newBBie.com

Very informative tips and tricks! I did not know about the fast scrolling for the contact list. Very helpful!

Bull,
I discovered that one by accident. I’ll bet there are lots of unpublished tricks.
Kelly

Thanks Kelly, very helpful, I kept on running into this problem trying to call my bank and figured it was an internal flaw in the design…not so! thanks

toby

Toby,
I’m assuming you meant the “dial letters” trick. Glad you found help.
Kelly

Kelly -

Thanks for the great site!! I am really enjoying reading about all of these ‘hidden’ tips for the Pearl. Got mine a couple of months ago and I’ve done nothing but prowl all of the blogs I can since then. Yours is the most-clearly written and informative one I’ve found so far.

Please keep up the good work!!

Best -

Pete Giancola
Rutland, Vermont

Peter G,
Thanks for the encouragement. Let me know if you find other cool BlackBerry sites (esp. blogs) I might not know about.
Kelly

Kelly,

Great information! I really appreciate all the tips you provide!

-Jae

jae,
I hope to keep adding more tips, so keep coming back.
Kelly

Absolutely fantastic. Just picked up my new 8130 and already your tips are making it even better. Thanks!

Rob,
Nice to hear the tips are helping somebody.
Kelly

Kelly,

As I continue to use my 8130, I have found that I really like the calendar in “weekly view”. In weekly view, you can highlight any blocked time and the appointment details appear at the bottom of the screen, very handy for filling in appointments that are several days forward.

Unfortunately, I cannot figure out how to set that as the default view when I enter the calendar. It’s set to daily view. Do you know if you can configure that?

Yes, as you can see, my expectations are high for cinfigurability:-)

Bob

Bob,
I can’t find a way to configure that. Sorry. I’ve assumed that configurability was often dropped in favor of memory space for the BB OS. Probably a reasonable compromise.
Kelly

Hi,

Great tips!

@ Bob, I have found a way to set default view in calendar:

-Open Calendar, and select options in the menu
-select “general options” scroll to “view”
-set initial view to “weekly”, click menu button, and select “save”
-all should default to weekly as you desire!

Cheers!

-Scott

Scott,
Thanks for alerting Bob and me to that solution. I guess when I saw the words “General Options” I misinterpreted that as a heading for the page, not a link to click. There are LOTS of configuration settings there. Great find!
Thanks,
Kelly

Kelly,

I just got my phone yesterday and I am so glad I found this site. The user guide isn’t very helpful at all and I am so lost with this phone. I recieved a picture message from a friend – on my previous phone I was able to download the picture right from the message screen – I can’t seem to find an option to do this on my BB. I don’t know if it’s because the message screen isn’t HTML friendly or because it’s SMS and not MMS. If so, how do I get into the MMS screen? I’m so lost. Please help!

Peaceful,
When I receive a pix (MMS) message, I can do two things: (1) immediately go into the Media application, scroll to Pictures, and it’s there already saved for me (in my case, on the Media Card; without a Media Card it would go to Device Memory), or (2) scroll over the image that shows up in my message (it becomes highlighted), press Menu key, and select Save Image–in which case I can rename it and/or decide where to save it.

If it comes in as an email with an attached image, I can press Menu key, select Open Attachment (it will open from where it was automatically saved). There are actually other options I could go into on this.

Keep in mind that SMS is text-only and limited to 160 characters: no media allowed. MMS allows text and/or media. And, of course, email is text with optional attachment of virtually any file type.

That’s more than you wanted to know, and I actually held back to keep it short. If you want to experiment, you can actually send yourself a picture and play with the various ways you can see and/or save the image.

Don’t feel like you have to master your BlackBerry right away. I started this blog back in late November partly to record what I learned as I learned it (I have a terrible memory and need to write things down). I’m STILL learning and have a lot LEFT to learn. Readers may think I’m some kind of guru, but I’m still learning like the rest of you. Many of my answers to questions from readers I have to figure out myself before I answer their questions.

If you keep coming back and asking questions, I’ll help as best I can. Some problems take a couple of exchanges to help me understand enough to answer.
Kelly

Kelly,

Thank you so much for your help. The problem I think I’m experiencing is that I don’t seem to have MMS on my phone. I have Picture Mail through Sprint – but that means accessing the website from the phone to retrieve a picture that’s been sent to me – far too complicated a process. I would love to be able to receive a picture message and open it up to see the picture, but that’s something I’ll need to talk to Sprint about I think.

When I try to send a pix message the only option it gives me is to email it. I wonder why my BBP wouldn’t have the MMS option when I have the service from my provider?

I am a little frustrated because this phone is much more complicated that I am used to – the profiles for ringtones, the excess menu options, the lengthy processes you have to go through to do something that seems like it should be very simple.

I experienced already that hourglass problem AND the dropped texts and I’ve had my phone active for 2 days. The alarm didn’t go off this morning as it was set to do because there was a background program running. It’s a cumbersome little device.

Your blogs and all the questions and answers that are on this site are very helpful and I would have probably taken it back yesterday had I not found you. It seems silly we have to have a web page dedicated to figuring out a cell phone. I’m going to trudge through it though, for a little while longer at least. I finally got the multi-tap text method to work, which helped me feel a little better.

Thanks again!

Peaceful,
Your comment jogged my memory: I learned a while back that Sprint has taken the unusual action of disabling MMS on their phones, similar to how Verizon (my provider) disabled the internal GPS. It’s all about squeezing a few more dollars out of us. (See Sprint comments 49 and 50 at http://blackberry8130.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/text-messages-email-call-logs-disappearing-insufficient-application-space-keep-getting-a-tumbling-hourglass/) So, I gave you some irrelevant advice–sorry!

Far be it from me to advise you to return your Pearl, but only YOU know what you want from your phone, and there is no ONE phone that is perfect for everyone. If there’s someone trustworthy back at the store where you bought your phone, it’s worth going back and chatting with them about your experiences. Maybe there IS a better choice in phones for you.

However, if you want to stick with the Pearl and work through the issues you have with it, I’m pretty sure you can learn to love it. Kinda like what you have to do in a marriage sometimes.
Kelly

I repeat what others have said – Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Yours seems to be the only good resource on the web that can explain how things work.

I have two questions:

1. When viewing photos in the Media – and you open one – is there a shortcut to view the next or previous photo – without having to escape back to the thumbnails and open the next one?

2. More complicated. Have had the phone for approx a week – and having severe difficulties getting the Desktop manager operational. I first loaded it directly from the CD that accompanied my phone – ignoring the option to go to the website and get an updated version. It loaded, I added my device – it connected and I was successfully able to link and synch with Outlook. Couple days passed and I was ready to tackle pictures and music. But I looked at my desktop manager – and there was no Media Manager like in the picture. I went to the website – saw a version to download with media manager. So I uninstalled the version I had – but made the mistake of not deleting the personal data. Installed the new version successfully – but wouldn’t connect to my phone. No device detected. In hardware – Device manager – i had a error on device driver – clicked on “fix” and it came back with the msg that I had the correct driver. Have uninstalled everything – including personal data – and reinstalled several times – same thing. Then I thought I would delete the current device driver -and reinstall. Now it doesn’t even show up in my hardware list.

I’m at a loss. Can you point me in the right direction?

Much thanks

Jill,
You’re too kind about my blog, but I do work hard to make my info easier to understand than those “expert” BlackBerry forums.

1. Here are some camera shortcuts:

Next/Previous: Click trackball, select Next/Previous, click again. Or, click trackball, press N/P key, click again.

Delete key: deletes picture.

2. Oooh, that’s a nasty problem. I’m not sure which device driver you’re referring to. Hope that’s not important. A generic approach I use is like this:
- If it’s not too late, back up the phone entirely.
- Uninstall Desktop Manager. Reboot for good measure.
- Uninstall Device (or Handheld) Software (if you ever installed it–you didn’t say so; this isn’t truly a device “driver”). Reboot for good measure.
- Download latest Desktop Manager (English/Media Manager). Install it. Reboot for good measure.
- Download latest Device Software [a.k.a., Handheld Software or Operating System]. Install it. Reboot for good measure. (this may be a step you never did before–it’s important but left out of all instructions by every wireless provider, to their shame and disgrace).
- Reboot your phone by removing battery, waiting a while, then replacing battery. It takes a few minutes to come back to life completely.
- Reconnect phone to computer using USB cable. Ignore any window that might pop up, or simply close it.
- Start up Desktop Manager, give it a minute to find and connect to the phone.
- See what works.

I’ve had to do the above a few times, never really knowing what messed up in the first place. I think Desktop Manager is just kinda flakey. Lots of people complain about the Media Manager. I hardly use it.

If you hit a snag, let me know. If everything works, please let me know, too, so I’ll have greater confidence in my procedure.

Kelly

Thank you once again for this site. It truly has helped me. I do have one question. I have had issues with the call log on my phone. There have been times where I want to call someone I have in the call log, I push the call button and it doesn’t work. I’ll try clicking on the call log icon and that wont work either. It seems to get stuck. After attempting to click the call log either way the trackball won’t move unless I push the end button. I returned my first phone (after 2 weeks) because I thought there was a problem with it, but my second phone just did the same thing. I turned the phone off and turned it back on and it worked.

I’m just wondering if anyone else has had this problem. Is my phone defective or am i doing something to make it act up like that? Any info would help.
Thank you!

Adriana,
There are numerous reports of a trackball getting “stuck,” usually due to its needing to be cleaned. But your symptom doesn’t sound like that (for example, clicking the End key makes it work).

When you say the trackball won’t click or won’t move, do you mean it PHYSICALLY won’t click or move, or do you mean it physically clicks or rolls, but nothing happens on the screen when you do?

In any case, I don’t know of anything that could explain this, nor could I find any clues on the web.
Kelly

Kelly,

I’m having a lot of the same problems Peaceful had: hourglass, dropped texts, dropped call log, dropped emails, alarm not going off. I thought it was because I needed a memory card so I bought a 2gb sandisk to increase my memory. It says all I have to do is insert it and go on about my normal use. Well I’m still having the same problems. I thought the ringtone I downloaded from my iTunes was the problem and so I deleted the song until my card came in the mail. Well I put the song back on and basically I have no clue what I’m doing this phone is so much more complicated than any phone I’ve ever had. Any advice you have would be great thanks! PS thanks for explaining tips really well because the other forums went right over my head!

Caroline

Caroline,
Sadly, adding a Media Card only gives you extra room to store music, pictures, ringtones, etc. It can’t be used as memory for programs or program data.

You are one of thousands having this kind of problem, so take comfort in your company, if you can. Read this article: http://blackberry8130.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/text-messages-email-call-logs-disappearing-insufficient-application-space-keep-getting-a-tumbling-hourglass/.

To check your free memory, do Options > Status, and read the value for “File free.” If you’re having problems, it’s probably a small number. A “good” number is way up in the millions (megabytes).

If your “File free” is low, for immediate relief, remove your battery, wait 10 seconds, them replace it. It’s not hard to do, and you won’t hurt anything. After your phone comes back to life (takes a few minutes), repeat the check for “File free” and you should see lots more free memory. You’ll need to read that article I mentioned to get a better understanding of what’s going on. The most common mistake that new Pearl owners is not properly closing out applications (Home Screen icons) that they click and run. Learn how to close them properly, and make that a habit.

Let me know how you do with all that.
Kelly

Thanks! I also read on in your blog to find the same thing you just posted! Thanks again!

I am a brand new Blackberry owner. Can I manage my calendar from my desktop manager? Help!!
TL

Terri,
There should be a way by doing an export from Calendar to a CSV file that could be edited using Excel. But I can’t get the export to work using my computer. Not sure why just yet.
Kelly

Terri,
I discovered why my Calendar wouldn’t export to a CSV file: my use of Google Sync apparently had caused the entry of a “corrupt” calendar entry. I read on RIM’s web site that Desktop Manager’s synchronization (of anything, not just Calendar) will fail if it finds a corrupt entry. I cleared out my Calendar and reentered some events, and it exports just fine. So, I could use that exported CSV file to manage my calendar in Excel–using the same technique described in my article about managing contacts using Excel.
Kelly

When I am typing all letters are getting typed instead of numbers. I am not able to call anybody
Can you please help me

Thanks

prashant,
I don’t know how that could happen. Is it possible your ALT key is stuck? No matter what the case, I recommend you pull the battery, wait 10 seconds, and replace the battery. See if that fixes it.
Kelly

Hi Kelly-
I’ve had the Pearl 8130 for under a week and I love your website. It’s great. But I am having a problem with the address book and I was hoping for your help. I synced Outlook Express and retrieved 48 contacts. Then I click on address book and there’s nothing but a banner thats says, “No addresses”. I go to Options> Sort By > Last Name > Save and then the contacts appear. I click on another app and come back to address book and nothing there again. Am I missing a setting a step? I could try upgrade to 97 from 60.

Mike Johnston
(805) 714-9858

Mike,
I haven’t done syncing with Outlook, but I’m wondering if the contact information got into the correct fields. For example, I once had a problem where last names got put in the middle name field. You could try exporting your Address Book (using the ASCII Importer/Exporter) top a CSV file, opening it in Excel, and check it visually. You may also have a blank entry that, when sorted a certain way, rises to the top, and when seen by your phone, it thinks it’s the END of the contacts.
Kelly

Hi again Kelly..
I tried to do as you suggested but with no results. So….. I went ahead and upgraded to 97 since I was eventually going to do that anyway. Thanks to your site, upgrade went flawlessly and corrected my problem with the address book.

But now my latest task is getting the media card recognized. I took my 2gb card out of my old LG 8300 and tried it in my new Pearl and I can record new video and view the former videos with no problems but cannot read music or see picture files. Any ideas?

Mike

Mike,
I’ve gotten that question about media cards a lot but no one has ever returned to tell me if my suggestions worked or not.

One thing I’ve noticed with my media card is that if I remove it, add some media to it, and plug it back into the phone, it can be a LOOOOONG time before the phone ever “sees” the content on the card. It’s like it needs time to examine the entire file system on the card and rebuild some directory structure or something like that. One could mistakenly conclude that the phone was not “seeing” the media card (the way people often word it when they ask me what’s wrong).

One trick you might not know about is to open Media, click the Menu key, and select Explore. You can explore Device or Card Memory much like Windows Explorer on a computer.

If you can record and view videos from the card, the card must be formatted OK. Make sure you’re not fooling yourself and storing videos in Device Memory and thinking they’re actually on the card.
Kelly

Kelly- I found the Explore key and will continue to work on this. Thank you for your help and I will be sure to report back once I manage to correct this….

Mike

Does anyone know how to use the keyboard once connected to a call to “Dial by Last Name”? Ex. I dial a firm and the auto attendant indicates to Dial by last name press 8. When I press 8 I cannot enter the last name as the keyboard does not match the traditional layout that the auto system is expecting i.e. that abc corresponds to #2 etc. Thanks.

noeli,
Although I haven’t tried it myself, I’m told that if you use the same technique described in this article (hold ALT and press the letter key–using multitap to choose which letter), the BlackBerry will dial the correct tones just like you need it to. And, yes, I’m told it works even in the scenario you describe–after a call has been initially dialed. Please try it and return to confirm or deny that this works.
Kelly

I am having the same problem as Adriana with the call log. Basically, I can’t call out by going to the call log. I scroll to the call log and click but nothing happens. It does appear to be “stuck” the only way to get the track ball to go up or down on the screen again is by the end button, and then you can move on to something else. You also can not access the dialing by pushing the green call button. I can only call out by going through the address book, so if they are not in my address book I am out of luck. I’ve had my pearl for about a month, and this problem just began yesterday.

Adriana – Try taking out your battery and putting it back in. After turn the phone off and on several times with no luck, I took out the battery and now the call log seems to be working fine.

Joy,
Sounds like you encountered a software bug that could only be cleared up by a reboot.
Kelly

Hi Kelly,
Your site is very helpful. But…..I’m trying to figure out how to assign speed dials above 9 on my Blackberry Pearl? I see that there are 4 symbols below the 9 on the speed dial list. I’ve assigned all of those and then when I try to assign a speed dial the phone goes back to the number 1. In other words, it seems that this phone will not allow any more than 13 speed dials. BIG BUMMER! I’ve had the same 25 or so speed dials on my other cell phones for about 6 years. I use them constantly and much prefer doing that than going to contacts and selecting or using voice dial. I have even contacted Verizon and they are stumped. Can you offer any insight? Most phones allow up to 99 speed dials.
Thanks for having this site.
DH

dhcowgirl,
Sorry, but you are limited to the speed dial keys listed when you do Phone > View Speed Dial List.

The next closest thing to Speed Dial is that when you think of a contact you want to dial, press the keys that represent the initials of their first and last name. Your phone will bring up a list of names that match those initials. You can do this right from the Home Screen, so there aren’t too many clicks required.

You can also just start typing part of their first or last name, and the phone will keep listing all matches until you stop typing. SureType works while you’re doing this, and it works better than you might expect.

Please give the above a try and see if it’s not a pretty good alternative to Speed Dial. Some would argue that it’s better because you don’t have to memorize speed dial numbers.
Kelly

Kelly,

Thank you for this site. I’ve had my Pearl for about a week now and for the first 2 days I was ready to throw it across the room. Now I’m liking it, but there are still so many functions I haven’t figured out. I never even thought of the whole letter dialing issue! I’m going to go back and read more in depth – I came here because I was looking for an easy way to scroll up and down, which I found. You are a godsend!

Klay,
I’m glad you are liking your Pearl more now. I’ve had some VERY frustrated readers in the last few days. I know how it feels. Come back and ask for help before you get too frustrated again.
Kelly

hioya ive got this lg u8130 phone that ive had for sum time nw.the thing is last year i was havin problems with it.the phone kept turning off until it reached a point were it wouldnt cum bak on.i had sum personal pictures and video clips on there that i want back but dnt kno wt to do.can u help me please?

singh,
The LG u8130 is not the same as the BlackBerry 8130 (that this blog is mostly about). But my answer would be the same–it sounds like your battery is bad. You can find inexpensive batteries on the Internet. I’d try a new battery. Let me know how that works out for you.
Kelly

hi, I have a Blackberry 8100, originaly it was a tmobile phone, I unlocked it and I m using it in Europe(orange) now the problem is every time I m calling a contact from may contact list the phone adds a 1 (for US) and the call wont work. any ideas how to solve this? i tried everything. thanks

Kelly,

Thanks for all your tips! I really appreciate your blog…

I recently got the Blackberry Pearl….I’m all new in the smart phones world…and I love it! But it drives me crazy that my call log, email and text messages log gets cleared by itself. I’ve been playing with the settings but it seems is not working. I just sent a text message and after it went through it disappeared from the log.

What am I doing wrong? Is there any specific setting I need to do so I don’t loose my logs?

Thank for any help on this.

Wanda,
It happens to everyone. You need to read this article: http://blackberry8130.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/text-messages-email-call-logs-disappearing-insufficient-application-space-keep-getting-a-tumbling-hourglass/.

If you have any questions, come back and ask. This is a lesson we’ve all had to learn.
Kelly

@Chris,
You need to change the country code from USA to wherever you are now. Do Phone (or Call Log) > (press Menu key) > Options > Smart Dialing, and set the right number for Country Code.

Let me know if you have more problems.
Kelly

Thanks for the tips. I have one question. How do you dial letters during a call? For example, you make a call and you get a directory where you have to enter the last name of the person you’re trying to reach. Thanks.

mark,
I think it works just like explained in the article above: You hold down the ALT key and press the keys that spell out the person’s name. The phone figures out which tones to send, just like you were dialing from an old-fashioned phone. If you discover that doesn’t work, please return to let me know.
Thanks,
Kelly

Please Help!

I am doing a demo on the Blackberry 8820. One of the people doing a demo on the phone returned it to me today. When you click the trackball or the back button it brings up the Call Log. Is there someway to chang the funcitons of the trackball or back button?

Something got messed up with your phone. Do a battery pull: remove, wait replace, wait. Should fix. Let me know.

Hi Kelly,

I have tried that several times. That does not seem to work. Any other ideas? I even left if out over night last night and still the same problem.

Bill,
Either the phone has become defective (hardware, maybe keyboard/trackball interface) or the operating system is corrupted. If it were me, I’d wipe the phone and reinstall the operating system. If it still failed the same way, I’d know the phone needed to be replaced.

Instructions to wipe the phone and reinstall the OS is too long to put in one of these comments. Read this article and see if it’s something you would want to try: http://blackberry8130.wordpress.com/2008/03/08/how-i-upgraded-my-blackberry-operating-system/.

Let me know.
Kelly

That darn call log, message, etc. deletion has been bugging me for weeks but I didn’t want to be “that guy” and call the store. Thanks alot for the help!

HI, I CAN NOT GET MY BLACKBERRY PEARL 8130 TO RECORD A VIDEO, AND I HAVE A MEMORY CARD IN IT WHAT CAN I DO? PLEASE HELP

Carla,
What is happening to make you say you can’t get your 8130 to record a video? Are you getting an error message? If so, what’s it say?
Kelly

Bless your heart. I figured out how to add the speed dial but not how to use it. Your tips taught me how and I thank you!

Karen, thanks for the kind words. Kelly

Thank kelly for all this valuable info. But I have a new question after making a call (during the call) how can I use speed dial to dial a number, lets say a pin i’ve put in the speed dial. Thanks.

wadib,
Speed dial works a little differently depending on the BlackBerry model and version of operating system. But generally, if you are at the Home Screen and hold down a key (well, certain keys) long enough, your BB will ask if you want to assign a speed dial phone number to it. Another way is to press the Send key, then Menu key, and look for a menu option for viewing or adding to the speed dial list.

You mention a PIN in speed dial. I think you’re referring not to a BlackBerry PIN but a PIN you might want dialed to access voicemail or something like that. I’ve tried but it seems you cannot get speed dial to work once you’re connected, to say voicemail. But what you can do, using the example of voicemail again, is to program your voicemail phone number to include several “Pauses” after the phone number, and have the pauses followed by the PIN digits. Pauses are added using the Menu key while you are actively editing/entering a phone number. I think each pause inserted represents a 2-second delay. You would need to experiment to get the total pause interval just right.

Hope that answered your question. Let me know.
Kelly