I wanted to share a few quick settings changes which can greatly improve the battery life of your BlackBerry.
Go to Options then Screen/Keyboard.
1. I changed my Backlight Brightness from the default of 100 to 50. This will set the maximum brightness to 50%. It is noticeably dimmer at first, but after using it for a few minutes you will not notice the difference anymore.
2. Make sure Automatically Dim Backlight is set to On. This will automatically adjust the Backlight according to the light level of the room you are in. The backlight however will never be brighter than what you set the Backlight Brightness to.
3. Change the Backlight Timeout to 10 seconds. Sometimes this can be a little bit annoying, but more often than not I do not need the backlight to say on for the default 30 seconds.
These three settings working together can greatly improve the battery life of your BlackBerry. My BlackBerry Tour went from barley making it a day on a single charge, to running well into the night.
Here are some tips for searching Google:
” ” Placing search phrases in quotes searches for that exact phrase.
OR Placing OR in a phrase searches for either term. (must be capitalized)
… Placing … between numbers searches for numbers in that range.
site: Search within a specific web domain. For example: site:garrettkelley.com
link: Search for sites that link to another site.
related: Search for results that are related to that site.
~ Placing ~ in front of a word searches for that word and all of its synonyms.
- Placing a – in front of a word excludes that word.
define: Get word definitions from several sources.
time: Get the current time for any location.
info: Get information about a website.
convert Google can convert different units for you. Example: convert 10 miles to kilometers
If you would like more tips and tricks for using Google, check out GoogleGuide.com.
Sprint has officially released OS 5.0.0484 for the BlackBerry Tour 9630! Currently this update is only available via BlackBerry Desktop Manager. Verizon is now one of the only carriers not to officially release OS 5.0 for the Tour. Point for Sprint! Sprint users are the ones usually left waiting for OS updates. If you are new to OS 5.0, you can check out what is new here.
Update: This OS is now available for download here.
Please take the short 10 question survey below regarding snowmobiling within Yellowstone National park, even if you do not snowmobile. It is critical for my research project. Thank you!
Survey Regarding Snowmobiling within Yellowstone National Park:
Edit: Survey is now closed. Thanks to those who responded!
Power Pack 3 for Windows Home Server is now available via Windows Update. You can either wait for Windows Update to automatically check for updates or, if you are impatient like me, force a check for updates via the WHS console. Paul Thurrott has a good overview on his SuperSite for Windows of what is included in Power Pack 3. You can read the article here.
