The voice of the BlackBerry community.
Here’s a little fun Friday goodness for you. We were tipped off to an article today about Matthias Wandel, an engineer at RIM who came up with an inventive low-tech solution to a high-tech problem back in the day.
It seems as though Matthias was testing the 900MHz reception of the old RIM 950 (we’re talking pre-BlackBerry here, folks), which varies by angle and orientation. The Solution? Build a LEGO machine to do the work for you.
Continue reading ‘RIM gets high-tech, uses LEGOs’
Literally, my friends. Literally. Thanks to our new pal Chris Thomas and his Pour Out blog for this tidbit. On a flight back to his homebase, Chris was probably checking his ‘Berry for the 254th out of 357 times on the plane when he noticed that his device was getting a solid reception signal – at 37,000 feet! Chris says that sure, there’s no way you can tell from the shot that he’s in the air, but we agree with his retort – who would make this up? Thanks, Mr. T.
Guilty as charged, I think. If you haven’t heard of it, there’s an epidemic slowly sweeping all of us over called “Phantom Ring Syndrome” or even “Phantom Vibration Syndrome”. This is when we think we hear our BlackBerry device going off when it’s actually just laying there stagnant.
Well, a post over at HowardForums has planted the seed of another syndrome, this one having to do with your status light: Phantom Status Light Syndome.
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re sitting somewhere… home, work, car… and you’re not looking directly at your BlackBerry. Then, out of the corner of your eye, in your peripheral vision, you see the status light on your 8700 (or your 8100 or 8800, for that matter) blink. And you just KNOW it was RED! There’s no doubt in your mind! You’ve got a new message!
Continue reading ‘Experiencing Phantom Status Light Syndrome?’
I think we all get it by now. We’re replacing face to face interaction with face to screen-type relationships. It’s sad, really. Actually, what’s sad is seeing a man in his forties cry his eyes out (and by “sad” I mean “kind of funny”). Check out our most recent YouTube grab from the Today Show’s “Could You Do Without” segment on NBC, where Forbes managing editor Dennis Kneale tries to go without a cellphone, email, and you better believe it – his BlackBerry – for a full seven days.
Watch as Kneale gets reduced to a snivelling wireless dependent (granted, it’s for a pretty good reason).
Continue reading ‘Could YOU do without?’
We’re always talking about connectivity and how it really is necessary to leave the BlackBerry stagnant for a bit. There’s someone out there who vehemently agrees, and has gone so far to produce a 12-step program to getting over email addiction.
That someone in question is Marsha Egan, an executive coach in Pennsylvania who’s devised a plan to teach people how to manage the electronic tool. I’m excited to note that I’ll be having an electronic sit-down with Ms. Egan in the next couple of days to talk to her about the dozen steps. The interview should be posted by the end of the week.
The first of Egan’s 12 steps is “admit that e-mail is managing you. Let go of your need to check e-mail every 10 minutes.”
Other steps include “commit to keeping your inbox empty,” “establish regular times to review your e-mail” and “deal immediately with any e-mail that can be handled in two minutes or less but create a file for mails that will take longer.”
Continue reading ‘BlackBerry user 12-step program now available’
A lot of folks think that we’re addicted to BlackBerry handhelds because they provide us with a great business solution. Well, while that may hold true for some, the other 92% of us are just really into BrickBreaker (I’m just picking a number out of the air, by the way).
A solid article, from the Wall Street Journal, no less (WSJ is subscription-based, Moneyweb is not, profiles CrackBerry addicts and the pursuit of the BrickBreaker crown.
In this era of startlingly realistic video games, BrickBreaker is straight out of the Stone Age. Yet it has developed a cult following, not among the young Gameboy set, but with executives chained to their email. Players swap strategies in chat rooms, brag about their prowess and pay homage to BrickBreaker superstars — a few with top scores of over one million.
Continue reading ‘The BrickBreaker guilty pleasure’
We all have items from our past that we’ll forever cherish (or more than likely toss out in six months when we need to make room for more crap). One passionate blogger is holding the BlackBerry 7730 near and dear, and in a recent post, QWERTY’s his heart out about the overall design of this now-obsolete beast of a device.
The whole package is incredibly robust and hard-wearing, and I can only guess that a major reason to shelve it was than the bill of materials was too high. We’ve been running a few hundred of these devices in a hard-wear field environment since 2004 with a customer and most of them are still going strong. (The RIM people look at these like they’re antiques when we wave them about.)
Anyone else feel passionate about the past?
Admittedly, I was just slightly scared as to what I’d find when I clicked on a link that asked “Do you love your BlackBerry too much”? I blame the Internet for my wariness. Digressions aside, there’s a decent quiz over at CIO.com asking the aforementioned question. Answer the 10 questions provided and tally your score to see if you should be cutting your BlackBerry tether or not. Fun little pit stop. Apparently I love my device too much. Who knew?
First, let me quickly thank the Daily Report for grabbing this from the (subscription-based) Wall Street Journal. Now then. According to the… Daily Report, there’s a new breed of BlackBerry addicts, and they’re surfacing around noon hour in the same clothes as yesterday. Yes, we’re talking about the university and college contingent. And you know what? Even stay-at-home parents are picking them up. Maybe RIM doesn’t have to try that hard to get out into the consumer market.
Many consumers say the extra cost is worth it. Tina Gill, 35, a stay-at-home mom in Austin, Texas, uses her BlackBerry 7100g to keep up with the fluctuating schedules of her two children. She often receives email updates from her children’s golf and baseball coaches on where practice is being held that day.
Continue reading ‘New generation of CrackBerry addicts’
Another CrackBerry article to add to the stockpile, but this one should make you pay attention a little more to how much you’re using your device. A study performed by Toronto’s Ryerson University has brought in results stating that a BlackBerry device could “turn users into distracted, anti-social obsessives who could put the safety of others or themselves at risk.” Oh my.
“The Ryerson study only looked at the usage patterns of 13 respondents, which spanned CEOs to middle managers and entry-level workers, but (associate professor Catherine) Middleton said she was more interested in specific examples than broad statistics. “We felt that the story we were able to tell was a story that was pretty believable in terms of identifying behaviours,†she said. “The intent is not to generalize that every BlackBerry user has the same patterns.â€
Continue reading ‘BlackBerry use leads to breakdowns’
The voice of the BlackBerry community.
