1. How to turn of the shutter sound on the camera?

2. What is the best Twitter application for the BlackBerry?

3. What are your favorite BlackBerry applications?

4. How to use a different browser than the default BlackBerry browser?

5. How can you extend the battery life of your BlackBerry?

I am sure you will find some interesting answers and if you have any BlackBerry question yourself, just ask a question at http://know.bbhacker.com

Register and get a free copy of ZenMinder

If you register at http://know.bbhacker.com in October or November 2009 AND ask or answer a question you will get a free copy of ZenMinder. Where is the catch? No catch, just register and ask the question you always wanted to ask.

After you registered

Send a link to your profile together with your BlackBerry PIN to support@zenminder.com and I will send you the license key which will unlock the full version of ZenMinder. You can already download the trial version of ZenMinder at http://www.zenminder.com .

Join Us

It’s a great community and there are already quite a few really helpful BlackBerry user and we invite you to join us as well.

Announcing the new BlackBerrz Q&A site know.bbhacker.com

Here at bbhacker.com we have launched a new site at http://know.bbhacker.com that will be the platform to ask questions and get answers. Most of the time somebody else might have had the same question and you can easily find the correct answer. Just tried it yourself, ask questions or answer questions.

Now go and visit http://know.bbhacker.com

It started in 1995 with the Inter@ctive Pager:

In 2002 the first BlackBerrys with built-in mobile phones where shipped and looked like this:

The first color models followed and looked like this:

Finally RIM really got into the consumer market with the BlackBerry 8700 models:

One of the best selling BlackBerry smartphones is the BlackBerry Curve 8300:

And finally in 2008 RIM released the first touch-screen BlackBerry, the BlackBerry Storm:

Predicting the Future by looking at the past

Now if we put all these models next to each other we get a really good impression how BlackBerry smartphones have developed in full-featured BlackBerry smartphones.

One question remains: What will the future bring? What do you expect from the next generation of BlackBerry smartphones? What will BlackBerry smartphones look like in 2015? Share your opinion in the comments!

I am a huge fan of Opera Mini which features a much better browsing experience on your BlackBerry smartphone than the native BlackBerry browser does. If you haven’t installed Opera Mini on your BlackBerry smartphone yet, open the address http://mini.opera.com/ in your BlackBerry browser and download it.

Shortcuts for an improved browsing experience

I have to admin that even though I have been using Opera Mini every day for quite a while I have just recently stumbled upon some helpful shortcuts that make Opera even more useful. Here is the list of shortcuts that I am using most often. Just press the keys and you will have improved navigation options:

• 2 = Page Up
• 8 = Page Down
• 4 = Page Left
• 6 = Page Right
• 5= Zoom In/Out

These are the essential shortcuts but there are also more that might be helpful. When you press the # character followed by a numerical key you can access more functionality:

• # + 1 … Shows the address line
• # + 2 … Shows your bookmarks
• # + 3 … Jump to beginning or end of a page
• # + 4 … Go back to homepage
• # + 5 … Show your browsing history
• # + 6 … Show page information
• # + 7 … Save the current page as a bookmark
• # + 8 … Open the settings screen
• # + 0 … Reload the page
• # + # … Navigate forward
• * + * … Turn toolbar on or off

I found out about these shortcuts and wish I would have known them earlier. I am sure you will find them helpful as well.

If you want to change the default email address you can do this in the Options menu. Simply go to

Options > Advanced Options > Default Services  

Now you can set the default service for email as well as the default email for the calendar application.

Here are the main reasons for developing ZenMinder and if you have experienced these frustrations by yourself, you should try the free trial of ZenMinder, maybe it will be a solution for you as well.

Setting multiple wake-up calls in the morning

Getting up in the morning is easy for some but a challenge for many. We all know the experience that we cancel an alarm just to wake up a few hours later to realize that we have overslept. With ZenMinder you can easily setup multiple wake-up calls in the morning and you can ensure that you will not oversleep anymore. Currently BlackBerry smartphone only offer one alarm and we didn’t want to rely on just this single one.

Noisy alarm clocks

We hate it to hear noisy alarm clocks in the morning. Seriously, who wants to wake up in the morning to an earth shaking sound that makes you want to do just one thing: turn off this damn alarm. That’s why we have spent hours and hours looking for audible, but still friendly sounds that will wake you up in the morning. Additionally the sounds are perfect to remind you during the day but they don’t let everyone else know that you have set yourself a reminder.

Don’t mess up my calendar

Of course you could try to put all your reminders into your BlackBerry calendar, but do you really want to mess up your calendar with reminders to take your medicine or to flower the plants every third day? We don’t want that and therefore looked for a solution to prevent a cluttered calendar. And this is not just an issue of clutter but also an issue of privacy. If you synchronize your calendar with your calendar at work, all these little reminder are stored at your company’s servers. With ZenMinder they are safely stored on your BlackBerry and just on your BlackBerry.

Following your goals, training new habits

Our lives are so busy these days and there are so many things to remember that we are often only able to react instead of proactively living the lifestyle we would like to life. Our idea was to get reminded every few days about the little things we would like to do but too often forget when our days are too busy. One example is doing regular sports. Everyone has experienced this before: You plan to do sports three times a week but you never get around. And after a week or two you realize that you have totally forgotten about your initial goal. With ZenMinder you can simply set yourself a reminder every other day and get a friendly reminder asking “Did you do sports this week already?”. This will ensure that you keep your goals in mind even when your days are busy and full with other activities.

These are just some of the reasons why we have developed ZenMinder and why we are using it every day. If you haven’t tried it yet, we encourage you to download the free trial or buy the full version directly and experience for yourself, how ZenMinder can bring order in your life and help you achieve your personal goals.

Get ZenMinder at a 50% discount

If you buy ZenMinder before August 31^st you can use the coupon code “ZENFIFTY” to get a 50% discount when you buy the application through mobihand.com. If you want to try ZenMinder first, download the free trial version.

We at BBHacker.com are happy to announce our latest BlackBerry Application ZenMinder (www.zenminder.com) – A simple and elegant reminder application for your BlackBerry smartphone. Readers of BBHacker.com get a 7 USD discount to purchase the application!

Are you overwhelmed by the many different tasks in your life? Do you forget important things because you are overwhelmed by so many things in your life? Do you have challenges to remember recurring activities like watering the plants and taking your medicines? ZenMinder will help you with these challenges!

ZenMinder is a simple and elegant
mobile application for BlackBerry smartphones
that will help you to bring order in your life.

With ZenMinder you can easily set multiple reminders for activities, tasks and other important issues and get reminded by your BlackBerry with notifications that remind you gently of the things you should not forget. The convenient repeater functionality it is possible to create recurring reminder that help you maintain new routines and habits.

Some situations where ZenMinder is used and helpful:

• Reminds you to take your medicine or drink enough water
• Get reminded to water the flowers every second day
• Get reminded to follow a new habit
• Schedule important calls every few months
• Set alarms to get up in the morning and set reminders to go to bed
• Define a personal mission statement and remind yourself regularly

ZenMinder uses beautiful graphics and pleasant reminder melodies to create a real Zen-style experience.

Statements from users:

• “It’s a much better interface than the native task app and I totally love the alert tone.”
• “Simple, elegant easy to use!”
• “Aesthetics are very good. It looks really professional.”
• “The user interface is amazing, because most BlackBerry applications just have an ugly interface”

An overview of the features:

• Simple and elegant user interface for a remarkable user experience
• Set reminder at a certain date and define recurrences
• Four available Zen reminder sounds
• Possibility to play custom sound files from your BlackBerry
• Unlimited number of reminders
• Notification with vibration
• Deactivation of reminders on weekends or manually
• 12/24 hour time format
• Optional auto-delete of expired reminder

A helpful, elegant and easy to use reminder application that helps you to focus on the important things in life.

Available for all

BlackBerry smartphones.

Download a free trial!

or

Buy the full version!

Use the promotion code BBHACKER7 and get a 7 USD discount of the original 14,99 USD price on your purchase!

Using AutoText for signatures

The BlackBerry has the built in functionality of auto text which is used to correct common spelling mistakes but which can also be used to replace certain text when you enter certain text. The idea is to setup autotext for a special phrase which will then be replaced with your signature.

Setting Up Auto Text

Open your BlackBerry options and select AutoText. Now you can define by pressing the BlackBerry menu button and selecting new. Define a text that should be replaced and the text that you want to insert instead. An example is “sig1” and replace it with “ sent from John Smith, 555 –6789”.

Write your text and insert your signature

If you write a text message and you type the text “sig1” it will be replaced with you signature. Of course this also works if you want to write an email. If your text does not get replaced, you have to activate AutoText for SMS, you can do change this setting in your BlackBerry Options >> SMS >> Disable Auto Text: No.

Do you have any other creative uses for AutoText? Share them in the comments!

The new features are well accepted and a quick survey shows that most users are happy with it.

The Good

sherrylancaster @BBHacker I love the new facebook so far…its a lot better now!

 

RogerQ @BBHacker FB 1.6 Rocks

 

Trilandun@BBHacker love the new facebook. It has come a long way since the first version.

 

Azacel @BBHacker: what do you think about the new facebook? any experiences so far? I like it…

 

knitch @BBHacker eh. It seems okay. I like the photo feature.

 

kimlmrx @BBHacker you mean the new facebook for bberry? Meh. Nothing new.

 

Aethilas @BBHacker – Love it. I still need to figure out the keyboard shortcuts…if any.

 

zuppaholic @BBHacker: what do you think about the new facebook? any experiences so far? love it or hate it?- Love it! ?

 

adlyx@BBHacker installation said it had some problems. But thus far. Pretty cool! Wish I could choose the default screen.

 

sameer_nafdey@BBHacker I liked the new feature of associating my bb contacts and their facebook accounts, get their updated pics in your bb contacts…

The Bad

xraytid@BBHacker its great but the spell check annoyed me into near insanity other than that its been great so far

 

adlyx@BBHacker okay this sucks. I can’t stop it from using my data. It autoloads status’s!

adlyx@BBHacker installation said it had some problems. But thus far. Pretty cool! Wish I could choose the default screen.

 

zuppaholic@BBHacker notification for the comment if I commented on my friends’ quiz or..it’s just appear like ‘notification’ or not at all..

 

tjunkie@BBHacker Facebook chat is missing from blackberry

 

Xxw0lfxX@BBHacker I would like to be able to change my profile pic fron it…. But no go!

 

DaveWDixon@BBHacker Facebook CHAT!!!!!

 

xraytidRT @BBHacker: What are the features you are still missing on the facebook for blackberry app?<- changing my profile pic and inbox

 

jpinchefsky @BBHacker I can’t reply to what people write on my wall

 

bnitty @BBHacker: What are the features you are still missing on the facebook for blackberry app?~"like" option, profile info, & IM option

 

salaciouslq@BBHacker alerts notification

 

Trilandun @BBHacker pic tagging, Recommending friends to others, Mafia wars

 

moosc@BBHacker Doing mafia wars or other apps

What will the next version bring?

I think it would bee good to see an integration of Facebook Chat in one of the next version. Integration of other applications will be difficult but implement profile picture change should be easy to realize as well.

What do you think will we see? What is still missing? Let us know in the comments!