One of our readers just sent us a great link. Michael Pereria got a BlackBerry cake for his 30th birthday courtesy of his understanding and loving wife. I guess this is a perfect gift for the BlackBerry user who has it all. Either that or a great gag gift to drop off on Mike Lazaridis’s doorstep.

Unfortunately, no specs are provided so we can’t tell whether it’s actually made with Blackberries. That would be extra crunchy, we guess. But judging by the looks of it and a little experience from childhood, we’re guessing it’s arguably the first hybrid keyboard-AND-touchscreen Blackberry ever made. Be sure to wash your hands beforehand. If Mike would be so kind to mail us a piece, we’ll be glad to write a review.

Congratulations, Michael! Thanks, anonymous tipper!

Check out all 20 pictures of the cake at this link. If you like it feel free to digg it.

Review: Rove Mobile File Manager
Rating: 5/10
www.rovemobile.com
Cost: Free!

Well the folks at Rove really impressed me with the first two products I reviewed (Mobile Admin and Mobile Viewer), but Mobile File Manager really fell short for me. The claims from Rove are pretty impressive:

Mobile File Manager allows you to connect to remote file servers. Edit web pages and deploy sites, upload photos to websites, transfer files, view graphics on remote computers, edit configuration files, monitor log files, and much more - all from your handheld device.

Read the rest of the review and let me know if you agree or have been experiencing the same problems…

Read the rest of this article

BGR (Boy Genius Report) are having a great week over there. They have just released an article stating the touchscreen BlackBerry, codenamed “Thunder”, (heaps better name than “Bold”) will be released in Q3 of this year.

There is a few details which BGR have elaborated on however I don’t think the ‘Worldwide Lifetime Exclusive’ contract on Verizon and Vodafone will pan out. Maybe a 2 year contract, AKA Apple/AT&T but lifetime would just lock out too many potential customers.

If you want to check out the whole article just zip over to BGR @ : BlackBerry Thunder, the touchscreen BlackBerry we’ve all been waiting for

PS; No new pictures yet so we will just have to wait there too.

This may not be brand spanking new but I’ve recently come across a service called ‘Flurry’.

What Flurry allows you to do is to receive email, have access to ‘group messaging’ and news/blogs, etc. feeds on your cell phone…all free of course (Note: Carrier charges may apply for receiving text messages - check your data plan for details)

There are other services similar to Flurry out there , and getting all your emails sent to your Blackberry may be nothing new (since Blackberry does this the best) but it never hurts to know what other services are out there, especially if they offer additional functions. I haven’t personally used Flurry in detail but below is some info from their own website:

*EMAIL - Flurrymail Plus works great on the phone in your pocket right now! Get all your email with the touch of a button. The Plus version is massively upgraded and still completely free*. We call it email for everyone!

*FEEDS - You can sign up to get all your news, blogs and other RSS feeds pushed to Flurry as they are released. Then you can easily share them with your friends while you’re on the go.

*NEW! MOBS - MOBS are a sweet new way to message your groups of friends from anywhere. Share videos, pictures, favorite feeds, rate posts and more…Get in the action by receiving custom SMS or email alerts when friends message you.

For more information and to sign-up, visit: Flurry.com

UPDATE: It looks like the developer pulled the theme. All the downloads for the theme no longer work. Let us know if you find another location for it. For now it will be removed from the directory. Thanks for the letting us know Jen!

I know many of you 8100 Pearl users have been looking for a 9000 series look-alike theme. Well MonkeyBizIU has released a theme that just looks awesome. The icons are slick and the header bar is great. I like how the icons are highlighted when you scroll over them.

The best part is that this theme comes in Zen, Today, & Icon format. Sadly there are no OTA options I can find so far so this is desktop install only. You can find the original post about the theme at this link or you can pick up the Zip files at the authors page here.

Thanks Robbie for sending this one in!

I know BBerrySync has been in beta for a long time but they have finally announced their full product. You can know sign up for their service to sync you contacts, calendar, tasks, notes, inbox, & sent messages without a BES server!!! It just syncs your Outlook on your PC with your BlackBerry. This is better than Unite! since Unite! does not sync with Outlook.

They actually have two editions which can be found on their website www.bberrysync.com:

• The Complete edition ($6/month or $54.99/year) with full Microsoft Outlook OTA Sync of Contacts, Notes, Tasks, Calendar, Sent and Draft Emails.
• Or the Lite edition ($4/month or $39.99/year) with Microsoft Outlook OTA Sync for Contacts, Notes, Sent and Draft Emails.

If your like me and did not realize how to navigate the BBerrySync website just scroll over the images in the large header of the page. They are actually the menu buttons. While this looks really cool it is hard to get used to.

I was just reading an announcement by Visage Mobile that really perked my interest. This application called MobilityCentral that they just announced is something that I know many companies have been looking for. It allows you to manage your BlackBerry inventory and expenses and much more. Personally I think that even if it does not do what you want it still gives you pretty charts to give to management to justify your jobs existence.

It lets you create employee self-service options, manager dashboards, inventory management, policy and compliance, wireless expense management and more.

This is the first SQL Database & Sync client I have ever heard of for BlackBerry so I am sure it is worth mentioning for all the developers and DBA’s out there. The application is a bit over my head but seems to let you create database powered applications for the BlackBerry for creating field reports, inventories, and such.

This might be similar to the Cognos client that came out recently but I cant compare. It seems like RIM is really working to secure their footprint in the enterprise. The details are slim for now but this is what they are offering in their press release:

• The SQL Anywhere database and data synchronization client provide several new key features to BlackBerry developers:
• SQL Anywhere UltraLite(R) relational database including transactional integrity, indexes, and SQL data access;
• Rich, bi-directional heterogeneous data synchronization capabilities including direct support for Sybase(R), Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, and MySQL back-end databases;
• A pure Java ME implementation with an extremely small
• footprint well-suited for the BlackBerry environment.
• SQL Anywhere 11, including support for BlackBerry OS 4.1 and later, will be available in the second half of 2008. For more product information and upcoming webcasts visit http://www.sybase.com/sqlanyblackberry