Jeff Adams

I thought summer was supposed to be a relaxed time to sit around and drink iced tea, read a book or talk with friends. So far my summer has not turned out like that. It’s been crazy! I don’t even have time to list some of the stuff that has me running ragged. There’s just enough time to tell you about something I did the other day that I think is going to be both fun and helpful. I finally broke down and bought a Blackberry.

That’s right. People are lined up in stores to buy the newest iPhone and I buy a Blackberry. That’s just like me to be swimming up against the current. Why did I do such a thing? Well, not buying the iPhone was easy. Not even tempted. Yes, it’s pretty and does cool things, but most of the features are entertainment features in my opinion. Not that I am against entertainment!  The real deal killer is the fact that it is not a quad band (international) phone yet.

I’ve talked to two friends recently who do a lot of international travel and seem to have needs much like me. They are both very content with their Blackberries. So I started doing some research and took the plunge. It’s two days and counting and I’m very happy so far.

Getting organized

First, it helps me get organized. My former phone had very poor software and never really was able to sync with my Outlook. I loaded Blackberry software onto my laptop, hooked up the Blackberry and immediately the two were conversing as though they went to school together. All my contacts, calendar, notes, and tasks are identical on laptop and phone. I can dial directly from my contact list.

All my email accounts come directly to my phone when I’m not on my laptop. I have a couple of email accounts that are web-based and my KCBT account that is one a Microsoft Exchange server. I was a bit concerned that it would be tricky to hook up with the server. Nope! I had IT, a couple of ambulances and a firetruck on standby, but I did it myself before I knew it. The phone asked me if I wanted it to pass on my email to me.

“Sure!”

“What’s your email address?” it said. I typed it into the nifty little Blackberry keyboard.

“OK, now give my your password” I was beginning to trust it now, so I did.

“Thanks! You’re all set. Want to add another?”

“That’s it?”

“Sure.”

So, I entered in another and it was just as slick. I mean that’s all I did. How would it handle the more complex issues of interfacing with an exchange server?

“Give me the email address,” the phone prompted.

But, that’s the same thing you asked me for the simpler, web-based accounts, I thought. Surely there will be more to this. I might as well start here, though.

“OK, now the password.”

“Well, sure, but don’t you want to know something else? Don’t you want some complex code, or one of those strange numerical value keys that’s buried about 5 menus deep into the control panel? Look, I’ll give you the password, but don’t you think that should come later. We hardly know each other”

“No,” the phone replied in a very professional way. “I know you don’t really understand all this stuff. Just give me the email address and password and I’ll take care of all the arrangements. Trust me with this one.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I was just about to say when the first email popped up on my little screen that had come directly to me through the exchange server. Once I read and responded, it asked me if I wanted to delete it only on the phone or both phone and computer. I was sitting in front of my laptop and said, “Sure, go ahead and delete it on both.”

“Not a problem,” said the phone, and I watched with wonder as the message disappeared from my laptop before my very eyes. Cool. No IT dude had yet touched my Blackberry. I was not reading from a manual. I was simply conversing with my phone and following what was intuitive.

Everything is working and working well and I did it all myself. Well no, that’s not quite right. I just answered a couple of questions and the phone is doing the rest.

Getting Light

After the first day my load was considerably lighter. My PDA is history. I was really only using it to read my Bible and to add or look up an occasional date. The Bible is no problem. I just ordered a 4 gigabyte memory card for the Blackberry. This is another reason I went this route – there is a whole community of Blackberry geeks out there in a cave somewhere writing applications of all sorts. Bibles? No problem. I’ll be able to load both English and Spanish Bibles.

Did I mention it has built-in GPS? Good bye to my stand-alone Garmin. It served me well and now lives in Cheryl’s car. My Blackberry not only maps out my route, talks me through it and tells me when to turn, it also does real time traffic and construction updates as I travel along. I like this. Also, I no longer have to type in addresses; I simply speak into the phone and tell it where I want to go. That’s it.

Oh, I also lose my mp3 player. The Blackberry plays music, has a standard stereo headphone jack so you can use the finest headphones you have. It does movies, too. Oh, and it’s got a very nice 2.0 megapixel, 5X zoom lens camera with flash. My current car charger works on the Blackberry, a standard Motorola type plug, and the AC charger doesn’t change either. My bluetooth headset works even better with this than the phone for which I bought it. If I wanted to get picky I could mention that it doesn’t have a video camera. I’ll live.

As for International functions, it is a quad band phone and I got a plan that allows me to send and receive unlimited email in over 140 countries around the world. Not only that, all this comes in a package that is not very much bigger than my former Motorola Razr v3. I feel much lighter already.