Flashback Friday: Impress your friends with a shiny new BlackBerry Storm2, only $140 at 1SaleADay!

It was 2009.

BlackBerry OS 5.0 had just been released, BlackBerry App World was still in its infancy, and we had our first device (the BlackBerry Curve 8520/30) with a trackpad instead of that dirty old trackball.

Research In Motion was trying to recover from the initial BlackBerry Storm, and launched the BlackBerry Storm2 in an effort to redeem themselves. Was it a successful attempt? You can judge that for yourself, since just a bit over two years later, none of the latest devices carry the Storm name.

In any case, the device does have a following - mostly made up of people that for one reason or another have stuck with it since launch. You can still buy the BlackBerry Storm2, and deals like this one at 1SaleADay pop up from time to time. So, whether you try to impress your friends with your retro style when you pull this bad boy out of your pocket, give it to the dog as a chew toy, or use it as a backup device in case of emergency, for just $140 you won't have to mortgage the house to own it. Don't delay, the sale ends in a few hours.

More information from 1SaleADay

BBDoodle: BlackBerry London is From the Future!

On Monday we caught our first glimpse of BlackBerry "London", but the photo only showed off the front of the phone. We've been scratching our heads all week trying to figure out what the back of the phone looks like... could the first BBX BlackBerry be hiding some secret new feature that will help it leapfrog the competition when it hits the market?

We know QNX has a history in automotive, and between London's angular corners and silver/black color scheme and futuristic look, we couldn't help but be reminded of the DeLorean from Back to the Future (see pics).

Then it hit us. We know what BlackBerry London is packing on it's back... Mike Lazaridis has managed to shoehorn a flux capacitor in there! 1.21 giggawatt BlackBerry anyone?? :)

A Halloween Howl from The Joy of Tech :/

The Joy of Tech has never been shy about poking fun at RIM and BlackBerry, and in this amusing Halloween piece they keep the hits coming. This time they split the fun between both the BlackBerry PlayBook and HP Touchpad. This one certainly did make me chuckle a bit -- you have to find the humor in things sometimes, even if you're ticked off about having to wait for PlayBook OS 2.0.

Source: Joy of Tech

Funny: CrackBerry addicts lament BlackBerry RIM outage

The video above comes from NMA TV, makers of many funny (and often offensive) animated videos on everything from President Obama to Apple to the NBA. The video above shows a bit about the way many BlackBerry users reacted to the recent outage that lasted nearly four days. It's a very amusing look at CrackBerry addicts, although it seems a bit over the top (or is it??). Let us know what you think in the comments!

My BlackBerry is not working - A bit of humor to help lighten the mood

We had originally posted this video last year, but since the last few days have no doubt made BlackBerry owners a bit angry and frustrated, we figured we'd try and ease the pain a bit with a few laughs. This was originally seen on The One Ronnie show and takes a bit of a spin on our usual tech problems. It's definitely a good watch to help lighten the mood even though things are back up and running now. Enjoy!

Hey AT&T! Where is our BlackBerry Bold 9900?!

Soooo ... it's September 17th today, and if you remember from our 2nd to last podcast we declared today AT&T picket day if the BlackBerry Bold 9900 didn't show up. Following up on our petition to AT&T, I took matters into my own hands and blocked my day off to do my CrackBerry duty. With my Verizon Bold 9930 and Rogers Bold 9900 in hand and the power of the CrackBerry nation behind me, I set out for my local AT&T store to get my picket on. As you can see in the video above, the store was totally dead (because they don't have the Bold 9900 .. duh) and unfortunately they wouldn't let me film inside. I did do some solo picketing for as long as I could though. I don't know if it helped our cause or not, but regardless ... come on AT&T ... give us the BlackBerry Bold 9900!!!

Did you head out to your local store and picket today? Did you rally the troops? If not you still have time! Let us know in the comments -- and if you haven't signed our petition yet, what are you waiting for?!

Friday Photo Fun: WTF is this thing?!

Wow ... and wow again. Forums member robertyhn sent this into the CrackBerry tip line, and frankly we're not quite sure what to make of it. The site MaxPDA calls this futuristic device a BlackBerry 9980, but it looks to us that it's really just more of a rebuilt (or "reimagined") BlackBerry Bold 9900. At first glance it does look like it could be some type of concept BlackBerry, but as you dive into the photos you'll notice pretty much everything is spot on with the Bold 9900. There are some exceptions in the lock button, volume/mute buttons and memory card slot however, but all of these can easily be tweaked with little effort. All of the ports, camera, flash, proximity senor and other features are all in line with the 9900. It doesn't look to be an actual production device, and most certainly not a QNX device either. So ... take it for what you will, but we're thinking its just the work of a phone geek like us with a little lot of extra time on their hands. Keep reading for a boat load of images. Thanks roberyhn!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Source: MAXPDA

From the Forums: A wedding day surprise

We see a lot of BlackBerry addicts around here, which is totally understandable since we're the #1 site for BlackBerry users and abusers. Sometimes, we see stuff in the forums that drives home how deep that addiction can go.

CrackBerry member TMGould posted in the forums that he's getting married on Sunday, and he threw up a couple of pictures. The first is the wedding day checklist, and the bride (I assume!) is planning ahead, because the first thing on the list is "TAKE TOM'S BLACKBERRY OFF HIM!!!" If that wasn't any indication of his obsession, the next picture, posted above, was a sure sign. Tom has acquired BlackBerry cufflinks for the big day. Seriously, how cool is that!?

Congratulations to Tom and the future Mrs. Tom from all of us at CrackBerry! Enjoy your BlackBerry big day!

Survey finds phone users bored, needy and avoiding human contact

The other day, Pew Internet published their findings from a national telephone survey they performed that involved nearly 2300 adults living in the United States. They asked the questions about their mobile habits from the past 30 days; ranging from messaging habits, to social networking, to types of downloads. They went as far as measuring results by age, ethnicity and type of phone (Smartphone vs. cell phone). Here are some of their key findings from the survey:

Snapping an image and SMS are at the top of the list for both Smartphone and cell phone owners, while the Smartphone users obviously dominate social networking and internet access. To be honest, I would have thought that more people would have admitted to pretending to be using their phone to avoid human contact. Who wants to interact face to face anymore right? How would you have responded to the questions in the survey?

Check out the full report from Pew Internet and American Life Project

[NSFW] Friday Fun: Textual Healing by Cassandra Kubinski

As the title says, this video is not safe for work, or for kids really, so beware when watching. With that said, it's Friday and time to have a bit of fun! Singer Cassandra Kubinski gives us her version of Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing, called Textual Healing. There are a few somewhat taboo subjects in the song, ones that we've all heard mention of, but no one really talks about. The lyrics are pretty catchy, and I'm sure I'll be humming them all day. Enjoy the video.

Thanks James!

Friday Fun: BlackBerry 7 Smartphone NickNames... We dub thee Bold 9900/Bold 9930 the Gretzky!

We recorded a CrackBerry Podcast earlier today, talking about all of the newly-announced BlackBerry 7 Smartphones. It's a fun show, so be sure to listen. But by the end of it, we realized we NEEDED to come up with some shorter nicknames for this next generation of BlackBerry Smartphones. Ater sixty minutes of CrackBerry talk tossing back names like Bold 9900, Bold 9930, Torch 9850, Torch 9860 and Torch 9810 we were getting tongue tied and parched lips. Back in June I wrote a ranty editorial titled Can we just call it the BlackBerry Bold Touch already? This Bold 9900 / Bold 9930 thing is driving me crazy! which highlighed my annoyance that in order to address the new Bolds in a technically correct way, I could never just say Bold 9900 (as that ignores it's CDMA counterpart the 9930). Oh if only there were a unique way to identify both devices in one sentence, life would be grand.

With the Bold Touch or Touch Bold sounding a bit too much like a bad porno, I've tried to let that name slip from my vocabulary. But on today's podcast we managed to wrangle up a fitting name for the Bold 9900 / Bold 9930... the GRETZKY! Think about it. Gretzy was #99 (9900), Canadian (BlackBerry is from Canada), RIM loves hockey (remember Jim Balsillie wanted to buy an NHL team) and Gretzky is the Great One, just as the Bold 9900/9930 is the greatest of the traditional BlackBerrys to date. So there ya have it... if you want a good, short and fitting nickname that encompasses the Bold 9900 and Bold 9930, just refer to the new Bolds as the Gretzky.

As for the new Torches, here's where we're at. Since the Torch 9800 was the first Torch, it's still the Torch to us. So we're calling the new Torches by their last two digits.  So we got the ten (Torch 9810), the fiddy (Torch 9850) and the sixty (Torch 9860).  And if you want to refer to both the Torch 9850 and Torch 9860 together, just call it the fiddy sixty, which is super fun to say.

So if you're going to hit the bar this weekend and the topic of RIM's new BlackBerry Smartphones comes up, make things easy and talk about the Gretzky, the ten, and the fiddy sixty. Have any better nicknames for these new BBs? Drop em in the comments!

Fake of the Week: Knockoff Torch looks just like the real thing (kind of)

It's been quite a while seen we've seen a good fake BlackBerry, but Scott let us know that he spotted this knockoff BlackBerry Torch. It looks almost as good as the real thing - complete with slider, trackpad and Torch branding on the back - but this fake also sports some dual-SIM action, TV, Wifi, Bluetooth and more. As you can see from the photos it's not running a legit BlackBerry OS however, so if that is something you need then you might want to pick up the real thing. Keep reading for a few more images or check it out for yourself. Thanks Scott!

 

 

Ryan and Isaac meet the PlayBook

Ok that title may be a little misleading - we’ve actually had our BlackBerry PlayBooks since the day they came out. I’m talking about the Meet the PlayBook tour that has introduced many to RIM’s tablet. Near the end of May, Bla1ze and Michelle had a chance to visit one of the PlayBook packed Peterbuilts. On Canada Day, I met up with our own Isaac Kendall and took a trip down to Canada Place in Vancouver, in order to experience the tour for ourselves. We also wanted to provide a quick video walkthrough of our experience. We had quite an adventure trying to find the trailer; I swear we were being purposely misdirected by iPad users, but we eventually prevailed!

Within the trailer we found the same displays as Bla1ze and Michelle did; multiple PlayBook stations, PlayBook accessory displays, large screens with commercials/demos and an instructor led hands-on demonstration (yes, class was in session). Before we got into the really good stuff, our video tour was shut down. But, at least we were able to get enough footage to show those of you who couldn’t make it out and wanted to see what it was like. We also found dozens of kiosks near the trailer, and around Canada Place, where you could enter to win a PlayBook. To be honest, I didn’t know if it was Canada Day or PlayBook day.

Will the Meet the PlayBook tour be near you?

The Grammar of BBM

 

In these times of ever-shortening missives of 140 characters or less, people are cramming more and more information into less and less space. This shortening of words and phrases can lead to disastrous consequences. Take this text message for example, "n e ice cream left?" You'll notice that the person texting has used the exact same number of characters to type "n e" as he would have to type "any." This young texter now looks like a complete fool and faces banishment from his humble seaside village.

We of the Society of People Who Wish Everyone Could Just Use the Same Words but It's Probably Not Going to Happen Because Honestly? Who's Going to Listen to Us? Societies (it's a big society) have put together this handy guide to the proper use of the noun and verb forms of BBM.

BBM - Noun - acronym for BlackBerry Messenger, a highly popular messaging app exclusive to the BlackBerry smartphone

BBM - verb - to send a message via BlackBerry Messenger or to BlackBerry Message (where Message is a verb)

 

When speaking of sending messages via BlackBerry Messenger, it is important to use the correct punctuation and capitalization in order to make sure you are properly understood. For example, if you were speaking of a sending a BBM in the past, you could use a sentence such as "I BBM'd Beth yesterday, but she hasn't read my message yet."

Note the apostrophe and then "d" following the BBM. Rather than stating "I sent Beth a message using the BlackBerry Messenger application; it has not yet indicated that she has read said message," you can simply write "BBM'd Beth yesterday, but no R, just D"

The shift key and the apostrophe key are on entirely opposite sides of the keyboard. For some people, this pressing of two separate keys to produce merely a single character upon the screen is an almost Herculean feat. For these people, BBM'd can be shorted to BBMd. Please note that capitalization is key to this abbreviation as "BBMD" and "bbmd" are complete gibberish.

 

 

Also of note is how to describe the actual act of sending and a BBM and/or having a full conversation over the messaging platform. In the sentence, "John is BBM'ing his wife before we go out for beers" this indicates that John is currently in the process of sending a message to his wife using the BBM application to message between the two BlackBerry smartphones, letting her know that he may be home from work a little late

The sentence "John is BBM'ing with his wife because we went out for beers" indicates that John neglected to tell his wife that he was going out with the guys and thus would be home late. The "with" indicates a conversation happening in real time between John and his wife. From the fierce typing and disappointed sighs, it would appear that John's wife has sent him pictures of her after dinner plans. Unfortunately, it appears Mrs. John now has a headache.

Again, as with BBM'd, BBM'ing can be shortened to BBMing. In rare cases where six characters are simply too many. BBMg can be substituted. Please note that anyone not reading this article will have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. BBM'ing your parents the phrase "BBMg BF tlk l8r" will almost certainly earn a lecture on how much college costs and/or the value of using real, actual words.

 

 

To speak or write about sending picture or video over BlackBerry Messenger uses a very similar grammar structure as sending a message. BlackBerry Messenger sends pictures, video, and audio in pretty much the same way as it sends text, thus the grammar needs only a slight adjustment.

Incorrect: John just sent me a text message with a picture of what his girlfriend was wearing last night. That was worth the 40 cents it cost to receive it!

Correct: Hunter just BBM'd me a pic of his girlfriend. I don't have to worry about text messaging charges or wait while the resized picture is reassembled from tiny pieces of no more than 160 bytes. Because pictures, audio, and video sent via BBM travel through the data network, I get the original picture. This is going on my wallpaper.

 

As you see, it is important to use good grammar even while shortening what we say. With constant vigilance, the world can be properly molded into shape, trained to use proper sentence structure in even the most trying of times. We of SPWWECJUSWIPNGHBH?WGLU?S thank you in advance for your support.

Live and Lost with BlackBerry? Chances of survival are good

One day you find yourself in a strange place. All you have with you is a Blackberry Torch, a small amount of cash and your wits to get you through the week. For some, that sounds like an extended version of a great weekend. I recently stumbled upon a short series in which musicians based in the UK experienced just that, back in the Fall of 2010. Using the items listed above, and with help only from their fans, they had to make the trek to a gig within a week. The series starred Example, The Wanted and Professor Green, while on the Live and Lost tour - and only 6 episodes were produced. I wish I had found this sooner, but you can check out the episodes on Youtube.

They don’t know how they’ll get where they need to go. They reach out to fans, or vice versa, through their BB (using Facebook, Twitter, BlackBerry Messenger, etc). It was an interesting concept, but it didn’t really show the true power that we all know the BlackBerry has. Yes, there are countless shots of the Torch, but no shots of any native or third party apps used. Or even true talk about how great the BlackBerry is at keeping them connected with fans. You know, they should do something like this more often. You actually don’t need any celebrities or musicians on tour; drop regular people in the middle of nowhere and have them try to survive with cash and a BlackBerry. Now that would be a challenge. In fact, if RIM wants to do something like this again, I’m officially in!

Live and Lost with BlackBerry episode guide