Posted on August 20, 2008, at 7:48 AM .
BoxTone just launched a free application for monitoring your BlackBerry’s health, and as someone who needs to count every kilobyte lest he be smoten by the Almighty Rogers Overage Charge, I can say this is a must-have for the heavy-duty BlackBerry user. Graphs show the progress of 24-hour monitoring of vital information like…
• Signal strength
• Battery remaining
• Memory free
• Data sent/received
• Calls made/duration
Solid app, and big ups to BoxTone for making the utility free to all. Hop in on the open beta at my.boxtone.com/insight.
Posted on August 7, 2008, at 1:26 PM .
As previously rumored, Virgin Mobile is now offering the BlackBerry Pearl for free on a three-year contract. The big seller here is that they’re throwing in 8 GB memory cards on all activations. Yow. Plenty of carriers hand out 1 GB cards as incentives, 8 GB cards are not only hard to find, but can get pretty pricey, too. As for plans, Virgin’s got voice and text plans starting at $25/month and BlackBerry plans from $15/month and up. If you want more info, the web store is really cleanly set up, and makes picking your options pretty dang easy.
(via MobileSyrup)
Posted on August 1, 2008, at 9:47 AM .
Better double-check your BlackBerry before making that weekend trip across the border, as now Homeland Security can detain laptops, mobiles and recordable media of all types for an unspecified amount of time as part of routine inspections. Any information gleaned from the media can be shared around government agencies as needed for decryption and translation, although original copies must be destroyed when if the media is returned. Throw your BlackBerry into checked luggage, because otherwise you could be losing it for months on end, even if you’re a returning US citizen and you aren’t under any particular suspicion.
“They’re saying they can rifle through all the information in a traveler’s laptop without having a smidgen of evidence that the traveler is breaking the law,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Notably, he said, the policies “don’t establish any criteria for whose computer can be searched.”
As a Canadian who often has to fly through the US with my laptop, I don’t like sound of this one bit. Of course, there are some solid tips out there for deterring complete invasion of privacy, including using virtual private networks in order to keep data accessible but not on your person; looks like we’re all going to have to sign up with WICKSoft. To get the full details, you can read the whole report here.
(via WindowsMobile Cool)
Posted on July 24, 2008, at 6:40 PM .
As you can tell from our Zumobi hands-on impressions post, the mobile widget application can be quite the memory hog by BlackBerry standards (highly understandable considering what it provides) and has been a little troublesome for members of the BlackBerry Nation rocking, ahem, less-than-new devices. However, our friends at Zumobi aren’t ones to rest in times of need, and have put together a video of handy memory management tips so your BlackBerry is running clean and your Zoomspace is quick.
Check out the video above (compiled partially from tips offered right here on BlackBerry Cool), but make sure to post your own memory management tip in the comments. Special thanks to the lovely Beth for compiling the video!
Watch the BlackBerry memory management video after the jump
Posted on July 16, 2008, at 8:00 AM .
The bigger memory cards for BlackBerry can get pretty expensive, but this is a solid deal. Meritline is selling 8GB A-DATA microSD cards for a scant $39.99, complete with converter and free standard shipping within the US. The downside is that us international folks are boned – it looks like the only shipping method I qualify for up here in Canada is FedEx International which runs a scandalous $59.52. And here I was looking to replace my junky 512 card for the BlackBerry Bold. Looks like we’ll have to find another place for cheap memory cards up in the cold, desolate north… Seen any good deals lately?
(via BerryReview)
Posted on May 22, 2008, at 7:33 AM .
One of the consistent complaints about BlackBerry is the lack of internal memory available for applications. Sure, microSD cards add some storage for media files, but programs have to be launched directly from the device. Well, Aerize has an interesting solution that involves swapping out applications stored on your BlackBerry’s physical memory onto the memory card so you can store more apps. These guys have an awesome sale going on now, where you can grab not only the card loader, but their fine file explorer (which includes a zip and unzip utility) for half off regular price. These are some very handy tools for those looking to save some room on their handheld… be sure to take advantage before the sale runs out on Friday!
