Blackberry Storm Upgrade

I recently upgraded from a blackberry 8703e to the new storm, I did this around December 10, 2008. First, transferring contacts and calendar was awesome, easy, fantastic. I use google synch to synch my contacts and calendar with my google apps calendar and contacts, so All I did was install google synch on the new STORM, entered my credentials and it did take a try or two (there was alot to synch) all my stuff was there.

I was severely disappointed with the battery life of the storm. But after a few days, the battery life was fine. I attribute that to overusage cause it was new and maybe battery conditioning. At first it was only lasting about 12 hours, and since I unplug it between 5 and 5:30 AM, that means it was shutting off on my way home from work around 5 or 6 pm. It now consistently lasts until midnight which is when I usually plug it in. Sometimes I plug it in for the night earlier and once in a while later, but there is still juice left when I do.

I think it uses alot more juice when you actually use it, but when it is just in your pocket or the holster, it sleeps pretty good, if you are in a digital area.

I like this phone, I don't love it. It is slow and I often have to wait for it. My brother-in-law got one and traded it in for the curve, and to tell you the truth if I had that option now I would go with the curve. The new affect was fun and it is a pretty cool phone, but it lacks in functionality because of the slowness and usability of the interface. It has froze several times, even during a phone call twice.

Tethering my Blackberry to my Laptop

When I first got my blackberry one of the things that interested me was the fact that I could "Tether" myh blackberry to my laptop. Which means that I could use my blackberry to get high speed internet access from anywhere I could use my cell phone(blackberry) Well the software to allow that didn't work with Windows Vista, so I kind of forgot about it for a while. Until today. I figured out that the motel my wife had got from hotwire didn't have high speed internet(I always try to remind her how important that is for me).

Anyway I called verizon and had them add the $15 a month thing that I needed for this to work and got instructions on how to download the software that I needed. The told me to go to http://www.vzam.net/. After driving around for about an hour I finally found an open wireless connection and was able to download the VZAccess Manager that I needed.

Wow. Here I am sitting in the middle of a big parking lot at some factory stores near Park City Utah, checking email and doing other tasks. And it was fast. I had a full bar EVDO connection and it screamed. The connection back at the motel is only 2 bars and it is bearable for email and surfing, although noticeably slower.

Turns out this "Motel" is actually condos and there was a DSL modem sitting on the floor unplugged. I plugged it in and I have DSL so I didn't even really need to set up the Broadband access with verizon, but hey I will be getting stuff done while the family is school shopping so I am going to stick with it for at least this month. Where I live, we don't have the EVDO towers. I wish verizon would get that rolled out to all their towers.

David Mineer

New Blackberry

Last friday I ordered a new blackberry phone with Verizon. They messed up that order so yesterday I finally just went downt ot the store casue it is only an hour anyway. Well they set me up in a hurry and now I am the proud owner of a blackberry 8703e. This phone is cool. It just acts the way you would expect it to.

I mostly wanted this phone for the calendar and tasks, along with some email. I once had a dell axim, which was nice but I never used it because it was an "Extra" thing to take with me. This blackberry just combines the axim with a phone so I always have it with me. Maybe now I will use it.

I decided on the blackberry over the Motorola Q or Treo mainly because two different guys at Verizon said the blackberry was better. I haven't regretted the dicision yet.