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From the Editor's Desk: Hello Toronto, home of CrackBerry's BlackBerry 10 launch campaign headquarters!

Hello Toronto.... CrackBerry Kevin is in the city! 

By Kevin Michaluk on 19 Jan 2013 09:29 pm
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Eight days ago, from the show floor of CES in Las Vegas, I told CrackBerry Nation I was packing up my bags this week for a roadtrip to Toronto to setup our BlackBerry 10 Launch Campaign headquarters.

The roadtrip didn't qo quite as planned. I ended up coming home from Vegas and getting sick for the better part of a week, so we changed things up and I flew into the big smoke today. Huge props to the friendly people at WestJet for not looking at me too crazy when I showed up at the airport with three HEAVY bags to check. I'm here for at least a month - suffice to say I did not pack light for this one.

My (future) brother-in-law Jay Hum is also with me for the month to lend a helping hand (we're going to need a lot of helping hands as we get ready to push through the upcoming CrackBerry redesign). He's a tech enthusiast, surfer, and also eats healthy and works out a lot, which is going to help us keep things on track at our new CrackBerry HQ during February's Mobile Nations Health & Fitness Month. 

Bla1ze arrives tomorrow morning at 10:30am. He's here for the long haul too. Adam Zeis arrives in the afternoon at 2:30pm. The three of us will be flying to NYC on the 29th so we're there for the launch event on the 30th. Adam has a young one he's leaving behind to come up to Toronto (remember little Cassidy?), so he'll head home to New Jersey after the 30th while Bla1ze and I head back to CB HQ.

Simon Sage will be arriving Sunday afternoon as well, coming in from Ottawa. He'll be here through early February. And Chris Umiastowski and Zach Gilbert both live not too far away, so they'll be making many appearances as well.

We take possession of our office-for-the-month tomorrow at 4pm. We'll be reporting back regularly from CB HQ, and we'll defiinitely fire up the webcam on a regular basis (probably each evening), so you can hang with the crew here on the blogs via ustream. There are so many people around the world counting down the days until the launch event and until they can run into a store and pick up a BlackBerry 10 phone. We'll put up live chat along with our ustream sessions, which will serve as nice support group for everybody who's waiting anxiously.

We're going to be putting our heads down and be working HARD while we're all together. The CrackBerry redesign is a BIG undertaking. I think you're all going to love it. It's been over two years since CrackBerry has had a visual refresh, and our primary content management system on the editorial side of the site is currently the same as when we built it in 2006. We've gotten a lot of mileage out of it, but it's time for an upgrade. There's a lot of legacy tech and content to deal with, but we're doing just that. I was **hoping** we'd be able to pull the trigger on the site relaunch this week so we'd have all the changes made and kinks smoothed out before the BlackBerry 10 launch event. Our dev team is working around the clock right now, but I don't want to kill them, so it may be early February by the time we pull the trigger. We'll be phasing the rollout in stages as well just to make sure things go smoothly. It's going to be awesome. Our new BlackBerry 10 CrackBerry app is also going to be awesome - and that we'll definitely have in BlackBerry World for launch.

Once the BlackBerry 10 launch and CrackBerry redesign dust settles, we'll definitely be having some fun in Toronto as well. It's clear that CrackBerry has a lot of fans in the city. Since blogging last Friday that we're coming to Toronto, I've been receiving tweets and emails daily from excited readers and BlackBerry fans. We'll definitely be lining up a meetup or two or three (or four or five or six or... you get the picture). 

And on that note, I'm going to call this one a wrap. Only 11 more sleeps until the launch event. The final countdown begins tomorrow! 

Topics: BlackBerry 10 From The Editor's Desk BB10Launch News & Rumors Editorial

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Kevin Michaluk Kevin Michaluk 3706 (articles) 3034 (forum posts)
71 comments

Superfly_FR

#NosleepTillBlackBerry10 ! 3:31 AM here, have a good day !
Gooooooo CrackBerry ! :)

Kevin Michaluk

haha. awesome. well if we do evening ustream hangouts, you'll have to stay up late to catch them in your timezone. though we'll be sure to mix up the time slots.

Superfly_FR

Miss Superfly is going to kill me, but I'm no liar ! lol

kevinnugent

It should be like Big Brother!! 24/7 streaming ;)

jasperlin

again.. why a month? are you more or less saying we won't get our Z10's until late february?? damnit!

Michelle Haag

I've seen a sneak peek of the redesign, and it is hot you guys! So awesome! :D

NateFulton2010

Does it incorporate Black at all? ;)

PowderJockey

You go guys and gals. Can't wait and will be away from home on the 30th, so hoping to catch up on all of news of the day.

Jimcmf

Hey Kevin ..... welcome to my city .... feel right at home. We are very very happy to have you and the CrackBerry team here.

Make sure that you get out there and spread the wonderful word about BB10. The snow is all melted, but the freezing cold temperatures are heading this way starting Sunday.Don't let that stop you though.

I can't wait till the BIG launch. Everyone is talking about it .....

Go RIM Go !

I

AVPTI

CrackBerry redesign should launch after Jan 30 so it doesn't steal all the thunder from RIM and BB10

nt300

Can't wait for the BlackBerry Launch Event. Living in Toronto,.I know for a fact people can't wait for BlackBerry 10 whether they be current Android and/or iOS users, most want RIM to succeed and have a huge successful launch.

diggin4aliving

Welcome to TO. Glad to have the team here for the release !! Bring it on.

EsJayDee

Kevin, did the Z10 take that picture?

srmurray1

11 sleeps! I love that!

swishhh

Welcome to Toronto CB Team! Hopefully I'll be able to drop by if/when you have the meetups with CB Nation

jugolic

see ya at the launch ;)

azzurri_94

Hope your enjoying our mild winter rain fall... Enjoy your time in this wonderful city..

Snap51

Way to go Kevin and Team CrackBerry! Looking forward to all the fun and excitment in the coming days and weeks.

europolska00

Welcome to Toronto CrackBerry team! Take advantage of some of our great restaurants! I can't wait for a meet up, would be great! I love CrackBerry Nation! :)

axllebeer

* BlackBerry by choice *
Getting down to the wire. Glad to see you are on the case #TeamCrackBerry.

chan_the_killer

Just 10 DAYS here in the UK until the blackberry 10 :) can't wait

Supa_Fly1

Yes CrackBerry team enjoy our fine eats and proper Beer! We Are Canadian and you know we love our Beer with food and conversations & a right party!!

I am VERY excited for BB10 Official Launch and I'm quite happy information is not leaking out lately. I was seriously hoping that the new website would go love just 24/48hrs before launch and we could see live presentations across timezones and locations across the globe!!

Is is possible that your web admins/developers can get this new site running in development server, test data migration (possibly live/daily vs the current site) just to ensure threads, data and content from previous posts are not lost? This way testing can be good instead of launching in phases. I'm just worried we'll have too basic a redone crackberry.com initially (some us even wondering if we're on the right site vs an odd redirect). However let the developers do it right as I'm sure they will.

Please please please let the crackberry app NOT be an HTML5 only. Then again I'm very curious how BB10 handles links from other apps (not just in emails) and how to open up the browser or will the CSS+HMTL5 coded sites make BB Browser open up the site like an app in its own unique window - so functionality is not lost. Hmmm. this could be interesting.

Iamanonymous62

Why would the BB10 browser handle links any differently than other mobile browsers?

Supa_Fly1

First off not all mobile browsers handle html/hyperlinks the same way. Not all platforms do.

Example: iOS will process hyperlinks from emails, contacts, calendar but lately in iOS6.x Notes it doesn't - not unless created from Notes in OSXMountain Lion.

Not ALL html5 sites are created equal some use CSS heavily. When I reach a normal HTML4 site or HTML5 site, it'll open in the browser and thus the 'mobile page' could be very limiting from what conent you'd like to actually see. Other sites may load as a rich resource and I'm unsure the code but "could" render the site as a full fledged application that in all intese/purposes loads and behaves a a native app.

kozmo68

Welcome to TO CrackBerry team! Excitement keeps building and we can't wait. I know you guys will be busy, but if you're looking for a break I'd love to host you guys for a night of dining and racing fun at the ponies! Invite open, just message me!

Cheers!

#BB10Believe

GeMeBe

Welcome to Toronto, hope you all on the CrackBerry Team have a wonderful time and an amazing BlackBerry 10 launch. Lets show the world BlackBerry rocks.

Go BlackBerry!

len5

Will BB10 finally sync Gmail both ways like yahoo mail??

BuffaloMadMan

You guys should do Google hangouts each nite

lorax1284

I have been wracking my brain to figure out where that picture was taken... it looks like it was taken facing West from maybe Parliament or Sherbourne, between Dundas and Queen, or Gerrard & Dundas, but I would need a higher-res image to know for sure.

Then I'm thinking "what highrise buildings are in that area" and there are some new towers just east of Parliament, but not any that I'm aware of that are monthly rental suites or hotels... puzzling.

Is that pic a view from CBHQ?

jvictor77

No, that must be a hotel or something. He did mention that they take possession of the CBHQ offices Saturday at 4pm.

OniPod

Looks like it's between Dundas and Shuter, I saw Kevin walking on Dundas earlier this afternoon (as I was driving west) he was walking east with some other guy.

Kevin Michaluk

You spotted me!

OniPod

Yeah, you were walking outside of Filmores....LoL

Kandoo-BB

Oh man so exciting. Everyone said that Rim was dead only to find out the giant has woke from the slumber. BB10 FTW

Mr Gill

Welcome to T-Dot! I will definitely come by for that meet and greet.

jonno_atamaniuk

Welcome to Toronto, Team Crackberry!.... wait a meet-up? Huh? When and where?!? :-O

mrocchealth

Hey kev . My wife being a chef and all i wanna invite all ya'all over for some amazing food. Let me know if you are interested. Shes made marks on the grand hotel, western harbour castle, and she makes this unbelievable lagsange... She doesnt know who you are but im sure she will love you.

uncaringbear

Welcome to Toronto! I love this city and everything about it, so I hope you guys have a great time here. And the Leafs won their first game of the season tonight! W0000t!

MozThaGreat

It's been a long road but we made it CrackBerry. Can't wait for the launch!!!

kingz23

Welcome to the TDotOhh Crackberry!!

00stryder

I miss my hometown... But have fun in T-Dot, CrackBerry Team, and enjoy the sights! Maybe you can catch a Leafs or Raptors game now! ;)

kill_9

It's TO not T-Dot. If you're going to use slag get it right.

Mr Gill

It can be TO and T-Dot. A lot of Torontonians call it T-Dot (including Kardinal Offishall) and a lot call it TO.

00stryder

Lol I lived in Toronto for most of my life, how are you going to tell me what the "proper" slang is? Isn't the purpose of slang to be improper?

AngryEdmontonian

You must be new, Torontonians are never wrong (Except believing the Leafs will make the playoffs)

I Bleed Black & Berry

romulusiulian

Nice job guys. Nice to see the BlackBerry community so eager to star with this new OS. RIM's hard work must be acknoledge by us, the BB users and fans. So, go RIM! And RIM, please put those BB10 phones quicker on the market, because I really do need one.
Love you guys here from CrackBerry. Nice work and keep up! Thanx y'all!

nt300

Thorsten Heins (RIM's CEO) has more than proved he's the right man for the job. He's RIM's new visionary, and an individual that IMO deserves CEO of the year. RIM's entire team deserve a pat on the back. This is how confident us Torontonians and the rest of Canada feel about Blackberry's life changing success.

To most BB10's unique innovative style will get people hooked. BB10 has the ability to make both Android and iOS obsolete in performance, flow, innovation, security, etc., the new toy in town.

backfire101

From reading the story a get this strong feeling that the first phones are available in week 3 of february

kpbutton

Welcome to the big smoke. I'm looking forward to everything that you will be bringing to the faithful and non-believers alike.
Cheers!

paul435smith

Welcome to Toronto Kevin & Crackberry Team!

kill_9

A month in Toronto, Ontario... So Ms. CrackBerry finally had enough of your mop, huh? Youll return to Winterpeg with 3 heavy bags to check and 25 lbs more Kevin from eating out for a month.

m_warden1

Woot welcome to the big T.O. Glad to have some more #teamblackberry in the city. Feels like there's less and less of us each day.

10 days and we will finally see things move back in our favour!!

Storm 1 (retired)
Storm 2 (retired)
Torch 9800 grey(retired)
Torch 9800 red (active)
Playbook 32gig (active)

BBVegasGirl80

Rock on Team Crackberry! Looking forward to all the changes. Work hard, play hard - you all deserve it! :-)

Double_J75

Welcome to Toronto and take me to the launch party with you!! I will pay for gas, and pizzas! Even the healthy stuff for your brother-inlaw :)

bbfanboi

I'm glad to see you going BIG with this BB10 product launch. It will be big, and CrackBerry needs to be on the ground doing the reporting. We count on you to get all the goods from RIM and from potential consumers, as well as feedback from the press.

I believe this is not only big for RIM, it will be a game changer in the smartphone world.

10 days till launch!

ALToronto

Welcome, Kevin. Are you planning to post the address of your HQ, or is it going to be a closely guarded secret?

rigwrecker

I'm at work in New Zealand, but have to log on every day to catch all the latest noise! BRING IT RIM!

susu222

They are putting up BB10 banners in Kitcherner/Waterloo so we should do something like that at Dundas Square.

travaz

ALERT! If you want to make some quick money.... buy stock in a local TO brewery! Go CrackBerry team!
Here in Phoenix I am starting to see some interest from people that are not current BB users. When I bring it up now people listen and seem interested. I can hear the Thunder Roll!

s2by10

Very excited. Can't wait!

walnuts1024

My PlayBook will be set to CrackBerry through launch.

TorontoWireless

Welcome to the small apple "Toronto"

Rootbrian

Can't wait! I might even bump into you kevin! Or bla1ze or anyone! :D

larry5

Wow Kevin. I though u guys were from the Toronto area? Where are u guys from

byzantio99

Hi Crackberry Team,

Once you guys get your bearings and settle in, I urge you to take advantage of the the diversity of culinary experiences Toronto has to offer. Work is work, but you need fuel to work and play. I haven't being in a city that has so many cultures covered.

Enjoy your stay, good luck with the site and the launch. Pace yourself, it's only uphill for RIM and Crackberry from here.

rolltide78

You guys need some Spark for energy and mental clarity to make it through! High in vitamins and amino acids, and sugar free. Www.healthyjacksons.com If you need some samples let me know! - AdvoCare stuff is amazing and is what Drew Brees takes by the way.