UPDATED: Redid the images to not have anything grayed out

To follow up on the screenshots we posted of BES 4.1.5 I wanted to show some of the new features. Some of these new features require a combination of OS 4.5 and BES 4.1.5. The main ones you will notice in the screenshots below are:

• Remote email search – Search and retrieve email that is no longer on your device. Notice the cool new menu options.
• Free / Busy appointment view – Pretty cool view to see who is free and busy just like you do in outlook
• Attachment viewing – This is just documents to go.

Remote email search

Free Busy appointment view

New Attachment handling

Greg just scored some pictures of BES 4.1.5 in action from an undisclosed saint source . Not much to see but some eye candy for BES administrators. I am no guru so I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Click on the pictures to expand them. I will follow this up with a post showing some shots of the remote search option available with BES 4.1.5.

All of you who purchased the theme when we first mentioned it should count yourselves lucky. Since Friday we have received over 20 emails asking what happened to the Crossbar theme. Sadly it seems like it has been removed from bPlay’s website. I will be removing it from the theme directory for now.

This theme was the most innovative theme available for BlackBerry and it is a shame that it was removed. My humble guess is that the theme may have been made using the unreleased Plasmic Theme Builder 4.3 release. Hopefully we will see it return when Plazmic gets off their high horse and releases 4.3. I think they are probably just waiting for WES.

I cant wait to see what bPlay will create next to trump the crossbar theme…

One of our readers, Joe, let me know that there is a great follow up to the Today Plus Theme we mentioned for the 8130. RIM also has a hidden version of the Today Plus Bottom dock which in my opinion looks much cooler. I do have confirmations that it works on the 8130 and one user mentioned that it did work on a 8100 with the OS 4.5 Beta installed. Other than that I am counting on you to try it out and tell me if it works on your Pearl.

The theme is really cool. If you scroll further down on the today screen you will get a nice Zen bar on the bottom.

Just head on over to this link below from your BlackBerry browser:
Http://mobile.blackberry.com/resources/theme_catalog/themes/TodayPlus_240×260.jad

OK, so this theme is definitely more for the ladies but in this seemingly somewhat male dominated world of Blackberry…I feel it’s my duty to enforce ‘girl power’ whenever I can :0)

Amaranth Zen is a fairly new theme from Bplay.com and is available for the Curve, Pearl, 8700, & 8800 series devices. It has a lovely and vibrant colored design - yet feminine look aside, it has a very clean style and was obviously designed by someone who knows a thing or two about creating themes. It also comes in an icon format if the Zen styling is not to your taste.

Amaranth Zen theme for the Curve only costs $3.99 and upon credit card payment an email is sent (make sure you forward it to your device if you haven’t already) with an immediate link to the OTA download. Follow instructions from there and also remember to reboot your Blackberry after downloading to complete the process. The theme can then be activated by going to: Options>Themes>(select the Amaranth Theme).

Now anyone who follows my articles knows I don’t get upset very easily. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I wrote a Rant.  

But this has really steamed me up so I thought I would write about it. 

Now for those who don’t know, Australia is a Free country. (As free, if not more so than the U.S or Canada). The new Australian government has decided to introduce new legislation to give employers the right to check any or all emails sent or received by their employees on work email addresses without your knowledge. The excuse, Cyber-Terrorism… Now I’ve got no problem with all the security upgrades worldwide since 9/11 but this is my eyes is going too far. What happened to privacy??? What happened to civil rights??? What happened to freedom of speech??? 

No more are we going to be able to call the boss a ‘wanker’ in inter-office emails. (If you don’t know what ‘wanker’ means hit this link ;  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanker . And yes, the picture above is of a young Paul Hogan in character as one of his personas, Leo Wanker). Now, most of us are guilty of saying a bad word or two about the boss to peers in the workplace. Some of this conversation usually spills over into emails.Now, would you send that same email if there was a chance your boss might intercept it? Probably not… 

Don’t get me wrong, some work places need to monitor emails for security purposes. (Law enforcement, security institutions and military installations are just a couple that come to mind). But in your stock standard law firm or accounting company I feel that tyrant type bosses are going to take advantage of this new power. 

An example would be;

(Before the new law)

”Hi Tony,The boss has really been riding me in the last week. If the bastard would start to work on the project at hand more than his bloody golf handycap then life would be a heap easier…

Take CareFred”

(After the new law)

”Dear Mr Anthony J Wright,

Sorry for not replying to your inter office emails for the last week or so. I have several meetings this morning but am totally on top of the situation.

By the way, I heard it around the office that Mr (Insert bosses name here) is a fantastic golfer and could hold his own with the likes of Tiger Woods.

Anyway, work to do…

Yours Sincerely,

Mr Frederick Wrong.”

Ok, I will get off my soapbox now and open up the floor. Do you agree with this type of security upgrade or not? (And is there any such legislation and where else?)(Or am I just way out of line and should just submit to loosing another part of my privacy?) Comment away… 

Just as a reminder. Today we have a pretty cool sale going on over at the BerryReview store. You can pick up the IM+ All In One Mobile Messenger for half off the original price of $49.95! ONLY $24.95. Pretty cool stuff if your finally getting tired of waiting for RIM to release all of their IM clients to all the carriers.

EVEN BETTER: On top of that don’t forget our 15% off Spring Sale to bring the price even lower.

INSTRUCTIONS: There is no coupon code for this sale. Please click on this link to purchase IM+. If you want to try before you buy tomorrow you can pick up a 7 day trial at this link.

IM+ lets you sign into:

• MSN/ Windows Live Messenger
• Yahoo! Messenger
• AOL Instant Messenger AIM/iChat
• ICQ
• Jabber
• & Google Talk

On top of that you can sign into multiple accounts of the same service at the same time. They have also added the feature allowing you to send some cheap SMS text messages from the application. I know international readers will also appreciate the fact that it supports BES, BIS, WAP and direct connection for Internet access.

Features List:

• No cost per message, only standard payment for wireless data transfer.
• Send cheap SMS right from IM+ .
• One-Time Purchase License: all further updates are included.
• Connection type auto-configuration - BES, BIS, WAP and direct connection are supported.
• You can receive notifications about incoming messages in your MySpace blog, profile, e-mail and friends invitations.
• File sending and navigation wheel support for Pearl/Curve/8800/8830 devices.
• Battery life extended.
• Use multiple accounts of the same service simultaneously.
• Authorization support for services. You will get the alert message when someone add you to his/her contact list.
• Online translating tool. Translate messages into 9 supported languages: English, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
• Sending free SMS via Yahoo! to all main US carriers.
• Conferences in MSN. Increase productivity of your business, talk within a group of colleagues with MSN accounts.
• Background Mode. Stay in IM+ while using other applications.
• Predefined messages. Good choice of predefined phrases for every case in life.
• Smileys. Add emotions to your messages, a good set of funny faces available.
• Configurable shortcuts. Set up shortcuts for quicker access to application features.
• Configurable notification options. Vibro, Sound and LED.

I give all the credit for this one to the great guys at TechBargains.com. If you have never visited the site you should for some amazing tech deals.

They let us know that the amazing shure headphones are selling for 30% off. This is a great deal because these headphones never go on sale. I know people are going to complain about paying high prices for what amounts to headphones so let me preempt that.

These are hands down the best headphones I have ever used. I have convinced my brother (who is an audiophile), my wife, my best friend, and dozens of other friends and coworkers to purchase a set and I have not heard one complaint yet.

According to TechBargains the prices are:

Shure SE110 Noise Isolating Earphones $99.95 - 30% = $69.97 Free Shipping
Shure SE210 Noise Isolating Earphones $149.95 - 30% = $104.97 Free Shipping
Shure SE310 Noise Isolating Earphones $249.95 - 30% = $174.97 Free Shipping

I highly recommend the SE210’s in Black. These earphones block out all the sound around you without any noise cancelling feature. They go into your ear and act like ear plugs so that you can play music at lower volumes.

Trust me you wont be disappointed unless you require bass. The only problem with these earphones is that they are a little light on bass but the clarity and sound blocking is amazing. I cannot hear the New York City subway at all when I wear them!

Just read the reviews and you will see what I mean