Remzi kindly shared this nice review that he originally posted on Sems.org. Let us know what you think of Remzi’s first article on BerryReview!

One of the this week’s big Blackberry news item was the release of Blackberry Unite!. This interesting piece of software had been announced long time ago and Bell Canada finally released it. The beauty is the fact that you don’t actually need to be a Bell customer. You can download and install it to your computer and it works just fine. It is like a BIS service for your home/small business. It has 5 user limitation and you can only add POP3/IMAP4 accounts to it (BIS on the contrary also supports OWA connections to Exchange servers as well).

The installation is a breeze. The following components are installed with BlackBerry Unite! software:

* Microsoft® .NET Framework 2.0
* BlackBerry Device Communication Components
* Microsoft XML Parser 4.0 SP2
* Java® SE 6 Update 2
* MSDE (with Windows® XP installations)
* Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 Express (with Windows Vista® installations)

You can see the screenshots at here. You can grab a copy from Bell or if you are outside of Canada try this.

According to the database, the version installed is 4.1.5, same as the latest BES. Makes you wonder if you can enable HTML rendering with this

Once the installation is completed, you can run the web based admin interface. First step is to attach your device, go through a simple registration process (it uses your device PIN I believe, as it requires to be connected). Once that is done, you can add your first user. (limit is 5 users). Keep in mind, since Unite! is also using IT Policy to enforce things, if you are going to use BES as well, you need to activate your device on BES first. Activating a BlackBerry smartphone using BlackBerry Unite! software before activating on a BlackBerry Enterprise Server will result in an IT policy error. (see here)

Read the rest of this article

Kevin at CrackBerry broke the news of the BlackBerry Bold name for the new 9000 series. He now has the cold hard specs for the upcoming Bold-Berry (previously codename Niagara & Javelin)

So let me introduce the Specs & Features for the new BlackBerry Bold! My favorite is the Memory upgrade and the DIVX support.

• Size - Length: 144mm, Width: 66mm, Thickness: 14mm
• Weight (with battery) - 133g (same as the 88xx series. I can attest to it!)
• Memory - 1GB on-board plus 128 MB Flash
• Battery - 1500mAhr lithium cell
• Est. Battery Life - Standby: 13 days, Talk Time: 5 hours
• Network Support - UMTS: 2100 / 1900 / 850MHz, GSM: 1900 / 1800 / 900 / 850 MHz, GPRS, EDGE and HDSPA networks
• Wi-Fi - 803.11a/b/g enabled
• Display - HVGA, 480 x 320 pixels, Transmissive TFT LCD, supports over 65k colors
• Media Player, Video Support - DivX 4, DivX 5 & 6 are partially supported, XviD is partially supported, H.263, H.264 and WMV3
• Media Player, Audio Support - .3gp, MP3, WMA9 (.wma/.asf), WMA9 Pro/WMA 10, MIDI, AMR-NB, Professional AAC/AAC+/eAAC+
• Media Player, Audio - BlackBerry Media Sync allows you to transfer your desktop iTunes music to your BlackBerry!!!
• Camera - 2.0MP, 5 x digital zoom (with flash of course)
• GPS - internal GPS with extended ephemeris, BB Maps is standard
• Bluetooth - Bluetooth v2.0, all the normal stuff and Bluetooth Stereo Audio via A2DP and AVCRP
• USB Port - Enables charging and high-speed data synchronizations via USB “A” to mini-USB “B” cable
• Browser - HTML browsing, View Movies/Clips from websites built for mobile streaming, RSS feed support

Thanks Kevin for gathering this all together. Were drooling already

The BlackBerry weblog sites and forums have been running into overtime today. It looks like someone has let the cat out of the bag with a name to the face of the new BlackBerry  9000. (BGR seemed to be the first off the mark again… well done guys)

It seems the all new BlackBerry 9000 series will be called…’Bold’. It doesn’t really strike a chord with me.(It’s only one letter away from what’s happening on the top of my head )

I ‘Googled’ the name and got 292 000 hits but it could be a trail to throw us all off a really cool name like ‘Avenger’ or ‘Raptor’. 

So I suppose we will all find out at the start of WES or there abouts.

Any other suggestions for names? I think something a little on the rugged side of things. Drop your ideas in the comments section below.

I know many of you have installed BlackBerry unite after we mentioned it yesterday. We also mentioned some of the issues in our last FYI. It turns out that this is more of a full release that really needed some testing. So far people have been liking the functionality but their happiness has been hampered with some serious bugs and unknown consequences.

The list so far – Feel free to add to it with comments:

• Once you install Unite you get an IT policy on your device that you have to wipe your BlackBerry to remove
• You also have to deal with Errors such as the one below where it says “Browser is disabled by IT policy”

• You will also find that it makes your browser bookmarks no longer work unless you delete and re-enable them.
• It can lock up a nice machine on and also gives quite a few of Unite File Sync errors
• The calendar is missing recurring events and the ability to change reminders
• The file upload/download aspect is awesome in theory, but the 1 meg limit renders it useless
• Your device may lock up now every time you hit the CNN.com home screen shortcut or others
• This program may make your browser, Facebook, Viigo, and most other applications unusable due to the IT policy error
• You also cannot sync your desktop outlook calendar to Unite. Nor anything else from your desktop

Thanks to the brave souls who brought this to our attention. Hopefully version 1.1 will be coming out soon. It seems like RIM rushed this out before WES.

Keep those numbers above. May 12th is promised to be the official release date of the new Blackberry 9000. It’s the very first date of WES 2008, in Orlando, FL, where Berry addicts will congregate and get lots of new information first hand, not to mention their own eager hands on lots of brand new lawful Berry drugs. Boy Genius also says that Mike Lazaridis himself will be present at the event to “pull a Jobs” on the crowd. Since RIM has announced two new phones already, I certainly expect him to say “one more thing”. And that one more thing had better be the release of Blackberry OS 4.whatever to all and sundry. What else could be holding it for so long?!!!

I can’t go, it’s a bit too far from where I live. If you can’t go either, well, just stick around and you will be properly informed of all the news. At any rate, the new 9000 model should be available on the 12th, also known in many places worldwide as “Monday”. Piggy banks of the world have a lot to fear.

I was going to write up a full blown review on this one but since it’s still in Beta and a little hard to get hold of then I will wait until the full version gets released. 

Miutunes. Take out the ‘M’ and the ‘U’ and you have ‘iTunes’. Sound familiar? Well it will certainly look familiar. If you like the ‘iPod’ (Touch or iPhone) style of media player then you are going to love this one. 

Simprit Pty Ltd are on a winner with this application. Whilst still in Beta, the Miutunes integrates perfectly with the controls on my 8310 Curve giving you the standard selection of; Albums, Artists, Songs, Genres and Years (when the music was made). The difference is the layout is in a ‘Circular’ format and spins around to your selection when you flick your trackball either way.

When you first load the application you get the option to sync all your music from the other files on your Berry. Once imported, you’re away. With all the song selection options you get a list view kind of like the iPod Classic style most have grown accustomed to but in the ‘Artwork’ selection mode you get the same sort of interface as Apples new ‘Coverflow’. Being a bit of an Apple fan, I love it…(yes I know I’m going to cop it in the comments section as far as being an Apple fan and writing for a BlackBerry site but anyone who has ever used Leopard OSX will understand). Again just flick through your album artwork (cover art) with you trackball , press to select the album which then flips over and just scroll through the list of songs. Easy. Simple. And Seamless.

You also get the standard options of making playlists, shuffle and repeating songs as well as standard volume controls. The only area that I found it lacking was the absence of an equalizer (Ronen wont be happy) but apart from that this is an excellent media player…

Now the hard part. Getting hold of it. I had a reader send me an invite to test the beta version of this so it made life easy but from what I have heard the waiting list is long. Go to http://www.miutunes.com/ and add yourself to the beta testing list or just wait a bit for the full version to be released. 

Remember when Facebook changed the status updates from “Ronen is” to just “Ronen”? Well they finally convinced RIM to do it in the mobile Facebook application. They just sent an email to many users about this update.

That is about it that they updated. You can pick up the latest version by going to:

OTA Download Page or Desktop link

Thanks Raffy for sending this tip in!

I just got an email from the developer of Poker Odds Calculator telling me about the new application. The application allows you to calculate the odds of winning with each hand you could possible have. You can pick up the calculator for $9.95 from the Store if you are interested.

From the feature description:

Learn the exact odds of all possible hands. Know when to bet and when to fold by determining whether you have a strong or weak hand. Find out how your odds look before and after the Flop, after the turn, and after the River.

Features:

• Real time Poker Odds Calculator
• Accuracy within 1%
• Supports unknown hands

Truthfully I can’t think of anytime this would be useful but if you have any ideas let me know. I just think it would take the fun out of the game. Not to mention that it would probably have you thrown out of a casino or even a guys night out game. I can just see people switching back and forth between Texas Hold’em 3 from bPlay and this calculator.