(Useful) Stupid BlackBerry Tricks?

Wolfger writes "Continuing the recent (useful) stupid theme: I've recently become a BlackBerry user, and I'm in love with the obvious(?) tricks, such as installing MidpSSH to access my home box remotely. But I'd like to know what more experienced Crackberry addicts can share."

Comments

What the fuck?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

I thought Slashdot was exclusively iPhone oriented?

I feel betrayed. BETRAYED I tells ya.

Re:What the fuck?

[nitio]

I foresee a story about some stupid, yet useful, things you can do in your iPhone...

Re:What the fuck?

[KillerBob]

Very short thread, that... *mutters something about hardware lock-in and DRM*

Re:What the fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

please, stop this madness, or at least ask for useful (stupid) get laid tricks.

Re:What the fuck?

[Yokaze]

Use the GPS and accelerometer for tracing the trajectory of a rocket.

Re:What the fuck?

[berend botje]

Having money and spending it like there's no tomorrow doesn't work against you, either!

Re:What the fuck?

[sik0fewl]

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

I have a suggestion. I find these threads quite interesting, but they hardly qualify as news and I don't think we want to see them every day (we're just going to exhaust all decent ideas if we do). Why not do something like this on Fridays instead of the stupid mailbag?

Does anyone agree?

Re:What the fuck?

[Malevolyn]

Basically, just buy a woman.

Re:What the fuck?

[bevoblake]

What does marriage have to do with getting laid?

Hit it with a hammer

[mlk]

Then jump on it.

Re:Hit it with a hammer

[Andr T.]

Good one. I, for one, have always been adapt of the old 'throw it in the toilet' fashion.

Re:Hit it with a hammer

[Spazztastic]

Good one. I, for one, have always been adapt of the old 'throw it in the toilet' fashion.

I like the 'running it over with the car after it fries my MicroSD card.'

Re:Hit it with a hammer

[HappyHead]

Well, the best I've heard of was at my old employer's - one of the sales people dropped their blackberry into a vat of industrial acid, and it was completely dissolved. It was an interesting support call to listen in on, my boss (the head of IT) was saying "Yeah, it, uh, got knocked into a vat of acid, and it's gone." "Well, getting the sim card out of it would be a problem, because that is also gone." "Well, we could skim the foam off the top of the vat to ship back to you, but you'd need hazardous materials certification before we could legally release it to you." Buying the expensive version of the warranty was totally worth it for that one, just for the fact that it's probably the most unique replacement order they've ever had to fill. (And no, they didn't bother getting haz-mat clearance, so they didn't get the foam back.)

Re:Hit it with a hammer

[SIR_Taco]

All these years I thought people were saying cell phone! It's foam!

Re:Hit it with a hammer

[tonytnnt]

one of the sales people dropped their blackberry into a vat of industrial acid

Holy shit, you make your sales people work next to vats of industrial acid? That's quite the high pressure sales technique...

Re:Hit it with a hammer

[that this is not und]

That sounds like a tragic story that could have ended otherwise.

In the future tethers should be issued with all Blackberries, so that if such an incident occurs again, the chance increases that the sales-type person will also pulled into the vat. It's just a shame that a Blackberry had to be sacrificed with no net benefit for the incident.

Re:Hit it with a hammer

[Kamokazi]

It said useful and stupid. Your suggestion is only useful. That's probably the smartest thing I've heard anyone say about a BlackBerry.

Crackberry Forums

[peterprior]

Maybe ask in the Crackberry Forums (a Blackberry user site)

Re:Crackberry Forums

[Zro Point Two]

Just some little tips that people can find at CrackBerry Forums...

1) To quickly create a new calendar appointment, just highlight the date/time for the appointment and start typing the subject.

2) If you turn off the option to dial from homescreen on full QWERTY devices (in Phone > Options > Dial from home screen) you can use shortcut keys to open applications (look for the underlined letter in the application name (like M for messages).

3) Typing "mypin" will put your PIN into your message, and "mynumber" will put your phone number.

4) In your message list, pressing the U key will jump to the oldest unread message. Holding ALT and pressing U will mark a message Read/Unread.

5) Holding the 1 key down will automagically dial your voicemail.

6) To highlight Text, hold ALT and click the trackwheel/trackball. You can then scroll left or right (holding ALT makes it go up and down for trackwheels) to highlight text, and the menu will then give you the copy option (beat that iPhone).

7) On SureType devices, holding the # key will switch from your current profile to Vibrate, and back.

8) Using the T and B keys (on QWERTY keyboards) will go to the Top and Bottom of the message/item you are in. The 1 and 7 Keys will do the same on SureType devices.

9) Calendar/address book doesn't seem to be wirelessly synchronizing properly? Go into the application, then into options. Turn off wireless sync, save the change, then go back in and turn it on to restart the wireless sync process.

10) Address book not sorting/displaying properly, go into Address book > Options, and change the sorting order. Save the changes to rebuild the index. Go back in and change it back to your preferred setting.

These are just some small ones, but there are MANY more little tips n tricks all over that can make your life better.

Re:Crackberry Forums

[Dan East]

Here's another little tip.

I have many full-length movies on my Pearl, and one of my pet-peeves was that seeking in a video was fixed at so many steps - something like 25 steps from the beginning to end. For a full-length movie the steps were then really large, like 5 minutes each.

By trial and error I finally discovered that holding down SHIFT while rotating the scroll wheel will go by very small increments - just a few seconds at a time.

So seeking in a video has the best of both worlds, if you know the keyboard modifier.

Re:Crackberry Forums

[jon3k]

Also in message view, if you have a day selected, you can choose "Delete prior". I keep 3 days of email on the phone. Also, when a day heading is selected you can press p and n for previous and next day. This also works in message view to cycle through messages. When you're in message view you can also highlight multiple messages by holding shift and scrolling the trackball up or down.

Blackberry Linux Connectivity

[wehe]

Just in case you want to connect a Blackberry to a Linux PC, here are some guides about Blackberry and Linux connectivity. Not much yet, but a start. There is also the beginning of a survey of Linux applications under GPL useful for the Blackberry.

Re:Blackberry Linux Connectivity

[I.M.O.G.]

A better guide to connecting your blackberry in linux, as well as using it for internet is available at http://imog.us/articles.html

Of course by "better", I mean that's my website.

Don't let the battery run out

[sqldr]

It goes out of sync with the server, and you have to go down to the IT department to have them resync it. Fucking annoying.

Re:Don't let the battery run out

[DrLang21]

I occasionally have this problem, and I have never needed to go to IT. I don't recall exactly how I usually fix it, but I think I just manually command the mail to reconcile. Go to Mail, bring up the menu, and select Reconcile Now.

Re:Don't let the battery run out

[crypticedge]

Theres a setting in the blackberry server you can set to kill the handset on power failure. Your IT department set this. Smack them, its something they are doing to you, not RIM.

PS: IAABSA (I am a Blackbery Server Administrator)

Re:Don't let the battery run out

[Farmer Pete]

There is a policy on the server end that you can have the device wipe itself if the battery gets below X%. I'm not sure who would want to use that, but if some company had it turned on, it could be annoying.

I read it for the articles, I swear!

[geekmux]

Slashdot is starting to read more and more like a Monty Python script these days.

Please Stop

[harry666t]

Please Stop :(

Useful and missing Blackberry applications

[Ed Avis]

The most useful Blackberry applications are Google Maps and Opera Mini (not a true web browser, so it can't access http servers on your local network, but works well for the public Internet).

Those are both proprietary. I have been looking for something to let me use the builtin GPS together with OpenStreetMap data, but after installing several different programs none of them works. I also couldn't get MidpSSH to work, although the payware ssh client from rovemobile.com is as good as could be expected given the tiny screen. (They also make an RDP client to which the same comments apply.)

Re:Useful and missing Blackberry applications

[Octorian]

As of BlackBerry OS 4.6, the built-in browser has actually gotten pretty good. I'd even say its better and more usable than Opera Mini at this point.

BlackBerry OS 4.5 has a better browser than you're used to, but 4.6 is where it truly becomes useful. (FYI, right now 4.6 runs on the Bold, and 4.7 runs on the Storm)

Of course your cell carrier probably wants you stuck on 4.2 or 4.3 until the end of time, even if your device currently is currently supported by 4.5 (and might be supported in the future by 4.6 or 4.7) At least there are tons of pages online explaining how you can use an OS build not from your carrier.

Re:Useful and missing Blackberry applications

[Octorian]

In 3 seconds on Google:
http://www.blackberryforums.com/rim-software/1871-blackberryos-4-x-download-faq-upgrade-downloads.html

http://www.blackberryinsight.com/2007/05/12/howto-upgrade-your-blackberry-os/

http://www.blackberryforums.com/general-blackberry-discussion/2279-howto-install-reinstall-blackberry-os.html

But basically, you download a version from a carrier that isn't lagging behind, install it on your desktop PC, then delete this file:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Research in Motion\AppLoader\vendor.xml

Then you connect your BlackBerry, launch the desktop software, and it'll take you through the upgrade process.

Install opera

[sqldr]

It's not quite firefox, but it's a hell of a lot better than the default browser.

From "The Tao of Programming"

[$RANDOMLUSER]

A master programmer passed a novice programmer one day. The master noted the novice's preoccupation with a hand-held computer game. ``Excuse me,'' he said, ``may I examine it?''

The novice bolted to attention and handed the device to the master. ``I see that the device claims to have three levels of play: Easy, Medium, and Hard,'' said the master. ``Yet every such device has another level of play, where the device seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the human.''

``Pray, great master,'' implored the novice, ``how does one find this mysterious setting?''

The master dropped the device to the ground and crushed it underfoot. And suddenly the novice was enlightened.

Re:From "The Tao of Programming"

[morgan_greywolf]

Yet, it is also written:

A master was explaining the nature of Tao of to one of his novices. ``The Tao is embodied in all software - regardless of how insignificant,'' said the master.

``Is the Tao in a hand-held calculator?'' asked the novice.

``It is,'' came the reply.

``Is the Tao in a video game?'' continued the novice.

``It is even in a video game,'' said the master.

``And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?''

The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. ``The lesson is over for today,'' he said.

Exclusive blackberry tip!

[mrboyd]

Use the "Off" button when you're out for a movie, on a date with your girlfriend or having a beer with your buddies.

It will improve your social life, relieve some stress and you might stop looking like a pedantic ass.

Re:Exclusive blackberry tip!

[ColdWetDog]

What's an Off button?

You don't get to find out until you're married.

Cool Apps for the 'berries

[Mister Transistor]

These are some of the best free apps I've tried:

1. Google Maps - Several others have mentioned this, will use cell phone tower triangulation if your model doesn't have a GPS or it's locked like my Verizon 8330 Curve.

2. MicroSky - Nice constellation/sky object finder, if you whip out your berry you can identify that bright planet just above the moon! (It was Jupiter!) You have to register, but it's free.

3. Vlingo - This is really nice - it extends voice commands to the entire phone instead of just the autodialer. You can launch commands, records notes to self, etc. Very nice general purpose speech to text analyzer/converter. The only downside is it seems to transmit and analyze the sample to a remote server so there is a few seconds lag in getting text output.

Those are the best of the best I've seen so far.

Re:Cool Apps for the 'berries

[scream at the sky]

Viigo is the app that I find I have a hard time with out. It's a slick little RSS feed app that pulls feeds from anywhere one the web. It's a gratis app, but you do have to sign up for an account.

It's way more convenient that using slashdot.org/palm when I have a few minutes for my fix during the day.

Push weather updates are awesome as well.

Torch function

[Anonymous Coward]

Set the video camera to have the light always on. Then set the side button to activate the video camera.

Congrats, you now have a very expensive torch.

Re:Torch function

[spandex_panda]

I thought for a minute that this would cause flames to erupt from the top of the device! This way you could gather friends with large forks and charge together toward foe?

Re:Torch function

[Thiez]

Finally a device to combat trolls!

good app

[servo335]

I like google sync it allows me to sync the blackberry calender with the google calender.

Re:good app

[Itninja]

OMG be careful with Google Sync. You can create a singularity and destroy the universe!

Ping a Blackberry from any e-mail account

[toupsie]

What to know if your employees have their Blackberry turned on? Send an e-mail to it with the subject "" (without the quotes, of course). The Blackberry will send back a confirmation message with the time and date that it received the message. This is also a good way to test if your BES server is delivering messages in near time,

For users of older models, update the OS

[Bearhouse]

I surprised that this topic made it through - not surprised at the flaming response. I mean, the damn thing does not even run Linux...

More seriously, there are a few 'standouts' like Google maps and Opera, but that's about it. Probably because it is closed architecture, and the Java implementation can be buggy.

What I've found helpful is - as a user of an older, non-GPS equipped model Pearl - to update to the latest OS. Instructions can be found on web. You get genuinely improved functionality.
Same thing goes for Google maps - they update it regularly so you need to re-install often. For example, they recently added positioning without GPS, using tower trangulation. Works surprisingly well.

Re:For users of older models, update the OS

[Octorian]

Meanwhile, the iPhone is perhaps one of the most closed and restrictive platforms out there. The only difference is that it is the iPhone, and people will climb over each other just for the chance to lick Steve Jobs boots.

Seriously, whenever I hear someone mention that they do iPhone development, they usually follow up with "And I don't really feel comfortable talking about it, because of the agreements Apple made me sign."

find the trick

[nimbius]

that makes it stop hauling me into work at 3 in the morning for some strange ritual called "escalation."

or the trick that keeps the battery plate from breaking and falling off constantly.

Auto On and Off + Blacklists

[Tryfen]

Two Top Tips to Improve your Work/Life Balance.

1) Want to make sure you're not disturbed once you've left work?

Options - Auto On/Off. Set the BlackBerry to switch itself off after 1830 and automatically on at 0830 (adjust for your work patterns).

2) Sick of getting Every. Single. Fricking. Email?

Mail - Options - Email Filters.
My BlackBerry is set only to receive emails from my immediate boss, his boss, my wife, family, and anything with the subject "Urgent".

Sadly - you can't automatically switch them on/off. But at the weekend, you can go in and switch off the work filters. Hey presto, you'll only get the email you really care about at the weekend.

T

Read RSS and Manage Remotely

[jwgoerlich]

Useful trick? The most useful item on my BlackBerry is my Viigo RSS reader. Viigo has scores of built-in channels, as well as custom channels. I use it to read dozens of InfoSec blogs and, of course, Slashdot. Viigo delivers literally hundreds of posts to my BlackBerry daily.

Viigo's free but, if you have a few dollars, consider spending it on Rove mobile management. Rove (was Idokorro) allows you to remotely manage Windows and *nix hosts from the BlackBerry. Typing command line on the BlackBerry can be a pain, so be prepared to combine Rove with some custom scripts.

(trick) How to make them bounce

[ufoolme]

The trick is to drop them from at least the 3rd store of a building w/concrete pavement. The 2nd store just isn't always high enough, unless you purposely peg them at the ground.
Entertainment the whole family can enjoy.

Re:(trick) How to make them bounce

[Anonymous Coward]

The trick is to drop them from at least the 3rd store of a building w/concrete pavement. The 2nd store just isn't always high enough, unless you purposely peg them at the ground.

My local mall has over 30 stores but they aren't numbered. How do I determine which store is first, second, etc?
Would the cashier at RadioShack know;-)

PIN Messaging

[SCHecklerX]

I have a blackberry for personal use. For friends who also have them, I use PIN messaging instead of SMS. For more involved conversations, I point them to the blackberry messenger app that does IM type messaging (including audio notes, images, other attachments) rather than make them install something like jivetalk.

PINs are really nice for a few reasons:
1) direct berry to berry messaging
2) you know when the message has been delivered
3) they can have a separate alert from regular SMS messages
4) they don't eat up messages from the expensive monthly SMS bucket. Heck if everyone you need to SMS has a blackberry, you don't need to add sms to your plan at all. This assumes your data plan is unlimited and your SMS plan is ridiculously expensive.

Drawbacks:
1) must have a data capable cell signal, whereas SMS works anywhere a phonecall works.
2) for whatever reason, PINs don't automatically move your highlight to the latest in the BB messages list like SMS messages do.
3) the blackberry messenger alerts are wonky. There is no "first message" vs "everything else" option, so you either have an alert each time or never. Alerting when friends are on or not must be set after every conversation, vs. the 'buddy pounce' feature of jivetalk. Messenger would be a lot more useful if they'd fix those two things.

MidpSSH Trick

[Phil_at_EvilNET]

Forgive me if someone's already posted this, but in testing MidpSSH I attempted to connect to my server at home and being the security conscious person I am, immediately noted the IP address that I was connecting from was not from the Blackberry itself, but from one of the many FreeBSD proxy servers I maintain at work. It then dawned on me that since we operate our own BES servers, I attempted to login to the FreeBSD server via it's LAN address and lo and behold, I was actually logging into the FreeBSD server from the BES server's IP.

Regardless of all our security, RSA tokens, VPN access, secure gateways, etc, my Blackberry is now a backdoor into Pandora's Box. When I showed the LAN architect, he immediately freaked out. Since our BES servers aren't in the DMZ and actually goto the internet using NAT via a FreeBSD server (behind a netscreen and a router), the "flaw" is actually inherent to the design.

On a good note, I made $20 bucks on the bet that I could prove I could own the network via my Blackberry. :)

 

Saved searches

[coathanger]

Saved searches are also a very useful feature.

Messages > Search > Save

You can create a shortcut key to a search that can be targeted at any variety of:

Item type
Email account
Folder within an email account (mostly using BES)
Item status (read state, draft, etc)

For people with a large volume of email and little time, this is a great feature.

Activation without the BES admin

[aggie113]

If you loose sync (email, contacts or calendar) and are on a BES but don't want to bother with a support call you can try this trick to do your own Enterprise re-Activation. Go to the Options/Advanced Options/Enterprise Activation menu. In the email field type in CNFG while holding the Alt key. After typing this, you should have a new menu appear. From that menu, change the option for Wireless Sync from On to Off and then exit the menu while saving changes. Give the phone about half a minute and then go back into the menu and change the Wireless Sync to On. Exit and save changes again and it should then start the process of Activating. This, as well as taking the battery out and putting it back in will fix 90% of corporate blackberry issues :)

Programs switching shortcut

[halfabee]

Not too obvious, I hope... You can switch between running programs by using Alt + Esc (the back key). Very useful on older models that don't have an applications button or definable shortcut keys.

Some shortcut keys and generally helpful things

[kansei]

Task switch: Alt+Esc

Reset: Alt+Cap+Del

Reorder or hide icons: Alt + Click(wheel / trackball)

Device info / Help screen: Alt+Cap+h

Event log: Alt+"LGLG" on home screen

Alt+"NMLL" toggles network signal level display between graphical and numeric

In the message list "t" goes to the top, "b" goes to the bottom, "v" goes to saved messages and "r" toggles through all unread messages.

Re:For users of older models, update the OS - RSA!

[Markvs]

...unless you're running RSA's SecureID soft token application, which doesn't work on certain BBs if you raise the OS beyond 4.3.

Automatic Key Lock

[awyeah]

Most of the holsters and cases made for blackberrys (and all of the holsters and cases made by RIM for blackberrys) have a special magnet in them that automatically locks the keys when the device is in the holster.

Blackberry Storm

[jon3k]

So I had a RIM rep stop by yesterday and I got to play with a storm for about half an hour.

Initial thoughts, coming from an 8830, wow this keyboard is going to take some getting used to. Screen is gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. Youtube works! Full screen even. He had some quicktime trailers on it and those looked absolutely stunning (probably better than the iPhone).

It has copy and paste and multi-touch, though it cannot use apple's gestures (copyright). You can however place two fingers on either side of a line of text to copy it. Camera is very good, has autofocus, I think it had a flash as well.

ask me anything i'll try and answer the best I can. Oh pricing and availibility. All he would say is "pricing will be competitive with the iphone of course" and that it "will be out before november". So I assume 23rd is probably still close.