular old cell phones, my first one was a Nokia, got it from the now history Cellular One.  Then I had a Motorola flip phone, then another Motorola flip phone with a color screen, then a Motorola Razor (also a flip phone).  Then I decided that I wanted to move on to a Smartphone.  I did not want to spend the money to buy an iPhone as they had just come out.  I decided on a Samnsung Blackjack II from AT&T, as I was already a customer with them.  The phone was quite a leap from my old Razor, I mean the damn thing had a full qwerty keyboard on it.  Surprisingly the phone was not all that large, there were certainly bigger phones out there at the time, but it was larger than any of my previous phones.  The Blackjack is a Windows Mobile device, which fit my wishes at the time.  I was and still am a big Microsoft fan, they make good products that interact seamlessly.  That phone really got me started on Smartphones, and I don’t think I could go back to regular cell phones ever again.

Then I decided to switch to Verizon Wireless, mainly because I wanted to get the Blackberry Storm.  The Storm is the touchscreen Blackberry that is exclusive with VZW.  I had been reading a lot about them since before the phone was released.  It had been out for about a month, and I went into the store and got all setup with one.  Now let me tell you, as it stands my experience with Blackberries at that point had been very little and only by playing with other peoples.  In my opinion that helped me appreciate the Storm that much more when I started using it.  I was quickly able to start typing on it, no matter which keyboard I was using.  I quickly became addicted to Crackberry.com, whch is quite possibly my most visited site at this point.  There is a lot of good information there and as a new Blackberry user it became my resource for everything I wanted to know about my new toy.  The Blackberry’s ability to do push email is quite possibly the greatest thing I think I have ever seen.  As soon as the email hits the inbox of the 4 email addresses I have going to it, the message immediately appears on my phone.  I have all my IM clients that I use always logged in on my phone, so I am always available for a chat with my friends.  With the help of the CrackBerry forums I have jumped into the land of Beta OS installs and 3rd Party Applications.  I have installed numerous Beta OS’s on my phone, each one making the phone just a little bit better.  Right now I am running what is called a Hybrid OS, it combines parts of a few different Beta OS’s.  My phone has Google Maps, Viigo, Where, Poynt, TalkLock, Flickr, Quicklaunch, Quickpull and Tiltris installed.  These are all 3rd Party apps that I have installed and have been playing with.  Each app provides different features or services that are very useful.   

My Crackberry addiction has even ventured into the realm of Paid Applications, in other words they cost money.  I already mentioned Quicklaunch, which is quite possibly the greatest app possible for the Storm.  It gives you a scrollable menu that you can customize and is able to launch pretty much any application that you may have installed.  Kind of like a Start Menu.  I also recently purchased a few themes that I had found reviewed on Crackberry.com, one is called Streamline and the other is Today Plus Hidden.  So far they seem like wonderful themes, I am certainly hoping that the authors release updates for them.  Themes are kind of new area for the Storm as the application needed to create themes was just recently released.  The app, called Plazmic 4.7, is currently still in Beta, so hopefully when it goes to full release the author will put out a new version using the full release of Plazmic 4.7.  With all of the stuff that my Storm can do right now I rarely need to use my computer for communication.  I can do it all from my phone, and I love that.  The best part of it all is that the Blackberry can do all of that stuff at the same time.  I can be chatting in every IM client, while sending and recieving emails, while sending and receiving SMS or MMS messages.  I think you get the picture, I can see why these things are so popular.  They do everything, and they do it well.  I think I will be sticking with the Blackberry for a while, at least until I find something better.  And honestly I think that is going to be hard to do.