I know it is going to be hard following up on the heels of Luciano’s rant about the Owners Lounge but this one has been annoying me for awhile already.

One of the things that always bothered me about the BlackBerry OS is why it takes more than a minute to boot after I pull the battery to restart. Many times it takes upwards of 2–3+ minutes until it restarts. To be honest until a year ago I never really pulled the battery on my BlackBerry but with the recent memory leak problems and having to take out the MicroSD card that is underneath the battery I have been doing this frequently.

Is this something inherent with running JAVA as the basis for the BlackBerry OS? Would it really kill RIM to give us a loading screen beyond a spinning hourglass? This is even worse when you reload the OS from scratch where the first boot can take upwards of 20 minutes!!! Maybe if they gave us an optional view into the console showing which modules were being loaded…

I also find that every time I pull the battery my BlackBerry reboots with 5–10% less battery life then before the reboot. The main reason I do it is that when I reboot I get to reclaim all of the memory that is lost due to the memory leak problem. I know that long boot times are nothing new for smartphone OS’s but even my underpowered Symbian and Windows Mobile Smartphone devices rebooted quicker than this. Some of those even had loading screens.

So I have to ask. How long are your boot times after you pull the battery on your BlackBerry?

I am starting to create a personal RANT list of things RIM needs to fix. I will probably ask all of you to chip in before I send it off to RIM… At the top of my list is a proper task manager that shows where the memory leak is coming from. Or better yet a fix for the memory leak.

WARNING: This post is not for the faint of heart or for RIM employees read at your own peril… (evil laughing subsides)

More about the so-called Blackberry Owners’ Lounge. By now it’s very clear what that Lounge thing means: throw a red sofa here and there around the site, call the site an “Owners’ Lounge” to invoke the idea of basking in something “premium” or “exclusive”, and that’s it! No need to put in any real meat. Even after almost a year of existence there is still barely anything available from the Owners Lounge. They have been promising us a mobile version of the lounge for months with no avail!

Why is the Blackberry Owners’ Lounge advertising a limited 10-feed version of Freerange as “FREE software” (caps and all) as if it were a big deal and not in fact a limited edition that’s always been available elsewhere?

And why is it advertising the regular commercial 30-day trial of IM+ in the Owners Lounge Exclusives section of the site? What particular idea do they have of the meaning of the word “exclusive”?

And what’s the deal with FOX Business News For Lounge Members? It’s not even an application, it’s just the mobile version of a site. How can that be “exclusive”?

And 30-Day FREE TRIAL - wow, free trial!!! - of Garmin. Also in the Exclusives section. As if nobody else could have the great honor of using that trial.

I know I am a very bad man who’s going straight to hell, but I can’t help visiting that Owners Lounge site and seeing the following message being dropped on every passer-by: “People who buy Blackberries are obviously stupid and devoid of any judging capacity, so let’s treat them accordingly”. Way to convey Blackberry superiority to potential new customers! Where do these marketing people get their diplomas? Read the rest of this article

I have been trying to stay on the sidelines of this whole RIM security issue with India. Personally I originally thought it was a big hoax to get RIM to open a NOC in India to create more Indian tech jobs. RIM’s proposed solution to the problem is kind of interesting. It seems like Google and other companies that RIM has just acceeded to Indias demands so they don’t lose business in that country.

The interesting part is that they are not doing the same solution they provided to the paranoid governments of China and Singapore. In those countries RIM setup a proxy where email and data was stored for 6 months for monitoring.

• RIM will provide translation or encryption codes to the government to monitor email among BlackBerry users

• India can monitor e-mails, voice and SMS data sent from a BlackBerry to any other mobile phone or other email address but not between two BlackBerrys

• They will propose the solution on April 9^th to Indias intelligence agencies

I just thought I would pipe in for all out Indian readers to get on a BES or start using S/MIME or PGP for your confidential emails. Big Brother is watching… & RIM is helping them.

(Thanks Ani for sending this one in)

Josep of MiblackBerry.com just released a free new application that helps you back up your SD card when you sync your BlackBerry. The software is just starting to take off so bear with him as he improves it.

So far the software will allow you to sync your BlackBerry SD card to your computer. The difference between this and just copying and pasting is that the software will not copy the file again if it is already on your computer. This will save you quite a bit of time if you have 2–3 gigabytes of music that never change on your SD card. If you do not feel comfortable with the sync you can also allow the application to just copy it again.

NOTE: The MiBlackBerry website is in Spanish but the application is in English. You can also read the application page translated by Google by using the link below.

To use the app:

1. Activate Mass storage in you bb
2. connect your bb using a usb cable
3. launch the Media Card Sync app
4. the app will try to detect your bb, if not click on the search button or select in the combobox
5. select a folder on your pc, (for the first time this should be an empty folder)
6. Click on the Sync button. First time you sync the process can take awhile depending on your media card and number of files

You can pick up the application at this link. I have linked to the Google translated page so expect quite a few mistakes in the translation from Spanish.

Install: www.miblackberry.com/MCSync/setup.exe
Application page: www.miblackberry.com/mediacardsync
English Translated Application page: http://translate.google.com/

Some Screenshots:

Stefano sent me a link to a great review on PinStack by CherriChiodo. She did a very nice review of the website www.MizPee.com. The idea behind the website is that it tells you where you can find the nearest public toilet with quite a bit of good information.

It gives you a rating based on the quality of the bathroom and if you need to make a purchase to use it. It will also let you map the location. Sadly it does not give you the phone number of the establishment.

The service is available for quite a few cities in the US, Europe, & Canada so be sure to check out their website at www.MizPee.com.

Now feel free to laugh all you want.

Spring cleaning is in full swing in my part of the woods so I thought we would get all of you into the spirit. That translates into 15% off all software in the BerryReview Store.

The 15% off coupon is valid until Wednesday April 30^th 2008.

Instructions:

• Add something to your cart at the BerryReview Store
• Click on the checkout button on the top right
• Where it says “Enter gift certificate or promotion code” enter the code BRSPRING
• The 15% off will show in your shopping cart
• Rinse and repeat

Enjoy everybody. Let us know if you pick up something exceptional.

Update: Sorry for the earlier issue the discount code should work now. Let us know with a comment if you have any issues.

News just out from Nav4All is that they have just added New Zealand and Jakarta to their already extensive on-line GPS database. This now makes Nav4All the largest and most detailed On-line mapping program on the market. There has been extensive testing side by side with some of the biggest names in GPS software and hardware (TomTom, Nokia & WayFinder to name but a few) and Nav4All has come out on top. For the full report just hit this link:http://www.stichtingonderzoeknavigatiesystemen.nl

Enigma has been releasing some interesting games for BlackBerry recently. They released EFL: Preseason Football Game earlier this month and have followed with another game. This one is called Rosie’s Revenge and is available for $6.95 from Enigma games. Rosie’s Revenge is the only First Person Fighting game I know of for BlackBerry so it definitely perked my interest. You can see a short video clip of the game on the product page.

The idea is that Rosie is trying to learn how to exact revenge on a mugger that violently attacked her in an alleyway. The point of the game is to help Rosie earn her black belt in self defense as she trains in Zara’s Dojo.

I love the games tag line: When life attacks you, kick it in the balls!

From the description:

Game Information

Innovative fighting controls

8 authentic martial art strikes

Auto-saving game progress

In-game help by 13-time world champion Zara Phythian

Gameplay

Progress from white to black belt by learning martial art combinations

Fast paced fighting

Take down the mugger and get revenge for Rosie

I have not had a chance to play the game myself but I will be downloading it soon. Hopefully a review will follow. I just love how this game got a Family Friendly rating from TIGRS.