newBBie.com

Also good to mention here, is if you have an alarm set, the Blackberry will turn on at that time as well to sound the alarm.

Great work by RIM to think of that feature! Thanks for sharing that tip.

I was forced to upgrade to a “smart”phone because they no longer make phones without cameras, mp3 players or foot massagers. The closest thing to a “simple” phone didn’t look very sturdy, so I opted for the other end–a BlacKBerry Pearl 8130.

I have already started to miss my Nokia 2125i. If they still carried them I would have just gotten another one (the vibrate feature my current one no longer works properly).

With the Nokia, I could set it to a tone profile that would expire at a certain time. So every night I would set it to “silent” until the time that I wanted to wake up, and I’d set the alarm for that time as well (the alarm would still go off in “silent” mode, but phone calls and calendar reminders would only flash the screen).

Since I don’t go to sleep or wake up on a consistent or predictable schedule, this was much more useful than one the BlackBerry 8130 seems to offer.

I guess I’m going to have to spend a bunch of time reading your writeup of the tone profiles and jigging around with it myself to try to get as close to what I want.

Cheers,

- RG>

RealGrouchy,
You were probably joking about phones coming with a foot massager, but there’s actually an app you can download for the BlackBerry to turn it into a vibrator (I’m assuming for massage, but am afraid to ask).

RIM should really look harder at some of their competition and realize that there are some cool features they should adopt.

Good luck getting your new 8130 to work the way you want it. Let me know if I can try to help.
Kelly

I’ve found a really annoying bug: if I’ve got two reminders (calendar or to-do list) at the same time and I open the first one, the second one stays on the screen and will not go away without a battery pull. (It is possible that this only happens after I’ve snoozed them once or twice, or if I don’t snooze them as soon as they come up. I have my snooze time set to 30 mins)

Are you aware of this bug? Do you know of any workarounds? Do you know if anyone else has had this bug, and if not, where I can report it to get it fixed?

Sadly, my service provider (Canada > Bell Mobility) was still far behind in its firmware updates, so even if there is a patch, it probably won’t make its way to me anytime soon.

Do you happen to know–if I used a different firmware, would that prevent me from connecting to my SP’s network? (Incidentally, I only use the durn’ thing for voice; no SMS, Data, or BB messenger)

Much appreaciated,

- RG>

Grouch,
Haven’t heard of that particular bug–what a pain!

I haven’t tried it to confirm (so I don’t usually recommend it), but “reliable sources” say that you CAN upgrade your BB OS with that intended for another wireless carrier. I recommend you first read my article on upgrading your OS, just to get the flavor of how the process “should” work:
http://newbbie.com/2008/03/08/how-i-upgraded-my-blackberry-operating-system/. If you decide you want to try an upgrade, leave me another comment and I’ll point you to some good instructions.

Lastly, if you use a BlackBerry, you really should use at least the email features to appreciate the distinctive power your phone has. Don’t want to get you upset, Mr. RealGrouchy, sir, I’m just sayin’…

Thanks, I’ll look into the OS upgrade.

As for BB’s data features, I’m on a voice-only plan because my wireless carrier lied to me and blatantly violated the terms of the service contract I signed, and in protest I am refusing to let them squeeze any more money from me than possible for their overpriced features. I primarily got the BB because my carrier doesn’t sell any decent phone-only phones, and I didn’t want a cheap phone that tried to be a good one.

One can only hope that the recent wireless spectrum auctions will help.

Keep up the ogod work on the blog.

- RG>

Grouchy,
Look here for OS upgrade instructions: http://www.blackberryforums.com/general-8100-series-discussion-pearl/148419-latest-os-8130-os-4-5-0-90-4-5-0-66-multilanguage.html.
Kelly