If you own a BlackBerry, you have to check out BerryBuzz. Lucky for you, it is on sale in the JAMM store today as the Deal of the Day. BerryBuzz allows you to customize alerts by changing the color of the LED or the alerts. My favorite setting is “Disco”, which makes your LED cycle through each color. It is a great way to make sure you notice your calls even if you need to turn your ringer off.

So, what are you waiting for? Head over to the JAMM Store and make sure you have your current device as a BlackBerry.

SBSH Calendar for Blackberry

Amit and company, the guys over at SBSH, have just introduced Calendar for Blackberry. Having been a very worthwhile offering in the Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 application ecosystems for a while now, Calendar for Blackberry is likely going to shape up to be a very worth while app for any of you Blackberry users out there to at least take a look at. Check out the full details in the press release below:

BlackBerry users rejoice, SBSH Calendar for BlackBerry released! Take control of your busy agenda with your BlackBerry and the all new SBSH Calendar!

February 1st, 2010 – Following SBSH Calendar for Windows Mobile Touch, Smartphone and Symbian S60 overwhelming success, we are excited to announce today the release of SBSH Calendar for BlackBerry!

SBSH Calendar for BlackBerry brings a robust personal information manager solution for both BlackBerry personal users and busy professionals. Packing together an innovative and compelling tools far beyond the default BlackBerry tools that will help you manage your busy schedule. Advanced calendar views, dedicated tasks manager, powerful recurring items engine, category coloring and icons and much more!

SBSH Calendar Highlights

• Daily View – Today’s events in one screen. Joint display for appointments and tasks. Status and category icons, status colors and much more!
• Weekly View – Full week worth display. Vertical bars styled display of your agenda, providing graphical representation of your busy vs. free hours of the week
• Monthly View – Entire month agenda in a single screen! Offering daily timelines, category icons, status colors and Quick View pane to preview each day activities
• Tasks Manager – Robust Task manager packed as part of SBSH Calendar. Offering powerful task management tools that will allow you to manage your tasks at the same application
• Category Colors and Icons – Assign icons and colors to categories. Icons and colors you assign are then used with Calendar’s different views to enhance your agenda graphical representation
• BlackBerry Tailored – SBSH Calendar was designed especially for use with BlackBerry devices. Taking advantage of the unique BlackBerry hardware capabilities for the best user experience!

Click here to read the release note from our development team and find out more about the new SBSH Calendar for BlackBerry release

Pricing and Availability

SBSH Calendar for BlackBerry costs $14.95.

SBSH Calendar for BlackBerry can be registered at the following link:
https://www.mobihand.com/cart1.asp?posid=362&pid=49149

Further Information and Download Details

SBSH Calendar for BlackBerry web-page and screenshots
SBSH Calendar for BlackBerry download

SBSH Calendar is also available for the following platforms:

SBSH Calendar for Windows Mobile Touch web-page
SBSH Calendar for Windows Mobile Smartphone web-page
SBSH Calendar for S60 web-page

Support information

SBSH Support team is available 24/7 to help you with any inquiry

Visit SBSH Forums to share ideas and share your experience with other SBSH users and our development team

About SBSH Mobile Software

SBSH Mobile Software is a rapidly growing software firm specializing in the mobile market, developing software solutions for Windows Mobile, Symbian S60, BlackBerry RIM and iPhone/iPod Touch devices. We offer a variety of best-selling applications for the fast growing mobile market, enhancing end-users experience and providing added-value for mobile devices.

If you are even remotely interested in gaming on your portable device, you know who Astraware is. Bringing us such quality game titles as Bejeweled 1 and 2, Tank Wars and Casino, these guys from the UK have been tops in the industry for quite some time.

A short time ago, however, Astraware became a part of the Handmark portfolio, a mobile software distributor located in the United States. The Astraware site and brand continued to function during this time, but Handmark was definitely the parent company.

Fast forward to present day: Astraware is now Astraware again. Handmark and Astraware have separated, allowing Handmark to focus on their distribution business goals for the future and the latter to get down to the business of making great games. I can hardly wait to see what they turn out!

See the full press release below:

Handmark Spins Off Mobile Games Studio as it Refines Focus

KANSAS CITY, MO and LONDON, UK - (January 27, 2010) – Handmark®, the world’s leading developer and distributor of mobile applications and services, today announced it has spun off its mobile games studio, Astraware, as the company streamlines its business to focus on other strategic areas of mobile development and support.

Astraware returns to the management of Howard Tomlinson and David Oakley, two of the original founders, and will remain a Handmark preferred partner. Handmark will continue to support Astraware on a variety of distribution and promotional opportunities.

“We saw a great opportunity to join forces with Astraware to help create and extend a collection of fun, well-designed mobile games titles to a new audience, and we did just that,” said Paul Reddick, Handmark CEO. “I still see a great opportunity for their team to continue proving their leadership as a major player in mobile games and we will continue to work alongside them.”

Handmark acquired Astraware in January 2008. Together the companies have launched more than 20 games, including the popular GTS World Racing and Platypus for iPhone, as well as its multi award-winning Astraware Sudoku for BlackBerry smartphones.

“Handmark has always been and will continue to be a trusted partner,” said Howard Tomlinson, Astraware CEO. “We look forward to continuing to deliver the very best in mobile games, focusing on the core of our business which is making your mobile experience fun and exciting across new platforms and technologies!”

This follows a recent announcement in which Handmark publicized its aggressive plans to take more than 500 publishers mobile in 2010. The company is refining its focus to lead the rapidly growing mobile publishing market, as the only partner to offer a full-service mobile solution for newspapers, magazines and other content providers.

The financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

About Handmark
Handmark is the leading developer and distributor of mobile applications and services, specializing in mobile solutions for publishers and other media companies. Handmark is the only company to support development across all major mobile platforms, as well as distribution, monetization and ongoing innovation for its partners. Handmark has proven its leadership in delivering fun, engaging, valuable experiences for mobile customers over the last 10 years. For more information, visit www.handmark.com.

About Astraware
Founded in 1994 and incorporated in 2000, Astraware® is a UK-based games studio that develops, publishes and distributes games for a wide range of smartphones and mobile devices, including iPhone™, Windows Mobile®, Android™, S60®, and BlackBerry®. Some of the titles to come out of the Astraware studio include multi-award-winning Astraware Sudoku, Tradewinds 2 (developed under license from Sandlot Games), and Pazzazz Games’ GTS World Racing. Mobile gaming enthusiasts have downloaded more than 70 million copies of Astraware’s products, and the company has customers in more than 100 countries.

© 2009 Handmark, Inc.; Handmark® and the distinctive hand design are registered trademarks of Handmark, Inc. in the U.S. and other territories. All rights reserved. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

I am a fanboy, but I am not a fanboy of a single company or device. I am a mobile tech fanboy. Exploring the ins and outs of different mobile platforms almost always gives me ideas about what I want in a perfect mobile device. One exception over the past couple of years has been the BlackBerry platform. I tried the BlackBerry Bold 9000 twice over the past year and a half. Both times I returned the BlackBerry within a week because it just would not do what I needed my primary (or secondary) device to do.

Fast forward to the present and the release of BlackBerry Bold 9700 on T-Mobile and AT&T. I was very interested in the BlackBerry Bold 9700 for a few reasons:

• The hardware is elegant. It has the professional look of the Bold 9000, but a slightly smaller form factor. It also added an optical navigation pad instead of the trackball.
• BlackBerry OS 5 looked like a decent upgrade from OS 4.5 that was on the Bold 9000.
• It was available on T-Mobile as their first 3G BlackBerry.
• I wanted to see how the BlackBerry app experience was compared to other platforms since they launched BlackBerry App World
• Finally, the recent announcements from RIM regarding BlackBerry developers have all been positive from what I have read.

So, what is a gadget geek like myself do when I am curious about a device?  I visited the local T-Mobile store and bought yet another BlackBerry. Could the Bold 9700 be the BlackBerry to finally win me over for more than a week?

I am mainly going to take a look at the hardware right now.  It is the first thing you experience, so let’s what kind of impression the Bold 9700 can make.

I have always enjoyed front-facing keyboard phones. When I was a Windows Mobile user, I always wondered why nobody could make a phone that was half as elegant as the BlackBerry Bold. The Bold 9700 comes in second as far as look and feel for this form factor. While I still believe the Nokia E71 is the best designed phone in this category, it also suffered from the wimpy QVGA screen resolution like Windows Mobile non-touch devices. The 9700 has a beautiful 480×320 resolution screen. I think this should be the standard for this category of devices. Hopefully Nokia and Windows Mobile Standard manufacturers will finally be able to match this screen quality in 2010. There is no excuse for 320×240 to live on any longer.

I love buttons. I especially love it when I can customize buttons to do what I want. Other than the QWERTY keyboard, the 9700 also has 2 buttons that are customizable out of the box. In addition to those 2 buttons, there are third party apps that add the ability to customize other buttons like the lock and mute buttons on top of the 9700. You can even assign actions to double, triple, and quadruple clicks. This makes the few customizable buttons much more efficient…as long as you can remember what you assigned to each button.

The Bold 9700 is the first Bold that came with the optical navigation pad/trackpad instead of the traditional trackball. I remember using the Samsung Epix which also had an optical trackpad, but the user experience is so much better on the BlackBerry. I was a fan of the old trackball concept, but I never gave it a good enough shot to become a fan. I can’t imagine that the trackball could match the quality of the trackpad. I think this is the future of non-touch devices. The Bold 9700 trackpad is really a joy to use.

With the exception of the Storm, RIM has always been known for putting excellent keyboards on their devices. The 9700 is no exception. It did take me a day or so to get used to the keyboard, but that was mainly caused by the fact that I have been using phones with a sliding keyboard for the past few months. I had to get used to using the “alt” key more than normal since nearly all numbers and punctuation is accessed by an alt-click or the “sym” button. One of the nice features that is also available on other keyboard phones is the ability to hold down a letter to have it capitalized. I have been enjoying this on the Nokia N97 mini and E75, so I was pleased to have it on the Bold 9700. I do wish there was a better way to access frequently used punctuation like the period and comma, but I have adjusted to the keyboard the way it is.

This is a multi-part review, so stay tuned for more. If you have any questions or you want me to take a look at something specific, leave a comment.

With the recent release of eWallet 7 for Windows Mobile by iLium Software, I decided to give the application a try on my HTC Touch Pro.  With iLium generously offering a review copy, the last few weeks have been living with the program to see how it eases daily life.  While starting to use eWallet on my phone, I started to think about how the review should be crafted.  First the introduction, next the features, finally the conclusion, the basic formatting of most reviews that one finds.  Most of the time that is great, especially if you are reviewing an application that hasn’t been out for very long.  However, with the case of eWallet I’m going to suspect that a great deal of users already know the basic functionality of a secure data / wallet application, so we’re not going to go through the basics.  Instead, we’re going to look at the concept behind eWallet, not so much the how you use it but instead why you would find this application worthwhile, how it will better your life.  Grab yourself a glass of iced tea and join me as we get started…

Let’s face it, we live in an information driven world.  New information and knowledge are popping into existence at a faster pace than ever in the course of history, and sometimes it seems like we individuals are supposed to frantically try to keep up with this pace.  We are bombarded with information from all sides, from many different media.  We desperately try to remember bits of information, some very important, some trivial.  While we are trying to keep this information tucked away in the corners of our mind, ready for instant recall, we start to notice that instead of living life we are managing a life.  We are intent on not letting anything slip through the cracks of our fractured minds.  We are so intent on this, that in the end we don’t enjoy life as much as we should, living as shells for the computer in our uppermost extremity.

This is where eWallet 7 comes into play.  We need a system to organize all of those bits of information floating around in our brains, freeing ourselves from the burden of having to recall random items when a need just might arise.  We need to be able to put information into categories (or contexts, for you GTD fans), creating a system of reference that we can refer to.  We need the layout of the information to be intuitive, to instantly provide us with the information we need for the task at hand, whether we are filling in a password to a web forum or entering credit card details during an online transaction.

In conclusion, eWallet has the ability to enhance your life, freeing your mind of the burden of remembering random passwords and bits of information, therefore allowing you to focus on your most important job… living.

• A fully functional trial of eWallet 7 is available here.
• The registration price of eWallet 7 is $19.95.
• The license for eWallet 7, in a stroke of genius from the guys and gals at iLium Software, allows you to use the Windows Mobile, Windows desktop (Vista, 7, etc), Blackberry and Mac OS X versions without having to repurchase the application.