Radical Draw attempts to fill a gap that many people have when moving to the BlackBerry OS. Practically every other smartphone platform has a multitude of drawing applications to choose from but BlackBerry users have a very limited set of options. Radical Draw hopes to solve that by creating a drawing app for the Storm that makes drawing fun even for those of us with no artistic talents.

Radical Draw lets you draw on photographs or create your own pictures. You can draw on the pictures or use the library of clipart built into the app. For example, you can easily add titles to your pictures or point out something in a screenshot. The app is in rapid development and they plan on adding new clipart along with features like thumbnails, cropping, and MMS support.

If you are into doodling I recommend checking out Radical Draw which is in the store for $7.99. The only catch is that Radical Draw is only available for the BlackBerry Storm family running OS 5.0.0.320+ so you need to be running a later revision for it to work.  By Ronen Halevy – via berryreview.com

480×360 blackberry wallpaper

Creating your own blackberry theme can add so much to your phone when personalizing your multimedia interests. The software has far surpassed the standard ‘create wallpaper’ to encompassing all the attributes of UI (User Interface) design. The Plazmic Content Developers Kit or CDK for blackberry smartphones allows users to completely upgrade their multimedia content.

The kit consists of the tools Plazmic Theme Builder and Plazmic Composer. The Plazmic Composer interface will be immediately familiar to anyone with some design experience. It utilizes the same layers and object catalogs as seen in Photoshop for example. Web designers will love the tool’s ability to weave interactive web pages for viewing in the blackberry browser, plus the vector and animation tools. Designers will also appreciate how it can create banners and embed web links.

The software which is free, can be downloaded here. It allows you to create your own themes, animated themes too, and splash screens. It also comes with a simulator that will test your work before you send it to your phone. It comes with a lot of samples that you can easily customize.

There are some known issues and you should check the site, though generally it’s ok. Some blackberry models like the 8700 may need the installation of the plazmic reader before the kit can work. Your latest install of Windows 7 may have the reader pre-installed, check with your vendor. This is the only software you need as the kit is a suite of tools for facilitating multimedia content.

Of course, most of us will be happy to just download the many freely available blackberry themes. What the kit offers you is the ability to create a set of themes and graphics that is personal to your phone, not used by anyone else; of course, if your theme is that good, you could consider allowing people to download it from your site.

Plazmic software is becoming ubiquitous. It is being seen as a useful add-on to the standard blackberry interface. The software creates the designs and does not require too steep a learning curve. Multimedia developers will love the tool. It’s a new challenge moving from the web to multimedia production for the phone.

Plazmic software is currently for the PC. If you wish to create your own themes and customize your blackberry phone to your heart’s desire, give the kit a whirl and see what graphical content you can weave together. By Stephen Davies – via viralelectronics.com

I am sure many BlackBerry users don’t only use thier devices for just talking to a friend on the phone or for SMS messaging.  Some of you use your BlackBerry phones to listen to your favorite music on the go.  It’s great especially if you have a big SD card that you can throw a lot of music onto and take with you on the bus, train or on the airplane.

Have you ever wanted to play the music on your BlackBerry while you’re at home but don’t want to plug your headphones in?  Maybe you want to play the music on your BlackBerry during that big party at your house but don’t have the right equipment to play it in. Well I have come across a gadget that lets you listen to the music on your BlackBerry.

The product is called MusicNao and it is from the company Cignias.  It is an Advanced Wireless Music Station.  Now what is so great you might ask about this product?  Well this product lets you play music from your BlackBerry through the speakers on the MusicNao stations.  The speakers on the device aren’t some crappy speakers, they are really good speakers.  This product is very well crafted.

The best part about the MusicNao is how it plays music from your BlackBerry device.  It plays music one of two ways, either through Wi-Fi if you have a BlackBerry with Wi-Fi on it, or through Bluetooth.  Imagine being able to play music through speakers while your BlackBerry is sitting in your hands not connected through wires of any kind.  Although there is an USB port on the back of the device that you can connect your devices too but hey that wouldn’t be any fun now would it!

MusicNao comes with an application for your BlackBerry that makes it easier to play music when you are connected through Wi-Fi.  The only downer right now to the device is that it doesn’t support the BlackBerry Storm2 for Wi-Fi yet but you can still use it through Bluetooth.  Another great thing about the MusicNao is once there is an update for the device you will get the update through the application on your device so you won’t have to worry about buying a newer model.

The MusicNao is a bit pricy at $299.99 but it is well worth the money spent.  Check out the Cignias website for more details and to find out how to order one. – by Brad via berryreporter.com

Looks like RIM has been working on a twitter client for a while but it had been kept shy from the camera until now. Mauricio over at www.Blackberryrocks.com just posted a screenshot of what seems to be the rumored twitter client for the BlackBerry. The application looks a lot like Social scope. According to the rumors it should arrive at a BlackBerry near you in February.

Check out the screenshot and let us know what you think.


Some of the features rumored to have include:

• Notification of number of new tweets on the home screen with icon, like text messages
• Main app opens friends timeline
• Ability to view followers
• Follow/unfollow functions
• Create direct messages, replies and new tweets
• Keyword search and saved results
• Tweet photos directly from camera or memory card
• View photos from other tweets
• View trending topics
• Address book integration

Since this is a native BlackBerry app I would expect it to be a lot easier to use with better menu integrations. I guess we will just have to wait and see when the official word is out from RIM. Thanks to Nelson for the tip. – by Luis Merlos via berryreview.com

Despite its many flaws, the BlackBerry does make searching the web pretty easy. The Go To screen contains an address bar, a search bar, your bookmarks, and recently visited sites. For most users, that’s enough. More intense mobil web users might prefer wider reaching search options, beyond the basics — or, for Verizon customers, beyond just Bing. SearchIt has been available for a while, though I have to say I hadn’t seen it before today, when Obi at CrackBerry noted an update. Shaosoft has added plenty of features to an already excellent application

After launching the application a dialog box appears on the screen. It contains a search bar, a search button, and a search using field. Scroll down to change the search engine you wish to use. SearchIt browses 22 sites and engines currently, plus two user-defined sites. You can hide any of the engines or sites by clicking Search using and scrolling to options, at the bottom.

In the options menu you can choose to show or hide the search engine and site categories, turn as-you-type suggestions on or off, and select your default site or engine. At the top there’s a check box that allows you to add SearchIt to the system menu. With that feature activated you can select text in any application, press the menu button, and select SearchIt. Now the selected text will appear in the search bar. You can also set your browser, with choices of the default, Bolt, and Opera.

SearchIt allows for two custom sites, which you can set from the options menu. Click under custom search, and then enter the sites’ URLs into the appropriate fields and name the site. You can select them at the bottom of the search engine list.

Hardcore mobile web surfers can get a copy of SearchIt for $2.49 until January 23, when it goes up 50 cents to $2.99. – via bbgreeks.com

Google has rolled out a new version of its mobile app to allow you to search through e-mails and contacts.  Simply type or speak the name of the sender or a part of the e-mail. The mobile app will quickly pull up results from e-mails or contacts and allow you to reply and forward.
What else is great about the revised Google mobile app is that it lets you search for on-device and on web e-mails/contacts. You can also quickly find a contact and either call or SMS text them. As you search for certain contacts more frequently it caches those results at the top for later use.
Other improvements in the new mobile app have been made, such as the ability to use Wi-Fi to access the internet. The new mobile app is currently only available for BlackBerry devices running OS 4.5 or higher. To download Google Mobile App to your BlackBerry, visit m.google.com- by Sparrow via bbleaks.com

1. Capture BlackBerry Screenshots from Command Prompt
Get the free Java Loader Commander utility from BBforums (mirror) and unzip the file to some folder on your hard drive. Now connect the BlackBerry device to your computer via the USB cable and navigate to the screen that you want to save as an image.

Open the command prompt and switch to the folder that contains the extracted files. Type JL_Cmder.cmd and press enter. Just follow the simple wizard to save screenshots of your BlackBerry screen.
2. Take Screenshots with BB Screenshooter
The official RIM command line utility discussed above can be a bit intimidating for non-techies so here’s a standard GUI based application for capturing screenshots of BlackBerry.

The utility is called BBScreenshooter and it lets you take captures in multiple image formats from your Windows desktop. You can even preview screenshots before shooting.

To use BB Screeenshoter, first download the JavaLoader tool and unzip it to a folder. Then download the BBscreenshoter.exe file in the same folder and run. Specify the location of Java Loader utility and the application is now ready to take pictures of your BlackBerry screen.
3. Wireless Screen Captures for BlackBerry
The downside with either of the above solutions is that they both are desktop based so you first need to connect the BlackBerry phone to the computer before taking screen captures.
Now in situations where you want to grab the BlackBerry screen while you’re miles away from the computer, CaptureIt will come very handy. Open m.thetechmogul.com in your BlackBerry browser and install the CaptureIt application (mirror).

This will add a “Capture It” option to your BlackBerry menu – you can select that option, wait until the vibration is over and an image of your current BlackBerry screen will get saved either in the external memory card or to the device memory.

Alternatively, you can go to Home – Options – Screen Keyboard and assign a convenience key to the Capture It application. Then you’ll be able to capture screenshots with a simple click without having to use the menu option.

Synchronizing your BlackBerry with your desktop computer is a must! It just works incredibly fine and is easy going to set up. This article is meant to help you to get this working. If you have already set it up and you think it is fine you can just skip this article. But if you are not sure your setting is correct – but it is working actually – you should keep reading and check whether you have set it up right.

We wil cover the following parts of your BlackBerry and desktop application for synchronization:

• Address Book
• Calendar
• MemoPad
• Tasks

Please keep in mind that we are not covering the synchronization of E-Mails in this article. We will do so later I guess. The setup that is used for this presention is as followed:

• BlackBerry Pearl (BlackBerry OS 4.2 from HKCSL)
• BlackBerry Desktop Manager 4.2.0.14
• Microsoft Windows XP
• Professional Desktop Computer
• Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Enterprise Edition

You can use this procedure for your setup as well. E.g. you are using another BlackBerry model (72xx, 87xx or 71xx) the setup is the nearly the same. To get your computer’s data synchronized with your BlackBerry and vice versa proceed as followed:

Hint: The program on the right – NextAction! – is compatible with PocketMac and therefor with all applications PocketMac can synchronize your BlackBerry with. It is world’s best GTD application for BlackBerry® Wireless Handhelds!

via blackberryinsight.com

Ever own a phone and want to switch providers? Well that happens quite often. The problem is the new provider won’t activate your competitor phone and ask that you buy a new one. The guys at GSM Phone Source have an answer. These guys provide you with remote unlocking of the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 and also the BlackBerry Pearl 8700g.

How it works is pretty simple. You pay for the unlocking service, and when you submit your order, you must include the IMEI number for the Blackberry you are unlocking in the notes section when you are making the Paypal payment. The IMEI Number can be obtained when you enter *#06# from your phone’s keypad, it will display a 15 digit number ( If you have trouble obtaining the IMEI this way you can also find the IMEI number in the Status menu ). Once your order is processed and unlock code is ready, you will be emailed with an unlock code and instructions on how to enter it.

Models supported, including but not limited to are the 8100, Pearl, 8700g, 5xxx Series, 6xxx Series, 7xxx Series.

You have to pay $35 for their service and the turnaround time is usually less than 24 hours. via blackberrybonanza.com