New to Blackberry Please Help

[Shark918v]

OK I was an avid Palm user for years until the stupid Pre came out. I got it, encountered more problems with the phone than I do with my ex-wife, and saw the light. I jumped ship, ran for the hills, and arrived at my new Nirvana with a Blackberry Curve 8530 (Sprint).

The light being seen I have a question for the masses:

Q: What applications would you suggest for a person carrying the Blackberry for business connectivity? What are the apps you must have-can't live wiithout?

Please and THANK YOU for your advice, insight, experience, strength and hope in advance.

Peace,
Chris
Shark918v @aol. com

[deRusett]

For my Business Blackberry I actually don't have ANY 3rd Party apps,

What I have is
Documents to Go, - ( Premium Edition could be worth it if you can write it off)
with Documents to go I have excel files for Expenses, Mileage tracking, Pricing files
I have Word Letterhead files to quickly bang out memo's on company letter head
and short power point presentations to show customers.

99% of my business connectivity is done with e-mail.


if you let on what type of Business you are in there could be some more insight into your needs

[GlenB]

If you are on BIS (and it sounds like you are), then using the built in backup or sync functions in Blackberry Desktop Manager may be critical to you.

The basic version of DocsToGo ought to be preinstalled but doesnt allow you to create new documents from scratch. Not a problem if you copy across some blank word/excel documents and use those for creating new documents.

[Shark918v]

OK, I'm gonna present some questions to the masses:

1. In the Email program. I added a few email accounts and folders opened for those accounts. There is also a folder that is basically a "catch all" where all messages are caught. Can I make that "catch all" folder go away? Can it be deleted without creating issues?

2. Whats the best contacts app out there. Somebody replied to me that hey use google contacts. In comparison between Palm and Blackberry.... Palm has better contacts (so far) (But in fairness I think the issue is due to the way that my contact were NOT mirrored properly from my old phone to my new Blackberry)

3. If my new Blackberry phone needs to be reset or sommething happens with it do I lose all the apps and data? Or is there a way to back all this stuff up?

4. What's up with the desktop manager. It doesnt have any button to connect to the calendar or the contacts list?? Can this be overcome???

5. I used to have a ga-zillion "memo" files on my old Palm phone. They never transfered over to the Blackberry. Is there any solution for this out there known by anyone???

6. Does anyone have any idea what format the Blackberry uses for video? I have a digital camera where I use the Micro SD card in it to store pics taken. Then if I want to send them home via e-mail I take the Micro SD card out of the camera and place it in the phone and send the pictures home via e-mail. NO CAN DO with the Blackberry. Its not working for me. Furthermore I am having issues taking pictures with the Blackberry camera and then sending them via text message and/or/both e-mail.

Damn I had another question on my mind and I blanked out for a second....

Oh yeah...

7. What is an "MMS" message?

8. Has anyone used the "Tether" programs to make the Blackberry the wireless modem for your laptop? Somebody replied about them.... Any feedback????


I'm sure I'll come up with more questions as I go through this new learning curve.

THANK YOU all who have replied and presented your experience strength and hope!!!!!! It is greatly appreciated.

Peace,
Chris

[GlenB]

I'll answer some of these...

1. No you cannot delete it, but you can hide it, highlight the Messages icon and press the menu key - one option is to hide

3. Use desktop manager to do a backup - it creates an IPD file of all databases on the device but does not include applications or data from your SDCard

4. Use the Synchronize facility in desktop manager to sync contacts, calendar etc to Outlook. It auto connects to the device when it is plugged in

7. MMS is a multimedia message service. You ought to be able to send pics via this, but not via SMS

8. Get the latest version of Desktop Manager, it includes the tethering/using device as a modem as a simple operation within desktop manager itself.