Ricky Says

Question: I keep getting duplicate emails on my Blackberry Curve 8310, and it seems to be only messages that I reply to (where the original message will show up again after I reply to it, even if it was received several weeks ago). Is there a way to turn this off?

Answer: The trick for turning off duplicate emails was to switch the account type to use my company's outlook web mail address instead of integrating directly with the exchange server.

Basically I logged into the Blackberry email account setup screen and deleted my existing email account, and then created a new one that used the same web address that I use when I log into Outlook with the web client.

The devil is in the details however, and here are the tricks I used to create a blackberry email account that used my company's outlook web address instead of exchange.

First, I logged into the blackberry internet service page (http://att.blackberry.com for me since I'm with AT&T), and then deleted the account that I had set up.

Next, I created a new account using test@test.com (or some bogus email address that the service won't be able to find. This is necessary because it won't show you the super advanced account configuration options unless it can't connect to your mail server, so this fakes it out).

I feel obliged to reply to my own post title "Apple Drops iPhone Price to $199 and Converts Blackberry Fans", and let you know that I decided to actually stick with the Blackberry.

It turned out that I'm not eligible for the upgrade price because I bought my BB less than a year ago and signed up for a 2 year contract with AT&T. So the new iPhone 3G would have cost me $399 for the 8GB model and $499 for the 16GB model - and I just can't justify that much money for a phone and web browser.

Also, reports of the 3G's fast internet speed indicate that it comes at the price of battery life - spent in as little as 2 hours! I can easily go for 2 days on a single charge with my Curver, and I'm not enthused about the prospects of having to plug an iPhone in for charging every few hours.

Fortunately RIM will be releasing the Blackberry Bold very soon in 2008 and it claims to have 3G speed - so I'll keep my eyes on that one instead, and I still use my Curve around the clock for web browsing, email, texting, twitter, taking pictures, listening to music, and finding my location on Google maps.

So it's all still very good in Blackberry land, and I know you want one of those t-shirts ;-)

Question: I have My Portfolio set up at iGoogle and can see it fine on a PC. But when I go to iGoogle using my Blackberry it does not show up - everything else on the iGoogle home page I have does. How can I see My Portfolio? (I used to have it at my Excite homepage but they no longer offer that service of showing your personal portfolio.

Answer: The default web browser that comes with Blackberry mobile phones is just "ok", but not great. It doesn't do a very good job of showing complex web pages, and usually strips them down to a more mobile-friendly smaller screen size.

Opera has a web browser that's completely free called Opera Mini, that runs quite a bit better on a wide variety of phones. It lets you view web pages in full view, and let's you zoom in on the areas that you want to see.

Here's the iGoogle page in full screen view:

Notice the rectangle on the screen? That's the zoom viewfinder, and watch how it zooms into that area of the screen when I click the scroll button:

Question: I occasionally want to take a picture of my Blackberry screen to explain to friends or coworkers how to do something on the phone, or to show them what a game looks like. Is this possible?

Answer: Yes, it's possible to take screen shots of your Blackberry device using a free program called BBScreenShooter.

You can even take psuedo-video of your Blackberry screen with the BBScreenStream program that takes snapshots every half second or so in a continuous loop - similar to video surveillance cameras.

You'll need the javaloader.exe that comes with the Blackberry development kit, which you can get from Motorola. The dev kit is a huge download though, which seems overkill for just one file - so I stuffed it in my downloads folder and you can get JavaLoader.exe here without having to download the whole dev kit.

Place JavaLoader.exe and bbscreenshooter.exe in the same folder, and then double-click bbscreenshooter.exe to run the application.

Question: Even though I have set up profiles for my Blackberry Curve phone, I still do not receive email messages when its on. The phone rings but not when I get email at any of the email addresses I have set up.

Can you help?

Answer: I had this problem a while back with my Blackberry Curve, and the solution was to resend the service books - something you can do from your Blackberry using it's built-in web browser, or from another computer using Internet Explorer or similar web browser.

Open the Blackberry website (https://att.blackberry.com/ for AT&T users) and log in with your blackberry account info. Click the "Service Books" link and then click the "Send Service Books" button.

If you are experiencing difficulties sending or receiving email from your BlackBerry device, sending service books to your device will usually take care of the problem.

Question: I have some pictures I took with my Blackberry Curve that I'd like to copy over to my computer. How do I do this?

Answer: With Blackberry phones you have a few choices:

1. Transfer via email. This is the easiest way, and doesn't cost any money because data transfer is included in the Blackberry service. With the picture open on your Blackberry (Media -- Pictures -- My Pictures -- and then find your picture), press the menu button and select "Send As Email" (you have to scroll down a ways on the menu to find this option).

The email will show up on your computer with a file attachment containing your picture in jpg format, which is compatible with any photo imaging programs and will even open in Microsoft Paint (although I recommend a program like Paint.NET which is free and awesome).

The only drawback with the email approach is that you can only send one picture at a time, which gets a little tedious if you have several pictures you'd like to copy to your computer. In that case I recommend the USB data cable approach described below.

2. Transfer using bluetooth.

As you know, I've been a strong advocate of my Blackberry Curve and wrote an article a few months ago titled Five Reasons Why I Chose a Blackberry Curve Instead of an iPhone. I take my Blackberry everywhere, and am continually checking email, checking on my websites, finding my location on Google Maps with the built-in GPS, and loving everything about it... EXCEPT:

It's Internet speed is too (yawn) slow. EDGE (the network technology used by the Blackberry and many other mobile phones) is dull, and way too slow compared to the new 3G speeds that the iPhone will have come July 11th, 2008 when it's released to the masses.

I already know how fast 3G is from my Aircard that plugs into my laptop and gives me fast broadband internet speeds. That's what we'll have with the new iPhone.

According to Apple CEO Steve Jobs an 8GB iPhone 3G will sell for $199 and the 16GB model will sell for $299, and will come in white and black versions. You can buy these iPhone 3G models on July 11.

Dropping the price to $199 makes this a no-brainer decision (especially if they keep the lower monthly service plan that's always been less expensive than the Blackberry's $30 monthly rate).

GPS: yep, it's built-in.

I'm heading to London tomorrow for a week long business trip and will need to have access to phone, email, and internet on my Blackberry Curve (I'm the Education Manager for Jive Software and will be delivering 4 days worth of training on Clearspace, our collaboration application).

Phone calls are crazy expensive internationally, with rates of $1.29 per minute in the UK.

Fortunately I spend a lot more time on email and the web then I do on the phone, and AT&T has an international data plan that's $64.99 a month for unlimited email and internet. I'll be able to check email, browse the web (tweet on Twitter, etc), and text home occasionally.

When you sign up for the international data plan, it drops your phone calls down to 99 cents a minute. Still not cheap, but if I have to make a business call then Jive will reimburse me.

I'll switch back to the regular Blackberry data plan when I return home, which is only $30 a month.

I also have an Aircard for broadband internet tethering on my laptop, but the data plan for that was something like $130 - too much in my opinion, and the training facility will have high speed internet, as will my hotel.

Question: How can I transfer my itunes songs and videos into my Blackberry 8330 curve?

Answer: Blackberry curves let you play mp3 music just like an iPod, and you can transfer songs and videos from iTunes to your Blackberry using an SD Micro memory card and a USB card reader. I'll describe the steps you'll need to take below.

Blackberry Curves come with 64 megs of built-in memory, which is barely enough for even a single music album. Fortunately, the Curve also has a memory expansion slot that allows up to 4 gigabytes of SD flash memory - the same amount of storage as an iPod nano.

You can get a 2 GB 3-in-1 microSD/miniSD/SD Kit from Wireless Emporium (shown below), which is enough for about 1,000 songs.

Combine it with a USB card reader (also available for a few bucks at Wireless Emporium), and you'll be able to plug it directly into your computer or laptop and transfer songs or videos to it from iTunes.

Looking for a way to listen to music on your Blackberry without the restrictions of a wired headphone connection?

The new Blackberry Curve 8310 comes with a standard 3.5-inch headphone jack and a set of hands-free headphones that let you listen to music and take calls when they come in. You can browse the web or check email, all while listening to your favorite mp3 tunes using the Curve's built-in mp3 player.

Here's a step-by-step guide that will show you how to free yourself of wires and listen to music from your Blackberry Curve using a pair of wireless Bluetooth headphones (Jabra BT620s in this case):

1. Enable Bluetooth on your Blackberry

Trying to decide between a Blackberry Curve and an Apple iPhone?

I recently compared the features of a Blackberry Curve with an Apple iPhone and ended up buying the new Blackberry Curve 8310 Titanium model. It has a nice balance between size and features: a full Qwerty keyboard, a bright display, 2.0 MP camera with built-in flash, expandable memory up to 4GB, and even GPS so I can use Google Mobile Maps to find where I'm at for free.

The iPhone also has some great features that have made it a very popular device, such as the built-in accelerometer that detects when you rotate iPhone from portrait to landscape, then automatically changes the contents of the display. This lets you immediately see the entire width of a web page or a photo in its proper landscape aspect ratio.