Posted on June 7, 2007, at 10:51 am .
Blackouts aren’t exactly regular occurrences, but one is enough to make companies start considering contingency plans and preventative measures. Informatica Security has written up a set of reasonable guidelines for keeping the gears turning when BlackBerrys aren’t up and running. The big four points for minimizing damage from an outage are:
1. Quantify the criticality of Blackberry service reliability and uptime before committing resources.
2. Identify alternative methods for secure e-mail retrieval.
3. Ensure that IT personnel actively monitor critical resources.
4. Include Blackberry service disruption in the Business Continuity Plan.
Continue reading ‘Corporate BlackBerry outage survival’
Posted on May 17, 2007, at 12:25 pm .
As part of BlackBerry Cool’s quest to bring our readers the most in-depth coverage of the latest BlackBerry devices, we commissioned infamous “RogersDude69” to breakdown the BlackBerry 8300’s Bluetooth functionality, which unlike most BlackBerrys, isn’t crippled more than a one-legged pirate with termites. Although, as RogersDude69 is quick to point out, the experience isn’t always the best.
Continue reading ‘BlackBerry 8300 Bluetooth — Files, Pictures, & Stereo Headphones’
Posted on May 14, 2007, at 10:38 am .
Washington will slap you with a $101 fine for texting while driving. Not quite jail, but it’s a start. While it’s probably more of a temptation for Pearl users who can one-hand it, any QWERTY-pad thumbers out there actually try to write e-mails while they drive? The motion passed by 90-8, and is being proceeded by a motion to make hands-free functions mandatory to make any calls while in a car. Good thing we’ve got some of those kicking around. Gotta wonder who those other 8 speakers were.
Posted on May 11, 2007, at 3:51 pm .
A UK initiative called WorkWise, is gearing up for Work Wise Week, in an effort to promote healthier home-work balance and lifestyle choices. Specifically, next Friday is their National Work from Home Day.
Living in the national capital of Canada, I’ve heard plenty from grumbling government employees who are forced to keep their BBs active up until 11 PM. Using our little devices to “work smarter” (as Work Wise suggests) instead of working harder is surely a direction that diehard BlackBerry users should consider.
This might be a UK-based event, but maybe we can hop the bandwagon on this side of the pond. BlackBerrys can facilitate telecommuting – why not take advantage of that?
Posted on April 20, 2007, at 11:02 am .
There’s several ways to get YouTube videos on your Blackberry. The basic idea is just to find a program that will download the videos from YouTube in flash format and then convert it into a format that can be viewed on your Blackberry like mpeg-4. It’s a bit of a process so today I’m going to show you how to use a website called tinytube.net to download and watch YouTube videos directly from your browser.
The idea behind tinytube.net is to provide access to mobile users to videos hosted on youtube, daily motion, and various other video sites. It is mainly catered towards typical cell phone with Blackberry users a bit of an afterthought, because the streaming feature doesn’t work and videos are formatted about a quarter the size of your Blackberry screen. Which isn’t that bad because it keeps file sizes down.
Instructions are below to view, download and save video files on supported Blackberry models.
(Note: I couldn’t grab screenshots of the video because the program provided by RIM doesn’t support screencapture of videos.)
Continue reading ‘kid doofus: watching YouTube videos on your blackberry’
Posted on April 10, 2007, at 7:30 am .
So yesterday we let you know about ICQ and AIM becoming available for the BlackBerry (and Windows Live Messenger has been added into the fray since). We’ve received a bunch of emails from various tipsters, but a couple were more helpful than others. BBCool contributor and Forums moderator Jibi (with the assistance of another user, jungleland), have put together a great guide for all of the clients, and you can check that out here (all information’s been confirmed by the Boy Genius).
Take a sneak peak at the FAQ about the clients after the jump, it’ll hopefully clear some things up for you.
Continue reading ‘BlackBerry IM’ing questions answered’
Posted on April 2, 2007, at 11:25 am .
Q: Good evening. I have a BB 8100 sim lock to O2. How can I download the Vodafone Today theme?
A: The theme’s don’t depend on sim-locking or anything else. You just need the COD files that contain the theme and you need to copy them to your device. BlackBerryCool did an article a long time ago describing how to put themes on.
Finding the Vodafone theme might be tricky but I’m sure it’s been posted on some forum on the ‘net if you search for it. For other themes, check out bplay.com as we have 10 unique themes are will be adding many more in the future.
Continue reading ‘Bacon On BlackBerry: theme issues, Outlook issues, more issues’
Posted on March 21, 2007, at 3:02 pm .
Every so often, we need to bow down and be told proper ways to things. We’ve got to swallow our pride and take instructions from someone else. This is one of those times for some of you, I’m sure. A great article from Information Week has a Q&A with David Wise, co-founder and managing partner for mindWireless, a mobility consultancy that helps businesses figure out how to better use wireless technologies. He answers some questions on how to better the mobile workforce in your office.
What is the best way for a company to review its current cell phone usage and policies?
Start with the internal wireless policy — if it exists. Many companies don’t have one. If you don’t have a wireless policy, this has to be the starting point.
Continue reading ‘Managing your office’s mobility’
Posted on March 9, 2007, at 8:00 am .
Sounds like a bad disease. And really, it could be. Just not for you, but that little pal of yours on your hip. We’ve been covering the issues surrounding the advancement of Daylight Savings Time, and we just want to make sure you folks are covered come late Saturday night (or early Sunday, however you want to look at it). If you’ve yet to do so, grab the DST patch for your BlackBerry.
Not sure if it’s been installed on your device yet? It couldn’t be easier to check. Simply hit the “Options” menu from your home screen and if the patch has been applied, “2007 DST Patch” will appear right on top of the list. Enjoy the extra hour, pals.
Posted on March 1, 2007, at 10:51 am .
Unlike our own that’s available for free all-year round, BlackBerryInsight.com’s offering up some redecorating tools. Just like their free ebook download not too long ago, BBInsight is offering the BlackBerry Wallpaper Generator for free for the next few hours (until 2pm EST). Looks like a pretty solid app to create decent wallpapers in three quick and easy steps. Check it out here and hustle up if you’re looking for some sort of Feng Shui on your BlackBerry.
