Fast Forward or Rewind Video in Blackberry

Not sure who designed the user interface of the Blackberry Media player. But it took me quite some time to figure out how to move around different time positions when viewing a video. Here is the step-by-step guide:

1) Pause the video



2) Use the trackball to scroll up. Notice the blue bar above the Play button is highlighted.



3) Click the trackball. Notice the position marker also turns from white to blue



4) Use the trackball to move to a desired time position and click the trackball. The position marker becomes white again



5) Scroll down the trackball and click the Play button to start playing video in the new time position

Free GPS Navigation on Blackberry

I have been playing around with the free GPS navigation software from amAze. I was not expecting too much given it's free but I am impressed after using it. I tried the route from my work to my home The voice directions are accurate and the voice is loud, clear and pleasant. I intentionally tried to drive off the route and amAze GPS was able to detect that and automatically calculated a new route. When approaching an intersection that requires me to make a turn, the system will warn me three times ( in 1 mile, 500 feet and right now).

The only thing I don't like so much is the startup time. It takes almost 1 minute just to start the software. It seems it is trying to connect to some server to download some data. Don't know why it needs to happen on every startup. To get around this, most of the time I would just keep the application in memory instead of exiting. It does not seem to drain the battery too badly like some other GPS applications (e.g. Google Map).

Here are some screenshots of amAze GPS:

Inputting Route


Map View



Navigation View

Permissions and Firewall in Blackberry

I am sure you have run into the situations where your Blackberry keeps asking questions like "The application XYZ has attempted to access a low-level network connection. Would you like to allow us?". The annoying thing is that for some applications, this question would pop up every time you use the app (there is no way to just say "don't ask me again"). I did a quick web search and it seems the most advice is to tweak the permissions of the application. I have tried this but I simply cannot get it to work for many applications.

Finally, I did manage to find a simpler way to get rid of this by using the firewall feature in my Blackberry Curve. Here are the steps:

1) Click on the Options icon


2) Select "Security Options", then "Firewall". You will see the following screen:


3) Change the Status to "Enabled". Don't forget to save!

4) Now start your application. In this case, I am using Opera Mini.



You will see a similar question pop up. In this case check the boxes and select "Allow this connection". You will only need to do this once per application. After this, it will not ask this question again. (Of course, you would only want to allow this if you trust the application).

PDF Viewer in Blackberry

The Blackberry email client is capable of opening a PDF file that is attached with an email. However, many people has complained that the built-in PDF viewer is useless because the image of the resulting PDF file is very blurry and illegible. Here is an example:



Don't worry, there is actually a way to fix this and you don't need to get or buy a third-party PDF viewer! Here are the steps:

1) Open the email that contains the PDF file


2) Open the attachment



3) You will see that the unreadable PDF image, like below:


4) Open the menu and select "Full Page". (Do not select "Zoom" even though it would seem to be the natural thing to do. "Zoom" would only give you blurry image)


5) After select "Full Page" and after the full PDF file is loaded, you will see a clear image. You can move around the clear image with the track ball. Compare it with the blurry image on top!


6) Note that if you need to go to a different page of the PDF file, you will need to first use the option "Show Original" to go back, go to a different page and then use the option "Full Page" again.

IMAP Email Client for Blackberry

Most people, including me, use the Blackberry built-in email client to read their messages. It is a great email client in many ways and I am very happy with it, but there are two annoyances:

1. If I delete an email on IMAP server from my desktop email client such as Thunderbird, it is not automatically deleted from my Blackberry email client. (On the other hand, if I delete an email in my Blackberry email client, I can optionally request the message to be deleted from the IMAP server).
2. It takes between 5 - 30 minutes for new mails to be pushed to my Blackberry. Actually this is not so bad if the interval between pushes is somewhat predictable, but it appears to be random to me (perhaps it is determined based on system load)?
   

Note that I do not have an Blackberry Enterprise Server deployed in my workplace, which may not have the above limitation. I am just using the Blackberry data plan / Blackberry Internet Service (BIS).

To work around problem #2 in particular, I sometimes use an IMAP email client to check if I have new emails from my mail server. The best, free one I found so far is LogicMail. It supports both POP and IMAP including SSL. You can see some screenshots from here.

Setting Up Speed Dial Numbers

I have pretty much given up on the Voice Dialing feature of Blackberry. Most of the time it misunderstands what I am trying to say. It performs poorly in noisy condition (e.g. in a car which is when I need it the most. Instead of Voice Dialing, I am now using the Speed Dial feature which is good enough for me. You can assign a phone number to each of the 26 letter keys. To do that, all you need to do is press and hold a letter key in the Home screen or the Phone screen. If the key has not been assigned yet, it will ask if you want to assign a Speed Dial to the key and you can then choose a number from your phone book. Once a key is assigned, you can dial it by pressing and holding the key. By the way, you can access the Voice Mail by pressing & holding the "1" key.

A related tip: When you enter a phone number in the phone book, you can press the Menu (BB) button and select "Add Wait" or "Add Pause". Both options are useful if you need to send extra digits after the phone number (e.g. to send extension, password for voice mail or access code for conference call). With the "Add Wait" option, it will prompt you to hit Return before sending the extra digits. "Add Pause" will send them automatically after approx 2 seconds delay.