Blackberry Pearl 8100 Latest Software (December 2009)

Yes, RIM is still care for us that they still release the upgrade for this first Pearl generation. Here's a how-to if you are too lazy to google :

1. Download the software from Blackberry site.
   
2. Choose the one described below because this howto is based on it :)
   Package Version: 4.5.0.304 :
   * Applications: 4.5.0.181
   * Software Platform: 2.7.0.108
   * 8100M_PBr4.5.0_rel304_PL2.7.0.108_A4.5.0.181_Globul.exe
   * File size: 93.65MB
   
3. Install the files to your computer.
   
4. Delete the "vendor.xml" from c:\program files\common files\research in motion\apploader
5. Connect your BlackBerry to Desktop using USB Cable.
6. Run the Loader.exe which located in the same folder with the vendor.xml previously.
7. As usual follow the steps, wait and pray.
8. After an hour waiting (my case) the update is installed to your phone.

Since actually I didn't notice what are the upgrades, so I'll just give you a quick user's opinion from crackberry forum : 

• It's a new radio code and all the java files are updated. Seems fine so far. Only been about 2 hours running. The browser and BBM are quick, faster than 180, eh who knows. It's getting so speedy as it is, there's just no way to judge. I'll run some data speed tests, and see if there's any difference that's apparent. 
• Well I must say, as hard as it is for me to believe, the browser is remarkably faster than 180. Possibly as much as twice the speed loading youtube. Today will tell how good the radio is.
• It's an improvement over the 205 platform for sure. Even in the elevator of a building with mostly no signal at all, I was at 105-110 and switched to GPRS. Bloody amazing, a couple more platform upgrades and I may have full EDGE everywhere. 
• The memory management is amazing. I noticed an increase over 174. I'm amazed. 
• I have to say that i'm very impressed with this SW update, im actually able to multitask with my pearl now, as we are speaking i am running Pandora, BBM, and a web session, and still have 10MB free memory. I have yet to see the hourglass other than when browsing the web either. This is definitely an improvement as with the old 4.5 i could barely do one thing at a time without it giving me an hourglass forever.
  
  
  
  
  
  

Okay, now what are  you waiting for? Go save your Precious! :D

Yahoo PingBox Trouble

Hi,

If any of you were trying to contact me via the Y! PingBox, I just noticed that my replies couldn't reach to your side. I've tested it with my friends. I still don't know what went wrong. Is it because of I am using Pidgin or because of the PingBox itself.

Anyway, feel free to contact me thru the new shoutbox from shoutmix.

Thanks.

Why Blackberry?

That line is quite famous nowadays. I also keep wondering why should I use Blackberry while I found that PalmOS, Windows Mobile and the mass produced OS -Symbiote, eh Symbian- also could handle the Emails perfectly. I don't need the push mail technology while the pull mail is enough for me while other phones are also packed with touch screen, 3Gs and Wi-Fi not to mention some of them also have GPS inside. So what will we get by using these most-socialite-OS knowned as Blackberry OS and its handheld (note: the Blackberry is very famous OS knowned by celebrities and socialites, so they deserve that nick rite, the socialite OS? *grin*)

Well, after using Blackberry Pearl 8100 for a while, I notice the difference between pull and push mail and also what it meant by blackberrying or not to blackberrying. I like QWERTY phones because there almost no delay in typing something something not like in traditional phone keypad. The reason why I choose Pearl 8100 is because of its Suretype system which I found interesting. So, here I go with Pearl and enjoy the SureType technology. If you forgot how Pearl 8100 looked like, see image below.

Image source is courtesy of blackberry.com

SureType itself is surely a new thing for me. I've never used any of T9 system in my previous phones before but I know how it works and in my opinion, they both almost the same. But the half qwerty layout in Pearl gives the system predicts your typing more accurately and faster. If you don't believe it, buy one and try for yourself. :p It will take a time for you to get used with it but you could also used the boring multitap if you want it that way.

I am using Blackberry Service by Worry-Free-Axis-Blackberry and FYI, this is the cheapest unlimited BIS package you could get in Indonesia at this moment. It cost me IDR 4,000 / day. But I don't know if I would like to continue using this BIS as yesterday when I went to two biggest shopping mal in Jakarta (Plaza Indonesia and Kelapa Gading Mal), I found that my Pearl encountered a blank spot inside the building! I can't imagine if it happens at the critical moment. But as long as I'm in good signal reception area, I always connected thru EDGE and never GPRS. In other words, "its EDGE or never".

Back to topic, why I'm using blackberry? Here are my reasons :

1. Because I wanted to.
2. Because I need a QWERTY phone.
3. Because I need the BIS - unlimited internet for many things -
   
4. Because I need a new thing to play with. Palm is good, but it's so yesterday (hikz). WM is good, but their new products is kinda expensive (even the 2nd one is expensive here), never try Android, but for I think I'm gonna leave the Sym'bye'an for now.
   

Okay that's all for now. Must got to work... *yawn*

How to Install TweetDeck for Linux (Opensuse 11.0)

Twitter is one of the most famous application in this world right now along with his cousin Facebook. Wherever Twitter go, there must be Facebook mentioned also in the phrase. Just like in the Smallville's episode featuring the wonder twins, Chloe mentioned "You (The Blur - a.k.a Superman) now are having facebook and twitter account" :)

So since facebook is best seen using Web Browser, Twitter is having tons of desktop applications. One of them is Tweetdeck, which I found most complete yet kinda complicate to use at first. Well. it's worth to try anyway.

To install Tweetdeck, you could simply go to http://tweetdeck.com/beta/ and click the "Download Now, it's free" (I noticed that they actually want to tell us that IT'S FREE, for NOW" lol..) section as seen on the image below.

It requires you to install Adobe Air and it will ask for your permission to install Adobe Air at first (how polite) but oddly enough I always encountering failed installation using this method.

So I go to http://get.adobe.com/air/, download the bin file. Chmod-ed it to rwx and execute the file. After Adobe Air installed, you could find it in the Menu - Applications - Adobe Air Applications Installer.

Simply choose the .AIR file you want to install.

Hey, how could I download the tweetdeck installer? I can't find it anywhere on the tweetdeck.com? Same problem I found. But it seems that they also kind enough to answer your question in their Support Section.

Have fun tweeting.

Mundu - Mobile IM for Your Phone

Mundu Messenger is one of the most recommended software from me which I've already used it since Treo 650 (and also with my previous Motorola Q, Nokia E61, Treo 750v, O2 XDA Exec and now in Treo 680). I haven't use the Blackberry version and can't say much about it, but in my opinion this is far by the best instant messenger application for Palm OS. I prefer Slick for the Windows Mobile.

Anyway, I bought the license for only $11 directly via paypal and have no regrets. Just like their website listed, the good things from Mundu are :

• All-in-one Messenger
  View and chat with all your contacts across AIM®, Yahoo®, MSN®, Google® Talk, ICQ® and Jabber® within a single, easy-to-use interface.
  
• Conferencing
  Chat with multiple friends, colleagues or clients.
  
• File Transfer / Photo Sharing
  Transfer files from your mobile device to friends and colleagues.
  
• Smart Group Management
  Organize your contacts by services. Also organize contacts by groups & set alias for your buddies.
  
• Background Mode Support
  Stay connected on IM while you are on the phone or accessing other phone functions. Choose to be alerted by sound or pop-up when your contacts come online or when you receive an IM.
  
• Message Archiving and Chat History
  Save your important chat conversations and view them later.
  
• Manage your online presence
  Tell your friends when you are free to chat, busy, or bored!
  
• Scroll the conversation
  Have fun by scrolling the entire conversation - up or down - on your Android phone.
  
• Quick text messaging
  Copy & paste the messages received, send or receive emoticons , and very useful Quick text option to send commonly used messages like “Happy Birthday”.
  
• Direct Calling & Browsing
  Received a telephone number in chat?Click on the number directly to call. Similarly click on the received link and it will open immediately in the default browser.
  

Here are few screenshots from the Palm OS version:

Login Screen

Contact List View

Window Chat and Sending Files Screen

Conference List Screen

Last thing is besides the Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian, Mundu are now also available for Blackberry, Android, iPhone and maybe some Java Version (since there is a Sony Ericsson version in their site). You could download the trial version here and use it for 15 days. But trust me, the one-time-purchase is worth the price. ;)

Treo 680 2.12-ROW Updater

Finally, I got Palm OS device again in my hands. When I check the software version is still 1.12-ROW, I immediately googling and found that Palm actually release another upgrade but I can't find it anywhere. If you search it in palm.com, you will be given a page showing that 1.12-ROW is the last update from Palm for unlocked GSM and they have 2-xx software version for certain carrier in US (I think its att and cingular).

After searching for a while I found the software in some page.. *already forget the page* but I mirrored the software in this link. For my archive and for those who may need it later.

To update the software is easy since it is very straight forward one-click-install so I won't say much about the process. The difference I notice is the upgraded performance - yes it's slightly faster - and has a delivery receipt in the messaging menu.

Another WM 6.5 ROM

I used the WM 6.5 by tomal for only one day because there is annoying bug. It is when I turned my device off after a while I can't wake my device up. After asking in the forum, there were another person having the same problem with me and it might be because my Universal is only 64 MB and I don't have any intentions to upgrade it to 128 MB by myself. So I do search the forum again in and found another 'cooked' ROM by xplode.

I have use this ROM for 3 days and it is much much much more stable and nice.


Notice that the top title bar / buttons has a different layout and I like this one better. This WM6.5 will spare us around 12 MB RAM and it could make you stressed out if you want to run a heavy application because of the slow response.

There aren't many applications included in this ROM, but it has esmertec JBED along with Opera Mini and Gmail in it. The TCPMP subtitle edition - which is not working on tomal's - is working fine in xplodes.

Haven't found any bugs yet so I'll just recommend this one if your UNI is also 64 MB type. What is this 64 MB / 128 MB type? Well I believe that HTC Universal and its brothers are shipped only with 64 MB RAM but you could mod it to 128 MB. You could read in the wiki for the fun part.

WM 6.5 In HTC Universal

After a long thorough reading and praying I finally pull out all my guts and upgrade to a beta version of Windows Mobile 6.5. Why would I do that? Simply because I'm bored with the WM standard appearance and yes WM6.5 is different and it's soooo cool by default. Well, can't be compared with iPhone/Android/Pre of course but it's not like the same old WM you've ever seen. Trust me. I'm using WM 6.5 build 23003 - this is 3rd Beta Version by tomal. You could download and read other user's reviews in here.

WM 6.5 appearance :



The boot splash and Windows logo is changed to vista-like colour and style. The start menu is now not a drop down anymore but a hexagonal arranged icons (see upper right, below left and below center images above) and the Today Screen format also changed. By default it will list a few links to the applications (upper left and center pic).

In Internet Explorer, the User Agent now is
"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; Windows Phone 6.5)"
which if you compared to the previous one
"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; WinXP) (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.11) Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; WinXP)"
is.. shorter.. haha..

Anyway, yes I still encounter a few bugs, but as tomal said in his post, the Beta 3 is much more stable then previous and decent for daily usage. Upgrading to WM6.5 in Universal is simpler than Treo 750 (WM6 to WM6.1) as in my previous post.

Here are the steps :

1. Download the cooked ROM which normally is an .exe file.
   
2. Connect your device using USB.
3. Launch the application while praying at the same time. The installer said that the upgrade will took 20 minutes using USB cable connection but mine finished in 5 minutes.
   
4. After that you will be asked to hard reset your Universal. Press the two soft keys in the same time and press the reset button using your stylus, then press 0 (' zero') in the keypad.
5. This is the most thrilling part. My O2 XDA Exec was 'frozen' for a 3 minutes. Then the Windows logo appear and 'tap here to configure your device' shown.
6. After do screen aligning, you could use your Universal right away.

All credits to tomal of course. ;)

For Sale: Nokia 6120c Pink (SOLD OUT)

For Sale :

Nokia 6120 classic 2nd. Pink.
- Original Box
- Original Battery (Only one inside the handset)
- Original Manual Book
- Original PC Suite
- Original Travel Charger
- Original Handsfree
- Without the 256 MB MicroSD coz couldn't find it anywhere
- Prefer cash and carry
- Location : North Jakarta, Kelapa Gading
- No warranty but I could guarantee that this phone is working 1000% similar like the new one.
- No scratch (see pics)

Open price IDR 1,475,000 excluding shipping.

Google Thematic Logos

Do you know that google sometimes change their logo to a certain theme? You could see the complete logos in this site. I have captured a few logos that I personally rate good.

This is for the Earth-Day. The land of google.


This one is Samuel Morse's Birthday :

The lines and the dots are saying the G O O G L E in morse. Neat!
The last one is laser theme. Google celebrated the first laser invented at May 16th.

How To Load Subtitles in TCPMP

First of all we will need a TCPMP (The Core Pocket Media Player) - an open source pocket media player. I've used this software with Palm Treo 650, Treo 750v and now O2 XDA Exec and definitely is the best Media Player available out there.

For be able to use subtitle plugin, you should use GAPI / GDI video driver AND and SAMI subtitle script (.smi files extension). While most of the subtitles out there are using .srt, don't take it as a problem. There is a work around for this issue. Download subtitles studio here and simply open the srt file and save it as smi file.

Besides using SMI file, there is also a more complex way to add subtitles for your mobile phone movies. You could use PocketDivXEncoder. Using this, we could also resize the Movies to fit smaller screen and embedding the subtitles on the process. This takes much time so I seldom using this way. Because with O2 XDA Exec and its VGA screen I don't need a smaller movie. :p

Now you could use TCPMP for watching your favourite movies plus subtitles. Subtitles is always being a help when I'm not bringing any earphones with me I could still watch movies in the crowd.

Various Links For Your Mobile Phone

m.gmail.com -> gmail mobile

m.kompas.com -> indonesia news site
m.detik.com -> indonesia news site
m.cnn.com -> CNN on your phone
wap.livescore.com -> get score directly from your phone
m.engadget.com -> gadget news

m.yahoo.com -> yahoo oneSearch
google.com/m -> google search

m.wordpress.com -> wordpress mobile
m.youtube.com -> youtube, of course
m.facebook.com -> facebook mobile
m.friendster.com -> friendster mobile
m.flickr.com -> flickr mobile
m.multiply.com -> multiply mobile
m.linkedin.com -> linkedin mobile
m.myspace.com -> myspace mobile

m.ebuddy.com -> eBuddy Lite Messenger
wap.getjar.com -> various java application

Me @ MyBrute

There is this game made by... I forget the publisher.. T_T sorry.. anyway this is a simple game. You just create your character, pick the appearance and you will get a random attribute at first.

Go to arena, choose an opponent and let the game begin. There is also tournament mode. If you win a match, you will get only 2 exp point and if you lose 1 exp point. You could also get an exp point by enrolling some pupils. Just give your mybrute link to your friends and let them create the character from that link so they will be your pupil. If your pupil get level up, you will get the extra exp point.

This game could somehow frustrating because all the fights are automatically generated with random result. My character in Level 8, could be easily beaten by level 4 character. But it also depends on what weapons do you have, special skills and also "pet". I have seen a few pets in this game. There are dogs, wolves and bears. Dunno if there are anything else.


Fight my brute here.

:D

A Very Late O2 XDA Exec Review

Well, my days with Treo 750v is over and actually I have a few choices to replace the beautiful Treo :D. The first one is Blackberry 88xx. There is a blackberry-hype in Indonesia right now. Every young, old, man or woman is eager to have this berries which compete the Apple's mighty iPhone. I have an interest for this Huron series since they were first launched. The size, the qwerty seems to match my needs perfectly. My cons are that it lacks 3G/HSDPA connectivity and lack of multimedia features of course.

Then the winner is an outdated-pda-phone manufactured by HTC with code name Universal. There are 3 famous variant. Dopod 900 is the one which is legally sold in Indonesia (maybe South East Asia), O2 XDA Exec by O2 in Europe and T-Mobile MDA Pro by T-Mobile in USA. I looked over hundreds of the stores in Jakarta and found around 15 Dopod 900, 5 T-Mobile MDA Pro and only 3 O2 XDA Execs second hand's item in ITC Roxy, ITC Roxy Square, ITC Kuningan, and ITC Cempaka Mas. Sadly all the 3 XDA Exec were in awful condition. The first one have a crack in it's stylus holder, the second one is using extended battery without its original battery and the last one was too pricey for a five-years-old phone. I could get a second hand iPhone (2G) on that price. Well to make it short, I finally got the phone from the famous forumponsel.com :D

DESIGN

The design is quite nice. You could swivel the screen and use it in the portrait mode like an ordinary PDA or just open the clamshell and use it like Nokia communicator series. It has big thumb-qwerty-board that really comfort to use. It also has 5 another hardware button along the side of the body. Two is for receiving and ending a call, one for camera button, voice command and backlight setting. All could be customized to our needs via Setting.

It also has a stereo speaker output and 3.5 mm standard audio jack and also a volume controller in the side of the body. At the back cover we could find a 1.3 megapixel camera which I found very useless because all the pictures taken with it has too much noise in the result. Since it is a 3G phone, it has a Video Camera near the LCD screen which could also used for taking pictures.

The black colour is the reason why I choose this rather than the Green-Greyed Dopod or the Pale-White T-Mobile MDA Pro. The stylus is well placed and have a nice built. It also has an USB port for charging and also data sync and an SDIO slot.

PERFORMANCE

Using WM6.1 - Tomal ROM, the phone is quite stable and fast. After I installed tons of apps the phone need a soft reset once a day. But not a big deal though. The VGA resolution display will give us the best details of every image produced and it's also very helpful when browse the web and compose email. I could use this phone to substitute a Portable Media Player due to it's screen size and capability.

The custom ROM WM 6.1 will make the phone lack the Video Call feature which also not a big deal for me. It has built in Wi-Fi 802.11b/g which is very useful and also 3G data connection. The WM6.1 also give us the threaded SMS similar to Treo's. The preinstalled applications are just the standard WM6.1 would give such as MS Office Mobile, Solitaire, etc. The task manager is also neat. I don't need to install another taskman in this phone. I also install Slick for instant messaging and TCPMP Media Player. Lots of games is also available to be played in this phone.

There are few cons about this phones and the most disturbing one is the battery lifetime. The standard battery won't last me for 20 hours a day my usage of course. So I should charge the battery very often. The other cons is that this XDA Exec is very very very very bulky that if I were using hard-case or silicon case Iit will feel like bring a brick in my pocket.

Anyway, basically it can do all Treo 750v can with the extras wi-fi and VGA display.