Qmckenna’s Weblog

I know I am supposed to want an iPhone–and truth be told, I do. But I have a contract and it isn’t worth it to me to break it. In addition, there are two ways my Verizon Blackberry Curve kicks the iPhone’s ass–battery life and signal. I had an AT&T phone an age ago–when you thought it was normal to constantly drop calls and that certain parts of the City just didn’t get a cell signal. I’ve almost never lost a call with the Blackberry, and the battery has never run out on me. I don’t try to test how long it will go, but expect it to work until I am ready for personal recharging. I concede that the iPhone has a lot of cool(er) applications. I’m not going to shed any tears because the Blackberry doesn’t have a pull-my-finger application.

After using it for a couple of months I did think of a few applications to add to it:

• Facebook: keep yourself up to date. Free
• Twitter: keep your self updated and be pithy about it. Connect Facebook to Twitter and keep everyone up to date. I got interested in Twitter doing research for SMS text message marketing–really. I still think it is a little wierd to keep people appraised of your daily movements, but I think of it as one way communication–I really don’t care if anyone else reads it. Free
• viigo: provides a bunch of RSS feeds allowing easy access to instant news, weather, traffic etc. It will even collect and send you Craigslist searches if there is something you are on the lookout for. You an customize the feeds and add your own. Free.
• Profiler: I have always had a problem remembering to change my phone profile back to normal after I’ve set it to “quiet”  for a meeting. Profiler allows you to change your phone profile in a number of ways, but I love the ability to let my calendar change my profile. It works with keywords. I connected the keyword “quiet” with the profile of the same name. I set Profiler to change my phones profile to Quiet each time it sees “quiet” in an appointment. When the appointment is over, the phone reverts to normal . $7.95
• PeeKaWho: gives you a little pop-up on screen with some basic information about an incoming mail or text message as it comes in–like Outlook dos on your PC. I think you can also connect phone numbers and photos if you can’t read. I probably wouldn’t have bought it except it was made by the same folks that made my number 1 BB add on. $8.50
• FollowUp!: this is my number 1 BB add on. Here’s the issue: I get a lot of email. Most of it I read and that’s that, but a portion needs to be responded to, requires research or contact with other people–you know; follow up. It’s easy on a PC–a bit more of a chore on a BB. The only native BB strategy is to change those emails back to “unread” and then re-read them at the office where it is easy to respond as required. I wish BB had a follow up option for email. This adds it. It provides a seamlessly integrated menu option called FollowUp! which lets you set  a reminder or a calendar item referencing the original email. Great addition. $3.95
• Crackberry: visit www.crackberry.com for these and other applications–they have some kind of app loader you can download–not sure if you need it.
• MicroSD card. Added a 4 GD card. I put a bunch of music and photos to it before I installed it By the way I found its installation to be counter intuitive. I watched a youtube video about it and probably would have bent the holder if I hadn’t.
• Quality earbuds: I like Shure. The more you spend the better they are. I tried the $500 pair. they were awesome. I am happy with my $100 version.
• iPhone/BB adapter: this gadget lets you use your quality earbuds on calls. It switches between music and phone “instamatically” as the call comes in (pausing the song, by the way).  Something like this: http://shop.crackberry.com/seidio-audio-adaptor-wbuilt-in-mic-and-answer-button/12A45A1557.htm (the one I got has a retracting gizmo as part of it–which I like).

A little time setting it up and my Blackberry now works the way I like it.