iPhone 3G: Battery Life Tips

Dimming the screen. In bright light, the screen brightens (but uses more battery power). In dim light, it darkens. By covering up the sensor as you unlock the phone, you force it into a low-power, dim-screen setting (because the phone believes that it’s in a dark room). Or by holding it up to a light as you wake it, you get full brightness. In both cases, you’ve saved all the taps and navigation it would have taken you to find the manual brightness slider in Settings.

Turning off 3G. If you don’t see a 3G icon on your iPhone 3G’s status bar,then you’re not in a 3G hot spot, and you’re not getting any benefit from the phone’s battery-hungry 3G radio. By turning it off, you’ll double the length of your iPhone 3G’s battery power, from 5 hours of talk time to 10. To do so, from the Home screen, tap Settings-General-Network-Enable 3G Off. Yes, this is sort of a hassle, but if you’re anticipating a long day and you can’t risk the battery dying halfway through, it might be worth doing. After all, most 3G phones don’t even let you turn off their 3G circuitry.

Turning off Wi-Fi. From the Home screen, tap Settings - Wi-Fi - On/Off. If you’re not in a wireless hot spot anyway, you may as well stop the thing from using its radio. Or, at the very least, tell the iPhone to stop searching for Wi-Fi networks it can connect to.

Turning off Bluetooth. If you’re not using a Bluetooth headset, then for heaven’s sake shut down that Bluetooth radio. Tap Settings - General - turn off Bluetooth

Turning off GPS. If you won’t be needing the iPhone to track your location, save it the power required to operate the GPS chip and the other location circuits. Tap Settings - General - turn off Location Services.

Turning off “push” data. If your email, calendar, and address book are kept constantly synced with your Macs or PCs. When the Phone looking for updates, it costs you battery power. If you can do without the immediacy, Tap Settings - Fetch New Data; consider turning off Push and letting your iPhone check for new information, let say, every 15, 30, or 60 minutes.

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Restoring your BlackBerry file

Full Restores
To restore your BlackBerry data from a previous backup session:

1. Connect your BlackBerry to your desktop PC using the supplied USB cable or cradle.
2. Run Desktop Manager and double-click Backup and Restore. This brings up the Backup and Restore screen.
3. Click the Restore button.
4. Navigate to the location where your backup .ipd file is stored, select the file, and click Open.
5. At the prompt, click Yes to restore all of your original BlackBerry data from the specified backup file.

Selective Restores
As with the backup function, you can choose to perform a selective restore on one or more specific databases, rather than choosing to restore all of your BlackBerry data. This option is useful if one of your application databases has been damaged or deleted or if you are moving to a different BlackBerry handheld and you want to move only certain data over from your old handheld.

Direction:

1. Connect your BlackBerry to your desktop PC using the supplied USB cable or cradle.
2. Run the BlackBerry Desktop Manager application on your PC, and double-click the Backup and Restore icon from the main screen. This brings up the Backup and Restore screen.
3. Click the Advanced button.
4. Choose the file to restore from by clicking File Open.
5. Navigate to the .ipd file you want to use and then click Open to select the databases you wish to restore from the Desktop File Databases section.

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Samsung I7500

The Samsung I7500 will be available in major European countries from June, 2009.

Network
HSDPA 7.2Mbps / HSUPA 5.76Mbps (900 / 1700/ 2100MHz)
EDGE / GPRS (850/ 900/1800/1900)

OS
Android

Display
3.2" HVGA(320x480) AMOLED

Camera
5 MP Camera (Auto Focus), Power LED

Video / Audio
Video: MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV
Audio: MP3, AAC, AAC+, e-AAC+, WMA, RA

Features
Full Web Browser Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Android Market

Connectivity
Bluetooth® 2.0, USB 2.0, WiFi, MicroUSB, 3.5mm ear jack

Memory
Internal memory: 8GB
External memory: Micro SD (Up to 32GB)

Battery
1500 mAh

Size
115 x 56 x 11.9mm

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Backing Up Your BlackBerry

Its good practice if you're doing regular backups of your BlackBerry information. Like your e-mail, calendar, and contact information is probably synchronized with your desktop or enterprise server on a regular basis, but it can still be terribly inconvenient to lose data you’ve added since your last synchronization. As a simple example, if you travel for any extended period of time, it can be days or even weeks between synchronization sessions, and if you were to lose, drop, or damage your handheld at any point during that time, you would also potentially lose critically important data.

Aside from disaster protection, you should perform a safety backup of your BlackBerry prior to performing an installation of any BlackBerry system/firmware updates — just in case something goes wrong. It is also a good idea to do a backup before you install any additional application programs or software on your device.

Full Backups
BlackBerry devices do not support any kind of expansion memory card.To perform a full
backup:

1. Connect your BlackBerry to your desktop PC using the supplied USB cable or cradle.
2. Run the BlackBerry Desktop Manager application on your PC, and double-click the Backup and Restore icon from the main screen.
3. From the Backup and Restore screen, click the Backup button, and choose a name and location for your backup file. Backup files use an .ipd extension, so a good convention might be to incorporate the backup date into the filename, such as 10-31-2005.ipd.

Selective Backups
Instead of backing up all of your handheld data, you can be more choosy about what gets backed up by using selective backup, which lets you choose exactly which application databases get backed up. So if, for example, you care only about backing up your Calendar data, you can speed up the backup by ignoring all of the other data on your handheld. To perform a selective backup:

1. Connect your BlackBerry to your desktop PC using the supplied USB cable or cradle.
2. Run the BlackBerry Desktop Manager application on your PC, and double-click the Backup and Restore icon from the main screen. This brings up the Backup and Restore screen.
3. Click the Advanced button to see a list of available databases.
4. Check each database that you wish to back up.
5. Choose File Save As to begin the backup to a filename and location of your choosing.

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How to reset your BlackBerry

You most likely know that you can reboot your BlackBerry by opening up the back and removing the battery. But did you know that you can perform a soft reset of your BlackBerry device by pressing ALT+CAP+DEL? As with the battery removal option, this is a safe reset of your device — no data is lost.

But what if you are giving your BlackBerry to someone else to use? Or what if you are returning your BlackBerry for repair or a replacement? You probably don’t want a perfect stranger to be able to read your e-mail and other personal information. In this case, you want the data to be lost.

To erase your BlackBerry so that it is clean of all data:

1. Open the Options application, scroll down to the Security option, and click the trackwheel. This takes you to the Security screen.
2. Click the trackwheel again, and you will see in the menu an option called Wipe Handheld. Proceeding at this point will wipe your BlackBerry clean of all application data, including all your e-mails, contacts, calendar information, and other settings. So proceed only if you are absolutely sure that this is what you want to do!
3. Click Wipe Handheld, and then click Continue to erase your BlackBerry data.

You can take this one step further and completely restore your BlackBerry to its initial pristine
state by not only removing any data, but also deleting any applications or settings that have been installed on your device. This is a very serious step and you should be aware that you will lose all data and applications if you proceed!

To completely wipe out your device, you must first assign a password to your device. Once you
have a password:

1. Go to the Options application, and choose the Security option.
2. Enter the wrong password 10 consecutive times. Your device will completely reset, losing all applications and data.

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Faxing from Your BlackBerry

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to send a fax right from your BlackBerry? Its not as easy as you might think. These days, wireless carriers have either blocked analog faxing traffic on their networks or at the very least have made it inconvenient to figure out how to set it up. One answer is to sign up for a faxing service that can convert an e-mail to a fax on your behalf.

If you do a search on the Internet, you will find a great many email-to-fax services. One such service is eFax (www.efax.com).With eFax, you need to sign up for an account, but once you have done that, all you need to do is compose an e-mail and then send it to a special e-mail address. The eFax service then creates your fax electronically for you, and redirects it to the fax machine you specify. eFax offers many different service plans, including a free limitedfunctionality plan, all of which may be viewed on the www.efax.com website.

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Controlling Your Inbox with Filters

If you are a BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) user, you may have found that your BlackBerry device is constantly overrun with spam, junk e-mail, and messages that you would rather deal with from your desktop.Wading through your BlackBerry Inbox becomes a tedious process of finding the important messages among the piles of unwanted items. Enterprise BlackBerry users benefit greatly from the messaging controls in place at the corporate e-mail server.Wouldn’t it be nice if BIS users could also have some control over the delivery of messages to their BlackBerry?

Many BlackBerry BIS users do not realize it, but you can access and reconfigure your BlackBerry account profile by logging in to your carrier’s BlackBerry start page. (Contact your carrier for the exact URL.) Once logged in, you can browse your messages, set up folders, and perform other housekeeping tasks. Additionally, you can set up custom filters to control what messages are delivered to your BlackBerry and how they are delivered.


To access the Filters option, do the following:

1. Click the Filters menu option at the top of the screen after you log in to your BIS profile.
2. Click the Add button
3. Starting at the top of this form, each filter you define gets a name, because multiple filters can be associated with your profile.
4. After naming your filter, you may now add one or more “conditions,” which will be used to identify messages that you want to forward to (or block from) your BlackBerry. You can set a condition based on the contents of the From,To, Subject, or Body components of each message.
5. Once you’ve established one or more conditions that can trap your messages, you now get to decide what to do with messages that fall under this filter.

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Web-Based Mail on BlackBerry

Here how to setup Web Based email on your BlackBerry for GMail and Yahoo!Mail.


Google’s Gmail

Google’s Gmail service is one of the most popular free e-mail services available. Setting up your BlackBerry to work with Gmail requires you to first change your Gmail settings on the web and then configure your BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) account to access your Gmail account. Perform the following steps:

1. Log in to your Gmail account.
2. Click Settings at the top of the Gmail page.
3. Click Forwarding and POP in the Mail Settings box.
4. Select either “Enable POP for all Mail” or “Enable POP for all mail from now on.”
5. Click Save Changes.
6. Now go and log in to your BlackBerry Internet service account.
7. Click the Profile link at the top of the page.
8. Click Other Email Accounts in the e-mail accounts section of your BIS profile.
9. Click Add Account.
10. Now enter the information for your Gmail account, including e-mail address, username, and password.
11. To complete the change, click Submit.

At this point, if your Gmail account has been properly set for POP access, you should be able
to send and receive Gmail on your BlackBerry.

Yahoo! Mail

In order to integrate your Yahoo! Mail account with your BlackBerry, you must first subscribe to the Yahoo! Mail Plus service. (Unfortunately, regular Yahoo! Mail accounts are not supported.)

1. Log in to your BlackBerry Internet Service account.
2. Click the Profile link at the top of the page.
3. Click Other Email Accounts in the e-mail accounts section of your BIS profile.
4. Click Add Account.
5. Now enter the information for your Yahoo! Mail Plus account, including e-mail address, username, and password.
6. Click the option "I have enabled POP access to my Yahoo! mailbox and want to add it."
7. Then click Next.
8. To complete the change, click Submit.

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Instant Messaging Applications

Instant messaging, is a widely popular method of exchanging short text messages directly with other computer or mobile device users. Instant messaging is distinct from e-mail messaging in that it is intended to be very fast and interactive, much more like a live chat than sending and receiving e-mail.

In order to do instant messaging on your BlackBerry, you can elect to use SMS (Short Message Service), which usually requires an add-on subscription from your wireless service provider.

Although it costs extra and is not a 100 percent guaranteed service, it is widely supported and thus it is probably more likely that a wider range of recipients will be able to receive the messages you send them.

As an alternative to SMS, a number of messaging applications are now available that integrate with popular instant messaging services from MSN, ICQ, AIM, and Yahoo.These applications do not use SMS to communicate. Instead they use your BlackBerry’s data service to communicate with the target messaging service. A clear benefit of going this route, especially if you have an unlimited data plan, is that it can cost a lot less than the available SMS subscription plans from wireless carriers.

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Using Multiple Signatures

Here’s a great tip if you like to send messages out to different kinds of people and would like to use different custom signatures for different types of recipients. For example, when you are composing a message to someone at work, you probably want to include your name, title, website address, company name, phone extension, or other work-related information. Likewise, when you are composing a message to your family or friends, you may want to provide a more light-hearted signature or, at the very least, include different contact information.

While the BlackBerry software does not provide for managing and using multiple signatures, you can easily achieve the same effect by making use of the BlackBerry’s great Auto Text feature:

1. Make sure you clear the existing default signature text from the Desktop Manager. (See the previous section for how to do this.)
2. On the home screen of your device, go to Options ➪ Auto Text.
3. Create a new Auto Text entry for each custom signature you want to have.

For example, I have an Auto Text entry for my company, Bachmann Software & Services, which I named "bss." It has my name, my company name, and my website URL in it. Now,
whenever I want to include this signature on any outgoing business messages, at the bottom of my message I just type the characters “bss” and BlackBerry automatically substitutes the signature I defined. I could, of course, create as many different signatures as I wanted, each with its own Auto Text keyboard shortcut.

Remembering to type the Auto Text shortcut at the end of your e-mails can take a little getting used to, but once you have done it for a while, it becomes pretty automatic.

Related Article

• Customizing Signature on BlackBerry
• AutoText

Customizing Your BlackBerry Signature

If you have ever received e-mail from someone with a BlackBerry, you are no doubt aware that by default each message gets automatically tagged with the familiar signature "This e-mail was sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry."

True, this obviously provides some free marketing and publicity for the BlackBerry folks, and it does tell all your friends and colleagues that you are hip and use the latest technology. But it does also have a more useful aspect in that it clues your
recipients in to the fact that you composed your message on-the-go with a thumb keyboard.

Still, most BlackBerry users don’t realize that they are not doomed to have every message they send from their BlackBerry formatted this way.Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to put a more professional or customized signature on your outgoing messages, as you do in your desktop e-mail program?

Changing Your Blackberry Signature from the Desktop
If you use the BlackBerry Desktop Manager as an e-mail redirector, you can change the default signature by editing your redirector settings:

1. Make sure that your BlackBerry is connected to your desktop computer with the supplied USB cable.
2. Make sure that the Desktop Manager is running, and click the Redirector Settings icon. A number of tabs appear on the next screen.
3. Click the General tab, and you will see the Auto Signature field with the default text in it.
4. Edit the text and save your changes, and your outgoing BlackBerry e-mails should now bear your new signature.

BlackBerry Curve 8900

Size and Weight

• Height: 4.29 inches (109 mm)
• Width: 2.36 inches (60 mm)
• Depth: 0.53 inches (13.5 mm)
• Weight: 3.87 ounces (109.9 grams)

Available Features

• Camera (3.2 MP)
• Wi-Fi® Support
• Built-in GPS
• Enhanced Media Player
• Video Recording
• BlackBerry® Maps
• Wireless Email
• Organizer
• Browser
• Phone
• Corporate Data Access
• SMS/MMS

Display

• High resolution 480x360 pixel color display
• Transmissive TFT LCD
• Supports over 65,000 colors
• Screen Size: 2.44 inches (diagonally measured)

Data Input & Navigation

• 35 key backlit QWERTY keyboard
• Trackball located on front face of device, ESC key to the right, Menu to the left
• Dedicated Keys: Send, End, Mute, Lock, VAD (user customizable), 2-stage camera (user customizable), 2x volume/zoom
• User Interface: Intuitive icons and menus

Keyboard security

• Password protection
• Keyboard lock
• Sleep (standby) mode

Voice Input & Output

• Integrated speaker and microphone, Hands-free headset capable, Bluetooth® headset capable, Integrated Hands-Free Speakerphone

Media Player

• Video Format Support: DivX, XviD (MPEG4 Advance Simple Profile), H.263, WMV3
• Audio Format Support: .3gp, WAV, MIDI, AMR-NB, G711u/A, GSM610, PCM, MP3, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+, WMA9/10 Standard/Pro

Ringtones & Notifications

• Ringtones: .3gp, WAV, MIDI, AMR-NB, G711u/A, GSM610, PCM, MP3, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+, WMA9/10 Standard/Pro
• Notifications: Tone, vibrate, on-screen or LED indicator; notification options are user configurable

Camera & Video Recording

• Camera: 3.2 MP camera (JPEG Encoding) with Auto focus, Image stabilization, Flash and 2X Digital Zoom
• Video Camera: Normal Mode: 480x352 pixel, MMS Mode: 176x144 pixel

Wi-Fi

• 802.11b/g enabled
• Wi-Fi Alliance Certifications: WPA/WPA2 Personal and Enterprise, WMM, WMM Power Save, Wi-Fi Protected Setup
• Cisco CCX certification planned
• Wi-Fi access to BlackBerry® Enterprise Server
• Wi-Fi access to BlackBerry® Internet Server
• Direct IP web browsing over Wi-Fi
• Support for UMA/GAN

Wireless Networks

• North America: 850 MHz GSM®/GPRS networks
• North America: 1900MHz GSM/GPRS networks
• Europe/Asia Pacific: 1800MHz GSM/GPRS networks
• Europe/Asia Pacific: 900MHz GSM/GPRS networks
• EDGE networks

Bluetooth

• Bluetooth v2.0 + EDR; Headset, Handsfree, Serial Port Profile, Stereo Audio (A2DP/AVCRP), SIM Access Profile and Dial-up Networking supported

GPS & BlackBerry Maps
Assisted and autonomous GPS enabled

Battery & Battery Life

• Battery: 1400 mAHr removable/rechargeable cryptographic lithium cell
• Talk Time: 5.5 hours
• Standby Time: 356 hours

Protecting Against Bluetooth Discovery

If your BlackBerry supports Bluetooth, it is theoretically possible for other Bluetooth devices to connect to your BlackBerry. Once connected, that device can retrieve some of your stored nformation, including your contacts, e-mail messages, or calendar items.

If you are particularly paranoid — or even if you simply do not have any use for Bluetooth— you can easily turn off the Discoverable feature of your BlackBerry’s Bluetooth radio:

1. Go to the Options application and scroll to the Bluetooth option.
2. Click the trackwheel to display the menu and choose the Options menu item. You will see two fields: a Device Name (used to identify your BlackBerry to other Bluetooth devices) and a Discoverable setting (when turned on, enables your BlackBerry to be discovered by other Bluetooth devices).
3. Turn off the Discoverable setting by selecting it and changing the option to No.

Installing Applications from the Desktop

Once you find an application that interests you, you will need to somehow get it installed on your BlackBerry. The traditional way to install add-on software applications to any handheld device, including BlackBerry, is to connect your device to your computer and install via your desktop. To enable this, RIM provides you with the BlackBerry Desktop Manager program.

The BlackBerry Desktop Manager software is a Windows application that manages how your BlackBerry connects to and exchanges data with your desktop computer.Most of the time, the Desktop Manager is used to perform synchronization of data between your BlackBerry and your desktop, including contacts, calendar, and to-do items. The Desktop Manager also performs backup and restore of your BlackBerry. Its most important function in the context of this chapter, however, is that it allows you to add additional applications to your BlackBerry from your desktop.

By default, the BlackBerry Desktop Manager, is configured to autostart when you start your computer. If you’ve changed this, or if for some reason the Desktop Manager is not running on your computer, you can run it by going to the Start menu and choosing Programs ➪ BlackBerry ➪ Desktop Manager.


The Desktop Manager main screen displays a number of icons for each function it supports.The Application Loader icon lets you install BlackBerry applications:
1. Double-click the Application Loader icon to start the Application Loader Wizard.
2. The Application Loader Wizard displays the Handheld Application Selection screen, which is a list of all of the applications it sees installed on your BlackBerry.


If your BlackBerry is not connected to your computer, you will need to connect it before proceeding because the Application Loader will be accessing your BlackBerry’s internal storage to determine which programs are installed.

3. Click the Add button to add an application to your BlackBerry. This displays the dialog box shown in Figure 2-7, which allows you to locate the appropriate Application Loader file. Application Loader files have an extension of .alx and accompany the .cod program file in order to provide the Loader Wizard with information about the program you wish to install.

To remove an application, simply uncheck the box next to the application in the Handheld Application Selection screen.

4. Select the .alx file for the application you wish to add, and then continue with the installation. Your BlackBerry may need to reset; after it re-initializes, you should see the program in the list of icons on your BlackBerry’s main screen.
Some programs come as a completely self-contained executable (.exe) file, which automatically interfaces with the Application Loader to add the new program to your BlackBerry.

Tips Extending Your Battery Life

Here the list what the biggest drain on BlackBerry battery life:

• comes from wireless access
• the screen display (the backlight). The screen generally turns off after inactivity, but persistent use of the backlight can adversely affect the battery.

Tips
If you know that your device is out of range, you can save battery life by turning off wireless access (go to the Applications screen and scroll to the Wireless On/Off icon) until you are back
in a good coverage area.

With Bluetooth-enabled devices (such as the 7290), you can save power by turning off Bluetooth if you do not plan to use Bluetooth capabilities.