Hacking my 8830

Ok, so not really. I've had my Blackberry for a little over a week, and I continue to be more impressed with it. Here are some useful things.

1. Enable mass storage. You get a cryptic message for this, but totally want to do to this. It let's you access your Blackberry's file system. On my Macbook it makes the Blackberry look like a mounted drive, a la a DMG file or something, only its read/write not read-only. This is the easiest way to put pics or MP3s on there.
2. MP3 Ringtones. Forget buying ringtones. Just load some MP3s on there. Go to your song by going to Media -> Music. Pick your favorite song and the pick Menu -> Set as Phone Tone. Now that MP3 is your default ring tone. Want a special ring tone for different people? Go to the person in your address book. Click Menu -> Edit. Then click Menu -> Add Custom Phone Tune. Click enter. This will bring up a list of pre-set ringtones. You don't want any of this garbage. But scroll to the top of the list and click Browse. Then click Menu -> Explore. I went to Media Card/MY_MP3S. That gave me all of my MP3s. I just picked whatever I wanted from there.
3. Google Apps. Google obviously loves Blackberry users. GMail and Google Maps both rock for the Blackberry. Google Talk from RIM also rocks. If you open up Google Maps and pick a location, you can get directions. You'll notice that the "from here" is disabled. That's because GPS is not enabled for Google Maps by default, which brings me to my next tip.
4. Enable GPS. A former co-worker of got an 8850 and thought that Verizon had disabled the GPS. That would be a very Verizon thing to do, but it turns it's not the case. Go to Options -> Advanced -> GPS -> GPS Services and switch it to Location On. It's set to "911 Only" by default. Open Google Maps and you'll have to grant Google Maps permission to use the GPS. Now you've got the full GPS enabled Google Maps functionality. I found that I needed to be outside to get a good signal on it.

These tips are for Mac users only.

1. PocketMac. The Blackberry version is free and is very good.
2. Google Calendar. I sync iCal to my Google Calendars, and then sync iCal to my Blackberry via PocketMac.
3. Plaxo. I use Plaxo as a central repository for my contacts. I then installed the Plaxo plugin for Address Book. It becomes a cool read/write system. I update contacts in Address Book. That syncs things to Plaxo where they are persisted and available to me at work, etc. They are also copied to my Blackberry via PocketMac.

Other stuff...

1. I downloaded Opera Mini. It works ok. There are some web pages I can view in it that I cannot view in the Blackberry browser, such as ESPN Fantasy Baseball. Entering text into Opera is a pain though. It has its own interface for this that seems awkward. I still think it will come in handy in the long run.
2. I haven't tried syncing my Safari bookmarks to the Blackberry. That's a cool feature offered by PocketMac. I would need to clean up my Safari bookmarks first though.
3. Facebook Mobile is really well done. You can do most things that you'd want to do on a mobile device there. A lot of folks prescribe to the iPod/iTunes model when it comes to mobile apps, i.e. read-only on the device, do all your writes from your computer. Facebook does a good job of giving the right "writes" on their mobile version.

Update: An old co-worker of mine and an anonymous commenter both pointed out that even though you can supposedly enable GPS, Google Maps and other similar programs are not able to use it. My friend claims that Verizon has disabled the GPS in some way. My experience has been the same, so maybe this is true. I don't know why Verizon would do this...

Update #2: Ah ha, now I know why Verizon has disabled the GPS on the 8830. There's got to be a hack though...

Hacking My A950

About a year ago, I switched my wireless service to Verizon and bought a Samsung SCH-A950. It has a lot of nice features, but in typical Verizon fashion, some of these were crippled.

First off, it is a music player, but Verizon made it where it could only play WMA files, not MP3s. I had read that Samsung included an MP3 player, but Verizon just disabled.

Next, while it is a Bluetooth phone, it only supports Headset and Hands-free profiles. In particular, it does not support Dial-up networking. That's a real shame given the EVDO network it can connect to.

I had found this link on enabling MP3 and DUN, but it seemed like too much trouble. But today I cam across this gem. I enabled the "Hidden Menu" by simply punching in 1475369126874#*. From there it was easy to enable MP3 playback. I haven't tried the DUN option yet, since it's not over Bluetooth and thus it's not as interesting to me.