8/2/2019 My Blackberry Experience

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 My BlackBerry Experience

OK, I often hear of folks who “love” their BlackBerry… well I certainly appreciate my BlackBerry,but it sleeps in a separate room with it ring tone muted so it doesn’t wake my wife – I, on the other

hand, could easily sleep through a nighttime ring.

Honestly, I resisted the move to a Smartphone simply because the cost of cell phones/service hasbecome ridiculous in my opinion – it’s just a phone! The social phenomenon seems excessive and theemotion attached to the cell phone and their role in society today, to me, seems misplaced or at thevery minimum, exaggerated.

That said, as a real estate consultant, I have found the BlackBerry very useful in my business.

Hooray for AutoText: This little feature, which is essentially a spellchecker or more accurately a auto

typer, allows me to type in short text and it automatically expands it to a full word or even a wholeemail. For instance, I type “shw “ and it expands the text of an email to solicit feedback fromshowing email notices I receive from Supra. Quick, easy and efficient using a few clicks of thekeyboard. Of course when I mistype, it comes in as a spellchecker – not to be confused with theactual Spell Check which has it’s own Dictionary and you can add words to the Custom Dictionary.

Speaking of Supra… I subscribe to eKey Pro and have done so since I started using my old SonyClie PDA as a LockBox key many years ago. While the BlackBerry does not have an IRDA port tocommunicate with the LockBox (ala some Palm devices, SIGH) the BB does the same thing viaBlueTooth and the use of a small “Fob” device to accomplish the communication. The added benefit

of eKey Pro, in addition to opening the LockBoxes, is having the additional features on theBlackBerry to look up properties (once you configure your market area), search the Agent Roster ormanage your LockBox Settings or Showings - all very handily. The property search is muchsimpler and faster than using the CVRMLS Wireless Tempo access via the Internet. The Kurioupdate for accessing CVRMLS is more extensive for accessing properties, but I’ve kept eKey Pro foragent searches & quick checks. [8/11]

Why the Tour model… (see later update) I selected the Tour because it had the keyboard input and thescreen was a higher resolution than some of the other BB phones. I was also hesitant over thenegative experiences of the Storm when it first came out, although I understand those issues have

settled down - the tactile input would have been nice – I miss that feature. In addition the newerStorm 2 has Wi-Fi which would be a welcome addition to enhance speed when Internet surfing or onthe airplanes that offer Wi-Fi in flight. The new VZW BB Bold (9650) - (not to be confused withthe other 97xx Bold) - also has Wi-Fi. I’ll move to the 9650 later this year or perhaps the Torch ifVZW gets it so I can have Wi-Fi. Now we have the Bold, 9930, and the Torch, 9850/60 to choosefrom…

Email access: Yes I appreciate email access, both business and personal emails are duplicated on myphone and that has been a plus to see alerts I would have had to wait to see without email access on the

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 BB. I still rely on my Outlook on my Laptop to truly manage my emails and any emails sentfrom my BB are duplicated to Outlook for record/filing purposes. One nice feature too is the abilityto Filter out certain emails, thus minimizing the number of emails coming to the BB device. Bylogging onto my service provider’s (VZW) BB Email Server I created a Filter to exclude all theTempo “Prospect” emails I get each night – 20 to 100 at times – and thereby reduce the clutter on my

BB. Filters allow you to exclude or include email subjects, addresses, etc so it has a number of usesto help manage emails on the BB.

Mortgages: Clients often want to know the effect of various loan scenarios on their monthlypayment for a purchase price, etc and on my old Sony Clie I used “Tri-Loan” which workedexceptionally well. While that program is now defunct (sigh), “powerOne” is a nice alternative anddoes an excellent job of calculating PI and PITI as well – a table input would have been nicer (akaTri-Loan.)

Maybe one of the things that I have found most beneficial, but use infrequently, is the ability to use

the BB as a modem for my Laptop. There are occasions when I don’t have access to an ISP – eitherWi-Fi or Ethernet. On those instances, I can use software that allows the BB to be used as a modemthat is free of monthly fees because it uses the phone’s data service. The small fee for the software isvery reasonable. “Tether” is the software (formerly TetherBerry) and does a nice job providingDownload speeds in excess of 1 Mb/s which is adequate for Internet access and checking email.While VZW charges for this service if you use their official offering for the phone, or if you buy thewireless card version for your Laptop, I find that I need it so seldom that it’s just not cost justified tobuy either service from VZW. Therther Bridge is another good alternative and VZW is softeningsome on this by allowing you to turn their tethering on and off when needed so you only pay forwhat you use – be better to just roll it in and forget it, Ha.

Texting: I’m not a big texting person, but my daughter/son said “if you want to talk to me, text!”Well, I do text on occasion and on occasion she/he texts me back… sigh. On the business side, I onlyuse this occasionally, but it is helpful with some agents or clients.

Camera: The 3 Mp camera on the BB Tour is good. The key to any camera is the lens and the one inthe BB Tour is adequate. I have actually used my BB’s photos for my listing Factsheets andVisualTours. I would not recommend relying on the BB’s camera routinely, but is does come inhandy for the occasional documentation photo or a stopgap photo. Of course, for family fun et al it’sgreat. As is the video capability – I videoed my daughters performance with her professional dancecompany last November when we visited Oregon.

Docs To Go: I did upgrade the free version of BB’s Doc’s To Go to the purchased version to enhance theability to view PDF’s, etc. This is probably a minor issue and I am generally not one to load up adevice with extra software – no reason to overload these small devices when editing files, etc should beleft to the PC. Rim now includes this.

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 Speaking of overloading, the BB came with a lot of surplus languages, etc which can be deletedusing the Desktop Manager software, thus freeing up a lot of memory and should provide a cleaner,more reliable device operation.

Who ya gonna’ call… I configured the Desktop Manager to sync with Outlook 2003 on my laptop –

so now my 2000+ contacts are on my phone along with my calendar, et al. I configured resolutionof any conflicts to be “won” by Outlook (since I rely on my Laptop/Outlook to be my default forrecord keeping/archival.) This has worked well for me. When my wife calls, her photo is in herOutlook profile, so her picture pops up on my screen and I know to answer the call… when mybroker’s photo pops up, I can press “ignore” – sorry Andy.

Yes, on occasion I check FaceBook on the BB, but I generally leave that, and the other Internetsurfing, to my Laptop where I can more easily see the screen – 480 x 320 pixels is still too small formy old eyes. I no longer Tweet on Twitter and only do that on my PC - mainly to stay in touchwith the kids… Other Apps I have found handy are – The Weather Channel, Dictionary.com and

QuickLaunch… again, these devices have relatively small capacity/horsepower, so why load them upunnecessarily. See other apps at the end…

Yes, I like my BlackBerry, probably waited too long to upgrade to a smart phone and still shouldhave waited for the Wi-Fi version, but it has been helpful – not a major social experience as theadvertising hype would have you believe, but then I’m a little too practical I guess! It is what it is, assome would say.

Update: [4/11] Well, I’ve been using the BB Tour for almost a year & half now. It’s held up well –several drops on concrete and too many to remember other places and no real damage. Oh I did

scratch the screen and “it takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.”

I have submitted to adding a few small Apps from BB App World which have proven beneficialwithout sacrificing too much space or bogging the device down. BuddyGuard is one addition whichallows me to sleep at night – using this software you can send a text message (or an email) with acommand which sounds an alert and locks the phone – useful in the event you misplace or lose yourphone. You can even send a code which will totally wipe your data… like I said peace of mind stuff.

Another App I mentioned before, that I like is The Weather Channel – I use it for the radar to decidewhether my tennis match will be a go or no-go. There are more sophisticated Apps, but this one morethan satisfies my needs and is free.

Doctionary.com is invaluable to me as an engineer – everyone knows what poor spellers we are andeverything isn’t in BB spell check.

Periodically, your carrier will send you a note to update the OS, usually via the Desktop Manager – Iknow these are often good, but will mention to wait until you have time to sort out any “issues” thatmight crop up after the upgrade. Don’t try to do it on the fly.

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 I also have dabbled with the BB Theme Studio and adjusted my Theme with a Tennis alert and myVA Tech Background. Personal touches.

Well that’s all I know and again, I am very satisfied with my Tour although as I mentioned before,will upgrade to Wi-Fi next go around via the 9650 (aka VZW BB Bold) or maybe even the new

Torch, which offers both touch screen and the BB keyboard.

My Home Screen on my BB…

…fun with MiniPaint App 

Hokie Hi!

Thinking of buying a new phone? Visit…

http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/cell-phones/compare/?submit=Compare+selected+products  …to compare models and specification.

To check Supra compatibility, visit…http://www.gesecurity.com/GESecurity/Real%20Estate/current_devices.pdf 

8/21/11 Well, with the recent new BB phones on the market this summer, I finally decided toupgrade to get the WiFi I wished I’d had long ago and look forward to the faster processor for quickerbrowsing. The BB 9930 Bold looks to be my choice - Check back here to see how it goes….

9/21/11 Ordered my BB 9930, Bold, through Costco to get best price and comes with a car charger.Delivery was supposed to be two day air, which stretched to 5 because it wasn’t shipped untilThursday and of course no weekend delivery. Took two days between working, chores and all to getit set-up completely. I choose to set it up from scratch rather than using the Desktop ManagerWizard – felt the OS difference and App might not transfer 100%.

Impressive speed increase, 5 Mp camera, and the “Touch” screen works great and is almost twice theresolution of the old Tour. About 5 Apps were “not available” for the 9930/OS 7, but nothing

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 critical. Biggest learning curve is the change in where to look for what. OS 7 is organized slightlydifferently and I’m still learning that. Change is change and all so far seems to be for the good.

My kids still think I’m crazy for not going with the iPhone, but variety is the spice of life andsometimes it’s more satisfying not being part of the herd.

1/20/12 Gloria decided to jump into the SmartPhone arena and got a Droid Bionic which is veryimpressive. Next phone I look at will either be a BB 10 OS or one of the Androids. BTW… BB OS7.1 includes the option for a HotSpot, but eKey is not compatible, so I’m waiting until that’s fixedbefore updating.

APPs as of 01/29/12…

Ace 3 D Pool xAP Mobile x

BB News Feeds xBB Music xBB Podcast xBB TrafficBejeweledBeWeatherBlackBerry Protect * (I also use BuddyGuard) BuddyGuard Pro *CAMultimateCB-LauncherCNNMoney xContaxx * not OS 7DailyCrossword xDictionary.com not OS 7DilbertDocuments To Go DataViz *

DriveSafe.ly ProDropBox *eKey (Supra Lockbox)FacebookFancy Speed TestGoogle Maps *Hokie All AccessICEIconifyiHeartradio x not OS 7iSpeech TranslatorKey Ring Rewards CardsKurio (Web link for Real Estate) MenuClock *Message Prevue *MiniPaintMyVerizon

Nobex Radio Premium xOne Touch Launcher x (use QuickLaunch) One Touch Flashlight x (use BuddyGuard/QuickLaunch instead)

PDF Scanner *Photo Editor ProPhoto Editor UltimatePowerOne not OS 7, but worksPoynt *QuickLaunch *Real Estate Powered by… xScanLife Barcode ReaderScreen Grabber Pro x (use QuickLaunch instead) shootit

Slide2Open ProTether *

Tetherbridge xTwitterUnit Converter PremiumVlingoWeather ChannelWikitudeWWBT NBC12 News xyoMotion Adv CalculatorXfinity mobile x not OS 7

x indicates I removed it – either didn’t need, seldom used, etc.

* indicates what I think is a “must have”