iPhone Spotting

While writing a portion of this I spied my first iPhone on the train. Some older lady (late fourties, early fifties) was navigating around and looks like she was doing an email or something, no headphones. From the 10 feet away looking down on her, I can say the menu screen transition animation is hypnotizing, but other than that, it looks like she’s struggling typing. Oh, and everyone standing around her (no more seats) is looking at her. I guess I’m in the group, but I’m on the upper deck and sitting.

I'll just say, I'm not going to have an iPhone anytime soon, if ever. Just not praticle for corporate email at this point.

Gmail on my Blackberry

Aparently, it's extreemly easy to add external email accounts to you BlackBerry and many of you will think I'm out of it for posting this. But I am and yes, I am out of it. I started this post sitting on my couch procrastinating before my 4 mile run at 5:30 in the morning...

Previously, I had only used my BlackBerry for what they refer to as "corporate email", which I guess is an accurate term. I've always been using the enterprise service which means our company has a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) that bridges our Exchange server with BlackBerry's service. I guess there are a lot of BlackBerry users that are in situations without such infrastructure or have a BlackBerry for personal use, so being able to use Yahoo, Google, HotMail or any other free email service is vital.

Anywho, here are the easy steps as performed by me on GMail and my Sprint Blackbery 8703g. Your results may vary. (I used this article when going through it originally)

1) Go to Gmail, login and enable POP on your mailbox (Settings -> Forward and POP).

2) On the Blackberry, go to "Email Settings" on the main menu

3) Set up an account if you haven't already

4) When asked for email address enter your Gmail email address (i.e. somebody@gmail.com)

5) Enter your Gmail password (twice for verification)

Now you'll see a new icon just to the left of your main Messages icon that's a globe with a letter behind it. Your Gmail messages will arrive there, but for some reason, I get them in both my main bin and the Gmail bin. That's a bit annoying, but I'm sure it's just a setting somewhere.

It took about 40 minutes for me to start receiving messages after completing the initial setup. You can send mail as well. The delay between a message in your Gmail box and on your device is in seconds, not minutes, so it's very functional.

Anyways, I know people have been doing this for years, but it was interesting to me. Oh, and I did my 4 miles, but man is it humid outside. No more cotton shirts for my runs.

Google Maps on a Blackberry 7105?

I'm heading to a gathering at a friends house on Saturday night and for the life of me, I can't find the place. I'd been there a few times before, but always during daylight. I wasn't lost, but I was having troubles.

I wanted to spare myself the embarrassment of calling for directions, as it was a rather large gathering. So, I turned to my blackberry 7105 and pull up Google. I figure they would have some flat maps that I could use, but I was wrong.

So, I went to maps.google.com and typed in the address and got nowhere. I tried 3 more times and nothing. No map, no indication of anything. I did notice a "Download Google Maps" link, but with my experience with my 7105, I'm thinking that's not an option for me.

I went to MapQuest and it kept complaining that JavaScript wasn't enabled. So I went and enabled it and still nothing. During all these tries, I had to move my car a few times because it felt awkward parked while cars drove by in the area I was in.

I finally went back to Google Maps and tried the downloads. I tried the search again in the Blackberry browser and once again failed. So, I went directly to the new Google Maps app put in my Tools folder.

In 2 minutes I found where I was and where I needed to go. It was most excellent! (Go Bill & Ted)

So, a drive that should have been 15 minutes, took me 45 minutes. But I saved a little bit of grace by not calling for directions. You should check out if Google Maps is available for your phone. If it supports a BBerry 7105, I'm sure it supports a bunch of 2 year old smart phones.