The voice of the BlackBerry community.
ProCommuter is a free application for BlackBerry that gives you maps of Toronto and the GTA traffic flow, congestion and incidents. The information is updated regularly and comes from The City of Toronto and the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario.
Download to your desktop here.
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Today Canadians are taking a Civic Holiday, which is celebrated on the first Monday of August. In Newfoundland, it’s called Regatta Day, in Saskatchewan it’s called Saskatchewan Day, Nova Scotia call it Natal Day, Torontonians call it Simcoe Day and Ottawans call it Colonel By Day. The list goes on forever.
So if you’re Canadian, you’re probably up at your cottage and not reading BlackBerry Cool. Don’t worry though, RIM’s official previewing of the Curve 8520 isn’t until tomorrow so you aren’t missing much today.
BayStreet.ca is a great resource for Canadian financial news. With a new partnership with Viigo, BayStreet.ca content, ranging from breaking news to analysis of penny stocks, from global market roundups to economic commentary, will be available on the Viigo application. This makes the news effortless for people to access, easy to read and always up-to-date.
Get Viigo for your BlackBerry for free.
The City of Toronto has included in their budgets a new hire to help manage the municipality’s 1,800 BlackBerry devices. The position is one among 1,300 new jobs the city plans to add this year.
The position will pay $84,000 annually, and duties will include assisting with device selection, rate plans, getting staff set up and trained, troubleshooting, and providing technical support for the Blackberry Enterprise Server infrastructure. The wireless IT staff must also ensure integration and synchronization with the city’s Novell Inc. Groupwise e-mail environment.
“We are seeing substantial growth in BlackBerries [sic] devices and computing technology at the City in general,” the city said. “Many of the City’s program areas are adopting IT to help them improve their services or make their services more efficient. So it’s not just about supporting this area, we have a lot of growth requirements that we’re trying to accommodate.”
But according to Ward 3 Etobicoke Centre councillor Doug Holyday, the hiring of a BlackBerry specialist misses a fundamental problem at the city – the lack of a smart phone rollout policy.
“We’ve got close to 2,000 Blackberries and no criteria or policy as to who gets them,” he said.
Holyday wants to see more involvement from the IT section of the City to determine which employees truly need the functionality of a BlackBerry device.
“It’s a great tool and it’s very valuable to those who need it, but my problem is that we’ve given it to people who don’t truly need it,” he added. “But that’s the trouble with the City, they just open up their coffers, which (are) full of tax dollars, and it’s just too easy for management to say ‘I’ve got one, so my assistant need ones as well.’”
Looking for a job in the smartphone industry? Check out our job boards here.
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If you’re looking for good wireless industry news, I’m sorry to report that it’s looking somewhat grim today. Adding to a long list of companies that have been going through massive layoffs, Bell has slashed 250 clerical jobs in Hamilton, Ont., Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada are outraged over the layoffs and believe they are tied to outsourcing.
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We just got word about Globis Data, who are opening the doors to a beta for their WAP-based traffic information service, DRIVES. Right now only Montreal and Toronto are covered, but keep an eye out for Ottawa and Calgary soon. It might not be much to look at, but this information is updated once every couple of minutes, which is pretty impressive. It uses cell signals to determine the speed of cars along particular streets, so you can see what’s moving slowly and what’s cruising. Since it’s all browser-based, it’s easy enough to keep your area of town bookmarked for easy access. So any drivers in Montreal or Toronto, give it a shot by accessing www.globisdata.ca/d2m5/bb_eng/welcome.html from your mobile browser and let us know how it fares.
The voice of the BlackBerry community.
