How to Install MySpace on your Blackberry Bold 9000

Obviously these instructions apply to other Blackberry Models too. I've listed all of the steps that I followed but you can probably skip ahead to the second URL (step 5);

Note that these instructions assume that you already have a MySpace account.

1. Start the Blackberry browser and go to;
   http://www.myspace.com/blackberry
   
   
2. Click Send to My Blackberry.
   
   
3. Fill in your name and your Blackberry email address (it doesn't have to be the same email address you use for Myspace).
   
   
4. After this, you can close the window (Don't bother with the link, just exit the browser).
   
   
5. Your blackberry inbox will soon receive a new email. It contains the second URL I mentioned earlier.
   http://www.blackberry.com/email/myspace2
   
   
6. Click the button marked Download.
   
   
7. Another download button will appear... Click this one too.
   
   
8. A quick Bar Graph will draw and then you can click Ok and close the browser.
   
   
9. Look in the Downloads folder for the App.
   For ease of use, you might want to press the blackberry button on it and choose send to folder, then Home. This will put it on the front screen of your blackberry.
   
   
10. Click on the Icon, then scroll down to the bottom of the disclaimer and click the button marked I Accept.
    
    
11. Enter your myspace email address and password.
    
    
12. You might also want to tick the box marked "Remember Password" and then click Login.
    
    
13. You're In - and you'll see your friends status' updating.

How to Erase a Blackberry Bold 9000

Why would you need to do this?
Sometimes accidents happen. Sometimes you accidentally restore a bit too much of your CEO's old Blackberry 8800 over the top of his new one (and then you re-activate it on the network). Sometimes your CEO mentions to you that he now has four calendar entries... Yep. It happened to me.

Erasing the device without deleting the extra applications allows you to redo the restore and activation tasks properly.


The Procedure

1. Press the Blackberry Button
   
2. Choose Options (Spanner Icon)
   
3. Choose Security Options
4. Choose General Settings
5. Press the Blackberry Button
6. Choose Wipe Handheld from the Popup Menu
7. Click Ok At the Message: Warning all application data will be lost! Message service and other services will be turned off.
8. Make sure that [_] Include third party applications is deselected
9. Click the Continue button
10. type the word blackberry when prompted and press the Enter key.
11. Wait for about 90 seconds while the blackberry whitescreens and reboots
    

Getting Started Again (Setting up for Reactivation)

1. Enter Pin
2. Choose Ok at the Disclaimer message
3. The Setup wizard will start
4. Go to your Blackberry Server. (Remote Desktop?)
5. Start Blackberry Manager
6. Click on the Users tab
7. Locate your person name in the list.
8. Right mouse button on the name and choose Delete user from the popup menu
9. At the prompt "Are you sure you want to delete the selected user?" choose Yes
10. At the prompt "would you also like to remove the profile document and the state database for the selected user(s)?" choose yes
11. Wait a short while for the licensing to sort itself out - unless you've got lots of spares.
12. Create the new user (Right Mouse on some blank space and choose Add User)
13. Pick their name from the list and choose to add them.
14. Right mouse on the user name and choose Set Activation Password
15. Type something simple (eg: a) twice and click Ok
16. You're now ready for normal activation via the handheld.
    

How to load the IBM Lotus Sametime Client onto your Blackberry Bold 9000 (Even if you've only got Blackberry Professional Server)

Blackberry Professional vs Blackberry Enterprise Server
One of my greatest disappointments with RIM's recent "downgrade" of the Blackberry Enterprise Server to a Blackberry Professional Server for small business customers was the loss of Lotus Sametime. When I first read about this, I was really miffed. After all, we hadn't yet got around to using Sametime on the blackberry and they were going to block it.

The other thing that I couldn't understand was exactly how the version of Blackberry Server affected the use of Sametime anyway. After all, blackberry messenger still works and Google Talk works extremely well on the Blackberry. The Blackberry server has no impact on these applications so why should it affect Lotus Sametime.

The answer is I don't know and it doesn't. It certainly doesn't affect Sametime in any way that I can see however perhaps I'm not using all of the features that were once available.

Installing Sametime for the Blackberry
While trying to find this file, I downloaded quite a number of files from IBM's download site including a Swedish version of Sametime which did very little for me, though I admit it did make me crack a smile. As it turns out, the install is very simple and can be done over the wire. [Thanks Gary Wickham for finding it for me]

1. Point your Blackberry browser to the following URL
   http://stmobile.lotus.com
   
   
2. On the next screen choose a language, in my case, English
   
   
3. Choose a device: RIM blackberry 8100/8300/8800 series
   
   
4. Click on the button marked download
   
   
5. Then there is a second download button to push and then the same time download will commence
   
   
6. You will be prompted to give the application trusted status but I guess that if you can't trust IBM then there's probably nobody you can really trust in the computing world. You have to say Yes.
   

Configuring Sametime on the Blackberry

1. When you run Sametime it will come up to a user name and password screen.
   
   
2. You might be tempted to fill this in and see how you go but it's not going to work like this.
   
   
3. Press the blackberry button at this screen and choose connectivity from the menu
   
   
4. The host should be the IP address of your same time server.
   It probably needs to be on the same subnet as your blackberry server but I'm not sure about this since mine already was.
   
   This is probably one of those great times where I should mention that typing numbers on the blackberry while holding the alt key down is a pain in the butt. Instead hold the Alt key down and then press the shift button. The blackberry will lock into Numbers mode and now you can type numbers without holding anything down. When you've finished, just push the Alt button again to go back to normal
   
   
5. The default port is 8082 this didn't work from a but when I changed it to 80 it worked like a charm.
   
   
6. Leave the connection option as direct connection.
   
   
7. Press the blackberry button and choose ok
   
   
8. Now in the user name box you should type your first name and your last name.
   
   
9. The password will usually be your Web client password from the Lotus Notes address book. I'm sure you can synchronise these but I can't remember the reason why I decided not to.
   
   
10. You might want to check same password and also automatically login though I'd recommend that you do a successful login first.
    
    
11. Press the blackberry button and choose log In.
    
    
12. You should now be able to talk to your sametime people on the desktop and on other mobiles.

How to Get those Cool (free) Games like Ka-Glom, Lingo and CirclePopper on your Blackberry Bold 9000

The Problem
The Blackberry bold is going well for me but the one thing that I missed from my 8800 was the game Ka-Glom. It was seriously addictive.

In any case, I figured that I could just go to http://mobile.blackberry.com/ and get them again.. right? wrong...

It seems that the site doesn't properly recognize the Blackberry Bold and as a result, it doesn't offer any games for it.

The Solution
The solution was easier than I expected, you just need to know the full path to the JAD files and enter it into your blackberry browser.

Be warned though, these games can be addictive and if you install all of them, you'll probably run out of space on your blackberry device.

Coping with Change
Also, Blackberry change the links sometimes when they reorganize their site. If the links don't work, find some free games there which DO have working links and then try their URLs with the .JAD file names listed below. You can also do a google search for specific files (eg: KaGlom.jad).

Anyway, without further ado, here are the links.

Ka-Glom
This is definitely my favourite blackberry game. It's very addictive and doesn't take a lot of concentration.

It's ideal for playing while you're listening to eBooks on the device.


http://mobile.blackberry.com/resources/game_catalog/games/4.2.0/8100/KaGlom.jad






Circle Popper
I wasn't particularly interested in this game when I first got it but it gets better and better.

http://mobile.blackberry.com/resources/game_catalog/games/4.2.0/8100/CirclePopper8100.jad






Lingo
Unfortunately, you can't listen to eBooks while playing this one. It requires a little thinking.

http://mobile.blackberry.com/resources/game_catalog/games/88xx_83xx/lingo_blackberry_8800_0.09.11.jad




The same trick seems to work for a few other good free blackberry games but I'm going to omit the pictures so that I don't have to add comments (for space reasons) next to each.

Rooster
This particular game has some minor graphics issues due to resolution changes. It works but I haven't yet figured out how to make the rooster go sideways.
http://mobile.blackberry.com/mss/content/game_catalog/games/8700/Rooster.jad

Medieval Kings 2
This is a Chess Game.
http://mobile.blackberry.com/mss/content/game_catalog/games/colour/MedievalKings.jad

Spider Solitaire
http://mobile.blackberry.com/resources/game_catalog/games/4.2.0/8100/SpiderSolitaire.jad

Bass Assassin
http://mobile.blackberry.com/resources/game_catalog/games/4.2.0/8100/BassAssassin.jad

How to install Opera Mini Web browser on your blackberry bold 9000

The web browser in the Blackberry Bold is very much improved but I've still found a few places where it doesn't work as expected. When that happens, you want a different browser. You want... Opera Mini.

1. Use the web browser to go to
   
   http://mini.opera.com/
   
   
2. Click on the link marked Download Opera Mini.
   The Blackberry bold is currently downloading the OperaMini 8830 version but I've found it to be very compatible. (Had no problems so far).
   
   
3. Choose Download.
   
   
4. You might get a message about the applications signature but this isn't a problem, just a scary message. Click Ok.
   
   
5. Click Ok when the application has been installed.

How to Retain more than a few Blackberry Messages when you Delete and Recreate Users

The Problem
Recently we moved some of our people onto Blackberry Bold. As part of the process, we've had to delete them off the BES Server and re-add them. It's not only their device PINS that have changed. It's also their SIM Cards (as the older cards didn't always support 3G).

I discovered that if you do this, email will still route nicely after activation but the number of past message brought over to the device is quite small.

You won't be able to get all your messages but you can increase the window backwards from 5 days before activation up to a maximum of 14 days.

Here's how to do it.

The Procedure
On Your BES (or in our Case , Blackberry Professional) Server,

1. Start the BlackBerry Manager.
   
   
2. Click on the Tab Marked Home.
   
   
3. In the Tasks box (top left corner), Click the link marked Edit Server Properties.
   
   
4. A Dialog box will appear.
   
   
5. In the left hand panel of this dialog box, click Messaging.
   
   
6. Scroll through the right hand panel of the dialog box to find the section marked Message pre-population.
   
   
7. There are two values here that you should change;
   
   
8. Prepopulation by Message age (This is the number of days backwards from the activation date to populate messages). The maximum is 14. It seems a sensible number to put in (unless your people get lots of messages).
   
   
9. Prepopulation by message count. This is a harder call.. It's the maximum number of messages to retrieve. The server will pre-populate messages backwards until it reaches either maximum, so if your users receive about 10 messages per day (weekends included) then 140 is a sensible number. This means that the guy who has 50 messages per day won't end up with 700 messages on his blackberry. Instead his mail will only go back as far as about 3 days. If you put too many messages on the blackberry, you'll overload the capacity. (and have no room for fun stuff). In any case, the maximum value you can put here is 750.
   
   
10. When you've filled in these two numbers, you can click Ok.
    
    
11. You have to delete and re-add your users for this to take effect.
    

If you want more information on how this works with different versions of the Blackberry Enterprise Server, have a look at Knowledge Base Article KB11632 at the Blackberry Support site.

Changes to Shift+Alt+Delete (Reset) on the Blackberry Bold 9000

I had been fretting recently about the Shift+Alt+Delete keystroke not working on the Blackberry Bold 9000.

For those who don't know about this keystroke, it's essentially the same as removing the battery (ie: a hard reset) but without the hard work associated with it. The blackberry device is very particular about hard resets - and there's often a reason why you need to do one instead of a soft reset (which is just turning the device off and then on again).

In any case, the keys still work but now only the right shift key can be used. I've also heard some users complain that they have to do the key combination twice before it takes effect.

Playing eBooks (in the Correct Order) on the Blackberry Bold 9000

The Blackberry Bold 9000 has gotten a bit more serious about how things are stored on it with the new software.

The Blackberry folder and its special sub-folders (documents, music, pictures, ringtones, videos, voicenotes) have always been there - well, there are a couple of new ones.



Unfortunately now the blackberry media player makes it difficult to play talking books. In particular, it now tends to play everything out of order and it mixes my songs folders up with the talking books folders.

Luckily I've found a solution.

I've now created two folders above my blackberry folder, one for eBooks and one for Talking Books. I can now point my applications MobiPocket eBook Reader and Mobiola xPlayer at those directories.

This means that I can play my talking books using xPlayer and I can play my songs using the Blackberry media player. Even better, I don't have to keep switching from one playlist to another.

How to Install Facebook on your Blackberry Bold 9000

I'm still continuing with the development of a SOE for our corporate Blackberries. Next up, the Facebook application. Sure, I know it's not necessarily "corporate" but I'd rather that IT does a standard install than the users try to do it themselves.

1. Open your blackberry web browser up to
   http://www.blackberry.com/facebook
   
   
2. Choose Download this program.
   
   
3. Scroll through the massive legal disclaimer and choose I Accept then click Next.
   
   
4. Choose Download and wait for the Bar Graph.
   
   
5. You'll be dropped back in your web browser but should find the icon in the downloads folder.