About 10 years ago I used to dabble in programming for Windows CE / Pocket PC devices, under the company name Mobilecubed. It was fun, and I made a little bit of money on the side selling some apps, most notably the HTML editor H-Bomb (yeah, I thought it was witty back then).  But after Microsoft did away with the Embedded Visual Basic toolkit and made it necessary to own Visual Studio in order to develop for Windows Mobile, they made it difficult for hobbyists like myself to be a part of the ecosystem, and my interest faded.

Fast forward to now, where I am a BlackBerry user, and the themes / interfaces for the BlackBerry devices run the gamut of plain to pretty creative. After purchasing a few themes, I found them always lacking in some feature that I wanted.  Eventually, I decided to try my hand at RIM’s BlackBerry Theme Studio (which they smartly made available for free).  This lead to me developing an interest in making themes for BlackBerry devices.

My first theme was BerrySense, a take off on the HTC Sense interface.

OTA Link

I tried including functionality I like, such as being able to view your messages and calendar information right on the screen, Weather slot along with 2 other apps, and a sliding 6-icon dock (slides down out of view). It also has keyboard shortcuts for SMS / MMS (the $ key), QuickLaunch (spacebar), and SearchIt (ALT+S or ALT+P), along with BlackBerry OS 5.0 transitions, a lock screen with the weather icon, and a few more things.

Here is the CrackBerry.com thread, which includes links to the source code.

My second theme is bCard, a Cover Flow-like theme.

OTA Link

bCard has the same keyboard shortcuts and 5.0 transitions as BerrySense, as well as a Weather slot.  It has a dock that slides out from the left, dedicated Facebook and Twitter app (definable via an application slot) buttons.  The main “card” interface features icons such as Search, Messages, Calendar, Contacts, Browser, Music, Pictures, Videos, and more.  The Search, Browser, and Twitter buttons are all definable via application slots.

You can read more about it at this CrackBerry.com thread.

Both themes were made for the BlackBerry Bold 9700, but will apparently work on the Curve 8900 and Tour 9630.  They are both free, so feel free to give them a try.  Feedback is always welcome.

My latest article for Tech in Hiding is now up, discussing five BlackBerry utilities that deserve some love. Okay, I cheat a bit towards the end, but that’s okay.

Welcome to Weddings 2.0.

I’ve written about the Vodafone Update app for BlackBerry before, when I had my Storm.  Didn’t work perfectly on the Storm, but it’s pretty rockin’ on my Curve 8900.  If you want to handle Facebook and Twitter from one app, this is a good option to consider.

Tried it.  Liked the look of it… simple but functional.  Uninstalled it when the keyboard shortcuts I’m used to on Ubertwitter didn’t work (or any, for that matter).  I’m used to the shortcut keys to get things done in less time.  Seesmic isn’t there yet, but it is a beta product, so I can’t fault it.  Ubertwitter has more features and is more robust as of right now.

Next…

Look, it’s easy to just say that Google is king and I’m not switching to anything else.  I tend to look at alternatives and have some unusual tendency to gravitate- or at the very least try- the underdog option.  I use Google Search and Google Maps on my BlackBerry because they are fantastic.  In the past I had used Microsoft’s Live Search application, which combined search, mapping, movie listings, weather, and more into one application, and I really liked it.  That has given way to the new Bing application, since Microsoft likes to change their product name every 18 months or so (I’m looking at you, Live Search, nigh MSN Search).  So I gave it a shot on my BlackBerry.

And it gets one big “meh”.

• The initial search screen looks nice; it reflects the Bing site’s anti-Google aesthetic, with color pictures that change daily.  This is a nice touch, and I don’t mind it at all.  The problem is when you try to find the data you’re looking for.
• Bing search results are not bad but not as accurate as Google’s.  Perhaps it depends on what you’re looking for, but one thing Bing doesn’t match (in the mobile app, at least) is the depth of Google’s searches.  Doing a search for movies in the Google search app will load local movie listings and times, broken out by theater if you’d like.  Bing will show you some theaters and / or movies (oddly enough, missing the theater I usually go to), and only some movies.  When you click deeper to get more information, it tries to take you to an MSN site.  I say “try” because the app would get hung up on connecting to the site.  If you’re used to Google, it makes for a frustrating experience.
• Searching for directions was merely okay.  It got the directions I was looking for it took longer than Google Maps to load (and app / map navigation was not as smooth).  Bear in mind, this is over the 3G connection of my old Storm.
• Using Google to search for “weather” + my zip code brings me a forecast of the next few days of weather.  The same search in Bing only provides links to weather sites, and not even accurate ones at that.

Needless to say, Bing was not long on my BlackBerry, and I can’t recommend unless you’re a hardcore Bing fan.  Now where’s that Cuil mobile app?

I’ve been using the Curve 8900 the past couple of days.  Digging it.  Some random thoughts:

• Amazed at the battery life on it.  All-day usage with emails, pictures, tweeting, texting, Ubertwitter and Google Talk running in the background, and my battery is at about 50% by the time I go to bed.
• EDGE hasn’t been a bother thus far; sure, apps and themes download slower than 3G, but it’s not glacially slow for me.  EDGE may in fact be a contributor to the improved battery life; too bad battery technology lags so far behind the devices themselves.
• Tons of memory on the unit.  Something I had to watch out for on the Storm was memory dropping to 0.0MB due to a memory leak over the course 8 to 12 hours.  I reset my phone at least twice a day, maybe more.  The Curve not only has a ton of space available (by BlackBerry standards, anyway; I boot up with about 116MB), the memory drops slowly, a few MB a day.  And I hit about 38 hours of uptime on my phone before I had to reset it due to uninstalling an app.  Unheard of on the Storm.
• Camera takes decent pictures and is fairly quick on the 5.0.0.348 OS I’m running.
• Keyboard is very useful.  Definitely digging it.
• AT&T’s signal is on par, if not better in spots, than Verizon’s.  Never complained about AT&T’s service and call quality since Cingular and AT&T merged and that trend continues.
• Speaking of call quality, the 8900 does great in this area.  Calls have been crisp and clear both ways.  No complaints.

Switched back to AT&T and ported my number.  Free 8900 on refurb… can’t complain.  My wife loves my old Bold so I was cool with her keeping it.  First thing I did was download and install the leaked 5.0.0.348 OS for this puppy, since I can’t live without threaded SMS now.  Runs great so far.  The BlackBerry Storm was nice and all, but it made more sense to be on the same plan as my wife.  I unlocked the Storm and tried getting it to work on AT&T.  I was successful but unsupported setups make me nervous.  So, meh… knowing me, the 8900 won’t around forever. Lol

Over at the Crackberry forums, someone mentioned an application called Vodafone Update, which works pretty well on the BlackBerry Storm.  You can link your Facebook, Twitter, and Twitpic accounts to the application (it’ll launch the browser for you to log in to Facebook and Twitter to “authorize” it).  I successfully authorized these three services in the application and was able to do some testing.  Here are some random thoughts on it:

• You need to disable Compatibility Mode for the application on the Storm.  You can do this by going to Options > Applications, selecting the app, and using the menu key to bring up the menu and disable that mode.
• Vodafone Update can auto-refresh and pull Facebook status updates and tweets.  You can “Like” and comment on statuses through Update.  You can send a status update to both Facebook and Twitter simultaneously.  I found that when I unselected one, I could not write anything in the update field; probably one of the quirks since the application is not written for the Storm.  Selecting both Facebook and Twitter allowed me to write an update.
• Another quirk I found was that, when “Liking” or commenting on Facebook, I would receive a message box telling me there was a Facebook error; however, my comments and Likes still went through.
• Flipping the Storm into landscape mode does not properly resize the text box for entering status updates.  It’s a graphical annoyance.

The app won’t replace the Facebook application from RIM, but if you’d like to easily view and send Twitter and Facebook updates from within one decent application (at least SocialScope goes out of private beta, around the time the Sun dies out), Vodafone Update may be a decent, if flawed, option for you.

I use Twitter a fair amount.  I’ve gone through several clients for my BlackBerry, using TwitterBerry the most until recently.  I switched to Ubertwitter, mostly on a lark since I had used it in an earlier version and hated it.  However, the latest beta has been impressive, and I’ve seriously thinking about dropping the $4.99 on the non-advertisement version (gotta’ support mobile developers, having been one in a previous tech life).  I’ve seen some buzz regarding TwitterGenius, and I went to download it.

On their home page is a link to download the latest version.  I did so, launched it, and found a pop-up telling me my device was not authorized.  I took another look at the website, and figured the download was only to update your existing version if you purchased it already.  And I found no link to a trial version.  Because they don’t have one.

Not really smart.

So there goes one potential sell.  I’ll be sticking with Ubertwitter for now.