Chatting on the Blackberry

Ask my wife, I am a gadget maniac and I love to customize my gadgets with as many apps as possible. If a gadget claims it can do something, I want to see it do it. As I begin this post, I am writing it on my Blackberry Bold 9000. I've had the unit for little over a year and happy to say it has worked very well for me. I have added a number of features which have enhanced my experience. Even better many of these apps are free!

Blackberry Messenger (BBM)

This feature comes with your Blackberry and many people aren't aware. What it does is allow you to text back and forth with other BBM users.

Why would you want to use this? The main reason is that the messaging is included with you Blackberry Internet service and texts sent through this do not count against your SMS quota (if you have one). What I like best is that BBM indicates when a message is received by the recipient and when they've read it. This alleviates the nagging question if your message got there.

The drawback is that the app only works for Blackberry to Blackberry. So, if you have a friend that has a shiny new iPhone, you need to stick to SMS or regular email. The other challenge is that it uses a unique Blackberry PIN code to identify users. Often users have trouble finding this information however it can be easily received by typing "mypin" in any message and the Blackberry with automatically change it to your PIN code.

If you’ve installed the updayed BBM application, a new feature was added, individual and group barcodes. Using this feature, a user can scan the bar code off of their friend’s Blackberry using the smartphone’s camera. Instantly the two friends will be hooked up as buddies bypassing the usual approval process. One little known feature is that the BBM can read any QR Barcode. You may have seen these codes on the bottom of advertising or in magazines. Scanning one of these codes will send the user to a web page, add a contact or create an SMS message. 

Here is an example of a QR Barcode. It contains a link back to this blog. A great site for information about QR Codes and to create one of your own is here: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ (plus it is free!).

CrunchSMS

So what about communicating with the non-Blackberry users? Well, Blackberries do have a built in SMS application however, it sorts on date and makes it hard to use SMS as a quick back and forth communicator. 

Enter CrunchSMS (http://www.crunchsms.com/). This application can be used as a replacement SMS application. Just follow the directions to deactivate the Blackberry SMS app. Using this application organizes your SMS messages by contact. So, you can easily follow the thread of your conversations. It stores the history of your conversations for as long as you like. It displays the photo of your contacts and displays the messages as color coded bubbles so you know what you said and what they said as well as the time you said it. 

Best of all the application is free. Of course there is a small space reserved for advertising and for a small fee (less than $5) you can support the developers and have the advertising removed. Personally, I think it is well worth it, not that the advertising is intrusive (it is not) but to help support innovation and individual programmers.

Wow, this entry is getting long and I’ve only covered two of my favorite apps. So let me sign off for today and next time we’ll look at a internet browser options as well as my favorite voicemail system.