MY BLACKBERRY STORM (my berrystorm)

Facebook for Blackberry Got Updated to 1.8.0.49

2010-08-19T22:14:00.000+07:00

Facebook for Blackberry just got an update to version 1.8.0.49 and is ready to be downloaded from App World. Some are reporting the response is much faster than previous version. Download Facebook 1.8.0.49

AT&T Blackberry Torch Commercial

2010-08-16T10:05:00.000+07:00

Latest commercial from AT&T Blackberry Torch. Stress more on the fun :) not the functionality. Take a look
Enjoy

UPDATED: Download the New Updated Blackberry Messenger v5.0.1.38

2010-08-11T09:12:00.002+07:00

The Blackberry Messenger just get updated to version 5.0.1.38. Rumors from those who have tried said there is new interface, an update to contact photos, searching contact list, and it is faster than 5.0.0.57. I'm downloading it and will post how it is going.
Hit the link to download OTA
Download Blackberry Messenger 5.0.1.38 OTA

Update: Finished download and installation. Here is a short review from me

New interface: the overall layout gets updated, it feels more spacious now (I use font size 7) as the row height is taller than before. Conversation style gets updated too, bubbles & stripes with blue and gray alternate colors. View My Profile has been rearranged; barcode is shown in top region. Now all incoming messages in Chat Window have yellow bulb icon indicating new message, grey bulb indicated read message.
Menu management: contact menu gets clubbed. Contact gives options to contact the person via PIN, email, call, SMS, MMS. Invite Conference term has been changed to New Multiperson Chat
More things to set in options: press and choose Options, you can set Contact List Style to 2 Lines or 1 line, option to delete Backup Files
Separate SMS and BBM: now no message mixing anymore between those two, but if you want to you can set in Options.
In my Storm, I notice the lag is more if I use Conversation Style: Bubbles or Stripes. I think it is because of the new interface is heavier. So if you still want to use this version, use Conversation Style: No Border to avoid lag.

Tricks: Change Signal Bar to Signal Meter for Blackberry Touchscreen

2010-08-04T11:23:00.000+07:00

During my post "Do Different Grip and Measure Your Signal Meter with Antenna Meter", I mentioned that for Blackberry non-touchscreen can change the signal bar to signal meter by pressing alt + NMLL. I thought there is no way to achieve this in touchscreen as the virtual keyboard cannot be shown at home screen but I just found the trick to achieve it. Here is how to accomplish the trick:

Go to Options>Screen/Keyboard
Set Left or Right Convenience Key Opens to Virtual Keyboard
Set Portrait View Keyboard to Full Keyboard
Hit Save
Go to your home screen, press your Left or Right Button, depends on what you set. A virtual keyboard will be shown
Press & hold then press !,"" (punctuation mark, comma, double quote, double quote)

Now your signal bar will change to signal meter, to get back signal bar just repeat the steps. Happy trying.

Tips: How to Organize Blackberry Messenger Contact

2010-08-03T12:44:00.000+07:00

For those having hundreds of contacts in Blackberry Messenger, you often get hard time to find a contact or you need to scroll all the way down just to get to it. It can be buried deep down in single category or the person use a weird character so you can't find it using the find function. Organizing your contact and a bit tuning up your Blackberry Messenger might save you a lot of time, here is few ways to organize it:

Categorize Your Contacts
You can create new category to classify your contact. It can be based on what kind of relationship you have, such as family, colleagues, clients etc or based on contact frequency like often, seldom, never. This will help in finding your contact. Here is how:

Go to Blackberry Messenger
Press menu and choose Add Category
Give the new category a name and hit OK
Choose from list of contacts to move to the new category
Hit Ok when you are done

To move a contact to existing category:

Choose the contact
Press menu and choose Move Contact
Select the new category
Hit OK to move it

Rename Your Contact Name
If you go your contact list, you might notice some of your friends/contacts use special character, e.g. Ғє̲̣̣ЯΔiп̥aп̥Δ , If I use this as my name, you can't find me via find function. So if you have someone in BBM whom you often contact, use special char and of course, asking them to change their name to use standard characters will be near impossible, here is the workaround:

Choose the contact
Press menu and choose Contact Profile
Change the Display Name to something more meaningful for you. (You can reset it to default if you change your mind)
Press menu and Save

With this, you can use find function to find them quickly :)

Sort Your Contact
If you have a lot of active chats in your Blackberry Messenger and app Messages, that compile all your message from different media into one place, is not your fave, finding the recent chat will be troublesome as it is sorted based on alphabets. You can change the sorting to be based on activity, so your recent chat will be on top and the last active will be at the bottom. To change it, take these steps:

Go to your Blackberry Messenger again
Press menu and press Options
Change Sort Chats By from Alphabet to Activity
Hit Save

Happy trying.

Tips: Turn Your Blackberry to Emergency Flashlight

2010-08-02T10:34:00.000+07:00

If you are caught up in the dark or power failure and with only Blackberry in your hand, like most people do. (People don't bring around flashlight but they will have their Blackberry close hehe). Here is quick steps to turn your Blackberry to flashlight without any app:

Press your camera shortcut button, the default is the right-side button. You will go to camera
Press menu then choose Video Camera. You will enter video camera mode
Press menu, press options
Change Video Light from Off to On
Hit Save

The flash will light up and only turn off when you change the options back to Off or when the screen is dimmed. Now, there will be light.

Tips: How to Change Your Icon Email Name

2010-07-31T15:26:00.000+07:00

If you have a lot of emails push to your Blackberry, like mine I have 8 emails set in my Storm for a lot of different purposes, from private mail, mailing list to my business, this tip is gonna help you a lot. Here is how:

Go to Email Settings
Log In to your BIS Email Settings
Choose one of your email
Change the Email Account Name to anything you like
Hit Save

So with this, you can change from a boring user@gmail.com name to something more meaningful or whatever you like it.

Happy trying

Note: If you wonder why all my emails don't use the default icon, hit here to custom it

Video Blackberry Platform

2010-07-29T10:31:00.000+07:00

Here is a short video of Blackberry Platform exploiting the benefits of using Blackberry as your smartphones especially if you are business users. Enjoy

Do Different Grip and Measure Your Signal Meter with Antenna Meter

2010-07-29T10:08:00.000+07:00

As the claim by Steve Jobs regarding different grip of your smartphone can cause different level of attenuation continue buzzing around the web. Xtreme Labs released an application for Blackberry to do different kind of grips and monitor the effect to your signal strength and then share it if you want to. Grab the app here and share it to the comment below :)

Additional Info:
If you want to know each bar represent what dBm check graph below.

For non-touchscreen Blackberry, you can change your default signal bar to number dBm strength by pressing alt + N M L L

Happy gripping :)

Tips: How to Make Your Blackberry Text Bigger

2010-07-28T19:04:00.000+07:00

Here is a short tip. If you have hard time to read text on your Blackberry, change your font size by going to Options>Screen/Keyboard. Change Font Size to bigger value, you can check how big the size from the sample text before you hit Save. You can change the typeface as well by change the Font Family to other values. Hit Save when you are done.

Tips: How to Write SMS Without Autotext

2010-07-26T12:39:00.000+07:00

Often our typing style when writing SMS is different than our usual writing or when writing BBM or chat as 160 chars limitation on SMS and with autotext on writing our "abbreviation" style is a bit difficult as some of it will be interpreted as autotext. Here is short tip how to turn it off

Go to Options>SMS Text
Change Disable AutoText to Yes
Hit Save

Now you can type your way when writing SMS

Tips: Wipe Clean Your Blackberry Before You Sell It

2010-07-24T12:19:00.001+07:00

Here is a simple thing you want to do before you swap for new Blackberry (more Blackberry with bigger memory and OS 6 is coming this year :D ) or resell it:

Go to Options>Security Options>Security Wipe
Check all options
1. Emails, Contacts, etc
2. User Installed Applications
3. Media Card - if you sell out your memory card too, make sure you have backup your multimedia and other important documents you put in your card
Type "blackberry" and click Wipe. Wait until the process finish
You are ready to sell your Blackberry now

Tips: How to Setup Blackberry Email Filters

2010-07-20T18:37:00.001+07:00

Blackberry Email filter is used for a lot of purposes, you can use it to send certain email with level 1 notification, not push certain emails to your Blackberry, push only important emails etc. Hence, it can help you to organize your inbox to your taste.
Here is how to set filter from your Blackberry:

Go to your Email Settings (Setup > Email Settings)
Login to your Email Settings, if you already have username
Choose which email you want to put filter on
Press button to go to filter wizard
First screen is list out all filters applied to the email and also what to do when no filters apply. The default is forward messages to the device. Click Add Filter to enter new filter.
Enter filter name, for example "email from colleague"
Next, choose what field to filter on:
1. CC address
2. From address
3. High priority email
4. New email
5. Subject
6. To address
After you choose what field, then you put what kind of content it has to be filtered. For example: I choose Field Subject that contains "project update"
Click Add. You can add more conditions if you want to. For example: I want to be notified with level 1 notification for Subject contains "project update" that comes From address "ferdinand@drifesolution.com"
Next you choose the action, whether to forward the messages or not. If you choose to forward then you have 2 options: header only (means you need to Get More to read the content, this is very unlikely used if you have unlimited plan) and level 1 notification (you can set level 1 notification on your profile)
Click Save

For this tip, I setup 2 filters on my email:

Do not forward me any emails that the subject contains "oot". OOT stands for "Out of Topic"
Give me level 1 notification for email with subject contains "project update" and comes from "ferdinand@drifesolution.com"

Note: here is some notes to be considered when designing filter for your Blackberry

the contains is case-insensitive and uses wildcard characters (*). So filter email with subject "project update" and "Project Update" will catch email with subject "Project Update", "PROJECT UPDATE", "this month prOject Update", "latest project update of this week" and other combinations
if you put more than 1 condition, like in my example; subject "project update" or from "ferdinand@drifesolution.com". It will be read like this: Forward messages to this device with level 1 notification if the subject contains "project update" or "ferdinand@drifesolution.com". Means any condition results true, the filter will be applied
Filters on each email is read with precedence from top to bottom and applied immediately. For example if I create my above example filters in this order:
1. Forward messages with subject "project update" or from "ferdinand@drifesolution.com"
2. Do not forward messages with subject "oot"
Filter no 2 will be failed if I receive email from "ferdinand@drifesolution.com" with subject "oot" because when it reads filter no 1 and results true, it will carry out the action immediately. So put more general filter on top then less general to the bottom.
You can set filter from your PC as well by going to http://.blackberry.com

That's all. Happy trying :)

iPhone 4 Antenna Issue, Steve Jobs Claims of Blackberry 9700 Antenna to RIM Official Statement

2010-07-17T11:52:00.000+07:00

If you guys have been following the news about the launch of the new iPhone 4, the euphoria of the users who got their hands the first iPhone 4 until the negative feedback of them because of the iPhone 4 antenna issue from Steve Jobs, the latest news about this iPhone 4 antenna issue is Apple explained that all smartphones have the same issue as iPhone 4. For those who are not following the news, the new iPhone 4 has a critical where gripping the phone at the lower left corner, where the external antenna is located. Gripping the phone while covering that part will cause signal loss as the human hand can cause greater attenuation compare to other materials, according to Apple.

This is Apple response to the customer complaints about the signal loss from Engadget. That is last month.

Recent news is Steve Jobs claim at Apple press conference on Friday that many popular smartphones suffer attenuation as iPhone 4 and one of them is Blackberry 9700. Apple also has put a dedicated page to educate the customers about antenna and signal loss http://www.apple.com/antenna/.

Here is statement from Research In Motion Co-CEOs about the iPhone 4 and Blackberry 9700.

"Apple's attempt to draw RIM into Apple's self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple's claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public's understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple's difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM's customers don't need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple."
- Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie

And this is from Blackberry 9700 users that do testing about Jobs's claim. If you have one, go on and test it out, to see whether it is right or not :)

Tips: Optimize Blackberry's Battery Life

2010-07-15T12:14:00.000+07:00

There are several opinions of how to optimize Blackberry's battery life, and here I present easy tips that I do and they work for me. Here are the tips:

Switch to 2G Network
yup if your Blackberry is capable to be in 3G network, the 3G speed is very tempting but it sucks more power from your battery at the same time. 2G network (GPRS/EDGE) will save more your battery life so if you use your Blackberry for merely chats and idle switch to 2G. When you need more speed to do more multitasking things, to download updates, to browse then you switch to 3G.
Turn off Wireless Connection
always remember to turn off your wireless connection when you do not need it. When switched on, it will draw more power as it keeps searching for available wifi around
Turn off Bluetooth
turning off Bluetooth will help to save more your battery life. After done transferring or receiving files, do not forget to turn it off.
Recharge your Battery Often
yup you read it correctly, recharge your Blackberry whenever you have the time to full. The battery technology has grown a lot, with lithium and lithium-polymer you do not need to wait until the battery to completely drain to charge. You only need to drain completely and recharge when you use nickel-cadmium battery. All blackberry phones or even all phones available in the market use lithium or lithium-polymer, only old technology still use nickel-cadmium.
No need to wait until the battery indicator turns red, just recharge and overcharge for few hours is ok. I normally charge my Blackberry from 11PM to 8AM everyday and my battery is still in good condition.
Change Your Brightness Setting
Change your brightness setting to lower setting (Options > Screen/Keyboard). I set mine to the lowest. Make sure the setting Automatically Dim Backlight is On.
Turn off LED Coverage Indicator will help to save more battery life as well.
Turn Notification Off for High-traffic Email
If you subscribe to mailing list that has high-traffic or your email is high-traffic turning off notification for that particular email will help.

If you have more useful tips to optimize battery's life just share in the comments

Blackberry 6 Teaser

2010-07-12T22:48:00.000+07:00

RIM just launched a new teaser for its Blackberry 6 and it's definitely going to be a new level of experience. The video shows the biggest new features like, the new webkit browser (hit here to see overview of webkit browser), aggregation of social network, and universal search. Enjoy

Blackberry Webkit Browser Hands-on Review

2010-07-11T17:28:00.001+07:00

Just received news from driphter.com, that the owner willyboy6 did a review with webkit browser on Blackberry 9800. The browser is still under development but you can see a lot of new features and according to willyboy6, it has the chance to put this new webkit browser into older Blackberry devices. We'll see :)
For now, enjoy the review. Here is the link to the original post driphter.com

If you want to check the blackberry 9800 review, check my older post here

My Email Truncated Again?

2010-07-10T15:46:00.000+07:00

Often in a long email, I receive, I need to press Get More to read the rest of the email. In some of those long emails, after reading all the way down in my Storm, I am greeted by "Truncated xxxx bytes". I look around to find a way the cause and how to deal with it. From my findings, this is caused by way the Blackberry Email System designed, it can only receive max 32 KB of compressed data in the email message body. Here is the document from Blackberry KB13677. Based on the article, the sad thing is there is no way around this, so, yup, you stuck with this issue.

Video Overview Blackberry 9800

2010-07-09T17:49:00.000+07:00

Blackberry 9800 is one of the new products that RIM will be launched in 2010. The full specs not yet published but it is going to debut with OS 6.0, be the first RIM's device with a slider keyboard and have touchscreen and a trackpad. Below is the video overview of Blackberry 9800, enjoy

New Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) Package from INDOSAT "Paket Irit"

2010-07-06T09:28:00.001+07:00

I got the news from INDOSAT mailing list that they launch a new BIS package soon but for those who cannot wait they can give it a try.
News from those who test it, the package is the same as BIS reguler package minus WiFi. It means you can browse, chat & social network with cheaper price in one of the biggest provider here in Indonesia. They call it "paket irit", it will be available as daily, weekly and monthly package
Here is the tariff details:

Irit Harian Rp 4.500
Irit Mingguan Rp 26.000
Irit Bulanan Rp 100.000

If you want to try, you can call *123*6# then response "1" for Blackberry on Demand. Response "1" for Info, then "9" (you still cannot see the menu, but it's there). Choose "Irit Harian", "Irit Mingguan" or "Irit Bulanan" afterwards you will receive confirmation message.

Or you can SMS with format "Irit Harian" for daily, "Irit Mingguan" for weekly, and "Irit Bulanan" for monthly to 889

The confirmation message said Rp 4.500 for 1 week and the news said Rp 4.500 for 1 day. We will wait for official news from Indosat. Happy trying :)

Update: this package will give you all access as full package "BIS Reguler", from BBM, chats, Social Networking (Facebook, Twitter, etc), Browser, Email with unlimited bandwidth via APN blackberry. The only difference is if your Blackberry has wifi capability, you can't use APN blackberry via wifi anymore. INDOSAT blocks APN blackberry via the wifi access. For some Blackberry handhelds, like mine Blackberry Storm, this limitation has no effect at all, as Blackberry Storm doesn't come with wifi.
People normally use wifi to connect when they are out of network coverage and/or in overseas. For the price of mentioned above, that is definitely worth it :)

Lose Your Phone Book No More

2010-07-05T10:17:00.000+07:00

I have heard a lot of horror stories people losing their mobile phones either left at public places or by criminal action, or simply your phones had "heart attack" and just died and refuse to revive from its state. It just happened to my in-law and friend, my in-law's phone suddenly just died when she needed to contact her client while the latter got his Blackberry spilled with water and got short-circuit.

Losing a phone is not as hurt as losing all the data inside, especially your phone book. Your list of vital clients, their numbers, emails, addresses can be very hazardous for your health (sorry for the bad pun :P ) or your business. Recovering from the dead phone will not be easy either, normally, it involves flashing ROM which means erasing all the data a.k.a restore to factory settings. So before it happens, prepare yourselves. Here is few options you can choose:

Sync your Blackberry via Desktop Manager with your desktop organizer app
I use Windows and Outlook so synchronizing my contacts, tasks, memos, and calendars are part of my daily backup. Just plug my Blackberry Storm, turn on Desktop Manager and it will sync automatic. Backing up all my important organizer data.
You can setup one by following this step by step:
1. Open your Blackberry Desktop Manager and click Synchronize
2. Click Configure>Synchronization
3. Click Synchronization to enter the setup wizard
4. At the wizard you will ask what data to synchronize. There are Calendar, Memopad, Address Book, Tasks or basically your all organizer data. Click on the data you want to setup then click Setup.
5. You will ask to put your organizer desktop application you want to sync to and the direction. I choose one way from device to desktop for my address book as I always add/edit/delete from my Blackberry.
6. After done with the wizard. Make sure you tick Synchronize organizer data and then click Synchronize to sync. If you want to sync every time you connect your Blackberry, tick Synchronize the selected items when your device is connected to the Blackberry Desktop Manager.
7. That's all, now every time you connect it will sync your organizer data to your desktop application
Wireless Synchronization to Your Google Account
If you use Gmail as one of your email, this could be the easiest way to backup your contacts.
1. In your Blackberry, go to Setup>Email Settings
2. Log in to your email settings, if you already have a user
3. Choose which gmail account you want to sync and open it
4. There is an option for Synchronization Options, tick
5. Save it
It take a while before the sync kicking, you can read further from KB19270
Backup Regularly with Desktop Manager
If you are not using any Desktop Organizer Application and not using GMail, you still can backup your contacts but it is required some discipline to make sure it is up-to-date
1. Open Desktop Manager and connect your Blackberry
2. Click Backup & Restore
3. Click Backup
4. Choose where you want to save it & click Save
Use 3rd-party Apps
There are 3rd-party apps that offer backing up your contacts as one of the features. You can use free services like from smrtguard.com they provide backup all your Blackberry data OTA with reasonable price. Or you can search in appworld to find alternatives for backup your contacts.

If you are in Indonesia and happened to use Indosat, they bundle smrtguard and name it i-guard.

Do it now :)

Tips: Autotext Bahasa Indonesia

2010-07-03T12:50:00.001+07:00

For those who get Blackberry Storm and Odin as their Blackberry and primary language is not English, SureType is a no no. You will get frustrated or worse throwing your Blackberry as typing can be as pain as hell. If you use Indonesian as primary language worry no more, as you can inject Autotext that is built by someone (anyone know who the first one build this?) into your Blackberry. Immediately, you will fall in love all over again with SureType as it is the best one-handed operation typing.
Here is how

Make sure you backup your Blackberry using Blackberry Desktop Manager before performing this. Here is how to backup:

Connect your Blackberry with your Desktop
Open Blackberry Desktop Manager
Click Backup and Restore
Click Backup
Choose where you want to save in your Desktop

After your backup is complete, click Advanced (in Backup and Restore) and click File>Open
Choose the autotext IPD you have downloaded and then choose the database you want to transfer to your Blackberry.
Click wait until it finishes
Done

You can download the following autotext:

Autotext 5k words http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PXNM5LJ4
Autotext 25k words http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U3HVKR9J
Autotext 50k words http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UFVOGCRX

Now you can type much much faster with SureType :D happy trying.

For Storm 1 users, I recommend using autotext 5k words as memory limitation it has and work more words as you use it.

Tips: How to Re-Arrange Your Blackberry Application

2010-07-02T15:06:00.000+07:00

For those who just get a Blackberry and find you waste a lot of time to navigate to your Blackberry Messenger , Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, AIM, Gtalk or even ICQ (anybody still use ICQ? I still remember my ID though :D ) . Or open your email, you just set, way down so you need to scroll to the bottom. You are starting to get frustrated and your thumb is aching of scrolling, tapping. Here is how to re-arrange your Blackberry Application so the most frequent/ your favorite applications are placed conveniently, just a thumb away.
Re-arrange items:

Choose the application icon you want to move. For this example, I want to move my SMS & MMS application from bottom of the screen to the top of my screen
Press and choose Move
Now, scroll up to choose new position. afterwards just hit again and choose complete move

Move your frequently used Blackberry Application to home folder:

Go to where your application located. For example: I want to move my Blackberry Messenger to home folder. Currently, it is located in Instant Messaging folder
Press and choose Move to Folder and select Home to move to home page
After you move the application to Home folder, normally it will located at the bottom. Just re-arrange it to put in other position

That's all. Happy trying :)

Tips: Support World Cup Team with Mail Icons

2010-07-01T16:43:00.001+07:00

As the world cup reaching the end and all the qualified countries are preparing for next matches. Why don't you prepare yourself also with your Blackberry. Change your default email icons with rocking icons and support your country or your favorite.

Here is how

Go to Options>Advanced Options>Service Book. Pick email you want to custom. CICAL or CMIME doesnt matter. Click on one of them.
At the Service Record page, note down the UID number.
You can do it directly from your Blackberry or using your PC. Here I use my windows. Enable your mass storage. Open your Device Memory then go to appdata/rim/bda/icons. If you don't see the folder appdata, you need to enable show hidden folders in the Folder Options. If you cannot find any folder mentioned after appdata, just create new folder and name it accordingly.
Now under appdata/rim/bda/icons create a new folder and named it the save as your GUID No. Mine is GBISXAPC00S03. Afterwards, go to the folder and just paste from one of the picture below or you can create your own or download all pictures below here.
rename the file to "1-73-70.png"
for it to take effect, you can do either changing for another theme and change it again or restart your Blackberry
For other emails, just repeat the step

The icons above are only for Storm 1 (Blackberry 9500, 9530) and Storm 2 a.k.a Odin (Blackberry 9520, 9550). Other Blackberry devices use other dimensions; Javelin (8900), Bold (9000), Onyx (9700) 80x80pixels, Gemini (8520) 52x52pixels.

Share yours here

Hope you enjoy it

Tips: Speed Up Your Blackberry Messenger 5.0

2010-06-26T15:37:00.000+07:00

Maybe this tips is a bit old but I found it quite recently at berryreview.com and it works. So I thought I will share it here. You just need to change small thing and you can notify slight improvement of your Blackberry Messenger (BBM) in individual chat or even in Blackberry Group (BBG). I found big improvement especially in BBG.
Here is how:
1. Go to your Blackberry Messenger. Press menu, choose Options
2. Under Chats, you need to change Conversation Style to Standard. Bubbles and Stripes have the alternate colors between you and the other recipients with blue and White. So change it to Standard means no alternate colors.
3. Hit and press Save

You should notice improvement over your chat. Give it a shot.
I found this tips from here