Archive for Software
My Top 5 Blackberry Bold Apps
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The battle for top Smartphone has been underway for some time now, with iPhone’s latest 3G S and of course the Blackberry Bold 9000. I’ve test driven both phones and find them to be, in my opinion, the top two on the market today (sorry Palm Pre fans). These all-in-one devices are basically PDA-phone hybrids that are customizable to numerous configurations, depending upon what you need them to do.
I’ve been on Blackberry phones for years now and have established a comfort level with their usage that makes it a difficult decision to go with Apple’s 3G S, although they are no doubt, really fantastic phones.
So, having given the iPhone it’s props, I will move on to a few of my favorite apps on the Blackberry Bold 9000.
This music streaming radio resource is a fantastic addition to your Smartphone toolkit, as it allows you to create your own stations. Simply enter the name of your favorite artist and Pandora will not only start off with that selection, but will play only music that is similar in style and composition to your entry.
Create several stations and you have a treasure trove of music. I’ve created only four stations (out of the allowed 100) and seldom use more than one, as it plays music as if it were reading my mind and mood. Unreal!
This is also a great way to build a library of music, as you identify what you may not have in your collection. Just make a note of various selections and artists.
I must warn you however, this can be additive and if you don’t have an unlimited data plan, you may be in for a higher monthly bill than you had anticipated.
Create an account and enjoy this free service, which launched in 2005. There is also a paid version which provides additional features, but I would have to wonder why the free version was not enough for anyone. You will get 1 or 2 ten-second ads per hour, which only serves to remind you that your iPod is not what’s been playing.
This is a free Twitter client for the Bold 9000 which allows you to update your feed without any text messaging charges. You’ll also have access to your public and friends timeline right from the Blackberry Bold desktop. A really great app.
What can I say? No Smartphone is complete without a couple of social media apps, and Facebook is a must for social hounds like me. With this baby you can post on walls, accept friends and even upload photos. Keep in touch and up to date while away from your office or home base.
Yep, another freebie with a ton of features and functions. This app is specifically designed for Blackberry users. It even shows you where you are according to GPS or cell towers, depending on what’s available at your current position. See your position on a map, even if you don’t have the GPS service active. You’ll get basic map functionality, including a zoom feature. Cool stuff.
Visit the site and enter your mobile phone number, the download link will be sent to you for easy installation.
Opera Mini is a slick mobile browser that allows you to view web video and has blazing speed, loading pages really quickly. What makes this browser so fast is it’s ability to compress web pages by up to 90% of their original size.
It then renders a nice page overview and even suggests where to begin reading. Another nice feature, of the many available, is the “Power scrolling shortcuts” where you use your phone’s number keys. Pressing 2, 4, 6, and 8 to scroll up, down, left and right respectively. Pressing the 5 key toggles a zoom in / zoom out feature. This is a cool browser and makes a great alternative to the stock Blackberry model.
All of the above apps are freebies, but again I will caution you about your data plan. An unlimited one is best to avoid overages on your monthly. Pandora internet radio, while a fantastic mobile application, is an absolute data consumption hog.
These are a few of my favorite apps but there are many, many more which I will likely do another post on.
If you are a Blackberry users and do not have some of these apps, you should try them out as they will enhance your online experience, even when you’re on the go.
Now when you’re stuck in the airport you can at least have some means of temporary escape while awaiting the passage of time.
What are some of your favorite apps for the Blackberry?
I’ll include some of them in the next post on this topic and give you a shout-out for your input.
**This article was reposted due to some technical difficulty.
**Thanks to Michael Hollis for your feedback!
Web Syndication Technology and How It’s Used today
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Often times during the development of technologies several attempts to capture the market are made as various formats of a product are offered to the public. You may recall the Betamax vs VHS format wars of the mid 1970s that were waged to determine the best delivery system for video tape recording, or most recently the battle between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray disks.
The same thing happened with web syndication as early offerings of Microsoft’s CDF (Channel Definition Format) and Netscape’s RSS (Really Simple Syndication), along with a few others, vied to become the industry standard.
RSS has become the industry standard, as seen on nearly every blog in existence today. In 2003 Atom arrived on the scene as an alternative to RSS, which has been around since 1997. Atom, while still heavily in use, will not overtake the RSS format in my opinion as RSS just seems to be what most users have become comfortable with and is now widely accepted as the industry leader.
A quick flashback – there was a time when your browser’s bookmarks were the tool used to keep track of places you wanted to return to and check out the latest updates. There was no automation involved here as you had to do all the work yourself.
I’ve always been a heavy surfer so for me, keeping track of all the websites I visited, even with the bookmark system, was a challenge and if I didn’t keep them organized things got a bit messy.
There were times when life got in the way and I hadn’t checked my bookmarks for a period of time, meaning that I missed out on some information. But along came RSS and suddenly things were much easier to manage.
Today you have the ability to subscribe to many sites and have the latest updates delivered right to your desktop without all of the tracking and organizing associated with bookmarks. Now don’t misunderstand me, bookmarks remain a handy tool, but for my most critical updates RSS is the ticket.
By the way, when you see the word “Subscribe” on this or any other blogs, it simply means that you are signing up for “free” updates and you can end the service at any time.
I realize that many have been conditioned to associate subscribe and subscriptions with a fee, but that is not what this is about in the world of blogging. What you will receive are notices about the latest content added to the site or a weekly/monthly newsletter related to the topic of the blog itself.
Some time ago I wrote an article titled “RSS and How to Use It” where I explain the basics of the service. You can access it here.
For those of you who are not using RSS, you should begin now by finding a few feeds to subscribe to. It’s a very easy process.
Go to one of your favorite sites and click the RSS symbol, which will then take you to a page where you will select a free news reader like Google, Newsgator or a host of others available today. You can also choose to have the updates deliver via email, the choice is yours.
Think of this service as a publication like a magazine or newspaper, but instead of being delivered to your physical mailbox, it is delivered to your electronic mailbox or your browser. Having the feed appear right in your browsers toolbar is really cool, convenient and easy to use.
So go ahead and subscribe to a couple of sites and get started. The feed to this blog is here.
Just remember, whenever you see this icon it represents a free news feed service that delivers content conveniently to your desktop.
If you are using more recent versions of Safari and Opera browsers, you’ll find that the RSS features have been incorporated right in the browsers themselves. Never has it been so easy to pull content from so many places into a single location for your reading pleasure.
With RSS you can gather all sorts of information from all corners of the globe and bring it to your desktop. This is really powerful when you think about it. You have the flexibility to customize the exact type of information you’d like to receive from anywhere on the internet. All of this, with just a few clicks of the mouse.
Once you realize the power of this tool, the possibilities of what you can achieve will rapidly grow, as you become an internet power user.
Enjoy the power of RSS!
