DopeWars is out for blackberry. Let the rejoicing commence. Also, I see that I still have a few people reading this RSS feed. Can you please go here and update your subscription to the new address? I plan to end-of-life this particular feed, as wordpress is working really well for me.

Seems good. OTA at mobile.bblocal.com. Trying it now!

In the main apps review page I said that the OS4 apps had category support. True, they do. However, after using it for quite I while, I have to say that they blow compared to PalmOS. Much harder to find/use/create. One of the virtues of the palm was the easy of switching categories, and the blackberry lacks this. They're effectively useless.

New features - pictures of starbucks stores, bugfixes.

Looks like an OS patch. Haven't installed it yet, since the move displaced the XP box I use to apply these.

V1.0 released, added 10k non-starbucks locations, claims to be faster and such too. Still free. Still essential for the traveling coffee junky.

Free Opera, today only. Worth getting, because the Opera client is the only non_IE browser that can render the BWC webmail correctly...

Coffee finder. Uses GPS if you have a 7520, input address otherwise. I am testing it now! Seems to work, very sluggish at times.

Great idea, though.

From BlackberryCool weblog.

Very cool. Look up cell towers based on FCC data, map with Google. Genius.

Blackberry-formatted travel guides. Seems useful.

This article claims that bad hotel networks are driving BB adoption. I'd have to agree. The Residence Inn I most often use has registration every 24 hours, which breaks all other apps, and is very slow during most of the day. Lame.

The blackberry may be slow (GPRS), but it always works. That goes a long, long ways when you're on the road.

Mobile Wikipedia. Cool.

Courtesy of the Tao of Mac. A killer app for blackberry!

I've been playing with WordPress as a replacement, but am still not confident enough to switch over. Have a look and see what you think of it.

Still need to post a detailed review of the 7290 now that I've been round the world with it.

The Blackberry WebClient email interface seems to only render correctly in IE/Win32. Which is super annoying.

I just discovered that Opera renders it perfectly. And they have a $15 upgrade from version 6, so I've paid and am happy. You can skip this if you want; privoxy blocks their ads just fine but I like to pay for the stuff I use and like.

Site update and 7290 review in the works. Still debating a switchover from plain HTML to WordPress.

Backpack, the uber-cool organizer from 37 signals, now has a simple version that works great from the Blackberry browser. Just add /mob to your URL, and it works.

Very cool.

Just got back from Singapore - cool trip. The blackberry worked great there, though since T-mobile charges 1.5 cents per kilobyte, I created a new mail filter that didn't forward emails unless they had 'urgent' in the subject header.

This worked well, and I recommend it.

However, since I wasn't deleting mails on the handheld, my mailbox filled up a couple of times and I had to use a laptop to go clean it out. Why they have a 10 meg quota in 2005 is beyond me.

The magic required to take a generic J2ME jarfile and run it on a blackberry. You need the free RIM developer kit, and a bit of time.

Well, the 7290 didn't make it back until after I left for a week. (On a biz trip where I sorely missed it; damned inconvenient). I got back, tore open the package, charged it, popped in my T-Mobile SIM, and voila!

It was still locked!

Much profanity ensued. After googling, I tried updating the OS to the since-released 4.0, to no avail.

Today, I called Bongo, and Kevin was most excellent. He gave me their FedEx code, and had me ship it overnight to them at their expense. So tomorrow they'll try again, and fedex it back. I've got another trip next week and really, really, really hope it works this time.

In the meantime, I had tried my Plans B. My 'free blackberry from united' coupon was negative, since t-mobile required me to cancel my account to get it! Since I'm on family plan, this was a lose since we'd probably lose our numbers in the process. So much for loyalty to longtime customers.

I was lining up monochrome 62xx series units on ebay when Kevin called me back. I'm very glad to solve this without further expense. So far I'm out close to five hundred bucks so far.

For those of you that are also new to IRC.

One of the ways I communicate with other developers is via IRC. I'm kinda new to it, but it's similar to the mud Argonne has used. Unlike the mud, IRC is popular and there are multiple free IRC clients that should work on your Blackberry or Java cell phone:

WLIrc

jmIrc

Virca

I'm still waiting for Bongo to return my 7290, so I've not tried any of these yet. Can't wait!

I love the quote on the Virca page:

If you're like me, you have no friends outside the internet. And you also can't afford a laptop to keep in touch with those friends, or you're just too lazy to carry it around. So what do you do to protect yourself for when that primal urge for socializing strikes in inconvenient places? I made the Virca IRC midlet. If you don't know, a midlet is a J2ME application for running on embedded devices such as a PDA or a cell phone. This one does that, and it lets you connect to IRC.

Is there anything more central to a geek's psyche than the waiting for the hardware to arrive?

I think not.

Here's hoping that Bongo Wireless will promptly unlock and mail my shiny new 7290 back to me. Maybe if I'm lucky they'll send me a tracking number too.

Sent my 7290 to Bongo after PayPal'ing them 120 iron men. Damn, this has been an expensive series of, er, learning. Yes, that's it. Speaking of that, my new i830 Moto arrived; this'll be my work cell. It's small, at least. Seems a basic and decent flip phone. At least it'll fit in a pocket without hassle.

I've been digging around for an unlock for the 7290, so far with no luck.

Cingular, of course, has no interest in helping out though their operator was quite nice about it.

I've googled and otherwise dug around the net and forums, to no avail. Looks like Bongo may get my money. Damned expensive, and inconvenient to boot.

On the bright side, a suit was filed yesterday in California against Cingular and other US carriers for the practice of phone locking. I wish them lots of luck so others aren't screwed like me.

One thing that confused me for quite a while is the browser bundled with (most) blackberries. The one Nextel gave me only did WML, which is basically no-images, no-formatting HTML. Unreliable to boot.

Then, when I got MyBlackberry, I got a real HTML browser at the same time. Confusingly, it's the same program!

So here's the deal - the carrier decides if you get the browser. This is almost impossible to determine beforehand unless you visit the shop and try it out.

If they don't give you the browser, you have these options:

1. Buy Reqwireless for 30-40
2. Buy BES service and MyBlackberry
3. Switch carriers

So far, I've determined that T-Mobile does enable the browser, even on the cheap BWC accounts. So if I ever get my 7290 unlocked I'm good to go.

I like the Blackberry browser better than Reqwireless; other people on the net like Reqwireless better. Try it and see for yourself.

It finally made it through my thick skull that MyBlackberry, as nice as their service is, requires BES carrier service and is thus at least $20/month more than BWC service. So I've cancelled them as of yesterday and written off the cost as a learning expense.

So my never-even-opened 7290 arrives, an easy Ebay deal. Orange Cingular box. I open it and discover....

It's network locked. It'll only work on Cingular.

Damn, this sucks. If I pay 120$ I can get it unlocked: http://www.bongowireless.com/pages.php?pageid=24

Here's the ongoing thread on the forumes - this is a late development from Cingular:

http://www.blackberryforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=31868#31868

This thread explains the 'mepd' trick to check lock status:

http://www.blackberryforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=129

Not sure what I'm gonna do. This is becoming damned expensive and frustrating to boot. Current plan is to get a small Nextel phone (i830), lose the 7510, and use my personal T-Mobile number with the 7290. Though 'good money after bad' is starting to sound like an apt description of all this.

I just bought a 7290 on ebay for $280. T-mobile BWC plan, 20/month, will see how it goes.

More research on BES and carriers' pricing. Posted more info plus prices from AT&T, Cingular and T-Mobile.

OK, I was wrong. MyBlueBerry by itself does not suffice. After Nextel reverted me to phone-only, I have no data. This sucks. Time to look at T-Mobile and the 7290 again. Nextel + MyBlueberry is at least 45/month. Too much.

Looks like T-mobile has fixed their problem of blocking TCP ports for BWC users. Guess I'll have to look at their pricing again; they've got a 20-30 plan (BWC) that could work.

Replaced the old pages with soft links to the new home page. Here we go!

Since I'm now getting around 100 hits/day on the Blackberry pages, I was inspired to reorganize and clean them up. Enjoy the results!