Shortly after pinppl.com was shutdown, I was at a loss to find other Blackberry owners across the world. Yes, I was looking for a social networking site tailored to Blackberry folks like myself, who love their Blackberry’s and everything related to them.

World, meet Blackberry Ave.

Blackberry Ave is beautiful in design. While the site is still Beta, the content flows smoothly and everything is easy to find. I had no trouble at all setting up my account and start filling in my profile. What was also nice, is that there is a desktop version of the site, making it even easier to write in long entries (address, about, etc).

Of course, it’s all related to Blackberry’s and it’s community, and so far there are plenty of other people you’ll find on there with similar interests with the tag search feature. As a friend had pointed out, the people she had met on another social network designed for Blackberry’s, weren’t as friendly. So a huge plus there. Who wants to be a part of a community full of nasty people? I don’t, and that’s why I’m enjoying Blackberry Ave so far.

And hey, what’s a social network site without the ability to share files? Isn’t that what it’s all about? Blackberry Ave has the solution, giving you a whole 10MB’s (thats mega byte) of storage so you can share those essential files with others. Got some nice Blackberry wallpapers you’d like to share with everyone? Drop it into your Public folder. And as far as I can tell, there are no restrictions on how many folders you can create. Neat huh?

Blackberry Ave will also allow you to create your own community, much like facebook’s communities. It’s as simple as giving it a name and inviting some friends. You can determine access restrictions of what people can or can’t see, and even add a profile picture to it, separate from your own. So it’s like a network within a social network. Good stuff!

You can also add your own feeds from other sites, or visit the Popular Feeds section to find what people are subscribing to. For instance, there’s a feed for berryreview.com already there!

And naturally, there is a Blog section where you can do your fancy blogging and all your Blackberry friends can read it. But what’s even better is you can add widgets to your profile page. For instance, I just added a widget to my profile page to show the most recent entries of my blog. Thats a cool way to get my stuff out there for sure.

So all around what we have here is a very respectable and neatly designed social network made especially for Blackberry owners. What’s not to love? And so far I haven’t run across a single glitch on this lovely site. And have I mentioned everything that’s available on the Desktop version is available on the mobile version as well?

Move over BBmnation, Blackberry Ave is in town: It’s The Place to Be.

Now I know this one is way off topic but I laughed my butt off when I first read this. Just thought I would share…Enjoy…

Pocket Taser Stun Gun, a great gift for the wife. A guy who purchased his lovely wife a pocket Taser for their anniversary submitted this: Last weekend I saw something at Larry’s Pistol & Pawn Shop that sparked my interest. The occasion was our 15th anniversary and I was looking for a little something extra for my wife Julie.What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse-sized taser.The effects of the taser were supposed to be short lived, with no long-term adverse affect on your assailant, allowing her adequate time to retreat to safety….??WAY TOO COOL! Long story short, I bought the device and brought it home.I loaded two AAA batteries in the darn thing and pushed the button. Nothing! I was disappointed. I learned, however, that if I pushed the button ANDpressed it against a metal surface at the same time; I’d get the blue arc of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs. AWESOME!!! Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to Julie what that burn spot is on the face of her microwave.Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that itcouldn’t be all that bad with only two triple-A batteries, right? There I sat in my recliner, my cat Gracie looking on intently (trusting little soul) while I was reading the directions and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh & blood moving target.I must admit I thought about zapping Gracie (for a fraction of a second)and thought better of it. She is such a sweet cat. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong? So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and a tank top with my reading glassesperched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, and taser in another.The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control; a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water. Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries. All the while I’m looking at this little device measuring about 5′ long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference; pretty cute really and (loaded with two itsy, bitsy triple-A batteries) thinking to myself, ‘no possible way!’ What happened next is almost beyond description, but I’ll do my best…?I’m sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked to one side as to say, ‘Don’t do it Dipshit,’ reasoning that a one second burst from such a tiny little ole thing couldn’t hurt all that bad. I decided to give myself a one second burst just for heck of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and . . .

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD . .. .. WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION . . . WHAT THE HELL!!!

I’m pretty sure Jessie Ventura ran in through the side door, picked me up in the recliner, then body slammed us both on the carpet, over and over and over again. I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, body soaking wet, both nipples on fire, testicles nowhere to be found, with my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and tingling in my legs?The cat was making meowing sounds I had never heard before, clinging to a picture frame hanging above the fireplace, obviously in an attempt to avoid getting slammed by my body flopping all over the living room.

Note: If you ever feel compelled to ‘mug’ yourself with a taser, one note of caution: there is no such thing as a one second burst when you zap yourself!You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by a violent thrashing about on the floor.A three second burst would be considered conservative!SON-OF-A-BITCH, THAT HURT LIKE HELL!!! A minute or so later (I can’t be sure, as time was a relative thing at thatpoint), I collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace.The recliner was upside down and about 8 feet or so from where it originally was. My triceps, right thigh and both nipples were still twitching. My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs. I had no control over the drooling. Apparently I shit myself, but was too numb to know for sure and my sense of smell was gone. I saw a faint smoke cloud above my head which I believe was came from my hair.I’m still looking for my nuts and I’m offering a significant reward for their safe return!!P. S. My wife loved the gift, and now regularly threatens me with it!‘If you think Education is difficult, try being stupid.’

I installed an Alpine iDA-X001 media player in my work van about 6 months or so ago and until recently, have not tried it for playing music directly from my BlackBerry Curve.

Although I have it running through about 1200 watts of amplifiers, subwoofers and speakers, I’m not going to do a review of sound quality as I will leave that to the numerous audio websites and forums.

The head unit comes with 2 connection cables. One for an iPod connection and the other with a USB port in which you can plug a USB to Mini-USB cable into. (Both these cables can be connected at the same time and run through your dashboard at time of install)

The Alpine iDA-X001 is a digital media player only (as well as an AM/FM radio) and doesn’t include a CD player of any sort. The controls are not un-similar to those on a Classic Apple iPod with a dial acting the same as the ‘ClickWheel’.

My main source of music was coming from my Apple iPhone and this works very well with integration  between the 2 seamless. The BlackBerry however, is a little different in the way it operates on the High Res Alpine screen.

With the Apple iPhone, you get all your ‘Albums’, ‘Genre’, ‘Artists’ and recent playlists. But with the BlackBerry you get none of these privileges. Just a list of the songs you have stored on your media card. That’s about it. They play fine on the Alpine unit and you can zip through your song list using the Alpine control wheel but unless you are the type why just likes to hit the ‘Shuffle’ icon then this can be a real pain in the butt. It’s not a fault of Alpine or of BlackBerry.

This unit is primarily designed for use with an Apple iPod and with that it works just fine. But if you want/need to use it with a BlackBerry it will get the job done with just a whole heap less features…

RIM should call their ‘Poll of the Week’,’Poll of the Month’. They only seem to change the question as often as I change my underpants…and that’s not very often… J

This weeks/months question,’ What do you find more influential in your decision to purchase a BlackBerry?’

The two answers you have to choose from…

• Hardware features
• Services capability

That’s It??? And they don’t let you choose both…How about answers like;

• It’s not an iPhone.
• 3^rd Party application selection.
• Because my ‘Boss bought it for me.
• Because it’s REALLY addictive.

Come on RIM, put some effort into it and find out why people are really buying your product… 

BTW. The poll is available on your BlackBerry browser home screen… If you haven’t changed it…

Review: HP pocket emulator applications by Lygea Calculators

Rating: 6.8/10
Cost: $ 12.95 each
Pocket 10B SE Business Calculator for BlackBerry v1.10
Pocket 10C SE Scientific Calculator v1.0
Pocket 12C SE Financial Calculator for BlackBerry v1.0

On the first day of this series, I’ll present three calculators already. One of the first things I ran into while hunting calculators apps in the BerryReview store was this line of Hewlett-Packard pocket calculator emulators by Lygea Calculators. They are supposed to emulate more or less the same look and function of three classic HP models: the 10B, the 10C and the 12C. They all have very specific functions that might matter to certain students or professionals, but they still share enough similarities for me to lump them all together in one single group.

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I don’t know what happens to me when I use the calculator that is included with every Blackberry device these days. I always feel that something is not right. I guess it doesn’t quite look like a calculator. I guess I’d never seen a blue calculator. Maybe I want more functions. Maybe the “equals” sign should have been in the space key, where it’s so much more obvious and convenient than tucked in the corner. Or maybe I should just change my foolish attitude towards it and stop making up issues where there isn’t any.

But there is some bad blood between me and the stock Blackberry calculator so I went after alternatives. I was quite surprised because there are so many. And most of them confirm what I suspected all the time: the Blackberry calculator is not the most powerful and good-looking bean counter a Blackberry user can have.

I found Blackberry calculators made by 5 makers, so during this whole week I will review one Blackberry calculator each day. Here are the candidates:

• 3 HP pocket calculator emulators

• Bizmathica

• BKGcalc

• Graphcalc

• PowerOne

I’ve finally made my choice, but these calculators all have very different characteristics that set them apart from all others. If you’re interested and in doubt, stay tuned to this series and you may save yourself some time trying and deciding. Come on and join us. Be the operator with your pocket calculator.

Review: GoogHelper version 1.01
Rating: 7.0/10
Cost: $ 4.95

One feature I’ve always wanted to have in my Blackberry is the ability to “speed dial” a Web site. I already can press and hold the letter “h” to call Halevy or hold “m” to call Myers, but all letters of the alphabet are available and I don’t need that many speed dial slots. I surely could spend some of those letters on sites I check often, like Google. I wish I could press and hold “g” and have the phone launch Google in the browser immediately. GoogHelper is the next best thing.

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Paypal Mobile has been around for a bit but I wanted to give it a try for myself. I like the idea of being able to browse Ebay while I’m waiting at the doctors or wherever and then instantly purchasing an item if I want. Thanks to Paypal Mobile, it’s easy.

Once you have a Paypal account, all you have to do is point your Blackberry browser to mobile.paypal.com and then sign in using your User ID and Password (the same way you would from your computer). There’s also an option of signing in via your mobile number and a PIN (that you create) which may be a little quicker.

From there you have an option of checking your balance, sending a payment or following a link to Ebay where you can search, view, bid/buy and pay for items via Paypal directly from your Blackberry without a lot of fuss. It easily leads you through every step of the way. You can also send money to anyone via Paypal as long as you have their Paypal email address. Now how’s that for online shopping on the go?!

For more information visit: www.paypal.com/mobile