Rod McQueen Blackberry Book Panned

Montreal Gazette Review by Roberto Rocha:

"BlackBerry could be easily mistaken for a long brochure for RIM investors, or a ghostwritten autobiography of the company’s iconic co-chiefs, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie. Despite the book’s impressive research and detailed accounts of key events in the BlackBerry ascent, McQueen sounds like the best man delivering a wedding speech, not someone providing a critical look at the little device that is revolutionizing business and human relations."......

"Yet the way he describes everything, it seems RIM and its bosses could do no wrong. Every decision they made is brilliant, their characters are beyond messianic. Bad moves are glossed over, given just a nominal mention."

"For a more critical look at the device, BlackBerry Planet by Alastair Sweeny is a far better work."

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RIM Finally Gets a Decent BlackBerry Browser

RIM unveiled its new BlackBerry browser at Barcelona this weekend.  It runs on WebKit, the rendering engine behind Apple's Safari and Google's Android browsers.

Once derided as "a Pinto in an era of Priuses," the BlackBerry browser has been lagging behind competitors, but Research In Motion bought browser-design firm Torch Mobile to clean up the mess.

The BlackBerry browser now scores 100 percent in the Web-rendering Acid 3 test, and can handle AJAX, CSS and HTML5, which means less Flash and longer battery life.

Great BlackBerry Planet Review

"Star Trek-inspired BlackBerry took the world by storm"

by Maclean Kay at Troy Media.

The Blessing of the BlackBerrys

An Anglican church in London, England has done what e-mail addicts and workaholics have been doing for years - invoking God's blessing on their high-tech gadgets. Rev. David Parrott blessed laptops and smart phones on the altar of the 17th-century St. Lawrence Jewry church yesterday. Canon Parrott said the blessing ceremony was an update of a traditional back-to-work event known as Plow Monday, in which villagers gathered to bless a symbolic farm implement dragged to the church's door. He said that ceremony didn't have much relevance for his church, which is "nowhere near a field in the middle of London."


SOURCE: Globe and Mail

CBC Archives My BlackBerry Planet Interview

Lang & O'Leary Exchange HERE.

BlackBerry Planet Interview in Lang & O'Leary Archives

If you miss my BlackBerry Planet discussion on Lang & O'Leary Exchange, you can catch it on the CBC video archives.

On Lang & O'Leary Exchange Today

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I'm talking about BlackBerry Planet on the Lang & O'Leary Exchange (LOX) today at 4:30 Eastern.

Business News Network (BNN) Interview

I'm talking about BlackBerry Planet on Squeezeplay, with Kim Pardee and Rudyard Griffiths

The Rise of the TeleBrain

Isn't it cool how James T. Kirk's Star Trek Communicator looks suspiciously like the BlackBerry Bold?

Chapter 6 of BlackBerry Planet is called The Rise of the TeleBrain. Click HERE for images related to the chapter.

Footnotes in the book are hotlinked from HERE.

BlackBerry Planet Book Well Reviewed

Here's a great review by Gary Woodill, a pioneering BlackBerry user

BlackBerry Planet Interview with Elizabeth Woyke of Forbes

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A Brief History Of The BlackBerry

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BlackBerry Planet Book Cover

Here's how to order.

BlackBerry Apps For Sale

BlackBerry App World is now open for business. You need a PayPal account to buy, but many apps are free.

No April Fool Jokes at BlackBerry App World

RIM is launching BlackBerry App World on April 1 at the CTIA Wireless 2009 trade show in Las Vegas. Mike Lazaridis and Al Gore are giving the keynote addresses.

Starting price for BlackBerry apps (not including freebies) will be $2.99, vs. Apple’s 99¢. Apparently RIM feels the higher price will limit frivolous apps like fart buttons and beer glasses.

BlackBerry Planet Publication Date

Publication date for my BlackBerry Planet book is scheduled for August 4, 2009. See Amazon.com or Amazon.ca or Chapters Indigo Canada) for pre-ordering information.

BlackBerry App World

CNET's Bonnie Cha reports that RIM's upcoming application storefront will officially be called BlackBerry App World. If you are interested in knowing when the site goes live, you will soon be able to sign up for alerts HERE.

Web-Based BES 5.0 "Argon" Out in April

RIM's first BlackBerry Enterprise Server software came out in 1999 as a desktop redirector, where it routed encrypted e-mails from the desktop to mobile devices.

The tenth anniversary BES solution features a Web-based Administration Service that lets IT managers download and wirelessly push software updates automatically over the air on workers' handsets rather than servicing the devices in person. Meaning no more physical upgrade appointments with individual users. They can do maintenance or updates during weekends or off-hours.

Administrators will have far more control over admin and user roles and permissions, and specific IT policies can be applied to individuals or groups, to restrict access to specific resources such as GPS.

BES 5.0 features a multi-server architecture that can scale up to 100,000 smartphones, and users can wirelessly download files from the corporate network directly to their BlackBerry handsets.

Details:

*A new administration user interface, BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Administration Service, provides a centralized framework that increases productivity by allowing IT to remotely manage and troubleshoot the system and components through a web user interface

*Enhanced job management, throttling and scheduling upgrades and maintenance of applications for users’ devices – this improves any task an IT Manager may do in relation to end users

*Enhanced monitoring capabilities through the BlackBerry Administration Server helps identify and prevent potential downtime and outages

*Improved reporting, alerting and troubleshooting through the BlackBerry Administration Server help minimize potential issues

*Built-in high availability enables fast recovery from failure and unplanned downtime, supporting mission critical business operations by seamlessly failing over key components of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server

*BlackBerry User Migration Tool enables user accounts to be easily moved from one BlackBerry domain to another with minimal risk and impact or action required by the end user

*IT administrators can leverage the high availability architecture to conduct maintenance upgrades without impacting the service

*Improved remote desktop capabilities

*Device-side folder management, such as adding, deleting, moving and modifying folders from the device

*Enhanced calendar functionality

*Synchronization of public and private contacts

BlackBerry on Ice

Here's the BlackBerry Ice Sculpture Sponsored by Rogers for Ottawa's Winterlude Festival, which started this weekend. No cold calls please.

A BlackBerry for Babies

Leapfrog has come out with a new toy called the Text & Learn, which is being hailed as the "Baby BlackBerry".

The Text & Learn was unveiled at the U.K. Toy Fair last week and will be available this summer in the US at a price of $25. It's a bit bigger than your Curve and comes with a "pretend" browser mode, letter matching, shape identification, and QWERTY.

This will keep their sticky little fingers off your Precious Device.

No word on whether it has WiFi or a service plan.

BlackBerry Application StoreFront Now Accepting Submissions

Clich HERE for information, and HERE for the Vendor Portal.