I decided to jump through hoops and update my Dream that I haven't used in over 2 months, and even that was only for a day or two...and it was months prior to that that I had used it.
But I accidentally made the mistake of putting my SIM card in it to verify that it worked....I updated the phone, switched the SIM back to my Nexus One and went on my merry way. 2 hours later, no data. So I called and was told that the data was not turned off on my account. Thinking it was a bug in my Nexus on Rogers, I accepted that. Put the SIM back in the Dream, still no data. Talked to the Live Support person who then confirmed that it was disabled and then said there was nothing they could do.
So now I'm stuck with no data for the night. The worst part is that the guy was very condescending to me and that the other CSR lied to me when he said my data wasn't turned off.
And of course the Retention person that I talked to thought he was doing me an amazing favor by offering me a month credit on my data package....right at the top of the instructions says that it will be automatically given...yea, that's really a huge favor.
So, if you're not using your Dream and decide to update, don't put the SIM in...or if you want to use your Dream/Magic but haven't for a while, update first, then put your SIM card in. Hopefully you can avoid what I went through.
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.
IANAL but if I recall correctly Canadian law (yea, I'm a Canuk) says that you cannot agree to any contract that you have not read and signed. This may have changed, but at the time when I was looking into it, the law said that you cannot give up rights without reading what rights you are giving up. This was in relation to an AUP and a EULA. The clause "subject to change without notice, and continuation of using said service constitutes that you agree to the changes" did not hold water. The contract that I had entered at the time (about 7 or 8 years ago) was the contract that the company was bound to uphold because that is the contract that I'd signed, and I could not enter a new contract without explicitly agreeing to it.
Again, IANAL, but since Canadian and American contract laws do differ in some very serious ways, I'd at least talk to a lawyer and/or hit the local library. One thing that I found works pretty well is if you know someone taking law at a colledge/university level. They generally know a lot, and can always ask their prof. Since profs have to teach it, I've found that the better ones are really good at answering off the wall topics...they've seen them come up in papers n such and have to determine the relevance of them.
As for the billing, you should not have any issues with cancelling any other services that you have with them (as long as they are not under contract). If it's a service that you actually want with them, but want the billing method changed, you still have the option of cancelling the service, then setting it up again. It's a pain in the ass, but it is an option.
IANAL...but as I understand it, the lawsuit in the courts is based on "Did RIM infringe on these patents?" not "are these patents valid". Based on that, as much as I hope he doesn't, I can understand it if the judge rules that RIM did infringe on the patents.
When the lawsuit started, the patents were valid. So the judge has to decide if the technology used by RIM is similar enough to those patents to rule that RIM did infringe on them. Unless the patent office and/or the judge say that the invalidations of the patents are retroactive and therefore were not valid at the time the lawsuit started...and in that instance, NTP would then have to pay back the royalties and fees that Good, Nokia, etc. have paid them..cause you can't license something that doesn't exist.
Again, IANAL, so please feel free to correct me, but consider it as two seperate issues at hand before flaming me and see if your choice to flame me is still a valid choice or not.
And I thought I was one of the few (outside of those who do/did packet radio) who knew about this.
For anyone interested, check out http://www.tapr.org/. There's a whole history there of wireless packet radio...one section even includes pushing messages to a computer over a wireless packet network. Maybe not a mobile device, but close enough in principle to a BlackBerry.
I do apologize, I did miss that part in the CERT about running arbitrary code.
However, in the advisory they said to disable all images because someone could possibly rename a TIFF to use another file extension.
And in TFA (as you put it) that is still paraphrasing Lindner. That article is the only place that mentions PNG files. Everything else only mentions TIFF files. It could be possible that the author misheard or mistakenly mentioned PNG's, and it could be that all PNG files will cause this but no one else has mentioned it. I just have a hard time taking the word of a non tech journalist as defacto.
I'm not saying that this may not be something serious, but to see everyone getting all up in arms because one journalist said it's all PNG files is just rediculous in my opinion. At least until there is more released from Lindner and I can actually see it for myself.
No, it's a specially crafted TIFF attachment. If you read either the knowledge base article that is linked in the/. story or the US-CERT advisory (VU#570768) you can see that it's a TIFF attachment.
Second, it will not allow remote code execution or to take over the server, it stops the attachment service (Again, from reading the US-CERT advisory). It is classed as a DoS attack...as in Denial of Service....as in stopping the ability to use that service. This is not a remote code execution CERT advisory.
From the CERT advisory...
"could allow an attacker supplying a specially crafted TIFF file to cause the service to stop functioning."
Just because the author of a Blog (even if it is from a newspaper) says something, it does not mean that he has all the facts, or has the facts straight. You'll also notice that the author of the article "was left wondering" about code execution.
The author then paraphrased Lindner about taking over the computer and not actually quoting the person.
When Lindner's slides are released, and/or someone who was actually at the event and can say first hand what all Lindner found and proved, then it really is speculation as to if this is a small DoS attack or a huge gaping hole that everyone is claiming because they jump to conclusions. And I'm not talking about the encryption keys being stored in plain text, I'm talking only about the TIFF image issue.
Slightly off topic for this perticular thread, but taking up from something mentioned...
(one of them did try before Blackberry showed up and failed)
So why is it that they don't try again since the BlackBery IS so hugely successful? Since the Treo is so hugely popular? heck, since email on your cell phone is so hugely popular now...why wouldn't they try to make something that would be equally as popular?
Because it's easier to sit back and get money from other people than to actually do work yourself.
I am so totally on the side of RIM with this NTP case, but if they actually had begun back in 2002 to make a product to benefit from the popularity of mobile email and therfore have a product that uses their patents, I think it would have sold. So they've had almost 4 years since then to try and make something and I doubt that they have even looked into the feasibility of it. And that my friends, is one of the big reasons I'm behind RIM now more than ever.
The VNC and SSH clients are written by third party developers, but the main OS of the BlackBerry is Java (J2ME to be exact) so it will support most java apps/scripts (I believe the Treo does have slightly better javascript support, but I've never had a javascript problem surfing on my BB). I'm not sure about remote desktop, but it's quite possible someone is working on it.
You or I would probably not have a problem with viruses because we are informed, but to the average business person or email user, they are not so informed....hence where the problem comes in. I myself have not had virus software installed on my Windows box in years (aside from the random bi-yearly scan that I may run F-Prot for) and I've not had a virus or spyware hit my computer...and thankfully i delayed buying any new cd's put out by Sony;)
Versatility is in the eye of the user. I agree that to the technically inclined (most/. readers) the Treo is very much so more versitile, but if you just want to get your email and make some phone calls, versitile is not going to be a big selling point. To those people, they might be more worried about getting their email fast and their company might be imposing the worry about security. So it's all how the device will be used.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that the prices I quoted were $CDN and not $USD.
Both prices were taken from the only GSM provider here in Canada.
I'm not too familiar with Good Technologys product, so I won't comment on that. If it can do all the same wireless stuff, then hey, that's cool.
It's interesting that you bring up VNC, SSH, JAVA...cause I have all three loaded on my BlackBerry right now. But I'll let you keep on with your GPRS connection for VNC while I remote to my computer over EDGE (and I'll even pout when I see someone remoting in over EV-DO).
Sure there may not be as much software for the BlackBerry as there is for any Palm OS, but there is more and more being written for it all the time. Palm OS has been out longer than the BlackBerry OS, so there's bound to be a bit more software out there. However, any piece of software that I load onto my BlackBerry is totally secure against any sort of virus or data mining. Every peice of software that runs on the BlackBerry must be digitally signed....so some script kiddie can't just write a program that'll copy my address book and email it to some spam house.
Most of the reasons you have are probably not going to applicable to everyone to change. Sure they may be great reasons for you to change from a BlackBerry to a Treo, but they probably aren't going to be reasons for me to change. But people are going to read your reasons and because not all of them are going to be informed reasons (as the VNC, SSH, and Java ones were) they are going to rush out and get a Treo because they are misinformed. So instead of saying "The Treo is the best thing in the world for everyone" why not say "The Treo is going to be perfect for some people, whereas the BlackBerry is going to be better for others"?
And I know I'm guilty of the same thing, but at least I try for the most part to be openminded and understand that they both have their own market and one is NOT going to be the best thing in the world for everyone.
First, common, be original. Last time there was an article about NTP and RIM I'm pretty sure there was the same comment about the BlackBerry just being something for your boss to email from while speeding down the road. And as you can see by the vast number of different sigs here on/., you don't have to have a BlackBerry to have your sig say "Sent from my BlackBerry".
That aside, if you are referring to the fact that only execs can afford it, let's take a quick peek at prices here. I can get the newest BlackBerry (8700r) for $499 or I can get the Treo650 from the same provider for $899...hmmmm
I use a BlackBerry 7290 for my cell phone, and it's pretty decent, I can hear the other person, they can hear me (even in noisy environments) and that's good enough for me. Have you happened to have noticed that the BlackBerry is an EMAIL device, not a phone? You cannot tell me that the Treo can do a better job at email. But the new BlackBerry sure does an amazing job at being a phone as well as an email device.
I get an attached doc, xls, pdf, ppt, jpg, gif, txt, etc on my BlackBerry and I have no trouble opening it up and viewing it...so that can't really be considered a death spike.
Obviously your company doesn't take security too seriously if it would rather have every employee using POP to check their email that is sent plain text over the wireless network....as apposed to having a single port open for outbound initiated connections only and full 3DES or AES encryption of messages on the wireless network.
And "technically" you don't even need special software to use a BlackBerry for email (before you pounce, yes it is email only, not attachments or wireless synchronization) because you can use the desktop redirector.
This brings up another point. I'm sitting on the bus, I schedule a meeting with someone, and automagically that meeting is in my calendar at work....or how about being out at a conference and getting someones email address...that contact is now synchronized wirelessly to my contacts at the office.
So, let's see what else people will fire back with....It can't do music. Well, no, but that's what my MP3 player is for, and it sounds a hell of a lot better than ANY pda does.
It doesn't have a camera. No, but then again it also doesn't have a crappy camera. If I need to take pictures I'm going to bring my digital camera instead of the crappy ones I can get from a cell phone or pda...have you seen the quality of most of them?
It doesn't do video playback. That's ok, I don't like watching video on a 2.2" screen anyway....hurts my eyes.
It doesn't have an SD slot. I'm actually up in the air on this one. Given what the BlackBerry actually does, I don't see a need for an SD card. If it did multimedia, then maybe, but then you get into SD or miniSD? What about security? etc.
The point is that not everyone WANTS or NEEDS all the functionality that the Treo offers, and the core components that most people want/need are offered in both.
Why the parent was modded to +4 Interesting is beyond me. Is it because one company switched from BlackBerry to Treo? Was it because of their opinion that the phone calls sounded better on the Treo? or was it the rehashed comment about Execs only using it for the Sig?
This whole topic really grinds my gears, but in keeping an open mind about it all, the comments here have brought up a bunch of points.
A lot of people are complaining that NTP has not done anything with the patent, and that in order for it to be valid they should have to have shown that they are working on developing a product that uses said patent....well, they've made a licensing deal with Good Technologies...that looks like they're trying to actually USE the technology in that patent. They are not directly making it, but neither is the initial person who developed the patent and sold it to NTP...which is what a lot of people are saying is ok for the garage based inventor with low cash to do.
So, based on the licensing that NTP has with Good, the patent would be valid in this case...the patent is being used by a company and that company is paying licensing fees.
If you change it to be "the entity that holds the patent must be activly trying to produce a product that uses that patent" because then any individual inventor with a good idea that get's a patent would not be able to sell that patent until they have made thier own product and therefore "validated" the patent. Otherwise it's not a valid patent and therefore cannot be sold.
HOWEVER, this does not give any reason why a company who has infringed on a patent should have to stop doing business. Make them pay restitution, and if they wish to continue providing a service/product, they have to get the proper licensing. And there has to be some way to ensure that the patent holder does not gouge the infringing company or deny them licensing. Because I'm willing to bet that if the judge said "Ok RIM, you lose. Pay NTP $x million and get proper licensing, or stop service" NTP would be like "Good pays us $x/year for licensing, so we want $4*x/year from RIM or you can't get licensing" because RIM has a proven product and large userbase already.
Ok, ending my $0.0144 US rant now. (That's about $0.02 CDN btw).
Does it synchronize after deleting the folder? You know, that one folder that all it does is hold the configuration information...doesn't actually hold the contacts or calendar entries. So who cares if there are 4 entries or 40000.
And if you take a look...it's the same company that makes the sync software for the Palm as for the BlackBerry.
Duplicated calendar entries is usually because of incorrect permissions (note, I said usually, not always).
It's data traffic over the cellular network. Think of it this way...do you get to browse the internet all you want on your cell phone for free? You probably have a data plan that let's you do xKb of traffic a month. Same thing, only difference is that you have to have a BlackBerry specific data plan.
You are quite right about it not hitting the tech crowd very much. The BlackBerry is meant to do one thing, and it does that one thing better than any. Email.
The tech crowd want something like the Treo that can do everything.
The business professional just wants rock solid and secure email. And the BlackBerry offers them that.
its not like you can run it from either open sourced stuff or even popular stuff like MS Exchange.
Uhhhh...what? I hope you are not suggesting that it doesn't work with Exchange. It fully integrates with Exchange (this was the first mail server it was built for).
And as for set up, really it's
- Make an an account with x permissions
- Install the server software
- Add user to the server
- Connect BlackBerry to the desktop to register with the mail server.
- DONE!
Without sounding like I'm jumping on one side or the other....
How can anyone take these numbers seriously when you have a) A fresh install of OO.o vs a year old install of MS Office. b) It's not even a clean install of MS Office. He had works installed previously. He's modified the install of MS Office at least once in the past.
And what version of MS Office is being used? What kind of options are installed with it? What kind of configuration options are enabled on either of them? I don't remember having to reboot my computer to install Office on XP...maybe I did at one point, but it would have been for the MS installer updates...which quite possibly could have been needed for a fresh OO.o install on a fresh XP install.
This article could have garnered SOOO much more validity if it was a fresh install of both on a fresh install of XP. I'm sure that OO.o will probably still come out faster, but just how much the difference is...that I don't know.
Why is it so hard for people to do some research? ok, here I go again.
The BlackBerry will integrate totally with the corporate email solution. If you send an email from the BlackBerry and have it show up in your sent items in Outlook (and vice versa). Delete one message from the BlackBerry and it's deleted from the mailbox (and vice versa).
Supports 3DES wireless encryption.
Support for S/MIME.
and browse the web, play games, read e-books and fanfiction, etc.
If one can do it, chances are that the other can do it. Palms are multi purpose, BlackBerry's are secure. Palms pull email, BlackBerry's push email.
'Course, you know what they say about posts and trolls...
Having access to an SD card that can be put into another device is much less secure than removing the flash memory of the device and trying to access that.
I do agree that an SD card can be handy for some applications, but for just email, not that important on my list.
And I'm glad we are on the same page with "A series of justifications cannot make one device objectively better than another for even a majority of circumstances, let alone all."
My post was not to justify the BlackBerry over the Treo/sidekick/set of index cards. It was just to make sure that people know that just about everything that is available on one is available on the other. BlackBerry is more geared towards security and email, the Treo more for multi-purpose functionality.
Image support on the BlackBerry is not native image format. It get's changed to png (I believe), compressed, and sent to the BlackBerry. I'm not totally sure, but I belive the BlackBerry would then need to support png natively. If you try these same images in png format, does that solve the issue?
Slashdot Mirror
Must have been nice.
I decided to jump through hoops and update my Dream that I haven't used in over 2 months, and even that was only for a day or two...and it was months prior to that that I had used it.
But I accidentally made the mistake of putting my SIM card in it to verify that it worked....I updated the phone, switched the SIM back to my Nexus One and went on my merry way. 2 hours later, no data. So I called and was told that the data was not turned off on my account. Thinking it was a bug in my Nexus on Rogers, I accepted that. Put the SIM back in the Dream, still no data. Talked to the Live Support person who then confirmed that it was disabled and then said there was nothing they could do.
So now I'm stuck with no data for the night. The worst part is that the guy was very condescending to me and that the other CSR lied to me when he said my data wasn't turned off.
And of course the Retention person that I talked to thought he was doing me an amazing favor by offering me a month credit on my data package....right at the top of the instructions says that it will be automatically given...yea, that's really a huge favor.
So, if you're not using your Dream and decide to update, don't put the SIM in...or if you want to use your Dream/Magic but haven't for a while, update first, then put your SIM card in. Hopefully you can avoid what I went through.
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.
IANAL but if I recall correctly Canadian law (yea, I'm a Canuk) says that you cannot agree to any contract that you have not read and signed. This may have changed, but at the time when I was looking into it, the law said that you cannot give up rights without reading what rights you are giving up. This was in relation to an AUP and a EULA. The clause "subject to change without notice, and continuation of using said service constitutes that you agree to the changes" did not hold water. The contract that I had entered at the time (about 7 or 8 years ago) was the contract that the company was bound to uphold because that is the contract that I'd signed, and I could not enter a new contract without explicitly agreeing to it.
Again, IANAL, but since Canadian and American contract laws do differ in some very serious ways, I'd at least talk to a lawyer and/or hit the local library. One thing that I found works pretty well is if you know someone taking law at a colledge/university level. They generally know a lot, and can always ask their prof. Since profs have to teach it, I've found that the better ones are really good at answering off the wall topics...they've seen them come up in papers n such and have to determine the relevance of them.
As for the billing, you should not have any issues with cancelling any other services that you have with them (as long as they are not under contract). If it's a service that you actually want with them, but want the billing method changed, you still have the option of cancelling the service, then setting it up again. It's a pain in the ass, but it is an option.
IANAL...but as I understand it, the lawsuit in the courts is based on "Did RIM infringe on these patents?" not "are these patents valid". Based on that, as much as I hope he doesn't, I can understand it if the judge rules that RIM did infringe on the patents.
When the lawsuit started, the patents were valid. So the judge has to decide if the technology used by RIM is similar enough to those patents to rule that RIM did infringe on them. Unless the patent office and/or the judge say that the invalidations of the patents are retroactive and therefore were not valid at the time the lawsuit started...and in that instance, NTP would then have to pay back the royalties and fees that Good, Nokia, etc. have paid them..cause you can't license something that doesn't exist.
Again, IANAL, so please feel free to correct me, but consider it as two seperate issues at hand before flaming me and see if your choice to flame me is still a valid choice or not.
And I thought I was one of the few (outside of those who do/did packet radio) who knew about this.
For anyone interested, check out http://www.tapr.org/. There's a whole history there of wireless packet radio...one section even includes pushing messages to a computer over a wireless packet network. Maybe not a mobile device, but close enough in principle to a BlackBerry.
I do apologize, I did miss that part in the CERT about running arbitrary code.
However, in the advisory they said to disable all images because someone could possibly rename a TIFF to use another file extension.
And in TFA (as you put it) that is still paraphrasing Lindner. That article is the only place that mentions PNG files. Everything else only mentions TIFF files. It could be possible that the author misheard or mistakenly mentioned PNG's, and it could be that all PNG files will cause this but no one else has mentioned it. I just have a hard time taking the word of a non tech journalist as defacto.
I'm not saying that this may not be something serious, but to see everyone getting all up in arms because one journalist said it's all PNG files is just rediculous in my opinion. At least until there is more released from Lindner and I can actually see it for myself.
Second, it will not allow remote code execution or to take over the server, it stops the attachment service (Again, from reading the US-CERT advisory). It is classed as a DoS attack...as in Denial of Service....as in stopping the ability to use that service. This is not a remote code execution CERT advisory.
From the CERT advisory...
Just because the author of a Blog (even if it is from a newspaper) says something, it does not mean that he has all the facts, or has the facts straight. You'll also notice that the author of the article "was left wondering" about code execution.
The author then paraphrased Lindner about taking over the computer and not actually quoting the person.
When Lindner's slides are released, and/or someone who was actually at the event and can say first hand what all Lindner found and proved, then it really is speculation as to if this is a small DoS attack or a huge gaping hole that everyone is claiming because they jump to conclusions. And I'm not talking about the encryption keys being stored in plain text, I'm talking only about the TIFF image issue.
Slightly off topic for this perticular thread, but taking up from something mentioned...
(one of them did try before Blackberry showed up and failed)
So why is it that they don't try again since the BlackBery IS so hugely successful? Since the Treo is so hugely popular? heck, since email on your cell phone is so hugely popular now...why wouldn't they try to make something that would be equally as popular?
Because it's easier to sit back and get money from other people than to actually do work yourself.
I am so totally on the side of RIM with this NTP case, but if they actually had begun back in 2002 to make a product to benefit from the popularity of mobile email and therfore have a product that uses their patents, I think it would have sold. So they've had almost 4 years since then to try and make something and I doubt that they have even looked into the feasibility of it. And that my friends, is one of the big reasons I'm behind RIM now more than ever.
The VNC and SSH clients are written by third party developers, but the main OS of the BlackBerry is Java (J2ME to be exact) so it will support most java apps/scripts (I believe the Treo does have slightly better javascript support, but I've never had a javascript problem surfing on my BB). I'm not sure about remote desktop, but it's quite possible someone is working on it.
;)
/. readers) the Treo is very much so more versitile, but if you just want to get your email and make some phone calls, versitile is not going to be a big selling point. To those people, they might be more worried about getting their email fast and their company might be imposing the worry about security. So it's all how the device will be used.
You or I would probably not have a problem with viruses because we are informed, but to the average business person or email user, they are not so informed....hence where the problem comes in. I myself have not had virus software installed on my Windows box in years (aside from the random bi-yearly scan that I may run F-Prot for) and I've not had a virus or spyware hit my computer...and thankfully i delayed buying any new cd's put out by Sony
Versatility is in the eye of the user. I agree that to the technically inclined (most
Sorry, I forgot to mention that the prices I quoted were $CDN and not $USD.
Both prices were taken from the only GSM provider here in Canada.
I'm not too familiar with Good Technologys product, so I won't comment on that. If it can do all the same wireless stuff, then hey, that's cool.
It's interesting that you bring up VNC, SSH, JAVA...cause I have all three loaded on my BlackBerry right now. But I'll let you keep on with your GPRS connection for VNC while I remote to my computer over EDGE (and I'll even pout when I see someone remoting in over EV-DO).
Sure there may not be as much software for the BlackBerry as there is for any Palm OS, but there is more and more being written for it all the time. Palm OS has been out longer than the BlackBerry OS, so there's bound to be a bit more software out there. However, any piece of software that I load onto my BlackBerry is totally secure against any sort of virus or data mining. Every peice of software that runs on the BlackBerry must be digitally signed....so some script kiddie can't just write a program that'll copy my address book and email it to some spam house.
Most of the reasons you have are probably not going to applicable to everyone to change. Sure they may be great reasons for you to change from a BlackBerry to a Treo, but they probably aren't going to be reasons for me to change. But people are going to read your reasons and because not all of them are going to be informed reasons (as the VNC, SSH, and Java ones were) they are going to rush out and get a Treo because they are misinformed. So instead of saying "The Treo is the best thing in the world for everyone" why not say "The Treo is going to be perfect for some people, whereas the BlackBerry is going to be better for others"?
And I know I'm guilty of the same thing, but at least I try for the most part to be openminded and understand that they both have their own market and one is NOT going to be the best thing in the world for everyone.
Ok, let's go off on a tangent here...
/., you don't have to have a BlackBerry to have your sig say "Sent from my BlackBerry".
First, common, be original. Last time there was an article about NTP and RIM I'm pretty sure there was the same comment about the BlackBerry just being something for your boss to email from while speeding down the road. And as you can see by the vast number of different sigs here on
That aside, if you are referring to the fact that only execs can afford it, let's take a quick peek at prices here. I can get the newest BlackBerry (8700r) for $499 or I can get the Treo650 from the same provider for $899...hmmmm
I use a BlackBerry 7290 for my cell phone, and it's pretty decent, I can hear the other person, they can hear me (even in noisy environments) and that's good enough for me. Have you happened to have noticed that the BlackBerry is an EMAIL device, not a phone? You cannot tell me that the Treo can do a better job at email. But the new BlackBerry sure does an amazing job at being a phone as well as an email device.
I get an attached doc, xls, pdf, ppt, jpg, gif, txt, etc on my BlackBerry and I have no trouble opening it up and viewing it...so that can't really be considered a death spike.
Obviously your company doesn't take security too seriously if it would rather have every employee using POP to check their email that is sent plain text over the wireless network....as apposed to having a single port open for outbound initiated connections only and full 3DES or AES encryption of messages on the wireless network.
And "technically" you don't even need special software to use a BlackBerry for email (before you pounce, yes it is email only, not attachments or wireless synchronization) because you can use the desktop redirector.
This brings up another point. I'm sitting on the bus, I schedule a meeting with someone, and automagically that meeting is in my calendar at work....or how about being out at a conference and getting someones email address...that contact is now synchronized wirelessly to my contacts at the office.
So, let's see what else people will fire back with....It can't do music. Well, no, but that's what my MP3 player is for, and it sounds a hell of a lot better than ANY pda does.
It doesn't have a camera. No, but then again it also doesn't have a crappy camera. If I need to take pictures I'm going to bring my digital camera instead of the crappy ones I can get from a cell phone or pda...have you seen the quality of most of them?
It doesn't do video playback. That's ok, I don't like watching video on a 2.2" screen anyway....hurts my eyes.
It doesn't have an SD slot. I'm actually up in the air on this one. Given what the BlackBerry actually does, I don't see a need for an SD card. If it did multimedia, then maybe, but then you get into SD or miniSD? What about security? etc.
The point is that not everyone WANTS or NEEDS all the functionality that the Treo offers, and the core components that most people want/need are offered in both.
Why the parent was modded to +4 Interesting is beyond me. Is it because one company switched from BlackBerry to Treo? Was it because of their opinion that the phone calls sounded better on the Treo? or was it the rehashed comment about Execs only using it for the Sig?
Actually, I believe Palm licenses the thumb keyboard from RIM
1 108017219.htm
See the article from Nov 2002 on geek.com
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2002Nov/bpd2002
"They will be accepting your well-thought-out opinions on the web and by mail."
But that doesn't necessarily mean that they will read them or even consider them...just that they will accept your opinionated letter/email.
This whole topic really grinds my gears, but in keeping an open mind about it all, the comments here have brought up a bunch of points.
A lot of people are complaining that NTP has not done anything with the patent, and that in order for it to be valid they should have to have shown that they are working on developing a product that uses said patent....well, they've made a licensing deal with Good Technologies...that looks like they're trying to actually USE the technology in that patent. They are not directly making it, but neither is the initial person who developed the patent and sold it to NTP...which is what a lot of people are saying is ok for the garage based inventor with low cash to do.
So, based on the licensing that NTP has with Good, the patent would be valid in this case...the patent is being used by a company and that company is paying licensing fees.
If you change it to be "the entity that holds the patent must be activly trying to produce a product that uses that patent" because then any individual inventor with a good idea that get's a patent would not be able to sell that patent until they have made thier own product and therefore "validated" the patent. Otherwise it's not a valid patent and therefore cannot be sold.
HOWEVER, this does not give any reason why a company who has infringed on a patent should have to stop doing business. Make them pay restitution, and if they wish to continue providing a service/product, they have to get the proper licensing. And there has to be some way to ensure that the patent holder does not gouge the infringing company or deny them licensing. Because I'm willing to bet that if the judge said "Ok RIM, you lose. Pay NTP $x million and get proper licensing, or stop service" NTP would be like "Good pays us $x/year for licensing, so we want $4*x/year from RIM or you can't get licensing" because RIM has a proven product and large userbase already.
Ok, ending my $0.0144 US rant now. (That's about $0.02 CDN btw).
I'm almost certain the Blackberry is made by a Chinese contract manufacturer, just like everyone else's stuff.
Actually, they are made in Waterloo Ontario (that's up here in Canada eh)....about 500 meters or so from the main core of the campus.
What do you mean no downloadable documentation?i velink.exe?func=ll&objId=8533&objAction=browse&sor t=name
f ormFlow=manufacturerForm&selectProductManufacturer =_77ab8903-1df5-43fc-93f3-7aef59a35ba2
http://www.blackberry.com/knowledgecenterpublic/l
or do you mean from T-Mobile?
http://support.t-mobile.com/productSelector.html?
Which manual do you want?
Does it synchronize after deleting the folder? You know, that one folder that all it does is hold the configuration information...doesn't actually hold the contacts or calendar entries. So who cares if there are 4 entries or 40000.
And if you take a look...it's the same company that makes the sync software for the Palm as for the BlackBerry.
Duplicated calendar entries is usually because of incorrect permissions (note, I said usually, not always).
The reason it's the approved choice of the government is because of security. 3DES encryption while in transmission over the wireless network.
Also has the ability to use S/MIME underneath the 3DES so that when it's travelling on the regular internet traffic, it's still encrypted.
(and yes, I know, you can do S/MIME with the Treo also)
It's data traffic over the cellular network. Think of it this way...do you get to browse the internet all you want on your cell phone for free? You probably have a data plan that let's you do xKb of traffic a month. Same thing, only difference is that you have to have a BlackBerry specific data plan.
You are quite right about it not hitting the tech crowd very much. The BlackBerry is meant to do one thing, and it does that one thing better than any. Email.
The tech crowd want something like the Treo that can do everything.
The business professional just wants rock solid and secure email. And the BlackBerry offers them that.
its not like you can run it from either open sourced stuff or even popular stuff like MS Exchange.
Uhhhh...what? I hope you are not suggesting that it doesn't work with Exchange. It fully integrates with Exchange (this was the first mail server it was built for).
And as for set up, really it's
- Make an an account with x permissions
- Install the server software
- Add user to the server
- Connect BlackBerry to the desktop to register with the mail server.
- DONE!
Without sounding like I'm jumping on one side or the other....
How can anyone take these numbers seriously when you have a) A fresh install of OO.o vs a year old install of MS Office. b) It's not even a clean install of MS Office. He had works installed previously. He's modified the install of MS Office at least once in the past.
And what version of MS Office is being used? What kind of options are installed with it? What kind of configuration options are enabled on either of them? I don't remember having to reboot my computer to install Office on XP...maybe I did at one point, but it would have been for the MS installer updates...which quite possibly could have been needed for a fresh OO.o install on a fresh XP install.
This article could have garnered SOOO much more validity if it was a fresh install of both on a fresh install of XP. I'm sure that OO.o will probably still come out faster, but just how much the difference is...that I don't know.
Why is it so hard for people to do some research? ok, here I go again.
The BlackBerry will integrate totally with the corporate email solution. If you send an email from the BlackBerry and have it show up in your sent items in Outlook (and vice versa). Delete one message from the BlackBerry and it's deleted from the mailbox (and vice versa).
Supports 3DES wireless encryption.
Support for S/MIME.
and browse the web, play games, read e-books and fanfiction, etc.
If one can do it, chances are that the other can do it. Palms are multi purpose, BlackBerry's are secure. Palms pull email, BlackBerry's push email.
'Course, you know what they say about posts and trolls...
Having access to an SD card that can be put into another device is much less secure than removing the flash memory of the device and trying to access that.
I do agree that an SD card can be handy for some applications, but for just email, not that important on my list.
And I'm glad we are on the same page with "A series of justifications cannot make one device objectively better than another for even a majority of circumstances, let alone all."
My post was not to justify the BlackBerry over the Treo/sidekick/set of index cards. It was just to make sure that people know that just about everything that is available on one is available on the other. BlackBerry is more geared towards security and email, the Treo more for multi-purpose functionality.
Image support on the BlackBerry is not native image format. It get's changed to png (I believe), compressed, and sent to the BlackBerry. I'm not totally sure, but I belive the BlackBerry would then need to support png natively. If you try these same images in png format, does that solve the issue?