Speed, thy name is BlackBerry. Whenever you want to go online, BAM, you’re there. Whenever you want to email someone, KA-POW, it’s sent. Whenever you want to make a phone call, ZOOM, you’re connected. Whenever you watch the 1960s Batman series, you’ll probably see BAM, KA-POW and ZOOM there as well. It’s understood that speed is addictive, as is your BlackBerry. For both addictions, the need for speed drives you to achieve even greater velocity. You want to find ways to get what you need with less effort and less time. You want to accelerate any processes in order to become more efficient, but don’t really want to put in any more work than you need to. Well what steps do you need to take to make things easier to access? What kind of shortcuts can you take? Let’s think about it for a second – what’s one of the first things you do when you want to make items easier to access on your computer? Create a desktop shortcut, right!

Iconify, is an amazing application that allows you to create quick access icons to websites and contacts that are easily found on your BlackBerrys home screen. Check out the review after the THWAP!

Why is it that we are never satisfied? Why do we look for the slightest chance to improve upon something? Perhaps we have a built in desire to consistently outperform; the need to make something faster, smarter…better. It won’t happen in our lifetime, or even in the next few lifetimes, but I would love to see when humanity finally reaches the ultimate pinnacle of perfection and a single thought is collectively voiced;

“So, um, what do we do now?”

In a world, where existence relies upon constant communication, the human race cries out for more. With BlackBerry in hand, we march towards a common goal; to augment our already amazing Smartphones. Staring at the vast world of BlackBerry applications, one must decide how they will choose. One application dares to state that it will make your “Smartphone smarter”. That application is Fixmo Tools. Comparing itself to a utility belt, Fixmo Tools seems to strive on the idea of prevention over apprehension. In other words, easily monitor important concerns such as; memory, battery life and email issues. It’s a great way to quickly draw attention to critical information when you might have forgotten something. Let’s see Fixmo Tools in action.

Leave A Comment On This Post To Win 1 Of 50 Free Copies!!

In case you thought CrackBerry's crazy week of Birthday giveaways was going to lead to a contest dry spell afterwards we thought we'd kill any notion of that immediately (bday week winners announced later today). Granted, the contests won't be quite so crazy for a little bit, but here's one to kick the week off right...

ZenMinder is the ultimate way to manage multiple or new routine reminders, without adding stress. It has the ability to create scheduled, repeating reminders, which will help you assimilate new habits into your life. I actually had a chance to review it; you can check it out here. From their site, here is the overview:

• Simple and elegant user interface for a remarkable user experience
• Set reminder at a certain date and define recurrences
• Four available Zen reminder sounds
• Possibility to play custom sound files from your BlackBerry
• Unlimited number of reminders
• Notification with vibration
• Deactivation of reminders on weekends or manually
• 12/24 hour time format
• Optional auto-delete of expired reminder

For all you previous or future customers of ZenMinder, they offer free lifetime upgrades!

The developer, BBHacker, has given us 50 copies of ZenMinder 2.0 to give away to you, the CrackBerry Nation! All you have to do is leave a comment on this post to be entered into the draw. While you’re at it, why not tell us what stresses you out and how ZenMinder would help you get a handle on that stress. Contest closes this Sunday, March 14th at Midnight.

• More Information, Free Trial and Purchase ZenMinder >>

Was it just me, or was the only thing you watched over the past couple of weeks the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games? The few shows that I normally watch were reruns during this time, so I didn’t miss much. Now we can look forward to the Paralympic Games. But when the Games are over and life continues on, what the heck are you going to do with your spare time? One option is to go watch a movie. Now I understand that, to those who download movies, this may be a foreign concept. Just try and keep up with me okay? Ok honestly, how many times have you been out and spontaneously decide to catch a flick? That being said, if you’re not right in front of the theater, you grab your BlackBerry to try and look up what’s playing. The information you’re looking for isn’t always easily accessible.

When this happens, you should download the Movies by Flixster application. A widely used Facebook application, Movies by Flixster, will help you get connected to what’s playing in theatres, as well as what could be playing in your home theatre. Grab some popcorn and settle in. Hopefully you didn’t get extra butter, or else you’re going to mess up your BlackBerry.

Not everyone has a flair for creating amazing meals in the kitchen. I’m pretty sure every one of us, at some point in our lives, has incorporated Macaroni and Cheese into your weekly (or even daily) meal plan. Though I consider it the Yellow Death, I too have whipped up this quick dish to satisfy my hunger. I’m sure my wife will agree I have become much more experienced in the kitchen and can come up with some fairly tasty meals. Not bad for someone who probably could have even stumbled upon a way to burn a pot of water.

Now take this and add a dash of a busy professional and family schedule, making sit down meals a bit of a challenge. Stir over low heat and slowly pour in a lifestyle change; trying to keep meals healthy, in order to lose weight. The one ingredient that is crucial to ensure this recipe turns out is organization. This doesn’t mean keeping the numbers to fast food and pizza joints in your address book. I mean using your BlackBerry to help you wake up from your “Kitchen Nightmare”. I have compiled a list of applications that should help you become the Duke or Duchess of dinners. Grab an apron!

My Card. Your Card. His Card. Her Card. Ouch! Paper cut. With business cards being passed around like playing cards, it’s difficult to keep them organized. Sure it’s a quick way to share your information, but not everyone likes to carry them around. I’ve seen people who have literally gathered binders that, instead of displaying baseball cards, display business cards. I wondered if they had autographed ones in a special case. When it comes to that level of business cards, it becomes overwhelming and accessibility seems to disappear. A time consuming, thumb blistering alternative would be to input them into your native address book. A few months ago, we looked at a mobile business card application called DUB. While it was thoroughly impressive, one problem had come to mind - Not everyone uses it. 

Before your Rolodex decides to roll away, you should take a look at Business Card Reader. As the name suggests, this application enables users to read and decipher images of business cards, then sent directly to your BlackBerry address book. Now you can spend less time entering in contacts and spend more time making contact! If you are as intrigued about its accuracy as I was, I suggest you read on.

Contest details at the end of this article.... keep reading, and good luck!

Pssst! Hey, can you keep a secret? Don’t tell Kevin, but I kind of didn’t start this review quite when I was supposed to. Okay, well actually, I left it until the last minute. I know I know, I shouldn’t have, but you know how things come up. Okay, well actually, nothing came up, but I did think about doing it earlier. Yeah, I had it planned out and everything. Okay, well actually…

At some point (or points) in our lives, there’s a few things that need to be done, that we dawdle at. We scramble around at the last second trying to complete the task, or we come up with some sort of excuse. Whether it be the imaginary dog eating homework, the over-exaggerated traffic jam or the timely computer crash. It’s time to stop wasting time and start making time. Stop procrastinating and start producing. Just10Minutes is designed to ensure your projects are completed, by setting work and break intervals until the task is done. We all know you’re checking out the CrackBerry blogs when you are supposed to be working anyway (caught you!), so why not check out Just10Minutes? Oh and Kevin? I was just kidding about dragging my feet, honest!

The number of Twitter users is continually increasing at an alarming rate. Some use it for the forces of good and others...not so much. I remember writing a review over a year ago about OpenBeak, (previously dubbed TwitterBerry) and briefly explaining what Twitter was. Now, it’s so quickly adopted. Personally, I enjoy using Twitter over Facebook, as I find it less time consuming (unless you’re addicted). So for those who follow me on Facebook…sorry for not being active. One of the many, many reasons why I enjoy Twitter is having access to breaking news and events; not just from the news. Users can upload media, along with their tweets.

I’m also happy to see so many Twitter applications out there for BlackBerry that add a fair amount of functionality while on the go. Adam has done a fantastic job with the Ultimate Twitter Client Roundup; which covers many of the well known clients. Seeing how I haven’t worked on a Twitter client review in quite some time, I thought I would delve into the recently released Tvider. Tvider is designed to simplify the way you tweet images, audio and pics; let’s see if this birdie can fly.

Beep beep! Ding dong, ding dong! Bzzzzzz Bzzzzzz! It’s amazing how we respond to these sounds if they came from our BlackBerrys. Not unlike Pavlov’s dogs, we do our own salivating; in this case, it’s not for food, but for messages, calls and such. Our ears are trained to notice the familiar notification tones we have set up. For those who watched House this week- how many of you looked in the direction of your own BlackBerry every time you heard Lisa Cuddy’s Tour go off? I thought so. Instead of breaking free of this conditioning, what do we do? Create more tones; Tones for email, tones for SMS, tones for phone calls. It a vicious cycle with only one other option; take it to the next level. The problem is that, as a standalone solution to this, the BlackBerry doesn’t offer full control. Time for an app!

I thought we would take a look at a couple of options that are out there and see how they compare to each other. We’ll throw Mailtones and BeBuzz (BerryBuzz) into the fray and see how they fair. Who offers more value? Which one will you pick? Will you pick both? Let’s find out.

When you hear the word cowbell, you can’t help but think of the classic SNL sketch featuring Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken. I think the world would be a better place with more cowbell, especially the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Bell thought so too, in fact they said:

“If we’re going to win more medals, we’re going to need more cowbell!”

So c’mon you Canuckleheads, support Team Canada by downloading the free Cowbell app from Bell. The sound is activated by shaking, touching the screen or pressing a key. Show you spirit and wave your BlackBerry high- not too high or else someone may nab it. The following BlackBerrys are supported:

Bold 9000, 9700 / Curve 8530, 8330 / Pearl 8130, Pearl Flip / Storm / Tour / 8830

Bell customers can text COWBELL to 2010. Customers of other carriers can hit up bell.ca/cowbell. In case you missed it, a week ago I put together a selection of applications you can use while you are at the Olympics. The Bell Cowbell app makes a nice addition.

“I’ve got a fever (Olympic Fever), and the only prescription… is more cowbell!”

Freshbooks. If you haven’t heard of Freshbooks before, it’s known as “The Leader of Online Invoicing”. It’s an extremely beneficial business tool, especially for those who are looking for any type of outside sales or field service automation. Unfortunately, not everyone is on board with this type of service and some are still using manual invoices, stacks of paper and other handwritten forms that could become a headache for any accounting department. It’s also a valued option for those who wish to keep track of their team, manage contractors, estimates and, of course, their clients. Now while Freshbooks can be accessed from your BlackBerry smartphone, it isn’t properly formatted for optimal viewing. With those out in the world wanting to carry increasingly smaller devices, they want to be able to only use their smartphones. Freshbooks does have an application that’s currently in beta; I believe it’s waiting for approval for entry into the App World to be precise. I’ll talk about that app in the near future. Right now we’re going to have a look at another option called ReportAway! for Freshbooks, not to be confused with the standard addition of ReportAway! for Quickbooks.

The ReportAway! for Freshbooks application will provide you with the benefits of Freshbooks, without tying you to a computer. Read on for more.

Your BlackBerry provides rapid access to almost anything you can think of. Well for some people, that isn’t good enough! They demand instant access; they want knowledge and they want it now. Now, now, NOW! If you’re picturing adults throwing fits right about now, then we are on the same wavelength. That sort of behavior is kind of immature, if you ask me. On the other hand, there are benefits to being able to look at various types of information at a glance; to see if there is anything important. Yeah, having a grasp of your day from a momentary view of your BlackBerry is a good thing. That’s the kind of access I need - everything available to me now. Now, now, NOW!

Before I’m put in a time out, I wanted to have a look through an application called Pocketday. As you can probably tell from my so-called rant, Pocketday provides on-demand access to your content. For those who can’t fight the urge to look at their BlackBerrys, the application will at least keep your potentially inappropriate status check to a minimum. There are two versions of Pocketday available; Professional and Personal. Let’s see which one works best for you.

Well, if you have read a few of my previous posts, you know that I’m on the road to a leaner (but not meaner) me. It’s been going okay so far; the weight is coming off and my diet is much better. I do get cravings now and again, but I have my loving wife to keep me in check. Overall I’m happy with the change and definitely looking forward to reaching my goal. I’m experiencing more than just physical health, which is always a bonus.

Not to leave my trusty BlackBerry behind in my journey, I present to you a selection of the many BlackBerry applications that will hopefully provide some assistance to you as well. Whether you want to slim down, tone up or even toss out the junk food, this type of change is always good. So if you use your fat fingers to click on Continue Reading Article, you’re more than welcome to join me. I’m kidding! (well about the fat finger part, I still want you to read)

If you haven’t heard by now, there’s something big coming to Vancouver in just over two weeks. Some kind of…winter….sport…..competition….thing. Vancouver 2010. I can’t believe that we found out about Vancouver –Whistler hosting the Winter Games, almost seven years ago. It’s amazing to think that the world will be looking in this direction and watching what I call home (hey you! Stop picking your nose!). With the temporary surge in the population, there will most definitely be a surge of BlackBerry users as well. With this in mind, I looked for applications, sites and themes to bring you what you need to experience the games. Just a fellow BlackBerry user looking out for another BlackBerry user. Time to bring home the Bold, I mean, Gold.

Getting lost – some call it an adventure, others call it an annoyance. There’s even some who call it something that, due to the presence of younger readers, I’m not allowed to repeat. Whatever the case may be, you eventually (and obviously) want to reach your destination, right? I can think of quite a few times where I’ve been ill-prepared before I venture out to a friend’s new place, an appointment or a social gathering and end up lost. Now there’s no need to slap my wrists folks. That was a long, long time ago, before I has a GPS enabled BlackBerry. Who am I kidding, I still forget from time to time!

I’m always on the lookout for GPS applications that I haven’t tried yet; I’m not completely attached or committed to one currently. If you’re also looking for something new, or are new to GPS yourself, check out the amAze GPS application. With amAze GPS, you’ll have more than just simple navigation; you have access to weather, local searches, multiple map views, just to name a few. amAze offers both free and subscription services, so you can decide what level you want to be at. Let’s see amAze GPS in action, shall we?