AT&T's Blackberry Pearl 8120 versus Verizon's Blackberry Pearl 8130

The worst thing in the world is to make a major transition from one telephone to another and see a news article touting the latest version of the product and wondering if yours - the one you just bought - had been suddenly made obsolete! Your ask yourself, should I have waited another day?

As it turns out the phone is available from AT&T and not verizon. You can read the review here.

On cursory review it seems very similar to the Verizon 8130.

The big differences are the following:

1. It's a GSM phone versus Verizon's CDMA - why can't we standardize and be the same as the rest of the world? Verizon charges about $1.25 per minute (or so my salesman guessed) - I'd rather not get the 8830 world edition and pay$1.25 a minute when I have a second GSM phone I can use for much less with a local carrier.
2. It has wifi support - now this is cool. Can you run skype and call internationally for free? I've heard that cell phone's run skype in Europe. That would be cool. Is it faster than EVDO?

Everything else seems exactly the same.

All being said, I'm comfortable with where I'm at.

Regards, makingourway

What went wrong with my upgrade to a Blackberry Pearl 8130

Although the experience went very well, here are a few mistakes and problems I experienced along the way:

Not my fault:

1. The Pearl was not provisioned correctly. The Internet browser and the maps application were not set-up. I had no access. A quick call to Verizon had everything fixed. The customer service was excellent and very knowledgeable. They uploaded the correct service books and I restarted the black berry.

My fault:

1. Before activating my enterprise license to connect to Big Company's BlackBerry server, I used the desktop tool to transfer my data. I should have excluded my appointments. As when I connected my black berry to the black berry enterprise server it downloaded duplicate appointment information. Fortunately, it did not download duplicate contacts - I have a few thousand.

Not my expectation:

1. The black berry desktop application has a function to move data from one handset to a new one. Unfortunately, it does not move third party applications.

What mystifies me:

1. I have only about 10-12MB free, but my device gives no indication as to why i would have so little memory. Anyone deal with this?

Regards,
makingourway

Blackberry switch from 8703e to Pearl

I recently switched from the BlackBerry 8703e - which is the typical brick like black berry most corporate types like myself use to the much more slender, telephone-like black berry pearl..

Switching was an interesting experience:

1. buy new blackberry and appropriate holster / hip case
2. have carrier insert your new blackberry pin into the carrier's portal on the blackberry site (automatically carried over my private e-mail accounts)
3. go home and run black berry desktop
4. select transfer data from one black berry to another
5. do it
6. contact IT department at employer.
7. activate / re-activate enterprise license
8. wait

The Pearl is very nice, but quite different from the brick-like 8700 and 8800 series black berry's:

1. It has two letters per key and uses an advanced t-9 predictive model to figure out what your typing - doesn't work well on passwords
2. screen is narrower - contact information is displayed differently
3. video looks much better
4. has a camera and a micro sd slot
5. plays mp3's (somehow)

I'm curious if the enterprise activation will create problems - will it duplicate data that was transfered in step 4?

Another concern is that my custom applications did not seem to transfer over. The biggest concern is with Ascendo's Data Vault application. Ever since the upgrade I have become dependent upon it to store (highly encrypted) website data.

We'll see what happens next.

I'll put up another post.

Regards, makingourway

when will mobipassword become vista compatible?

Mobipassword is a great password control system.
Think of it as a bookmarking and password management tool that synchronizes between your hand-held and desktop.
Unfortunately, it doesn't do three things:
1. It doesn't run under Vista
2. It doesn't run on a blackberry
3. There communications are piss poor - no information about updates

Regards,
makingourway

PS If you're not using Vista, check them out at www.mobipassword.com.

Updates on software for my BlackBerry 8703e and ToDo Matrix Review

First, to answer a few questions, why am I loading new software onto my BlackBerry 8703e and what happened to my Palm Treo 650?

My Palm Treo 650 is a great telephone / pda combo, unfortunately it doesn't have the clean integration into Big Company's MS Exchange environment that the BlackBerry has (e-mail, calendar, to-do, memos, etc....). The rate of messaging, meeting requests, etc... is so rapid without a BlackBerry, you fall out of touch, your calendar becomes obsolete before you know it.

Unfortunately, a BlackBerry is simply not as nice as a Treo 650 for so many purposes. It does have a much nicer web browser - faster rendering, etc.... I certainly don't want to carry a second phone wherever I go. Especially when on the road.

The solution, find the right software to replace the programs I had depended upon in the Treo 650.

I've loaded a few programs so far.

ToDo Matrix - it's by far the most successful (and expensive) program I've added. It allows you to create a two level hierarchy to track your various to-do's. The first level is the cabinet, which might represent: Projects, Personal, Family, Resolutions, Administration, Health, Sales, etc.... The second level is folder within a cabinet, for example: Project A, Project B, Prospect A, Prospect B, etc.... ToDo Matrix is particularly helpful tracking the myriad activities that occur in parallel when running multiple projects or pursuing multiple sales prospects.

What I miss is a Franklin Planner-like Task Manager list, which would sort tasks by A,B, C and then by number within each letter, i.e. A1, A2, A3, etc....

ToDo Matrix does have a very nice delegation function that will send e-mails out to delegates. I haven't experimented enough with it to see how effective it is in tracking progress, etc....

I have also added Ascendo Data Vault to track useful IDs, Passwords and URLs as well as financial information. Data Vault stands apart from many of the BlackBerry password keepers as it's PC companion program can automatically enter user IDs and passwords into webforms.

For entertainment, I have downloaded magmic's Sudoku from the BlackBerry website. It's quite good. My only complaint is that it does not disclose errors when you type in the wrong number.

I also downloaded Yahoo Instant Messenger for Blackberry. This was a mistake. Apparently Big Company's administrators decided Yahoo Instant Messenger should not run on Big Company's network. I deleted the program, but it still shows up in the applications menu - I wonder if I need to reboot the device - something I haven't had to do yet, but suppose I should learn.

Quite frankly, the ToDo Matrix and DataVault are the most useful programs I can imagine. Others exist and I will experiment with them over time.

I am disappointed that there does not appear to be a program that integrates with Quicken 2007 for the BlackBerry -- however there are some that import the data. I'll have to experiment with them.

Regards, makingourway

New software for my BlackBerry 8703e

I'm sick of lugging my Palm Treo 650 around. I've decided to download various programs to replace the key ones I had on my Treo. This is especially important as I've been spending lots more time on the road.

Tomorrow I head off to the midwest, but not to Chicago - St. Louis. Should be fun, I've never been there.

First step:

1. Install BlackBerry Desktop software (and pray it doesn't try to synch my outlook DB with my blackberry - which is synch'd to my employer's DB).
2. install several trial programs (I hope they work):

• Ascendo DataVault (seems the closest replacement to MobiPassword
• ToDo Matrix - I want a Franklin Covey style task list - I'm hoping it will deliver.
• Ascendo IJuggle - an alternative to ToDo Matrix - I may install one or the other.
• Ascendo Money - requires that I import a file - integration with Quicken unclear (frustrating)

I need the DataVault most of all. Will let you know how the other programs work out.

Regards, makingourway

PS any recommendations?