BlackBerry Rocks!

BlackBerry Connection Newsletter Business Edition: Twitter And LinkedIn Apps “Almost Here!” [News]

Mauricio — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:36:20 +0000

If you’re subscribed to the Business Edition of the BlackBerry Connection Newsletter you should have gotten this in an email a few hours ago. The March 2010 issue of the newsletter has the usual suggested BlackBerry App World apps, a WES 2010 Preview Guide and a little section titled “Two Popular Business Apps Are Almost Here!”.

In this section are the upcoming Twitter for BlackBerry and LinkedIn applications. The Twitter for BlackBerry sign up page went live early in February along with a private beta which eventually got leaked. Since RIM’s Twitter app has received absolutely no updates since the launch of its private beta, I’m interested in seeing how it will do once it’s released for everyone. I’ve personally sent in a long list of bugs and feature suggestions which were acknowledged but haven’t been acted upon yet.

As for the LinkedIn app, Rob from LinkedIn said that it would be available in “a little over a month or so”. It’s been more than a month so I guess we’re at the mercy of Rob’s definition for “or so”. My guess is both the Twitter and LinkedIn apps will launch before the end of April (or earlier) but we’ll see. RIM is known to sometimes push back launches.

For more info about Twitter for BlackBerry visit blackberry.com/twitter or for LinkedIn visit www.linkedin.com/blackberry.

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This story originated from BlackBerry Rocks! and is sponsored by the BlackBerry Rocks! Store. Mobile App Store download at blackberryrocks.com/appstore.

Follow @blackberryrocks on Twitter and check out the Facebook Page!

25 Free Copies Of Tether For BlackBerry! [Contest]

Mauricio — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:16:31 +0000

Earlier this morning I mentioned that Tether is celebrating their first birthday today with a giveaway of six smartphones and 40% off sale through March 16th. In addition to their giveaway and the sale, Tether has given me 25 copies of their BlackBerry tethering software to give away!

CONTEST For a chance to win 1 of 25 free, full copies of Tether for BlackBerry leave a comment on this post before 11:59PM EST this Sunday, March 14th. Only leave one comment, duplicates will be ignored and will not increase your chances of winning. *

Good luck!

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Default Yahoo! Search On T-Mobile USA BlackBerry Devices Replaced With Google [News]

Mauricio — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:51:49 +0000

My buddy @ASacco mentioned yesterday on CIO that T-Mobile USA would be replacing their default Yahoo! search engine with Google’s search engine. Today I went into the T-Mobile’s Web2Go BlackBerry browser application and searched “blackberryrocks” and sure enough, the search engine now being used is Google’s.

According to mocoNews, T-Mobile USA ended a year long deal with Yahoo! in favor of Google:

The deal shifts the U.S. mobile search dominance away from Yahoo and in favor of Google, which now works with two of the top four carriers. The hand-off between Yahoo and Google was completed as recently as Wednesday, and when visiting the T-Mobile portal from a BlackBerry today, it showed Google as the prominent search provider at the top of the screen—not Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO).

A Yahoo spokesperson confirmed it was no longer working with T-Mobile for search, and a T-Mobile USA spokesperson declined to comment.

Sources say T-Mobile is also working with search provider Medio Systems, which typically indexes and returns results for content, including ringtones and wallpapers, unlike Google, which returns results for the web.

I personally welcome the change as I’m a big fan of Google, their search engine and their products. What do you think about this search engine change? Did you prefer Yahoo? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!

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Tether Celebrating 1st Birthday And Giving Away 6 Smartphones – $29.99 Till March 16th! [Sale & Contest]

Mauricio — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:33:32 +0000

Tether let me know that today is their first birthday and to celebrate they’re holding a contest. In under a year Tether was able to test and release their application to over 110,000 BlackBerry users on both PC and Mac, very impressive!

Tether is officially celebrating its first year in business! In just the past year we’ve helped over 110,000 BlackBerry Smartphones share their data connection with their laptops, all over the world. The year has been exciting with our rebranding from TetherBerry to Tether, launch of the Mac & Bluetooth version, our Android Beta and winning the local Innovacorp I3 competition.

We are very fortunate for all the exciting announcements over the past year and can not thank our customers and supporters enough. So to celebrate and thank our customers we are holding a contest.

The six smartphones that Tether will be giving away as part of this contest are three BlackBerry smartphones and three Android devices of your choice, but I know everyone will be entering for a BlackBerry since they rock . For more info and to enter the contest visit Tether’s contest page. The deadline to enter is March 31st.

Tether is also available in the store at 40% off for $29.99 until March 16th.

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Yet Another BlackBerry Data Outage & Some WiFi Issues – Are you Being Affected? [News]

Mauricio — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:02:36 +0000

When I woke up this morning I went through the routine of checking all my apps (SocialScope, Twitter for BlackBerry, Viigo, etc) for updates and found that almost nothing got through and avatars weren’t loading. I have close to 300+ feed items and get plenty of updates through the other apps so I found this odd. Turns out, according to Dataoutage News, RIM has been experiencing some BlackBerry data outages since yesterday.

Yesterday:

Blackberry Maintenance S3 Severity
BIS subscribers may experience delays in sending emails using hosted email account or integrated third-party email accounts.
Receiving email is not affected.
RIM engineers are investigating, ETR 18:00 EST 08/03/2010

Today:

Day 2 of this outage. No update, no RIM statements… just the same continuance from yesterday’s data issues.

Again, this is affecting devices on all North American carriers, BIS and BES, and it appears to be only devices on WiFi, wherein data works “sometimes” when connected via WiFi; no data when WiFi is disconnected.

My BlackBerry’s data was working fine yesterday so I guess the issue finally spread to my area in New Jersey today. The last email I received came in around 3AM EST so my email is being affected even though they said “receiving email is not affected”.

Are you being affected by this data outage? If so let me know what’s not working and where you are in the comments!

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Winners Of Download Codes For RIM’s BlackBerry Twitter Client Announced! [Contest]

Mauricio — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:20:53 +0000

About two weeks ago I posted a Twitter for BlackBerry contest where two commentators could win a free download code. I extended the contest in hopes that I could acquire more codes but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to. Here are the two winners (linked to their comments):

Congrats to the winners! Expect to receive an email or tweet from me with your download codes and where to get your official copy of the Twitter for BlackBerry application.

If you missed this contest be sure to follow @BlackBerryRocks on Twitter, join the Facebook page and subscribe to the RSS feed so you don’t miss the next one!

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EMEA BIS 3.0 Upgrade In Europe, Middle East And Africa Scheduled For March 14th [News]

Mauricio — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:08:29 +0000

According to the team over at Dataoutage News, EMEA carriers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa will be getting a BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) upgrade this weekend. On March 14th EMEA networks will be going from BIS 2.8 to BIS 3.0 beginning on at 2AM GMT and lasting for four hours.

BlackBerry Internet Service v2.8 upgrade to BlackBerry Internet Service v3.0 – EMEA – 14 March

BBCHG45911 (Update) S1 Severity Maintenance for BlackBerry Internet Service (v2.x) Email service for subscribers of *EMEA BIS (MULT)

This message is to inform you of scheduled network maintenance.

Maintenance Summary: BlackBerry Internet Service v2.8 upgrade to BlackBerry Internet Service v3.0

Impact: BlackBerry Internet Service subscribers may be unable to send or receive messages, use the BlackBerry Internet Service web site, or perform activities such as creating new accounts, accessing their Internet mailbox, integrating third-party email accounts, or viewing email attachments during the maintenance.

Wireless service providers and device resellers may be unable to use BlackBerry administration web sites or perform activities such as creating subscriber accounts or provisioning services for subscribers during the maintenance. [0214]

Ticket Number: BBCHG45911
Change Window Start Date and Time: 14 March 2010 02:00:00 (GMT)
Change Window End Date and Time: 14 March 2010 06:00:00 (GMT)
Estimated Duration of Service Impact: 4 hour(s) and 0 minute(s)
% of Subscribers Affected: 100.00 (estimated)

EST = GMT – 5 hours
EDT = GMT – 4 hours
AEST = GMT + 10 hours

The BIS 3.0 upgrade for North America should follow in the next couple weeks. Among the new features in BIS 3.0 are updates to the Google Mail plugin, additional language support, OpenOffice document support, Windows Media Audio (.wma) support and more.

Dataoutage News is also looking for your support so they can continue to provide the latest info about upcoming and current data outages. For more about this you can check out this page on their site.

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Leaked OS 5.0.0.536 For The BlackBerry Bold 9700 [Operating System]

Mauricio — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:22:48 +0000

Download via Hotfile: OS 5.0.0.536 for the BlackBerry Bold 9700
How To:
- Backup And Restore Your BlackBerry
- Upgrade your BlackBerry Operating System (OS)

Please report any feedback/findings in the comments.

DISCLAIMER: Install at your own risk. This is Leaked/Beta software that is not guaranteed to be stable, and therefore will not be supported by RIM or your wireless carrier should you run into some problems. As a precaution, if you decide to upgrade, it is highly recommended that you make a backup before using this software. If you are not comfortable using Leaked/Beta software you should probably wait for the next official release. *

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AT&T Brings Free ‘myWireless Mobile’ Application To BlackBerry Bold And Curve Devices [News]

Mauricio — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:43:52 +0000

AT&T today released their myWireless Mobile application for BlackBerry devices on their network. With myWireless users can pay their bills directly from their device, view voice and data usage or add and remove features. The following BlackBerry devices (minimum OS 4.3) are supported by myWireless Mobile:

BlackBerry® Bold™ 9700
BlackBerry® Bold™ 9000
Blackberry® Curve™ 8900
BlackBerry® Curve™ 8520
BlackBerry® Curve™ 8320
BlackBerry® Curve™ 8310

AT&T customers can download the application by visiting att.com/mybb from their BlackBerry Browser. For more info visit att.com/mybbmobile or check out the press release after the jump.

Press Release

BlackBerry Customers Can View Data and Voice Usage, Manage Bill Payments, Add New Wireless Features and More

Dallas, Texas, March 4, 2010

AT&T* today announced the expanded availability of AT&T myWireless Mobile – a free app that allows wireless subscribers to easily manage family and individual accounts directly from their handset – to both BlackBerry® Bold™ and BlackBerry® Curve™ customers**.

The mobile app edition brings greater ease and simplicity to wireless account management needs, featuring:

Bill Payment – Pay your bill directly from your phone
Voice and Data Usage – View usage for minutes, data and messaging
Features – Add or remove features, including new texting plans and more, directly from your handset

To download the app, subscribers should visit www.att.com/mybb from their BlackBerry Web browser and follow the instructions; an interactive video plus additional information on myWireless Mobile for BlackBerry customers is also live at www.att.com/mybbmobile. An existing myWireless account is required to utilize the app. Customers can establish an account by visiting www.att.com/mywireless.

The AT&T MyWireless Mobile app is available at no cost on the following BlackBerry smartphones:

BlackBerry® Bold™ 9700
BlackBerry® Bold™ 9000
Blackberry® Curve™ 8900
BlackBerry® Curve™ 8520
BlackBerry® Curve™ 8320
BlackBerry® Curve™ 8310

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

**4.3 operating system or above required.

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Radical Draw Released For The BlackBerry Storm – Draw On Photos Or Create Your Own [Application]

Mauricio — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:23:56 +0000

Radical Photography and Graphic Arts has released a new application for the BlackBerry Storm on OS 5.0 called Radical Draw. With the Storm’s touchscreen you can manage/edit photos with custom buttons and make use of the app’s custom graphics, or add text and draw graphics of your own.

Features:

Designed for BlackBerry Storm touch screen
Draw lines shapes or text
Select different colors and line weights
Includes clip art to help those without artistic abilities create professional looking pictures.
Rotate Pictures
Email pictures directly from Radical Draw

Sounds like a fun app! Radical Draw will only work with the BlackBerry Storm running a minimum OS of 5.0.0.320. You can pick it up in the store for $7.99.

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