[smartie88]

another tip: don't rush for new update. wait for someone update first and report back!

[Playbook247]

Well, i just got mine July 20th for my b-day and everything was working fine. Downloaded the update and it worked even better. After a few more day, i tried to access my camera app. What would happen is that the opening animation will be over in a split second and just disappear from the screen. The app is still there though, and it will sometimes go do the full opening animation (going to full screen) the abruptly just quit. This also seems to affect me watching my downloaded and recorded videos. Help? Please?!?!?

[z1nsane]

Did not find this tip while searching through this thread:

Close folder by swiping left/right along the "line" where the folder name is located till your finger slides off the screen and onto the bezel.

I find this useful for the right-hand-only operation since you don't need to use your left hand or stretch your right to tap the "X" or swipe the bottom bezel left.

My apologies if this tip actually is in this thread (but I couldn't find it).

[dpotslinger]

I recently discovered that if you hold the play/pause button it will mute or unmute the volume of your device.

[tikoy243]

Guys for some reason i can't transfer any files from my phone to my playbook. Its already paired (via bluetooth)and even bridged but it says "file transfer failed to find server."

I can't transfer a picture or video. Is this normal? I even tried disconnecting from the bridge and use purely bluetooth.

By the way im a new playbook user and enjoying it

[bdguru]

How will I be able to view my contacts on my phone on my PlayBook. Must it be bridged?

[PatrickMJS]

Hey there B&D Guru,

If your phone is a BlackBerry, you will need to login to AppWorld and download the BB Bridge software. This allows you to access your contacts, calendar and email,bbm&text messages on your PB. When you are viewing messages on your PB using the bridge, you can use your contacts just like on the phone to fill in the "to" & "cc" fields. But you cannot use BBM groups over the bridge.

The bridged contact info is unfortunately not directly accessible using the native mail & native contacts apps - one of my gripes which they will hopefully fix in BB10. You can go into your bridged contacts, find the person you want to email, edit their contact info, use the long press to copy the email address, go into the native messaging app and "paste" the address into your email address field. Getting it to paste into that field is quite finicky. But with some effort, it can be done. I'd love to have a RIM programmer watch this process then explain why they couldn't have made it smoother.

In their defense, they might just say, why not send the message out using the bridge message app. But that kind of misses the point. I might have an email account on my PB native message app that isn't on my phone. Or, I just want to do it that way cuz I like using the other cool features of the native message app. If it is about keeping the phone info private, all that can be done using various BES restrictions. For those of us on BIS, we would prefer to have full and easy access to our phone's contact info integrated into the native messaging app. Doesn't seem like too much to ask for given RIM's strength in mobile messaging & PIM integration.

[Rootbrian]

Well, you can do it natively via remote control. On your blackberry, copy the e-mail address and then click into the field and hold either of the shift keys and click the trackpad to paste it. Works for me.

[elliott436]

Same here i was a little surprised to find out that the majority of the manual was on the playbook. But i love it i think it's a great tablet.

[slparry]

Guys for some reason i can't transfer any files from my phone to my playbook. Its already paired (via bluetooth)and even bridged but it says "file transfer failed to find server."

I can't transfer a picture or video. Is this normal? I even tried disconnecting from the bridge and use purely bluetooth.

By the way im a new playbook user and enjoying it

I don't think bt file sharing is enabled as yet.

I tend to use googledocs as a transfer point between devices that are wifi enabled

[playbookinBC]

tap on the clock at home screen to get a calendar view and alarm view

The calendar appears but how do you show & set the alarm view?

ps - after reading through 13 pages of tips & tricks, in an effort to clean up after myself, how do I delete this question once it is answered?

[Ziggy9999]

Funny thing is that since I have owned my PB, I have found that my wallpaper disappeared overnight twice (in 2 months). No big deal just curious if it is an issue, as otherwise I love my PB. I only regret not getting 64GB instead of present 16GB which I fear I will run out of storage if I have too much fun with it. The PB is a replacement to a 4 year old iPod that I just adored, but I wanted to have a bigger landscape to do google searches on the run without going to a netbook or iPad. Thanks for great newbie forum

[Ziggy9999]

I should also confess that I am guilty of bringing back a PB last year because I thought it was defective. I realize now that it was probably fine. I should also confess that I got the PB dirt cheap and a $70 coupon to buy a fine Canon 3 in one printer that I needed.

Funny thing is that since I have owned my PB, I have found that my wallpaper disappeared overnight twice (in 2 months). No big deal just curious if it is an issue, as otherwise I love my PB. I only regret not getting 64GB instead of present 16GB which I fear I will run out of storage if I have too much fun with it. The PB is a replacement to a 4 year old iPod that I just adored, but I wanted to have a bigger landscape to do google searches on the run without going to a netbook or iPad. Thanks for great newbie forum

[slparry]

To force an email refresh hold down in the all accounts area of the email client and drag down, you'll see a message saying "Release to Refresh"

[SEAWARRIOR]

ps - after reading through 13 pages of tips & tricks, in an effort to clean up after myself, how do I delete this question once it is answered?

AAAMMMEEENNN!!! i'm cross-eyed tryin' to go thru all this stuff,,, it needs to be organized, consolidated & tidyed up,,, seriously...

[philalbritton]

Add crackberry blogs to your blackberry news feeds. it'll automatically tell you when new stories are up.

Thanks for this suggestion. Just did it.

[okader]

Another great feture of the pb bridge remote is you can drag and drop by placing the arrow on the item you want to drag And simply Press and hold the trackball/touch Pad on your phone For a second and drag and drop is activated. I love it

[DuexNoir]

Someone may have already discovered this but I recently found that if you swipe just a little in diagonally from the top left bezel (while in an app), you can peek at the clock bar on the homepage. Before discovering this, I had to minimize the app each time.

[rotorwrench]

This is in regard to a true hard reset or reboot, whichever term you use. Despite comments and posts to the contrary, it is positively unnecessary to depress both volume rocker buttons while performing a hard reset. Depressing the +volume button with the power button iss all that is needed. The same goes for the statement that if you hear a shutter click, all you have done is taken a screenshot. I have taken screenshots while still accomplishing a hard reboot. But if you use only the +volume button with the power button you can't take a screenshot anyway. The determining factor that verifies you've accomplished a hard reset/reboot is that while simultaneously holding down the power and +volume buttons and disregarding all notifications during this interval, the display will go black (PB shutdown), which at this point the buttons should be released, the PB will restart on it's own. If the PB does not restart on it's own, you have not performed a true hard reset/reboot. If you receive a "Turning PlayBook Off" notification after the "Off - Standby - Restart" notification, you have only succeeded in turning the PB off. Try again

[Crowezine]

Wow, thanks! I really learned something new..... Though some of those apps aren't great. The best apps and games are made by Union, XLabz and Gameloft,

[Lendo]

This is in regard to a true hard reset or reboot, whichever term you use. Despite comments and posts to the contrary, it is positively unnecessary to depress both volume rocker buttons while performing a hard reset. Depressing the +volume button with the power button iss all that is needed. The same goes for the statement that if you hear a shutter click, all you have done is taken a screenshot. I have taken screenshots while still accomplishing a hard reboot. But if you use only the +volume button with the power button you can't take a screenshot anyway. The determining factor that verifies you've accomplished a hard reset/reboot is that while simultaneously holding down the power and +volume buttons and disregarding all notifications during this interval, the display will go black (PB shutdown), which at this point the buttons should be released, the PB will restart on it's own. If the PB does not restart on it's own, you have not performed a true hard reset/reboot. If you receive a "Turning PlayBook Off" notification after the "Off - Standby - Restart" notification, you have only succeeded in turning the PB off. Try again

So are you saying that "turning off the playbook" and "Hard Reset" doesn't accomplish the same thing?

[rotorwrench]

So are you saying that "turning off the playbook" and "Hard Reset" doesn't accomplish the same thing?

No, it does not, in much the same way turning off your phone doesn't accomplish the same function as a battery pull. When you perform a function that allows the PB to shut down normally, processes and services as well as settings and files are all saved and closed normally, including saving a corrupt situation that will reappear when opened again. A hard reset kills all processes and services immediately without saving anything, including a malfunction or corrupt service process so that it will be hopefully gone upon the restart.

When RIM support was helping our tech set up our PBs he was very specific about the use of hard resets.

[dimm0k]

No, it does not, in much the same way turning off your phone doesn't accomplish the same function as a battery pull. When you perform a function that allows the PB to shut down normally, processes and services as well as settings and files are all saved and closed normally, including saving a corrupt situation that will reappear when opened again. A hard reset kills all processes and services immediately without saving anything, including a malfunction or corrupt service process so that it will be hopefully gone upon the restart.

When RIM support was helping our tech set up our PBs he was very specific about the use of hard resets.

Interesting... I thought holding the power button until it turned off and stayed off was equivalent to a battery pull on the phone. Is there a way to verify whether the auto reset after holding the buttons down does indeed equal a battery pull versus turning the device off and it staying off?

[rotorwrench]

Interesting... I thought holding the power button until it turned off and stayed off was equivalent to a battery pull on the phone. Is there a way to verify whether the auto reset after holding the buttons down does indeed equal a battery pull versus turning the device off and it staying off?

How can they perform the same function when the power button shutdown allows all services and processes to normally close, saving everything, when a hard reset (powerbutton and +volume) immediately shuts down everything without allowing processes to properly close. During a battery pull you are doing the same thing, stopping all processes and not allowing them the normal closing process, it can't, you've removed power. When the battery is put back in it automatically reboots whereas if you turn the phone off everything closes normally and it won't reboot itself. We've experienced it at work when we had a problem with documents not loading properly, some kind of glitch. We did several restart and power off cycles with the powerbutton with no luck. Called our RIM tech and he said to perform a hard reset, we did and presto, it cleared, everything back to normal. He said that by performing any type of shutdown that allows the system to power off normally will many times save the problem until restart whereas the hard reset clears everything. Keep in mind that during a hard reset unsaved data will be lost by the nature of the hard reset. Not so with a normal or power button shutdown. I've seen and experienced the difference, but more importantly its logical. There is an obvious difference between shutting down any electronic device normally and just unplugging it.

Another similar example is with our aircraft avionics. Some systems that have a true OS system onboard require for a hard reset to power on the device and then pull the breaker, removing power. Their definition of a soft reset is to power the unit off with the power button and then turn it back on.

That being said, if you think pushing and holding down the power button serves the same function of a hard reset, by all means continue to do so. But any time you get a notification that a device is shutting down should tell you it's performing a normal shutdown. There are two methods of normally shutting off the PB. One is to tap the battery icon and select "Turn Off", of which you will see a notification "Turning PlayBook Off". The other is to push and hold the power button until you get an option to restart, standby or turn off, or continue to hold the power button until it turns off, in which you will still get the same notification as the battery icon, "Turning PlayBook Off", which should tell you it's still a normal shutdown.

[GooseberryFool]

When you perform a function that allows the PB to shut down normally, processes and services as well as settings and files are all saved and closed normally, including saving a corrupt situation that will reappear when opened again. A hard reset kills all processes and services immediately without saving anything, including a malfunction or corrupt service process so that it will be hopefully gone upon the restart.

Thanks rotorwrench.
At last, I now understand the difference between turning off and hard shutdown, as well as what 'battery pull' is on the mobile!!! Your explanation is so clear and logical. Much appreciated.

Happy New Year to you all

Cheers