Hello again dear readers. It's time to once again open up the mailbag and clear up any BlackBerry woes you may have. This week's question comes from one of Stephen L and he writes:
Dear Berry,
Do you know if it is possible to turn off the very loud low-battery alert in the Playbook? The alarm has gone off a number of times in the middle of the night, waking up the entire family - making my Playbook less popular.Thanks
S
I know a lot of us use applications like BeBuzz to notify us of specific app notifications with fancy colors and toasts. Others prefer to stick with the basic blinking red light. If none of these options suit your taste, the folks over at PingDev Ltd have a solution. Light Up will turn on your backlight of your home screen with each new notification.
The following applications are currently compatible with Light Up:
Light Up allows you to select an active/inactive option for those times when you may not want anyone just passing by to see what's on your screen when that new message comes in. You can also customize which notification types light up your screen, duration and level of brightness. Light Up is available via BlackBerry App World for $1.99 on most devices running OS 4.6.1 or higher.
So all of a sudden your BlackBerry is being bombarded with Facebook notifications like "so and so has posted a link" or "so and so updated their status". You login and make sure all your notifications are turned off yet they still keep coming! I pulled my 9930 off the charger at 6:30 am and by noon, my battery was down to 32% all in thanks to my Facebook app going off every two or three minutes with these silly notifications. After wracking my brain trying to figure out why I was still receiving them when all the settings were set to off, I do what we all should do when faced with a BlackBerry problem...I logged on to CrackBerry and went straight to the forums. The amount of knowledge all of us can gain from each other is astounding. Within two minutes, I had searched, found my answer & solved the problem all thanks to this forum.
Here's how to solve the issue:
Ta-da! Problem solved. Thanks again to all of you in the forum who helped those of us who just couldn't figure it out.
When you become a BlackBerry owner, it's like you learn a whole new language. Not only is there new terminology to learn, but your screen will soon be home to all kinds of icons and notifications. Most of them are pretty self-explanatory, but others aren't so obvious to new users, and sometimes getting rid of notifications can be just as confusing.
The picture above has been floating around the forums for quite some time (thanks to ifarlow for putting it together way back when), and those of you running older OS' are likely familiar with several of them. For the most part, notifiers haven't changed a whole lot from OS to OS, though there have been some notable changes. After the break you can see a list of more recent notifiers, from OS 5-7, as well as a list of several things that can have an effect on how notifiers look on your device.
It's no secret that people get easily addicted to their smartphones. Heck, our site IS called CrackBerry after all! Recently a study on this growing trend was conducted by a team at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT) and Intel Labs. Users in the US and Finland were studied and the results show that users obsessively check their devices for email, social media, and news all throughout their waking hours. It was found that typical checking lasts less than 30 seconds, often involving nothing besides simply unlocking the device and accessing one application. And when applications are integrated, for example augmenting the user's contact list with a foursquare type app, the user began repeatedly checking that application.
"By making interesting content quickly accessible, developers are on the one hand making the device more useful - but, on the other hand, the habits that emerge essentially conquer more and more of a person’s free time," says Tye Rattenbury, formerly of Intel Labs.
While the people in the study didn't feel that they had an addiction to checking their smartphones, they did feel maybe they overuse them. Apps such as BerryBuzz are designed to help identify what's going on in your device without having to pick it up, but that's really no different from just picking it up. With phones turning into smartphones, and smartphones into superphones, it's really no surprise we rarely put them down anymore.
How do you feel? Do you check your BlackBerry too often, maybe even when the LED isn't flashing? When are you most likely to check for messages, RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook, etc?
Source: TG Daily
So I'm waitng for an email from our fearless leader here at CrackBerry and am passing the time watching some YouTube videos. When my email notification finally goes off I immeadiately scramble to open my inbox. Drat! It's just an email from my mother with another "funny" story about my nephew. Those of us who have the BlackBerry Style 9670 already have a built in pop-up feature for the outer screen letting us preview an email or SMS when our device is closed. Now with QuickView Pro, by AHazDesigns, you can see who the incoming message just came from & if it's important enough to read right away.
You even have the option of changing the color and size of the pop-up. QuickView Pro is available for pretty much every BlackBerry (OS 4.5 or higher) and is supported by all carriers & countries. Grab a copy today and quit wasting your precious time on spam messages!
More information / download of QuickView Pro via BlackBerry App World
More information / download of QuickView Pro via CrackBerry App Store
I spend much of my day in front of the laptop, and my BlackBerry is always on vibrate. Because of this, sometimes I miss important calls as I just don't notice that when my device is vibrating. If this sounds familiar, maybe because you work in an office and your BlackBerry is tucked away in your desk or purse, you should check out Notifier for BlackBerry. This simple app forwards notifications from your BlackBerry to your computer via wifi.
Currently, notifications for incoming phone calls, SMS messages, and battery status are the only ones included, but hopefully more will be added in the future. All you do is purchase the BlackBerry app for $.99 and install it. You will also need the desktop portion of the app for Windows or Mac which you can install online from the developer's website. To set up the app, simply enter the IP address (displayed within the desktop client) into Notifier on your BlackBerry, and you're done! Alerts will be displayed on your computer screen as your device receives calls and SMS messages, and as your battery level drops. I can't wait to see more updates to this little app. BBM would be a great addition, for example.
For more information and to purchase Notifier for BlackBerry
Don't tell anybody, but I'm a bit of a geek. I frequently make technology perform in ways the average person would never consider. Others may ask why?, and my response is usually, "because I can." The true answer is that whatever supposedly "geeky" thing I'm doing also happens to be the most efficient and effective way of doing something; bonus points if I don't have to get off the couch. Though it may not look like it now, what I'm doing will save me time and headaches in the future. It's just a little difficult to say that without sounding like a snotty jerk.
Ringtones work for me; ever since my first wireless phone, I've used ‘em. I liked knowing who was calling just by listening. It's a fact of modern wireless life that some calls get answered faster than others. Now that I have a BlackBerry, the type of communiqués has increased exponentially. It's only natural that my "ringtones" use expanded as well. Using only an extra email account; message notifiers; and BeBuzz, I know what message is waiting for me without looking at the screen. The notification sounds and notifier LED are all I need to figure out whether that email is really important or not.
Having been a Pageonce user since their initial beta releases, I have to say, while this was a long time coming I'm sure as heck happy to see it. Pageonce has released version 2.5 of their Personal Assitant application and with this release they have indeed added push notifications to the mix.
Now as your customized accounts have changes happen, you are instantly notified of what went on. Anything from flight changes, bills that arrive or even credit card transactions. It all is captured for you and delivered to your device so that you can quickly and accurately keep track of the things that are important to you. The basic Personal Assistant is made available for free while premium services with added features are available for only $6.99. Both of which offer the email alert system.
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