blackberry

Selling your Blackberry or just want to get it back to it's original factory settings? Here's an easy way to do it using a built-in menu option.

Find the Settings folder on the main Blackberry screen, and select the following menus:

"Options" -- "Security Options" -- "General Settings"

In the General Settings screen, press the menu button (the button to the left of the track ball) and select "Wipe Handheld" from the popup menu.

Confirm that you want to erase all data on the Blackberry, and be sure to select the option to include any third party applications that you might have installed (e.g. Google maps or the Opera web browser).

As a final confirmation step, you'll be asked to enter the word "blackberry", and then the resetting process will begin.

It takes a minute or 2 to wipe a Blackberry clean, which resets it to the original factory settings and removes all address book entries, photos, videos, etc.

Just traded in your Blackberry for a shiny new iPhone? Wise choice.

Here's how to transfer contacts from your old Blackberry to your new iPhone, and without buying anything extra along the way (completely free solution).

We'll do this in two main steps:

1. Transfer contacts from the Blackberry address book to Outlook on your computer (or Windows Mail).

2. Sync your iPhone with your computer using iTunes, which will transfer the contacts from Outlook to your iPhone.

Make sure that both the Blackberry Desktop Manager and iTunes are installed on your system, and that your Blackberry is connected to your computer with a usb data cable.

1. Transfer contacts from a Blackberry to Outlook

Run the Blackberry Desktop Manager program and click "Synchronize" from the main menu screen. Select "Synchronization" below the Configuration menu option to get to the Synchronization Configuration screen.

There you'll click the "Synchronization" button to configure the synchronization settings.

(that was a mouthfull of synch-related words wasn't it? Hang in there)

You'll be asked to choose the device applications to synchronize. Choose "Address Book", and then choose "Outlook".

If you don't have Outlook on your system, then you can choose "Windows Mail" instead.

Next you'll configure how you want to sync your contacts, either bi-directionally or just from your blackberry to Outlook (which is the option I chose):

Click "Next" and then "Finish" to complete the synchronization settings. This will take you back to the synchronization screen.