Tips and Tricks

Quick Tip: Enable Predictive Text On Your QWERTY BlackBerry

June 24, 2010 by Daniel Ehrlich 1 Comment

Think predictive text is a feature only available on touch screen virtual keyboards? Think again! Last night while rummaging through my phone’s settings I came across the option to enable predictive text on my Blackberry Bold 9700. To enable this feature, go to Options, Language and Text Input, Show Text Input Options. There it is! Predictive Text Input!

Once enable this option and save the changes, create a message. You’ll now notice that when typing text your BlackBerry will offer suggestions based on what you’ve typed. To select the suggested word, simply hit enter, or, to select a suggested word that isn’t highlighted, scroll to the desired word and hit enter. Pretty cool!

How To Wipe Your BlackBerry And Restore It Back To Factory Defaults

May 4, 2010 by Robb Dunewood 4 Comments

I don’t know why questions often seem to come in bunches, however, over the last week or two, I’ve been asked how to wipe a BlackBerry and restore it back to factory defaults at least half a dozen times. The process is pretty straight forward, but not something that many BlackBerry users do, so we’ve put together a little tutorial to walk you through it.
[Read more…] about How To Wipe Your BlackBerry And Restore It Back To Factory Defaults

Say A Command… Does Voice Command Activate At The Wrong Moment?

March 2, 2010 by Rod 8 Comments

I am going to go out on a limb and assume that many BlackBerry users have no clue you can reprogram the side buttons on their BlackBerry devices. RIM has provided this little known feature for some time now. The reason I say this is because, far too frequently, I hear the classic statement, Say a command. I have been in meetings, elevators, planes, bathrooms, and even the movies and heard this break the silence of the room.

Maybe Buttons Are Bad?

I’ve personally hit the voice dialing or camera button on my BlackBerry Storm so often that I’ve just disabled them both. I am sure some iPhone fan will explain that this is exactly why Steve Jobs hates buttons. I don’t believe that the side buttons on a BlackBerry are a design flaw because they are very actually very useful. It is just that most BlackBerry users forget to lock their device before they put it into their pocket.

Change The Defaults

I, myself, don’t need dedicated buttons for the BlackBerry camera or voice dialing as they both have prime spots on my home screen on opposite sides of the screen, so, if your like me and you want to disable or reprogram the buttons dedicated to camera or voice dialing on your device, do the following:

Got Options –> Screen/Keboard and scroll down until you see Right Side Convenience Key Options and Left Side Convenience Key Options. You can set them to nothing, as, I have, or to something less annoying than the voice command prompt or your BlackBerry camera for those times that you accidentally hit the button.

How To Convert DVDs For Your BlackBerry

February 26, 2010 by Chris 8 Comments

After writing detailed instructions for Windows Phone users to convert DVD’s and watch them on their phones I have decided to help out the BlackBerry community.

The key to getting into converting movies is simplicity. It has to be easy. I have been doing it for a long time and have suffered through a lot, and, now I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, the process is made easier by using DVDFab. DVDFab “DVD to DVD” has a lot of options for you to convert DVD’s. It runs fast and is updated regularly.

BlackBerry Tip: Easy Way To Send Contact Information Using vCards

January 19, 2010 by Robb Dunewood Leave a Comment

One of the things that I miss from way back in the day when I was as die-hard about Windows Mobile devices as I am now about BlackBerry devices is the ease that you could “beam” your contact information to another WinMo or Palm user. Devices where equipped with infra-red sensors and all you had to do to quickly give or get contact information from someone was pair your device with theirs and beam it to them.

I know that there are security risks (gaping holes in security) with infra red and this is a big reason why most wireless devices no longer have it, however, the downside of no infra red is that exchanging contact info can be a bit of a chore… That is unless you’ve got a few BlackBerry tricks up your sleeve.

BlackBerry Tip: Easy Way To Screen Capture Directly From Your Device

December 22, 2009 by Robb Dunewood 2 Comments

I was just talking with a friend who asked,

” Is there a way to take a screen shot of what is on my BlackBerry’s screen, so that I can email it to someone?”

The answer, of course, is yes. There are many ways to create screen captures of what is on your BlackBerry devices screen. Personally, one of my favorite ways to accomplish this is with a slick, free BlackBerry application named Capture It from Tech Mogul that does exactly what its name implies.

How to Customize Blackberry Ringtones & Ringbacks

June 22, 2009 by Robb Dunewood 9 Comments

Here is a guest Tips-n-Tricks post by Caitlin Douglass on How to Customize BlackBerry Ringtones and Ringbacks…

If you receive a lot phone calls, you know how important it is to organize contacts and identify callers. One way to do that is by using custom ringtones to separate family and social contacts from business and customers. The BlackBerry can be overwhelming when you first get one, so here’s a step-by-step guide to downloading and customizing your BlackBerry ringtones and ringbacks.

BlackBerry Storm Usability Tip: Disable Compatibility Mode

January 14, 2009 by Robb Dunewood 23 Comments

So, you’ve gotten yourself a brand new BlackBerry Storm. You’ve updated to the latest leaked OS and have figured out how to type on the touch screen that you actually have to click an not just touch. You like your BlackBerry Storm and plan on sticking with it. The one thing bugging you about your BlackBerry Storm, however, is why the virtual keyboard on some BlackBerry applications is permanent.

BlackBerry Question Of The Day

August 15, 2007 by Robb Dunewood 5 Comments

It seems lately like we have been getting more and more BlackBerry questions in the ole RIMarkable inbox so we thought that we would start posting some of them to the front page to let the BlackBerry faithful have a stab at them.

Today’s question: Is there any way to set Opera Mini as your default browser on your BlackBerry?

If you have an idea please post it in the comments.

What Type Of BlackBerry Enterprise Server Management Tools Do You Use?

March 22, 2007 by Robb Dunewood 2 Comments

Here is a question that goes out to all of the BlackBerry Administrators managing the back end BlackBerry Enterprise Servers.

What type of BES management tools do you use to make sure that your corporate BlackBerry users email addictions can be feed without interruption?

Email in just about every organization is considered a mission critical application and for those companies that have standardized on the BlackBerry to feed their users appetite for the ability to receive email at any and all times, BES deployments are just as mission critical.