Zen Minder for BlackBerry Smartphones Reviewed

Hello friends, how does today find you? Are you having a good day? Do you feel calm, focused and at peace? No? Well, what's the matter with you?! ...Sorry. Sometimes, we pick up and embrace new technology designed to make our lives easier, but when used improperly, the result may be the exact opposite. With great technology, comes great responsibility (not the original quote, but lets move on). And with that added responsibility, added stress typically follows. Now that you have greater connectivity in your hands, your company, family and friends have an even greater connection to you. You may find yourself busier than ever, forgetting to do the little things you used to along the way. Sure, you could set up reminders in your Calendar, but where's the fun in that? We are BlackBerry users gosh darn it!

Adding a softer side to keeping you on the ball, ZenMinder is the newest reminder application available for your BlackBerry smartphone. With ZenMinder, you can create and manage multiple reminders to gently guide you through your day. By utilizing this application, your responses to reminders should go from "Okay...OKAY!!" to "Ah...yes....thank you for reminding me..." Now sit down near a babbling brook, and throw on some Yanni. I'd ask you to close your eyes and relax, but then you wouldn't be able to read the review!

About ZenMinder

ZenMinder was made possible by the good people at BBHacker < link http://zenminder.com/ >. We've reviewed the most recent version of ZenMinder, being v 1.0.2, its size is 525.5KB. The application is available for BlackBerrys running OS 4.2 or higher, including the Tour. Let's take a look.

The main menu is enough to help you attain a calm demeanor - the image of the stones leading off into the vast, infinitesimal nothingness that is the stark white background. Try not to get lost. Even the blue words displayed before you offers reassurance;

"No need to remember...let ZenMinder remind you."

ZenMinder's capacity to maintain virtually unlimited reminders is impressive to say the least. To create a reminder, click on New Reminder from either the main screen or the menu button. The following fields can be filled in:

Name: Here you fill in the name of the reminder, which also doubles as the reason for the reminder. You could use names including "TPS Report" or "Soccer Game".

Date: Choose the day, month, year and time you want the reminder to sound. Below the date entry is a button labeled "Find Future Date". In the Future Date section, you can have ZenMinder calculate what date you want to see the reminder. For example; I can choose to be reminded in 5 minutes, hours, days, weeks or months.

Repeat Every: Similar to the Find Future Date, I can decide when to receive a repeated reminder, this time your choices expand to include; quarters and years.

ZenMinder comes equipped with four unique tones to choose from - Gentle Note, Zen Gong, Sparkles and Wind Chimes. They have been included as soft, peaceful reminders that are designed not to interrupt those around you. If you don't find any of those tones suitable, you can also choose from your own audio files. Volume levels can be adjusted by increments of 10, ranging from 0 to 100. These tones can continuously play, or sound once, twice, three times (a lady, sorry), five times or ten times. The application also makes use of your BlackBerry's vibrate feature. The reminders can also be accompanied by a short vibration burst or a long vibration. At the bottom of the reminder creation screen, you will find a test notification button, so you can see your reminder before you save it. Reminders can also be edited and deleted.

Your created reminders will now be listed at the main screen (hey! Where did the stones go?!). At this screen, each entry will show the reminder's name, the next time it will sound and how often it repeats (if at all).

Now, you can go about your merry way, getting back to doing what you need to do. When the reminder is activated, you will see a small popup displaying the name of the reminder and two buttons; marked "ok" and "remind me later." Your BlackBerry LED will also blink blue. If your screen is black, the reminder will not activate the backlight, so the blue LED is a nice touch. Unless you haven't set your reminders to repeat, the "remind me later" option isn't necessary. With a repeating reminder on, both the buttons will function the same. If repeats are off, the "remind me later" button acts as a snooze button. The application sets the default snooze time to 10 minutes, but you can choose anywhere between 1 and 999 minutes (yes, I checked). You can also modify ZenMinder slightly to suit your needs; choose between 12 hour or 24 hour formats, auto delete expired alarms, deactivate all reminders or just deactivate them during the weekend. Before the recent update, closing the application would not deactivate your reminders, allowing them to catch your attention when you didn't want them to. Now, you can choose to shutdown the application when you leave it. Oh and if you were wondering, BBHacker is offering free lifetime upgrades. The only problem I had was the fact that I had to delete the previous version, wait for my BlackBerry to reboot, then install the newer version. Hopefully they can fix this soon.

Conclusion

With ZenMinder on your BlackBerry, you can continue on your path to enlightenment. It offers an alternative to the traditional reminder you set in your calendar. With the soothing tones, snooze button and easy to use UI, you'll soon be able to put your mind at ease. You can pick up a copy of ZenMinder for $14.99 at the CrackBerry App Store. The price may be a bit high, and might not bring peace to your wallet. Until July 31st, you can nab it for $9.99, or even try the free trial. For more information, or to try/buy ZenMinder, click here.

Pros

• easy to master the controls
• pleasant tones and UI
• manage an unlimited number of reminders

Cons

• reminder won't activate the backlight
• upgrade issues

Download

• Download ZenMinder for BlackBerry >>