Edword

• 28Feb

  Wow, Pretty Clever RIM…

  Blackberry, Cell Phones, Videos No Comments

• 16Feb

  4.7.0.103 FTMFW

  Blackberry, Cell Phones No Comments

  Was up all!

  I wrote a little while ago about a leaked OS for the blackberry storm here and how I was ultimately unimpressed with it’s performance.  I’m not sure if I mentioned it at the time but I decided then to never again try another beta OS, that I would wait for Telus to release a new OS before upgrading again.  I should a known better…lol.  I started reading about the new unreleased 1.7.0.103 last week and the reviews sounded quite good.  There were of course quite a few people that were having lots of issues with it but I started thinking “maybe I’ll be one of the people that have an easy time of it” (ya right, I’m never that guy) but screw it, lets try anyways, no guts no glory!

  Really, I’m quite glad to report that it could not have gone any better.  everything from install to configure to test went 100% smoothly.  So I’m back to portrait mode qwerty keyboard and while I still find it quite hard to type on I think it’s still better than the suretype garbage that I will probably never get used to (and now don’t have to).  Keyboard aside, everything works better in .103, everything!  Scrolling feels smoother, the accelerometer is snappier, the browser feels quicker, the camera works fine again and the image quality may even be a little better but I would want to play with it a little more before saying that for sure, basically just all around goodness!

  So there it is, I love it and I’m gonna keep it.  I think everyone with a Storm that feels comfortable installing it should go ahead and install it but as always, it’s totally an at your own risk kind of thing so make sure it’s something your comfortable doing and read read read before attempting!!!  I’m not gonna place links to it but just google 1.7.0.103 if your interested.

  Later and happy modding all,
  Ed.

• 10Feb

  Who invited this guy?

  Cell Phones, Videos No Comments

  See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.
• 06Feb

  Unlock your Blackberry’s GPS Potential!!!

  Blackberry, Cell Phones No Comments

  I recently moved on to my second Blackberry with the purchase of a Storm to replace my beloved Curve.  I was hoping the Storm would improve on the horrible GPS performance of the Curve, I was wrong, the Storm’s GPS totally sucks, it’s just as bad as the Curve.  Well maybe not quite as bad, I was occasionally able to get a lock using the included Blackberry Maps application but no other 3rd party app would even come close to working.

  I have done a lot of reading on the topic of Telus and there AGPS, how it works, conspiracy theories about Telus disabling the feature (more on this later).  Some people reported that after bugging Telus for long enough there GPS mysteriously started working perfectly?  Lots of weird little issues and nobody ever found the exact reason why, till now.

  I had an article come down through an RSS feed into Viigo (great app if you don’t have it yet http://edword.net/bb) that claimed to have the fix for all the Curve and Storm GPS issues.  I put it off for a while (been a busy week) but started looking into it again yesterday, sounded promising and there were so many success stories that I decided to to give it a go myself.  Everything went just as explained in the guide and my GPS works perfectly now (still no lock in Google maps and accuracy is a bit off but I haven’t tried any outdoors locks yet, too cold up here so I’ll have to get back to youz with a final thought once I try it outdoors but just the fact that nav4all gets a lock indoors, wow, I was blown away.

  So there it is, black and white, the Pearl’s GPS works but for whatever reason everything Curve and later, Telus decided to leave out the AGPS connection settings.  These settings do go deeper than the blackberry OS software, the steps in the link below actually walk you through changing some of the phones ROM code so your next software update will not undo these changes.  The question is, why are these variables not in the phone?  If it was a conscious decision on the part of Telus not to include this then how is it that not one technical support rep has ever admitted to knowing about this?  No sales person has ever known about it and they will actually just swap out a Curve for bad GPS, no questions asked.  There is nothing wrong with the phone people!  Is it possible that the decision was made so high up in the company that the news never made it down the ranks?  How did they think it would be worth it to incur the costs associated with all the hours of tech support trying to help people out with this?  Are there really that many people paying $10/month for Telus Navigator that it’s still a profitable trade off?  And then there is RIM, are they not pissed about having to replace all these good handsets?  I don’t know, think what you will.  Call Telus and scream about it (probably won’t help but who knows) or just do what I did, fix the phone yourself so that you can actually take advantage of the phones advertised features…

  Click here to learn how to fix your GPS.

  Click here for another article that does a really good job explaining AGPS.

  Laterz all,
  Ed.

• 04Feb

  Blackberry App – Buzzme

  Blackberry No Comments

  Hello all!

  I’m back with another awesome free Blackberry app.  This one is one of a “how has Rim done this yet” category.  Buzzme adds vibe and ring functionality to your blackberry, I’ve totally been missing this since I joined the dark side.  Well honestly, I’m not sure what elsi I can say about this one other than DOWNLOAD IT NOW!

  You can download it OTA here or from my new Blackberry links page.

  Enjoy and laterz all,
  Ed.

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