A while back we took a look at how to customize your results when using Universal Search. The OS gives you the option to pick and choose what you'd like to see when searching, but how about those pesky Bing web suggestions that clutter up your search results? Well you can kill those as well with a simple check box. To disable web suggestions, simply head to Options > Device > Search then uncheck Show Web Suggestions. This will keep your BlackBerry from showing web results (unless you have them checked further down in the list) so you won't have to see them any longer.

Have any fun tips for using your BlackBerry? Send them along to tips(at)crackberry.com.

It's Health & Fitness Month at Mobile Nations!

When we came up with the idea of a Mobile Nations Fitness Challenge while at CES this year, I instantly started thinking about how I could best use my mobile devices to help reach my goal. Ultimately I am aiming to lose weight on what I'm calling my "no more fat kid" diet. While there are plenty of fitness and health oriented apps out there for BlackBerry, I really wanted to just keep track of things on my own. I don't need fancy graphs or reports to tell me what I'm doing right or wrong, I just want to see my progress how I lay it down. Evernote couldn't be a better solution for this. I already told you how I use Evernote and why I love it and now for the course of my diet I can keep track of my meals, my weight, my workouts (or lack there of) and whatever else I need. Keep reading and we'll take a look at just how easy it is to use Evernote to keep track of your goals.

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While the default action in BlackBerry 7 when pressing a key from the home screen is Universal Search, you have the ability to change this up to access application (keyboard) shortcuts instead if you so desire. This lets you quickly get to many apps on your device by pressing a key on the keyboard (like M for Messages of N for BBM) right from the home screen, making navigating apps even easier. If you think you'll miss Universal Search, not to worry because you can get to that simply by pressing S from the home screen.

To turn on your keyboard shortcuts:

• Go to Options > Display > Home Screen Preferences
• Under Launch By Typing change from Universal Search to Application Shortcuts
• Press Back button and choose Save

While some may be fans of having Universal Search ready to roll just by typing, I for one like to be able to jump to apps quickly with keyboard shortcuts. What is your preference? Do you use Universal Search or prefer to have keyboard shortcuts? Let us know in the comments!

This one may seem like a no-brainer, but believe it or not, there are plenty of users who don't even know this option is there. Much like myself, many BlackBerry users just stick with the default settings on the device like screen birghtness, trackpad sensitivity, wallpaper and font right out of the box. Well the great thing about BlackBerry is the amazing level of customization that it offers -- you can change up most everything on the device to your liking, including the font. 

The default font looks a bit big and fuzzy on the new BlackBerry 7 devices, but changing it up to something like BBAlpha Sans Condensed can give your display a whole new look. To change your font, simply head to Options > Display > Screen Display. Pick the font you like, tweak the size and style and you're custom all the way. Play around to see what works for you or just change it up when you get bored. Happy fonting!

After rooting your BlackBerry PlayBook, you'll find that DingleBerry 3.x installs a very nice little application to your PlayBook. It's called HuluBerry and allows you to watch Hulu videos from a specially-designed browser on your PlayBook. If you live outside of the US, I'm afraid your Hulu dreams are dashed for the time being. Unless you can find a US proxy that plays nice with Hulu, that is. It should be noted that HuluBerry and DingleBerry 3.1 are not compatible with the latest PlayBook beta OS 2.0.0.7111. You'll need to be running 2.0.0.6149 or earlier for HuluBerry and the root to work properly.

HuluBerry is a most excellent application; but after restarting your PlayBook, you may notice that it no longer plays videos. Interestingly, it's not just the special DingleBerry-installed browser that no longer works, root access disappears as well. You notice it with HuluBerry because breaking the Hulu watching app is the most visible consequence of this. Every time your PlayBook reboots, it looses root access. Thankfully, the DingleBerry team anticipated this.

To get HuluBerry working again, you'll just need to connect your PlayBook to a computer with the PlayBook in Development Mode. A custom script - startup.sh - runs whenever the PlayBook is connected to a computer and Development Mode is on. As soon as the device connects to the computer (I usually wait until I've entered the tablet's password), you can disconnect it. The process regains root access to your PlayBook and returns all that Hulu goodness to the PlayBook's 7" screen.

After struggling with previous versions of the Dingleberry jailbreak, I'm happy to say that version 3 works like a freakin' charm. It bundles a downgrader, so you can get your PlayBook into a prime jailbreaking state, and Dingleberry handles all of the backing up and restoring on its own. So, what can you do with root access on a BlackBerry PlayBook? Well, there's some neat stuff going on with USB host capabilities, but the most obvious application right now is direct access to the Android Market. Sure, you can sideload the apps if you acquire them through less-than-savory means, but Android Market access means you can easily download anything you've already paid - provided it works. 

There's a teeny, tiny caveat, though. PlayBook 2.0 is still very much beta, and seeing as RIM isn't even intending on providing access to the Android Market, opting instead to get developers to repackage their creations for App World. Notifications actually work well in the few apps that manage to load, but for the most part, anytyhing downloaded through Google's mobile software portal perform inconsistently at best. Generally, anything you get will simply force close as soon as you open it, but there are a few gems tucked away that perform admirably. That said, here are the best Android Market apps I've been able to run on a jailbroken BlackBerry PlayBook. 

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We all love the ability to open a message, read it and then be able to quickly respond with our BlackBerry devices, right? Well what if you could make responding on your BlackBerry even quicker with predictive text? Yes, even for devices with a full QWERTY keyboard. Luckily for us the option is built right into the OS and it can be enabled and disabled on the go with just a few easy steps.

1. Open device settings
2. Scroll to Typing and Language
3. Open Typing
4. Scroll to style and select predictive to enable / direct to disable then save

Predictive text won't be for everyone, depending on your typing and grammar styles this may be more of a hinderance than a benefit, so be sure to check it out and decide for yourself. 

We've known even before the BlackBerry PlayBook first went on sale that it could support watching Hulu videos. Hulu was started as a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp (Fox) that allows US internet users to watch TV shows online. It's a great way to legally watch TV over the internet. The PlayBook's flash-running browser has no problem playing the videos; it's Hulu itself that blocks content to the tablet. Within 48 hours of the tablet's release, Hulu blocked PlayBook users from viewing that content.

DingleBerry 3.x changes that; Hulu is back on the PlayBook! Included with the latest release of the rooting tool is a new browser called HuluBerry. After following the extremely easy instructions for rooting the tablet, you'll find the HuluBerry application already installed on your device. This custom browser only browses the Hulu website. And Hulu looks great on the PlayBook.

Please note: As of late Wednesday night, it appears that the the 2.0.0.7111 developer's build of the PlayBook OS breaks HuluBerry functionality. To keep watching Hulu videos on your PlayBook, I would recommend staying on version 2.0.0.4869 or 2.0.0.6149 

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If you've ever wondered if it was worth your time and effort to root/jailbreak your BlackBerry PlayBook, wonder no longer. The latest DingleBerry rooting tool, DingleBerry 3.x, makes rooting your PlayBook a simple matter of activating Developer Mode on your PlayBook and following the instructions in the DingleBerry program.

With the release of DingleBerry 3.x, Mac and Linux machines get some love too. It should be noted that these Linux and Mac users will need to have certain libraries already installed on their computers first. Since I'm a PC, you find a helpful tutorial and links to the necessary libraries at the DingleBerry.it website.

We've written about rooting your PlayBook using DingleBerry before. That process involved pushing some files to your PlayBook, backing up data from and then restoring data to your PlayBook, and finally you might have to pray to the gods of Technology that you unplugged your USB cable fast enough to complete the root.

DingleBerry 3.x is light-years ahead of that process. Downgrading, rooting, and confirming whether or not the root was successful are all accomplished within the rooting tool itself; BlackBerry Desktop Software is not required. The process is straightforward and easy to do; still, there are a couple of things that can ruin your day. Keep reading past the break to find our helpful guide on using this amazing tool to gain root access to your BlackBerry PlayBook.

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Update: DOH! Well that was quick! It looks like this was just an "experiment" on Google's part, if you go to the page you now get the following message:

Hi there - thanks for your interest in our phone-based login experiment. While we have concluded this particular experiment, we constantly experiment with new and more secure authentication mechanisms. Stay tuned for something even better!

If anything else pops up we'll report back!

I have a great deal invested in my Google account -- between GMail, calendar, address book, Google Docs, Google Voice and Google+, my account has most of my online life attached to it. So I treat my Google password like the valuable Precious that it is.

There have been times where I've needed to login to my Google account from some pretty sketchy computers, like my mom's HP -- which is connected directly into her cable modem with no firewall between the internet and Windows XP. I get sick just thinking about what is living inside that grey box.

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On January 1, we rang in the New Year by bringing you our How-to on installing the Android Market to your BlackBerry PlayBook. From the comments and Tweets, it looks like the guide was a big hit. Congratulations to the many of you who've successfully run and used the Android Market!

Not everyone has been met with success, though. In both the comments and forums, we've seen reports of the Honeycomb Launcher (or ADWLauncher as some have used) not working or hanging and of people finding the Android Market missing. Without the HCL Updater program working, users would not be able to see the Android OS running on their PlayBooks.

While this has not happened to me, it has happened to a good number of people. Thankfully, the good people of the CrackBerry Forums have come up with some potential solutions for you.

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Prepping my gear for CES today, I dropped a few movies from my Mac onto my BlackBerry PlayBook. Since I've made the mistake in the past, I decided to test them out before hitting the road. Sure enough, two of the videos I had imported had no sound -- thus I embarked on my quest to the CrackBerry forums for an easy solution. If you're having problems with no sound on your PlayBook videos, keep reading and we'll get you squared away in no time!

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A few weeks back we saw a video sporting USB support on a rooted BlackBerry PlayBook. Well now guillem has posted a little how-to that shows off just how to get USB support up and running on your rooted BlackBerry PlayBook. You'll need a few supplies including a rooted PlayBook, a USB OTG (On-The-Go) adapter (or a Female USB A to micro USB cable and a soldering iron) and a bit of tech knowledge to get going. Keep reading to find out just how it's done!

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Ever get annoyed when you plug your BlackBerry device in while in the middle of watching something, only to have the screen turn black and a big clock appear in your face? By default your BlackBerry device is set to display the clock when it is charging, so anytime a USB that is connected to a power source or computer is plugged in it will appear. Luckily for you this can be changed to enable Bedside Mode or do nothing at all, and making the change is quite simple.

1. Launch the Clock application
2. Press Menu then scroll to options
3. Select the option for When Charging
4. Change selection to Do Nothing or Enter Bedside Mode (depending on your preference)
5. Save your selection

That's it. Really. It is just that simple. No more clock popping up everytime you connect your device to a power source, instead you get to decide what it does.

In an effort to keep myself more organized and ensuring maximum productivity I have been assigning myself tasks to complete each day, but keeping track of them can be a bit difficult for me. After trying several different options, making lists in Memo Pad, adding calendar appointments, email reminders and more I realized none of them really met my needs. When trying to keep organized options are key, simplicity is a must, and reminders need to be reliable, and luckily I found all of these right in the native BlackBerry Tasks application.

Most of the times when looking to complete something specific on a phone the first thing I do is search around for a third party application to allow me to get things done, but this time the answer was found via a pre-installed application. Hit the break with me to see how BlackBerry Tasks is used in my daily life.

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