Making News on CrackBerry.com

 

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The forum thread I started on CrackBerry.com about this project on my blog has been generating enough intrest to make the "From the Forums" Post on the front page of the site.  That's not too shabby for less than one week into the project!  I think it speaks highly of the potential of the project, as well as the growing audience.  So thank you to all the readers, commenters, forum posters and emailers, your participation in this project is important to mean and I hope you all will stay with me over the the next 51 weeks to see how things go!

 

 

Thanks for reading,

Jeff

Great Google+ PlayBook App.

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I  found a pretty good app for all you Google+ users out there.  Web Launcher for Google+ started as just a quick launch application, basically sending you to the mobile version of the G+ website.  The PlayBook version is a wrapper with some tweaks and it is now very similar to the Google+ app for other platforms.  I like these version because they include the notification bar functionality that the web app is missing.  It's free and the developer has a "donation version" which is the same app, you just get to give him a dollar for his efforts.

It's worth a dollar if you are a Google+ user and it's worth a try at the very least.  I gave it a 5 star review and chipped in to hopefully

Maybe you don't really need an app for that...

[caption id="attachment_154" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Upload to Picasa"][/caption]

I had about an hour to kill as I was waiting to pick my wife up from work, we started car pooling so we could spend a little more time together.  I have a Clear 4G Hot Spot device and in the city I can get really good upload speeds compared to my home DSL, so I thought it would be a good idea to upload the pictures and videos off my PlayBook.

It's somehow been planted into my thought process that when ever I want to do something on my device, I go and search for an app to do whatever it is that I want.  Following this natural response, I went to the App World to see what was available for Picasa or Flickr apps.  I was very disappointed to find that there was literally next to nothing available, and the apps that did exist were basically glorified browser replacements.  My next step was to hit up google and search for "upload images to Picasa from PlayBook."

Considering a small forum for switchers

I have been thinking about adding a small forum for people who have or are thinking about switching to a BlackBerry or a PlayBook.  It would be a good place for people to exchange idea's, rants and maybe some good info, but I'd have to have enough people to make it worth while and I'd need a moderator or two to help put it in check.  I'm not a huge forum fan.  I lurk ain a few few and post every once in a while, but I just flat out don't have the time to dedicate to too many of them.  I always end up searching through them when I need information or I am doing research, there are also a few with good trading or for sale/trade boards but I do not want to reinvent the wheel.

I think this weekend i will lay the foundation for one and see what I come up with.  If I had my wish, I would have a board for a Q&A for and from people who work at RIM, but I do not know if I could get the support from them right away.  Hopefully I will get some recognition for the effort, I have reached out to some folks, but nothing has come about just yet.

The vast majority of my comments coming in so far are just spam, but there have been a few good ones and I'm just getting started so I have not yet set any expectations.  If you have any thoughts feel free to comment and I will listen closely!

Review: Get It Done for the PlayBook

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One of the very first applications I went looking for on my PlayBook was a Task/Project Management application.  I have been a long time user of the web app toodledo, but there were no apps available that supported syncing with this popular web app.  There were two option in the App World that looked appealing: Get It Done (GID) and Conqu.  After reading the summary's and reviews and looking online I decided to run with GID because of it's integration with Evernote, the popular note taking application I already use.

Day 1 and Initial Changes

[caption id="attachment_141" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Love my PlayBook!"][/caption]

Off to a good start, I have been putting some effort into tweaking my Bold and getting some Apps organized.  I like having specific notifications for specific people, and I thought it would be fitting if I gave my wife the Apple Tri-Tone sound for her mail and messages.  She has been giving me grief about "iPhone envy" so I got a laugh out of it.  I also use Be-Buzz to assign her a purple LED to top it off, her favorite color.  I also picked up the game RISK and Bejeweled 2, my 2 all time favorite game/ time wasters for Bold and PlayBook respectively.  I also picked up the Walgreens app to handle my prescriptions, I have a few and it's great for keeping track of those.  Just a few of my regulars that I have not checked into yet on the BB and I'm happy I could find them there.

My Year-Long BlackBerry Switch Project/Experiment

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Anyone who knows me can tell you I'm a huge BlackBerry fan and have been so for a very long time.  If you spend anytime reading tech blogs or the news, Research In Motion (RIM) has taken a lot of criticism over the last year or so for not "keeping" up with the other mobile platforms.  The complaints are the usual sort you may hear about any mobile device: CPU speed , lack of dual core, small screen size, lack of developer support and so forth, low RAM and so forth.  The latest wave of BlackBerry OS 7 devices have put to sleep a lot of that criticism, they are armed with 1.2ghz CPU's, have plenty of screen real estate, more memory, and the promise of better, faster, more robust applications.