I've had my BlackBerry Torch 9860 for a while now. For the last few weeks, I've been hunting down the Text Messaging icon every time someone sends me a new SMS message. There was simply no other way to read them. On my Torch 9800, all my text messages showed up alongside my other messages; but for the life of me, I couldn't remember how to do that on my new phone. Today, I finally remembered, and now my texts show up in the BlackBerry's main messaging app.

I've never been one to be afraid of making mistakes - except for when I was driving roller coasters at Carowinds, but that's a different matter - or of asking "stupid" questions. I'm a firm believer that the only stupid question is the one you didn't ask and mistakes help us to learn. I wished I had asked a few of those stupid questions over the last few weeks as I grew frustrated over my SMS difficulties. Still, I figure if at least a couple of people can learn from my error, I will have done some good.

To include SMS and MMS text messages in with your other email (and/or Facebook, Twitter, BBM, etc) messages, you'll first need to open the Messages app.  Then, open the menu by pressing the BlackBerry key and select Options. From that screen, choose Inbox Management. Tap or click the box next to Text Messages.  Once the check mark appears in that box, hit the back key, save changes, and you'll be good to go.

Now you and I both can find our text messages in the Messaging app, where they belong. And hopefully I've spared a few of you the frustration of staring at your BlackBerry thinking, "I know there's a way to do this..."

GroupMe is a group texting and conference call application available for iOS and Android devices that recently entered into an open beta for BlackBerry. It’s like a private chat room over SMS, or reply-all text messaging. GroupMe enables you to organize and communicate with groups of people right on your device. Even people without a smartphone can participate by creating their groups online.

GroupMe has pretty straightforward directions for getting set up and forming your groups, and walks you through each step. Each group is given a unique phone number. When you send a text message to a it, the message is sent instantly to everyone in the group. When you call the number, it automatically dials all the group members for a conference call. You can save the number assigned to your groups in your Contacts for repeated use. You can also create groups that are short-term, which can be set up to expire automatically after a set amount of time. You can even send pictures to your groups.

GroupMe seems like a pretty cool application if you have a group or groups of people that you send SMS messages to frequently, or if you have a need for an easy way to set up call conferencing. The UI is simple and user-friendly, and you will be on your way to group texting in no time. While GroupMe is free to install and doesn't cost anything to use, it does use minutes and SMS from your mobile plan, so you will likely want to be sure you and anyone you add to your groups has unlimited texting, otherwise I can see this burning through their allotted monthly amount in no time. In order to be eligible for the beta your BlackBerry must be running OS 5.0 and higher, and you have to be in the US. Hit the links below if you're interested in downloading, and check out some screenshots after the break.

For full details and to download the GroupMe beta for your BlackBerry
To download GroupMe from BlackBerry App World
To discuss the GroupMe beta in the forums

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Ever since my co-workers found out about my BlackBerry obsession, I'm constantly bombarded by questions. What is the number one question you ask? Well it's a topic that's pretty familiar to CrackBerry readers and a frequent question in the forums: how do I separate SMS and Email boxes in the messages folder? A BlackBerry can have up to 10 individual message folders and gives you the option of feeding all of them into the messages folder or separating into their own inbox.

Now while combining messages is fine for some people, it can be distracting and annoying to weed through a ton of messages, especially if you use multiple email accounts for different purposes or if you're like my boss and get hundreds a day. For instance, a co-worker couldn't find a client email because she had too many Toys R Us alerts filling up her box.

Whether you're a BES user who wants to distinguish between work and personal emails or a BIS user who wants to coordinate your accounts and texts messages, these are the different ways to separate or combine your SMS and Email inboxes on all the different BlackBerry platforms.

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The folks over at College Humor have come up with an awesome new video where they set up, what could be a rather dangerous game of roulette with peoples BlackBerry smartphones. In order to win $100 folks were asked to spin the wheel and then having whatever it landed on sent out via BBM or SMS to one of their contacts randomly selected. After which, they had to allow 5 minutes for a response then they could advise the contact that it was just a joke. Some funny stuff, I'm thinking we need to get a CrackBerry street team together and start coming up with our own videos.

Source: IntoMobile

Unwanted SMS messages are annoying. It seems like every week I get a new one, promising I have won something, or that my debt can easily be erased. Sure it's easy enough to just delete the message and forget about it, but what if you could eliminate it from ever hitting your device?

This is where Don't Disturb Me! (DDM) from Mobile4Life comes in. This app is the ultimate firewall for your BlackBerry. With DDM you can block SMS messages by sender's number or by keyword, so you don't have to receive them. You also have options for being notified when a message has been blocked, and you can configure how the message is handled from there. This is great if you get a lot of spam or harassing SMS messages.

Features:

• Block SMS by sender's number or number prefix.
• Block SMS by user defined keywords.
• Use "safe sender" list to ensure your important sms will not be blocked.
• Use password to protect DDM's setting
• Backup number/keyword/safe sender list to SD card or restore from SD card.
• Display block indictor and number of sms blocked on top of screen.
• Configurable sound/vibrate/led notification when blocked a SMS or totally key silent.
• View detailed infomation of blocked SMS and reply it.

You can pick up Don't Disturb Me in the CrackBerry store for $2.99 until September 30th when it returns to the normal price of $3.99. A free trial (50 blocked messages) is also available if you prefer to try before you buy.

Ditto for BlackBerry is a very useful application, allowing you to have group chats via SMS. Setup is quick and easy. Simply add contacts to the chat, tag them, and start texting. This saves the confusion and hassle of having multiple one person SMS chats. Overall Ditto is a great solution to BBM Groups, especially if your friends SMS a lot from their non-BlackBerry devices. Due to popular request, Ditto has been updated and now includes a 7 day free trial. You can pick it up for $2.99 via BlackBerry App World. It is available for most BlackBerry devices.

• More information and purchase of Ditto from BlackBerry App World >>
• Try Ditto for 7 Days Free >>

Ditto for BlackBerry is a very cool app that turns your device into an "SMS chat room". If you have a number of friends who haven't made the jump to BlackBerry and thus can't take advantage of BBM, Ditto may be worth a shot. The app allows you to add multiple contacts to a group chat, tag them as either a listener, speaker or both, and fire off an SMS to start a conversation. This lets you choose who can read the messages as well as who can reply. This is a great little tool for setting up your night out, messaging your employees and coworkers, or just having a chat with your friends and family. Once the chat is setup, the participants receive an alert via SMS, and you're up and running. Use Ditto to send off your SMS, and from there all of the participants will receive the message. When a message is received, a user simply replies to the message and it is sent out to all the people in the conversation. All in all a very cool app for cross-platform messaging that is sure to have tons of uses. Shoutout to Jane rocking that sweet 8700 in the video. Ditto sells for $2.99 and is available from BlackBerry App World. Check out the link below for more information.

• More information on Ditto >>
  
• Purchase Ditto from BlackBerry App World >>