I moved my blog

please visit my new location: http://dertompson.com

BlackBerry native instant messengers

Boy Genius has news some BlackBerry users were waiting for since the first announcement last autumn: RIM released native instant messenger clients for AOL, ICQ and MSN Messenger. This forum post describes some details about where to get them and how to install.

I tried the ICQ client but could not get it to work – it always said I have to register at blackberry.com/icq. Maybe I have to install the service books as described in the forum post. I will update this entry when I get it working.

Problems with Fasterfox

Lately I had to experience a lot of problems with the download time of web pages in Firefox. For example when searching Images with google only 60 percent of the images in the search result were loaded. First I thought my network (ISP, router, …) caused the problem but then I found out that the same page load normally when using Internet Explorer (which I do very rarely).

After some trying to disable some Firefox Add-Ons I found out that Fasterfox was causing the problem. I configured it to Default (not Turbo Charged) and everything worked fine again. I was using the Turbo Charged setting now for over two years without problems. While I have not found the real reason I will leave it to Default.

BlackBerry 8300 comes to T-Mobile

Boy Genius has news about the BlackBerry 8300 – this article from Merrill Lynch speaks about a “Potential launch” of T-Mobile 83xx WiFi BlackBerry on 7-May. This lets me hope that the Austrian T-Mobile will provide it too within the next months.

BlackBerry Song

LOL, check out this cool BlackBerry song I found on RIMarkable:

BlackBerry Maps on 8800

The last two days I had the chance to test a BlackBerry 8800 (thanks to Andy). Overall I have to say that I was really surprised how good the scroll ball works. I made some pictures of the 8800 using BlackBerry Maps with its internal GPS hardware – this combination could replace my Windows Mobile Pocket PC with TomTom.

After starting GPS:

Showing the current location:

Showing a calculated route:

Learning from Scoble

problogger has an interesting post about “What I’ve learned about blogging from Robert Scoble”. I am found problogger last weekend and he has some really good information for bloggers – there are so many useful things on his site, it will take me some more time to get all the important information.

The post about Scoble is great! For me Scoble is one of the greatest (if not the greatest) blogger on the web and this article shows why. Thanks!

PokerClock

I developed a Midlet PokerClock. PokerClock allows you to keep track of blind levels when hosting a Poker Tournament. You can

• define small and big blind and
• set the time for each level

It counts down the time for each level and plays a sound when changing into a new level.

Give it a try: http://www.getjar.com/products/9347/PokerClock (download it directly from your mobile)

Twittervision

Sure you heard of Twitter but do you know Twittervision? I found it on Scobles blog … great thing for wastin’ your time

Seems like Twitter is not able to deal with their server load the last two days, their site is very slow.

VDR Troubles

Damn. My cable provider Liwest encrypted all channels today. I was using my VDR now for over three years and now … it is black.

Without a smartcard I will not be able to receive digital TV channels anymore. Now I have to think about a solution – adding a common interface to my VDR and buying a smartcard? Completely change to another device?