The Bold Blogger

Today the family and I left London with 4 other families and we went to St. Thomas to have a picnic at Pinafore Park. I never seen or heard of that park until today. It's certainly larger than Springbank Park in London and it looks a lot better too. Nice scenery all around and it was packed with people too. It's definitely worth a visit.

Apparently everyone was hungry as soon as we arrived so we layed down the food on 4 benches and started eating. Too bad the pizza got cold but nothing was left over anyways. I played soccer, badminton and volleyball with all the kids and my brothers. Last time I played any kind of sports was last summer. But I surprised myself when I kept on playing without getting tired. I guess the years I spent going to the gym back when I was a teenager really pays off. I definitely hate to be out of shape. Although I am a tad bit over weight but nothing too obvious so far. Hopefully I'll lose those extra pounds before the winter kicks in.

We just arrived home an hour ago before the sun set. The sun sets really late nowadays at around 10pm. I hate how the malls and most shops close at 9pm in the summer while the sun is still up in the sky! So in general I could say I had a great day. A bit of exercise, socializing and a whole lot of delicious food.

It's wonderful to see RIM joining the smartphone application market and it's also a huge advantage for the consumer. But even though this is RIM's first attempt I have to admit that it a long way from perfect.

One thing that bothers me the most is application updates. It seems that any application purchased or downloaded through App World feels a bit disconnected from the application's author company / developer. So when the parent company provides an update we (as end users) don't get notified by that. Currently, we have to keep opening BlackBerry App World, browse to the app we downloaded and check to see if there is an update available. It's time consuming, inefficient and it's completely unnecessary.

This is what SHOULD happen: the BlackBerry App World icon displays a red notification indicating an update is available to one of the apps I downloaded. Opening App World would direct the user to the 'Updates' page which lists all available updates. Is that hard to implement for RIM? I doubt it. I am surprised they didn't think about it from the beginning.

It's the iPhone days all over again where the main questions pop up: when will Canada get the Palm Pre and which carrier will most likely get it first? Well, we know for sure that Palm Pre is coming to the U.S first (as usual) and landing on Sprint's network. Which means that the Pre won't run on a GSM network but rather on a CDMA network instead. But the Pre could be just like the BlackBerry Storm (at least one certain model) where it's a dual mode phone which means it can operate on either a GSM or a CDMA network. I am leaning more towards the latter, but won't get my hopes up. 

Recently I joined the ever so increasing population of Twitter and I found out that I didn't have a lot of options when it came to BlackBerry client Twitter application. The best of the crowd seemed to be TwitterBerry. But I did notice some issues with the app.

One major issue has to do with my Twitter profile picture. Every time I used TwitterBerry to update my status TwitterBerry would reset the picture. And since there isn't a way to change my profile picture on TwitterBerry I had to sign in on a web browser to change the picture back to whatever I had earlier. This sounds like a bug to me.

Another issue was with replying to direct messages I received on Twitter. I open up TwitterBerry, I go to Direct Messages under options, I highlight the message I want, I click the BB button then I select Reply. But this just makes me reply to the user through my status instead of replying through another direct message. I don't think this is what the user expects, so I am marking this as another bug.

Also when refreshing the Friend Timeline, the app doesn't automatically take you to the top of the Timeline if there were updates, I would have to manually scroll to the top to see the latest changes. Another bug? You betcha!

As for the app in general, I found that it does need a make over. It doesn't have to be a complete overhaul but several screens do require touch-ups to look clean and pretty.

I got notified after launching the Google Mobile App on my BlackBerry Bold that there is an update available. I wasn't aware of any problems or issues with the application. But when I installed the update, I noticed the dramatic improvements. No need now for the app to open the browser to display the search results, it displays it in the application itself. Plus, you can also switch between web, local, images and mobile results also right in the application. The interface has changed a little bit too. In addition, Google Mobile App now detects your current location for better results. The biggest change or addition to Google Mobile App for BlackBerry is the Voice Search. Now BlackBerry owners can assign a convenience key to automatically activate Google Voice Search which also works if you hold the Talk button while the app is open. Don't miss-out on all these great new features. Get the update now.

This is odd. I added several yearly recurring events to my BlackBerry Bold's calendar (mostly birthdays) and when Google Sync kicked in to do its thing I came to realize that it entirely erased them. Is there a problem with Google Sync syncing yearly events or is this a BlackBerry Calendar issue?

Whatever the problem is, I'll certainly do some research on it and hopefully find a quick fix for it.

I was away for two weeks and during that period I had to switch to using my unlocked Nokia E61 smartphone since my Bold would only run on Rogers. The E61 had a QWERTY keyboard as well and I used to think that it was one of the best and most comfortable keyboards out there in the smartphone market. But I was wrong.

I actually proved myself wrong when I was struggling to feel those keys. The keys felt like they were flush with the phone's body and hence didn't help in pressing the correct letter on many several occasions. Even though the keys were bigger than those on the BlackBerry Bold, yet I found myself making a lot more mistakes. Plus, the keys don't seem to have a good feedback when pressing them making me always question myself if I actually pressed a key or not.

I also missed the fact that pressing the Space key twice on my Bold would give me a period without the need to use the shift or alt keys. And of course the thing that bugged me the most with the E61 is its poor performance due to its slow processor compared to the Bold.

I keep saying this a lot but it's certainly true that the BlackBerry Bold keeps proving itself more and more to be an extraordinary smartphone.

I am sitting in a plane going to Vienna from Toronto and I have to admit that the seats seem to keep getting smaller and shorter. Or am I the one getting taller? I highly doubt the last part.

I mean, I am a tall guy and it's always difficult for me to get comfortable sitting anywhere, but airplane seats just seem to get worse with time. Airlines are just trying harder and harder to cram more and more people into their planes. It's getting to the point where the economy class is their playground for saving as much green as possible.

It's pissing me off.

How do you get there? How do you get to that point in life? Most importantly how do you get to a point where you don't worry about your financial situation? You keep hearing about those couples who board their boat and sail the seas for months and years from one continent to the other. And others who gear up and put all their effort in climbing mountains just so that they reach the top. Don't they have any worries what so ever?

Do they have a mortgage on a house? A car loan? Are they bound to any contracts? How can they just roam through life like there is no tomorrow? Maybe the real question here is: Is that what real freedom is?.

Sometimes I feel that people live and strive and work hard and sweat just to get by and earn a living. Basically it all comes down to money. Is money all what life is about these days? I mean, just look around you. The malls, stores, banks, restaurants, cars, houses, etc. They all have one thing in common: money. Money creates all that and more. And once you have it, you want to make more money out of it or else all that goes away.

Sure you can go away for vacation for a week or so but in the end you're coming back and you'll be working again. And for what? To make money.

I guess we must do whatever it takes these days to live like the rest of us. Whether you're poor or rich, you'll always be working or doing something to get some money in the end. If that's the case (from the looks of it) then how do you achieve freedom? How do you get real peace of mind knowing that you'll be fine no mater what comes at you?

We try to save money to get what we want and we try to save money for our retirement as well. But no one knows if he or she will live long enough to retire and maybe start getting a taste of a 'worry-free' life assuming of course that you have a good retirement plan.

All I know for a fact right now is that I am not free. I haven't tasted freedom yet and I don't know if I ever will. But the thought of sailing through life without worrying sure does sound more and more like heaven.

This has been puzzling me for a while now. In a time where the word 'cellphone' is used on a daily basis, typing it in a word processor application, like MS Word, would still mark the word with a red squiggly line under it clearly identifying it as misspelled. But is it really misspelled?

Every time I get to type 'cellphone' I don't know which version of the word I should use. Should I type 'cell phone' to avoid the red squiggly line or should I just add 'cellphone' to my computer's dictionary and use that instead?

A simple google search on both words shows that both versions are used. So does it come down in the end as a matter of preference or is one 'more correct' than the other according to English in general?

Personally, I feel more comfortable typing 'cellphone'. I mean, why use 'cell phone' if 'cell' is an abbreviation to 'cellular'? So if someone typed 'cell phone' it would still be wrong despite the fact that the word processor didn't mark it as misspelled because it should be 'cellular phone' instead.

Someone please help me find an answer so that I can put this dilemma to rest once and for all.

I speak two languages: Arabic and English. So when I pick a cellphone running whatever OS I expect it to support international languages (or at least major popular languages). Nokia cellphones does a wonderful job supporting worldwide languages out of the box without having to add or install them manually which is a fact that may have contributed to Nokia's massive success internationally. So if I ever received an Arabic SMS I wouldn't have any issues opening the message and reading the Arabic characters on any Nokia phone.

On the other hand, Windows Mobile doesn't seem to like adding support for one major language like Arabic. Which means there is a massive market that Microsoft isn't profiting from nor does other major phone manufacturing companies like HTC.

I used to have an HTC Advantage 7501 and I was happy with it but I just couldn't read any SMS that came to me written in Arabic. I searched the net for 3rd party software that could add support for the Arabic language onto my Windows Mobile device but I could only find one company and they didn't look professional and it was also very expensive.

Honestly, people shouldn't be buying language packs for their cellphones just to be able to read an SMS or open a certain website. Languages should be easily added onto the device's OS with a couple of mouse clicks. Plus, it's an excellent way to reach customers globally. BlackBerry does a wonderful job allowing the user to manually add and remove support for any language using RIM's free PC software 'BlackBerry Desktop Manager'. Why can't Microsoft do the same for Windows Mobile?

It's a shame that to this day Windows Mobile doesn't have a way of adding support for Arabic. Some may say to me that the ever so popular iPhone doesn't support Arabic either. But you're forgetting the fact that Windows Mobile has been around way longer before we even saw the first iPod. There shouldn't be any excuses.

Apparently I underestimated my Bold's GPS. I always used to think that it won't be able to get my location while I am inside my house. I used to have a dedicated external Nokia GPS module which I used with my Nokia E61 and even then I wasn't able to get a single satellite signal in my house.

So last night I was playing around Google Maps and its new service 'Latitude'. I was in bed away from the window (which by the way the curtains were shut) and in less than 40 seconds my BlackBerry Bold was able to get a signal from 4 different satellites. That to me was a shocking surprise!

Considering also that I previously owned the HTC Advantage 7501 (running Windows Mobile 6 Pro) with an internal GPS as well and I could hardly get a strong signal even in my backyard. And here I am laying in bed with the curtains closed and I was able to get my GPS working with a 6 meter accuracy on the Bold.

It's just another reason why the Bold is such an awesome device.