| PrivacyStar – 5 One Year Giveaways
January 21, 2010 at 6:27 AM
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Are you tired of knuckleheads calling you to offer glaucoma surgery for your dog in Guatemala? Are you a person that is called on your BlackBerry for a long distance offer and you respond with “how long is it?” Well, if the fun is gone from tormenting telemarketing drones, read on. Why? Well, PrivacyStar, is giving away 5 one year subscriptions to its service to help you provide these pesky callers an atomic wedgie and a Chuck Norris-style roundhouse kick to the face *THWAP*.
What does PrivacyStar do, exactly? Let me call the horse and have him tell you straight from his mouth. *whistles*.
PrivacyStar is a simple-to-use mobile app that enables users to take complete control of their phones by blocking any and all unwanted callers, using Caller Lookup to identify unknown callers and easily report unwanted telemarketing violators to regulatory enforcement authorities. Sound good? Leave us a comment, we’ll use some special algorithm and knock out five winners by Monday. Good luck!
© nan for BlackBerry Cool, 2010 
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| BlackBerry Presenter Review: A Little Lag and A Lot of Potential
January 20, 2010 at 1:15 PM
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|  I have the latest accessory from RIM called the BlackBerry Presenter: a means of displaying PowerPoint presentations from your BlackBerry to a projector. The way it works is fairly simple. To get started, you do the following: - Download the Presenter app to your BlackBerry.
- Connect the Presenter to a power outlet.
- Connect your projector to the Presenter.
- Pair your BlackBerry to the Presenter.
- Open a PowerPoint file and in the menu section select “Present”.
After using the device with several different types of PowerPoint presentations, I can say that this accessory had some serious drawbacks, but also more potential than any other accessory RIM has ever made.
 Getting started with the BlackBerry Presenter was a little awkward at first because the manual asks you to download the BlackBerry Presenter Desktop client, which didn’t seem to work for me. I downloaded the client, but even after restarting my PC, double clicking on it did nothing, with or without the Presenter plugged in. It’s also worth noting that there doesn’t seem to be any Presenter Desktop Software for Mac. I decided to simply skip this step, and assume the Presenter was running recent software.  To get started, you have to download the Presenter software found at blackberry.com/presenter. The app is fairly large considering it seems pretty basic. Once you have the app downloaded, it’s time to hook up the Presenter.  To hook up the Presenter, simply plug in your projector and the power cable. The power cable is the standard Micro-USB, so if you happen to lose it, you can always use one from your BlackBerry.  After hooking everything up and installing the app, now you have to pair the two devices. Pairing the Presenter is the same as pairing any accessory, except the Numeric Passkey is found in the Presenter’s name, rather than the standard “0000″. My Presenter’s name is “BlackBerry Presenter – 3132″ meaning the passkey is “3132″.  Once you have everything booted up, you’re going to want to get a PowerPoint presentation file from your device. I used a few different PowerPoint files and getting them from my email was simple. Although the manual says you can present directly from an opened attachment, I found no such feature. Instead, I downloaded the attachment and saved them in my Documents folder. Next, open the Presenter app and browse your media card for the file. Open it and in the menu select “Present.” Here is where the accessory took a turn for the worst.  The lag on the BlackBerry Presenter was way too much. When you initially present a file, it gets sent to the Presenter over Bluetooth and then displayed on the projector. The Presenter is doing all the work which will have some benefits down the road when RIM wants to implement video, but for now it seems to be creating a lot of lag for even small files. I have tried two types of PowerPoint files, both .PPT and .PPTX. The .PPTX was brutally slow loading at first, and the whole experience was filled with awkward delays. Clicking to the next slide took at least 3 seconds, which doesn’t seem like much but it’s a lot if you’re doing a quick/high intensity presentation. When loading .PPT files, the experience was a little better, but the initial load time was still more than what I would have liked. Tip: If you’re going to present with the Presenter, know that the initial load time is significant, so don’t jump right into the presentation and have everyone waiting while they stare at a blank screen.  There BlackBerry Presenter, while it’s initially a little awkward due to the lag, has a ton of potential. Since the Presenter does all the work, RIM will be able to open the device up to new types of media. Eventually, you’ll be able to combine the BlackBerry Presenter, with the BlackBerry Media Gateway, to make a full BlackBerry Entertainment system. Until then, the Presenter is a pretty good accessory for small and to-the-point presentations. © Kyle for BlackBerry Cool, 2010 
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| foursquare for BlackBerry Version 1.03 Reviewed and Ready
January 20, 2010 at 10:33 AM
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|  Recently, foursquare for BlackBerry has gone version 1.03, which is the version they will likely launch with. Other than bug fixes, this latest version adds a few navigational features and seems to be fully ready for launch. I thought I’d review foursquare now, as it’s basically ready and I’ll post the download link so that anyone who doesn’t have foursquare on their BlackBerry can go ahead and download it.
Friends As we talked about in the beta review, foursquare has 3 main tabs: friends, places, and more. In the friends section, you get a feed of where all your friends are checking in. From this tab, you can either check-in somewhere yourself, or “Shout”. The shout feature allows you to broadcast a message to all your friends that will show up in the feed. 
Check-in When you check-in with foursquare version 1.03, I am still finding that the Favorites section isn’t doing a good job of remembering where I check-in most. For example, I check-in to my office constantly, but it never shows up in the favorites menu. I don’t think this issue is specific to BlackBerry though, because I’m played with the iPhone version and I found a similar issue. When you select your check-in location, you get a map and some options to push your message to Twitter, Facebook and friends. This could be much more robust, and I talk about what I would like to see implemented at the end of this article. 
Places Clicking on a business gives you a map, tweets nearby, the option to view on Yelp, an option to see who the mayor is, ability to add a tip, and the option to flag a venue as closed. BBCool Matt tells me that he’s had an issue with the flagging a venue option, saying that when he pressed the “back” button, it registered as a click and he accidentally flagged Ottawa’s downtown mall as closed for business. Oops! 
Leaderboards The leaderboards are great and I think it’s cool that it resets every Sunday night. I don’t know if checking in to your own apartment should count towards the point system though. The whole point of foursquare is that you’re supposed to be enjoying the local culture, and sharing businesses that you’ve discovered with the community. I’m tired of seeing my friends logging in to their homes 4 times in one hour because they’re running errands. 
Specials Nearby In my home city of Ottawa, Canada, there is only one bar that has taken advantage of the nearby specials. At least only one that I’ve discovered. The Mercury Lounge offers free cover at the door if you check-in with foursquare. This feature would have been way more fun if I didn’t live in a city of bureaucrats with locked down BlackBerrys that can’t install 3rd party apps. Some improvements I would like to see include: - Partner with a real Twitter client so we don’t have to hit the web version of Twitter.
- Add more Twitter functionality like Twitpic and Twitvid.
- More map integration. I’d like to see for example a heat map of where the most activity is and where my friends are at. If they’re all at a particular bar, I want to be able to log into foursquare and see a big white heat coming from that area.
- A better system for managing double entries. I’ve noticed the venue system is chaotic. For example, you shouldn’t let people register both “The Tavern”, “The Tavern in Toronto”, and “The Tavern bathroom.”
- Way more badges! There should be badges specific to types of businesses, offices, homes, cities and countries.
- Barcode check-in. Any business that has a barcode, you should be able to scan the barcode and foursquare would automatically check you in.
- Better integration with your BlackBerry contacts. Rather than hit the website and use Twitter, Facebook and Gmail, it should pull them from your BlackBerry Address Book.
Overall, I’d say this app is ready for launch, albeit a minor bug here and there. To download the latest Beta, go to http://foursquare.com/blackberry/beta-pacman from your BlackBerry. Remember, you can use a QR code too! If they shut down the beta, BBLeaks have an older version on their servers. Go to http://tiny.cc/3IsxI for the OTA download. © Kyle for BlackBerry Cool, 2010 
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| Download BlackBerry Apps with 2D Barcodes
January 20, 2010 at 7:37 AM
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Try downloading the above QR code for the foursquare beta app with this method. Whenever we post a link about an app on BlackBerry Cool that you can download OTA, I’m sure there are many of you who pick up your BlackBerry and hit the site by typing it in your web browser. There is a much more fun way of downloading apps OTA and it involves 2D barcodes, or QR codes. To do this, get a plugin that generates a QR code from a web link. With FireFox, a good plugin to use is Mobile Barcoder. Once you’ve downloaded and installed the plugin, it allows you to generate a qr code from a link with a simple right click. Now that you can generate QR codes from links, you just need to scan them on your BlackBerry. For a good barcode scanner, see the BlackBerry Cool guide. I suggest adding the barcode scanner to a Convenience Key, so that with a touch of a button you can be downloading any app off the site. Try it out with the foursquare beta app found at http://foursquare.com/blackberry/beta-pacman [Hat tip Sonya at BBDownloads.net] © Kyle for BlackBerry Cool, 2010 
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| Editorial: Creating a Better BlackBerry Experience
January 20, 2010 at 7:16 AM
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|  I just finished reading Josh Sookman of RBC Venture Partners and the BlackBerry Partners Fund’s article about “Creating a Better BlackBerry Experience.” He touches on some good points and the article is definitely worth a read. The article is based on the above diagram, which addresses the various levels from developer to end user in the BlackBerry Experience. The first part of the diagram involves addressing fragmentation in the platform. Developers don’t want to waste time and money porting their app to the various screen sizes, and RIM needs to do a better job of offloading this frustration. Acquiring a company or technology that can alleviate porting costs would go a long way for developers.
The next issue to address is App World. A payment solution like credit card billing, combined with the store being preloaded on devices from the carrier, would go a long way to making it a better system. Also, while you’re at it, it would be nice if it didn’t crash your BlackBerry. Finally, cloud storage would go a long way to helping users keep their contacts, calendars and device data stored and backed up without having to use the Desktop Manager. I wholeheartedly agree with this point as I think the Desktop Manager is a relic of the past. The new BlackBerry user doesn’t want to plug their device into their computer, and everything needs to be OTA. From app and OS upgrades, to offloading pics to your desktop, everything should be over the air. Feel free to drop Josh a comment, I’m sure he’d appreciate the feedback. © Kyle for BlackBerry Cool, 2010 
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| First Leaked Pic of Official BlackBerry Twitter Client
January 20, 2010 at 6:13 AM
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|  The first leaked pic of the upcoming official BlackBerry Twitter client has hit the web via @jmatuk and Bla1ze over at CB scooped it up. I know that the Twitter client is still going through updates, and I hope RIM is going to offer a feature set that makes it worthwhile to download. For example, rumor has it that you can set your Tweets to be pushed to your BBM status, which is just one way RIM can offer an advantage. Generally, if RIM does something we can expect greater integration with the device, because 3rd party developers don’t have the same API access. © Kyle for BlackBerry Cool, 2010 
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