The developer of LaunchPads, Fabian, let me know about a nifty piece of software that he has developed for the BlackBerry. LaunchPads is something RIM should have included in the BlackBerry OS. It lets you set the BlackBerry convenience keys to launch a shortcut menu with 10 items of your choice.

You can set these items/applications to launch applications, websites, phone calls, SMS, and Emails. It also lets you set it to launch the Contacts, Tasks, Notes, Camera, or Calendar applications. Its almost like creating your own homescreen shortcut…

In short you press the convenience key and it pops up the menu you see above. Pretty cool.

You can pick it up from the BerryReview Store for a lean $5.00.

If you are not Jewish then feel free to ignore this post. If you are this is an amazing free resource for Hebrew Biblical texts and the Talmud on your BlackBerry.

It includes: Chumash, Tehillim, Rambam, Siddur, Targum, Mishnayos, Gemara / Talmud, Shulchan Aruch and much more for your BlackBerry.

Most definitely a great resource to have these Jewish texts on your BlackBerry. The installation instructions are a bit complicated since you have to install the reader and Jewish fonts first. Just follow the instructions and you will be fine.

Check out the instructions and desktop installation files at this link:
http://www.jewishcontent.org/pda/blackberry/

The installation files are also available OTA from your BlackBerry at:
http://www.jewishcontent.org/pda/blackberry/ota.html

Larry has updated the BlackBerry Bold 9000 Zen theme he released earlier with a Today version that I thought was worth mention. I guess he answered my wish.

The new version is similar to the old but obviously it now has a clean today screen. There is also an updated battery meter, menu lists, profiles and profile focus. Larry has confirmed that it will be coming for the 8700 and 8800 shortly so keep an eye out.

You can pick up the theme for OTA download at this link

Tungle was just released into Beta not long ago. In short it allows you to coordinate meetings and such across Outlook, Google, iCal, Lotus Notes and now they support the BlackBerry with a cool new interface.

From the press release:

With Tungle’s new BlackBerry interface, professionals checking e-mail on their BlackBerry devices can receive Tungle meeting invitations with a link. A click on that link launches a WAP browsing session to the Tungle scheduling site, formatted for their devices’ displays. Once there, users can update their availability. After the meeting is booked, the user will receive a meeting confirmation, formatted for his or her BlackBerry calendar—all without having to open a laptop.

I could not find documentation supporting this on their website www.tungle.com but I did get this press release that you can catch after the jump. This might be interesting for some without MS Exchange or such at work.

Read the rest of this article

Josep just let me know about a free service that lets you sync your BlackBerry contacts and calendar to their website for free. The service has a free BlackBerry client for practically every BlackBerry dating as far back as the 6510 . I have not tried it myself but it promises to sync all of this info over the air.

They have also mentioned that in the near future they will be supporting the ability to synchronise with Outlook, Gmail, & MSN for a small fee. Not sure when.

ZYB.com just got bought out by Vodaphone so I guess they will be sticking around for awhile.

Head on over to www.zyb.com to check it out. Please let us know what you think!

UPDATE: This might not be as free as advertised. When installing Josep got the following message:

Setup your BlackBerry Curve 8310  (Don’t sync my phone now)
Start sync on your phone to continue

1. Please note that this phone requires a 3rd party client in order to
be compatible with ZYB. Below we include a link to such a 3rd party
client. However, we cannot take responsibility for this client as the
application is not developed by us. Please only use it if you trust
the provider we are linking to.
2. The following client from Nexthaus is not a free product, but a
free trial can be downloaded from
http://www.nexthaus.com/blackberry.html, ZYB will launch its own
client very soon.
3. Some of the details that you may require are:
4. Server Address: http://sync.ZYB.com/
5. Contacts Data base Address: contacts
6. Calendar Data base Address: calendar

I was just sent a link by one of our readers, Eric, to a post on www.blackberryinsight.com about a free application they are offering for today only. This application, Flashlight Pro, was actually reviewed by Luciano a few weeks back. Its free for desktop install only so get your copy at the link below. It is regularly $4.99 so free is a nice deal. It even has an SOS function which will send out flashing messages through Morse code.

http://www.blackberryinsight.com/2008/05/19/free-download-flashlight-pro-for-blackberry%c2%ae-24-hours-only/

We have mentioned CalcNexus before but recently they have added a ton of more calculators to their online portal. Just head on over to www.calcnexus.com to check them out from your browser.

So far they have:

I am not sure where I discovered this link originally but I found the allrecipes.com mobile website very useful. The website is a mobile version of the very popular www.allrecipes.com website. The best part is that the recipes have images and ratings!!! There is no real browse function but it does have a great search function on the mobile website.

The coolest part is that you can say which 2 ingredients you have and want to use and it will return recipes with those ingredients. This is all accessible from your Berry browser and it is free. Hopefully they will add a feature to allow you to create a shopping cart from recipes on your desktop and view them on your Berry. One can dream…

Check out the AllRecipes mobile site at mobile.allrecipes.com from your Berry browser