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DreamBerry: Tie Your Profile & Wireless Settings & More To Your Location (Cell Tower or GPS)

Ronen Halevy — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:00:00 +0000

I have a dream…

Back in the day on my S60 Nokia 3650 & N-gage (Yeah I admit to having one) I had a really cool program that I wish was available for BlackBerry. It would constantly monitor your location based on the cellphone tower you were connected to and allow you to set certain rules based on which tower you were connected to or just disconnected from.

For example:

You could set it to send your wife a text or email when you left work or were almost home.
You could make it automatically set your profile to vibrate when you get to work and turn it back to normal when you leave.
You could make it automatically set your alarm clock when you are home.
You could set it to turn off or on Bluetooth or WiFi when you are home to save battery life.
Set a custom alert to remind you to go shopping when you are near the store.
You could set an alert to remember your keys, lock up, or other information before you leave the house.
It could land a plane on the moon while you are waiting in traffic (kidding)
And more…

As you can see this could have a ton of cool uses. Implementing this based on Cell Tower information is the best but GPS could also work. The problem is that GPS eats extra battery life, takes a few seconds to get a location, and does not work indoors.

So I have to pose this question to all BlackBerry developers out there… Is my dream possible?

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Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, January 29, 2009, 4:00 pm. | DreamBerry: Tie Your Profile & Wireless Settings & More To Your Location (Cell Tower or GPS) | 12 comments |

DreamBerry: Deleted Email Items Folder – Recover A Deleted Email

Ronen Halevy — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:07:00 +0000

One of the first things I had to setup on my BlackBerry was to turn off the confirmation for deleting each email. This confirmation gets annoying when you are trying to delete your spam in the morning or quickly clean up your inbox. The problem is that sometimes it causes me to accidentally delete an email I did not intend to. This is even more so the case when my BlackBerry is going slow (for example loading a website) and you accidentally highlight the wrong email for deletion. Or I accidentally push the delete button one two many times.

Once you delete an email on your BlackBerry you are out of luck. There is no easy way to get it back. RIM even admits in a knowledge base article that they do not intend on storing this data due to space considerations. They only mention that new BES and OS 4.5 email accounts let you search your inbox remotely to recover these emails.

Personally my solution recently is to fire up the Gmail mobile application and move the item back from the trash folder but that option is not available to all. I just wish RIM would provide a sort of recycling bin for emails. That way you could store a few days of deleted emails that you can undelete or at least view. The space consideration is a bunch of crap since 1000 emails is less than 1 megabyte and they could offer this as an option you could turn off.

So I am curious. Is it possible for a developer to create an application that will delay the deletion of an email so that you have even a few minutes to recover? Or have you found another workaround? I know some of you are going to say I should turn the confirm option again but that just reminds me of the annoying Windows “Do you really really want to delete this file” prompts. That is why even they created a recycling bin.

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Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, January 23, 2009, 3:07 pm. | DreamBerry: Deleted Email Items Folder – Recover A Deleted Email | 9 comments |

DreamBerry Idea: LED Shut-off during Video playback.

Greg Myers — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:00:02 +0000

I had a request from one of the forum users on BlackBerry Forums Au last week requesting if there was an application available that could switch off the blinking notification LED during video playback on a BlackBerry. At first I dismissed the idea by just answering, ’switch off the indicator manually whilst playing back video’.

Then I thought, well, I’ve had a heap of luck dropping ideas in the DreamBerry section before as it tends to inspire the developers minds and with the Bold (and upcoming Storm), the screen quality is getting to a stage that makes it not unbearable to watch a half hour episode of Southpark or Family Guy whilst I meant to be working.

So if anyone has heard of such an application that can switch off the notification LED during video playback or someone is willing to develop it, there might be a market…

(Sorry about the picture, but it’s about all I could come up with on a Google image search of BlackBerry and Dream… )

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Posted by Greg for ©BerryReview, October 28, 2008, 12:00 pm. | DreamBerry Idea: LED Shut-off during Video playback. | 3 comments |

Dreamberry: better profile management

Luciano — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:28:51 +0000

This annoyance has happened to me four times: lose all my profiles. First, one application reset all my ringtone profiles. Then another one did the same a few months later. “That’s what backups are for,” you must be thinking. But that is not so simple.

First off, I am a Linux user. I run Windows on VMWare very occasionally, so I don’t have the habit of making copies of my Blackberry data, and effective backups have to do with habit. It won’t work well if you don’t have the habit. My backups were all stale and I had to reprogram my profiles manually.

Then I upgraded my OS to 4.5. Of course I did a backup, but the restore operation did not work on the ringtones. On the ringtones only. So I lost them for the third time.

Then one day I woke up to a strange sound. It was my Blackberry telling me I had mail, but that sound was not familiar. Long story short: my profiles had all been reset while I was sleeping and I have no idea how that happened. It just happened. Four times in total. OK, this time I had a backup. But which is worse: reprogram everything by hand again…

launch VMWare, wait for Windows to boot up, connect device, enable USB connection, wait until it is really working (USB is extremely unstable in VMWare), launch Desktop Manager, wait until it recognizes the device, click about 14 interface elements to find the latest backup and tell Desktop Manager which one I want to restore, pray that the USB connection doesn’t drop during the operation, oh but it will, say profanity, disconnect, connect, wait until Desktop Manager detects it again, click 9 interface elements, see USB drop again, smoke in the collar, slam desk, curse RIM, disconnect, connect, try again…?

I always end up reprogramming everything by hand. It’s even less of a hassle than restoring my backup.

Note that by this time I don’t bother reprogramming ALL the profiles anymore. I just reprogram the “Normal” profile and that’s what I use all the time. And there goes a nice feature remarkably underused.

Alright, enough with the sob story. The problem with reprogramming all my profiles is that the existing management application is remarkably dumb. Let’s remember what is in that application’s screen:

First problem: I don’t like the LED flashing. It drives me nuts, it is like a child tugging on my sleeve. And I don’t even have kids. But that is the default in all events and most profiles. So I have to disable it in each single goddman event in each darn profile. Why can’t I disable it in ALL the events and profiles wholesale? All events, not just the phone or SMS. Everything.

Second problem: number of vibrations. Defaults to 2 in all events. I hate that. I use 2 vibrations for the phone, which means “someone is calling, attention required immediately”. For everything else, I want one vibration only. Again, I have to tweak each single damn event and profile.

And there is the volume. It’s too low, especially since I installed OS 4.5. Change each one individually to Loud etc. ad infinitum. Nightmare.

Also, why can’t I make one profile be a complete and exact copy of another profile? Then I would just need to make a couple of adjustments. For example, I want all my ringtones to be exactly the same in the Normal and in the Quiet profiles. I also want the same In Holster/Out of Holster behavior. I just want the volume to be different. Ideally, I should be able to “copy” or “clone” the Normal profile into the Quiet profile, then change the Quiet profile by changing the volume of all events from Loud to Medium or Low in one single stroke. Easy as pie.

But none of that is possible with the current profile management application. Nothing is possible with it except manually change each single one of all 11 options of each one of all 10 or so events in each one of the four or five profiles freaking in-di-vid-u-al-ly.

Man, I hate it when the man is forced to work for the machine. It has to be the other way around, always. (Please refrain from the Linux jokes – I’m with you!)

I don’t expect RIM to solve that problem for me. RIM has already shown us what they’re up to in relation to profile management. I need some developer to tackle this and make me a happy camper. Any takers? Am I the only one who hates the stock profile changer?

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Posted by luc-mobile for ©BerryReview, October 14, 2008, 7:28 am. | Dreamberry: better profile management | 10 comments |

SaveNumberAs – Save New Numbers As Something Other Than Work

Ronen Halevy — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:00:46 +0000

DreamBerrys do come true. About a week ago I posted a DreamBerry about a very specific problem. When you get a call from a number that is not in your address book and you add it to your address book it always saves the number as a work number. Maybe this is a carryover from RIM’s corporate only days but its annoying for consumer users.

Turns out that our friend Fabian was listening and created an app to fix this exact annoyance. It adds a new menu option to the call log to “save number as…” and it will ask you if you want to save the number as a work, mobile, or home number. I have not had a chance to try the app out myself but hopefully it will soon also allow you to add a number to an existing contact.

The app is an annoyance fixer which makes the price point of $2.95 pretty reasonable. The app also only takes up 4Kb of ram which is impressive. Now if only RIM would add this to the core OS… I am sure Fabian would be glad to sell the code.

You can pick it up in the store for $2.95 at this link

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Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, September 26, 2008, 12:00 pm. | SaveNumberAs – Save New Numbers As Something Other Than Work | 11 comments |

DreamBerry: Default Save Number To Mobile Instead Of Work

Ronen Halevy — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:08:31 +0000

Now this is a piece of functionality that has been bothering me since my first BlackBerry. When you get called by a new number you can go into the call list, select the number, hit the menu key, and add it to your address book. The problem is that RIM seems to think that all new numbers are work numbers. A friend of mind asked me about this recently and I told him that I have been copying and pasting numbers into the mobile field for years.

Would it kill RIM to add a prompt asking what type of number it is? Even my age old Sony Ericsson t68i had this feature! Or better yet could RIM let us add a number to an existing contact? RIM has PIM management down to a T on the BlackBerry which makes me wonder why there is such a glaring oversight such as this….

Has anybody managed to find a way around this? Or do we once again need an entrepreneuring developer to step in and fix the little things.

So I add this to RIM’s should have always been there feature list:

Vibe+Ring
Silence camera
Default number other than work…
…

Got any others to add?

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Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, September 18, 2008, 1:08 pm. | DreamBerry: Default Save Number To Mobile Instead Of Work | 17 comments |

DreamBerry – Login To Google Maps Mobile

Ronen Halevy — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:00:01 +0000

I have been a regular user of Google Maps Mobile and rely on it every day. The My Location feature was groundbreaking and the upcoming beta voice features are pretty cool.

There is just one major feature that that I wish Google would add to the application. The ability to sign in and have a profile. It is surprising that they haven’t already implemented such a basic feature. It could empower simple functionality such as:

It could let you send/save an address or directions from the desktop version of Google Maps so that you don’t have to print out a copy. Come on, Google. Help us go green!
You could have your favorite locations saved every time you reinstall Google Maps or change devices.
It could save your current tracklogs for later viewing on your desktop. Or it could even store the distance you ran that day.

Those are just off the top of my head. I realize that there are some privacy implications of Google knowing where you are going, but I don’t see this as being any worse than having a Gmail account.

I have heard rumors that Google is working on such a feature in a 3.0 version of Google Maps for mobile, but I could not corroborate that information. I really hope they are… If you have heard anything, let us know!

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Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, August 1, 2008, 5:00 am. | DreamBerry – Login To Google Maps Mobile | One comment |

MessageScheduler – Coming Soon!

Ronen Halevy — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:30:35 +0000

Zaventh has decided to make use of our DreamBerry idea. Greg posted about a message scheduling application on July 7th. On July 27th, Zaventh announced that he is almost ready to release MessageScheduler. An application that will let you schedule an email or PIN to be sent at a future date and time. This is exactly like Outlook’s delayed send option. I guess Zaventh is planning on making a dream come true.

Zaventh has already posted some screenshots of the application. If you are interested in testing out the beta you can send Zaventh a PM on CrackBerry Forums.

Thanks for listening Zaventh!

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Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, July 29, 2008, 3:30 am. | MessageScheduler – Coming Soon! | 7 comments |

DreamBerry – Arcade Game Using Camera

Summer — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:00:01 +0000

I have a friend at work who uses a Palm Centro by Sprint. (Yeah, I know, the poor girl is very uninformed on the importance of a BlackBerry and I will turn her but that’s another time, another post) Anyways, she was showing me a game on her phone. A very cool game. Check out the video below to see what I mean. You need to skip ahead a bit to get an idea of how it plays…

It’s called Reality Arcade. It’s a first person target shooting game. Pretty much self explanatory. But here is the best part, the background of the game utilizes the camera so you are having to use your surroundings in order to search for the targets. The managers at my works were having a blast with the game trying to get the best score. I’m sure we all looked a little goofy to anyone who didn’t know what we were doing, turning around in circles trying to find the targets but it was all in good spirits.

Why can’t BPlay or Concrete come up with a game that uses more from the BlackBerry. Is Palm really that far ahead of the smartphone competition when it comes to games? I would like to doubt that. Is there a restriction against the camera being used in games? If this can ever become a reality, I would like to be a part of the Beta Program. And I know a few others who’d want to as well.

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Posted by Summer for ©BerryReview, July 28, 2008, 4:00 am. | DreamBerry – Arcade Game Using Camera | 5 comments |

DreamBerry – Maximum Vibrations/Rings In A Minute

Ronen Halevy — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:24:50 +0000

Have you ever had your BlackBerry not stop vibrating or ringing for almost 2 minutes? Do you get bursts of emails from BIS that all come in together making your BlackBerry vibrate 10, 20, or even 30 times in a row! People start looking at you weird at that point wondering what is going on in your pocket…

Well then you know how I feel. I wake up in the morning and turn on my BlackBerry to a barrage of emails. If I forget to put it on the Phone Only profile it would not stop buzzing for 5 minutes straight.

Also my BIS emails tend to come in in bursts. I will be sitting in a meeting and all of a sudden my belt does not stop vibrating. It makes it very hard to pretend your paying attention to the topic at hand.

I so wish RIM would implement an option in the profile to limit how long it will wait until it vibrates again. Or some kind developer would come up with a simple application to suppress the vibrations for a minute or two between.

RIM got a little bit closer when they started letting you set each email to vibrate 1,2 or 3 times. I just wish they would take this one step further…

It’s such a good vibration
It’s such a sweet sensation…

Sorry could not help myself. For some fun flashbacks check out the Good Vibrations music video on YouTube.

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Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, July 25, 2008, 4:24 am. | DreamBerry – Maximum Vibrations/Rings In A Minute | 3 comments |

DreamBerry – Copy & Paste Calendar Appointments

Ronen Halevy — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:00:24 +0000

This DreamBerry idea comes from Ljupco who was hoping that RIM would implement such a feature in the native BlackBerry calendar application.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could copy and appointment and then paste it in another location. Don’t get me wrong you can already just edit the calendar entry and change the date. On the other hand I miss the Outlook functionality of just being able to select an appointment and drag it or paste it to another time.

Better yet would be the ability to duplicate an entry. For example you have a dentist appointment followup. I would want to be able to just copy the first appointment and paste it to the new date and time…

Such small things…

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Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, July 22, 2008, 3:00 am. | DreamBerry – Copy & Paste Calendar Appointments | 3 comments |

DreamBerry – Custom Browser Options For Certain Websites/Bookmarks

Ronen Halevy — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 04:30:47 +0000

I have been a bit annoyed with this issue over the years and really wish RIM would address it. So here goes another DreamBerry idea…

Have you ever found that two websites you visit regularly on your BlackBerry require 2 different browser settings to get them to work? For example, your bank website may require Netscape emulation and Reuters looks better with BlackBerry emulation? Or you don’t want to see tables or background images on one website?

So I always find myself fiddling with the Browser options to make each website look readable or even load at all. I wish RIM would let you setup a custom exclusion list where you could set certain bookmarks or whole domains to use different browser settings than the global settings.

I don’t see this as too hard to implement. What do you guys think, would you find this useful?

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Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, July 18, 2008, 12:30 am. | DreamBerry – Custom Browser Options For Certain Websites/Bookmarks | 3 comments |

How To Photoshop Your Own DreamBerry

Ronen Halevy — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:40:51 +0000

Josep sent me a link to this great tutorial on PSDtuts.com by Jeremy Roux. It teaches you step by step how to create your own Photoshop mockup of a BlackBerry Bold. You can obviously extend this and start making your own mockups of the BlackBerry Thunder/Javelin/Air/Inspiration or whatever codename you wish to make up.

So if you were wondering how BoyGenius and the other myriads of fans create their own mockups check out the directions. Keep in mind you will need to have a copy of Photoshop handy. You might be able to get away with the free GIMP but your going to have to cut some corners and figure it out by yourself.

Check it out at PSDtuts.com

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Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, July 7, 2008, 8:40 am. | How To Photoshop Your Own DreamBerry | 3 comments |

DreamBerry Idea – Email Scheduler

Greg Myers — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:06 +0000

I was having a look around for an emailing application for BlackBerry that schedules your email to send out at a pre-set time but couldn’t find one. Does any one know if such an application exists?

This would be such a handy piece of software. You could set up pre-set emails messages for your friends or workmates birthday (especially if you are on a business trip or holiday), reminders to group emails for meeting etc, set a scheduled email to your house-sitter that the garbage is due to be collected the next day, etc, etc. Another example would be if you need to send an unimportant email to someone overseas and if you sent it straight away you would probably wake them up. Or even a cooling off period for those angry emails we sometimes write. (If you set say a 3 hour delay on the send then you have that time to think about what you wrote and change/delete it if you want).

So if there is nothing out there like this come on developers, this could be the next Big Application. Your thoughts ???

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Posted by Greg for ©BerryReview, July 7, 2008, 8:00 am. | DreamBerry Idea – Email Scheduler | 7 comments |