Looks like there was an outage Thursday that lasted from as early as 8 AM up until around 4 PM. Problems centred around data services on both EDGE and 3G, including wireless internet cards for laptops. We’ll be talking with some folks from Zenprise on tomorrow’s podcast to get the down-low on where the problem originated, how wide it spread, and what enterprises did about it. Did the service lapse cause y’all any headaches?
Monthly Archive for January, 2008
Data outage nails AT&T subscribers
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Not every day you see Canada get a BlackBerry before the US, eh? Well, the rumors have panned out, and we’ve got an announcement of the GPS Pearl from Rogers, going for $249.99 on a three-year contract and coming in a dashing blue. Spain is getting its kicks with the 8110, and Rogers looks like the first one to pick it up over here. With both GSM and CDMA carriers having next gen Pearls, you can count on some sweet deals on the leftover BlackBerry 8100s. Keep an eye on the Rogers store for availability.
Hot on the heels of the Spanish release, Verizon is now offering BlackBerry Professional Software to its American small enterprise customers. As ever, the BlackBerry Professional Software provides a wealth of synchronization options with pricing starting at five users for $549.99, then up to ten users for $849.00, capping out at 30 users. Verizon’s offering to upgrade existing Small Business Edition BES customers to the BlackBerry Professional software for free in an effort to phase out the older platform altogether. To get set up, call Verizon sales at 1-800-VZW-4BIZ.
It just doesn’t end, does it? Verizon’s BlackBerry 8830 has been given the red paint job that has become so popular this time of year, and will be available through Verizon’s online store and other retail channels tomorrow for $299.99 on a two-year contract, with a $100 rebate for qualifying voice and data plans. The World Edition is a nice change, since the 8800-series doesn’t get nearly as much colour as the Pearl does. Remember, if you’re ever looking for a quick and painless colour change, DecalGirl has some Solid State skins that can easily do the trick.
Ascendo’s latest version of their BlackBerry picture viewer has been released, now featuring microSD support, new loading options like watched directories and automatic photo detection, and editing options like rotation, brightness and contrast. It sounds like a pretty big update, especially with being able to read pictures from the microSD card. A photo management program must be fairly limited when it relies on BlackBerry’s 64 MB of internal memory, especially when most of that is gobbled up by a plethora of other apps. If you’re looking to give Ascendo Photos a go, you can pick it up here. Full release notes available here.
BerryReview recently posted about Michael Smalls, a BlackBerry theme designer who has released over a hundred BlackBerry 8100, 8300, and 8800 themes for free. The design of the website leaves quite a lot to be desired, but the themes themselves are well done and there is a lot of variety. If none of the themes are entirely to your liking, you can even contact Smalls to have one personally designed for a $3-$10 fee depending on complexity. Fair warning: the site absolutely requires Internet Explorer on a PC to download the themes. There’s always Gemblock, who also does a lot of free themes.
The Financial Post has uncovered evidence that Research in Motion will be unveiling a new music accessory called the BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway. The Gateway attaches to a stereo and then streams music files from a BlackBerry via Bluetooth. The information is available through an FCC filing, which has both the user manual and a photo of the Gateway. The device was filed by Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co., Ltd. out of Taiwan, but the BlackBerry brand is all over the place. This is obviously a big push into the consumer space for RIM, especially given the fact that, unlike iPod docks, it’s wireless. Between this and the increasing sizes of microSDHC cards, BlackBerry is becoming more and more viable as a media player.
Once again Spain gets the goods. The BlackBerry Professional Software that was announced back in November is now available in Spain through Orange. The package is geared towards smaller businesses running on Exchange or Lotus Domino servers and dealing with fewer than 30 devices, and allows two-way synchronization of address books and calendars. If you want to try it out, RIM’s got BlackBerry Professional Express available for single users, which can then be expanded as you get more BlackBerrys to manage.
A user on the Pinstack forums noted that the city guide software Zagat To Go has been updated to version 6.0. The software allows you to find over 30,000 restaurants, golf courses, hotels, and other locations for the BlackBerry user on the move. You can also use Zagat to Go to automatically dial the number for the spot you’ve chosen, read reviews, get directions, and quite a lot more. Version 6.0 adds a redesigned interface as well as favorites, wish lists and the ability to browse an alphabetical list of all locations in an area. A 14-day free trial is available or you can purchase a one year subscription for $29.95. They offered a 1500 free subscriptions to BlackBerry users last July, so we’ll keep any eye out for anything similar to celebrate this new release.
Continental Airlines has announced that they will be offering Wi-Fi service to customers as part of their new LiveTV service, pending testing. LiveTV offers a wide variety of TV channels free to first class passengers or to economy class for a $6 fee. They are testing Wi-Fi access as part of the service and if all goes well, smartphone and laptop users will able to access BlackBerry email and instant messaging as well as Yahoo! equivalents. This isn’t the first time the BlackBerry has taken to the skies, but it seems a little more restrictive than other services.
