Posts by Haruko Kurata

Mother of 2, occasional tennis player, and mobile content enthusiast. My phone - the CREDO Mobile Blackberry Curve

Tripit for BlackBerry smartphones

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Whenever I get an update from LinkedIn, there are always a few updates of people who are returning from a trip or leaving on a trip via TripIt. TripIt is a site that gathers all of your travel information in one place, logs miles, and makes traveling everywhere on business or pleasure a competitive game between your friends.

I don’t necessarily want to broadcast my travel schedule, and I’m not so sure about the I travel more than you game, but I think maybe there is something to this TripIt app. There is a version of the app for BlackBerry phones so I go to http://m.tripit.com/uhp/blackberry and download the beta version of the app to try it out.

You start by creating a login at www.tripit.com.
Then you can send any email confirmation from your trip planning to plans@tripit.com and it starts building trips and organizing your information into one itinerary plan.

I sent camp site reservations, priceline car rental info, and flight info, all of which automatically registered as a trip or an activity on a trip in my tripit app. The app itself is pretty limited so I recommend setting up the trip mostly using the website. But once setup, the app is very handy to have. It automatically pulls up google maps to locate any address, launches websites for things like airport and hotel info. The best part about the app is that if you forget what time your flight departs, you don’t have your confirmation code, or you need to call your hotel, you can launch TripIt and it’s all right there in the app. It even generates directions and local area maps automatically to help you on your trip.

Try it out and let me know what you think.

new-picture

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Technorati]

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Green Offsets your mobile phone

Monday, December 14th, 2009

If you are in the market for a new mobile phone for yourself or to give as a gift for the holidays, you might consider picking up this new product: Green Your Phone. It’s an energy offset that covers the manufacturing of 2 phones and for the amount of electricity you will use to charge 2 phones over the next 2 yrs.

green-your-phone

By purchasing the $10 Green Your Phone card, you are purchasing energy from a Wind Farm to replace the electricity you will be using over the life of your phone and making sure it gets put back onto the grid.

Check it out at Best Buy.

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Technorati]

Tags: , ,
Posted in Green, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Top 3 Cool Messaging features on your Rumor2

Friday, December 4th, 2009

The LG Rumor2 is what I would call a solid messaging device. It is similar to the widely popular original Rumor in form factor and functionality with a few new tweaks and improvements. With the improved messaging capability,someone on the Rumor2 is going to be messaging easily and often.

Here are my favorite three messaging features:

It has threaded text messaging.
Your text messages are organized by conversation instead of by time, so you can recall that conversation you had with your friend about where to meet for a bite to eat tonight and make sense of it all. It even shows the date, if your conversation spanned over a few days.

The 4 row qwerty keyboard has a dedicated emoticon key.
You can insert the quick smiley face or wink with one button instead of having to draw the face yourself. The phone gives you 12 different preset facial expressions – even one for a crying face, in case you ever need to express great sorrow.

Add email messaging with the Gmail app
This is a really cool application that you can check your gmail account with that is available only on select non-smartphones. The Rumor2 is one of them. You can always check your gmail account by going to the mobile gmail site through the web browser on your phone, but this app delivers a better user experience.

To download the gmail app go to: m.google.com from your phone’s browser and click on gmail to download and install the app. Beware the gmail app does use data so if you want to avoid high data charges, I recommend adding a data plan.

And as if you need any more reasons to upgrade to this phone, it comes with an extra stylish cover.

The stylish cover that comes with the LG Rumor2

The stylish cover that comes with the LG Rumor2

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Technorati]

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Messaging | 2 Comments »

WiFi surfing on the HTC Touch Pro

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

The HTC Touch Pro is a powerful device. As a touch screen smartphone, it is the essential mini windows computer in your pocket. And because it’s WiFi capable, you can even get broadband speed data connection just like on your laptop.

Say you are:

  • Traveling abroad and you want to use your phone on your trip where you wouldn’t necessarily be able to have phone service.
  • You don’t want to incur a huge international data roaming bill but you want to check email and be able to map where you are traveling in google maps.
  • Make low cost international calls using Skype
  • Sitting at home or work or a cafe and you want really fast connection speeds – much faster than on a cell phone network

Here’s how you setup WiFi:

  1. From the top left corner of the home screen select start -> settings
    This will bring up a menu of options and select the connections tab at the bottom of the screen.
  2. Select the WiFi icon on the screen and look for a WiFi network to connect to and select the Connect soft key in the bottom left corner of the screen.

  3. You’ll need to enter in a network key if the connection requires a password. Select Finish to finish setup and establish the connection.

Once setup, it should remember the connection settings so that once you return to your house or your workplace, you will have instant broadband connection.

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Technorati]

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Productivity, Reference | 1 Comment »

Top 5 features of the new BlackBerry Messenger

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

The most inconvenient thing about using BlackBerry Messenger was that every time I switched devices, I had to invite all of my friends again so that they can get my new device PIN. No more. The newest version of BlackBerry Messenger version 5.0, released last month includes this and other new features that make it a much more fun and interesting IM tool.

Here are my Top 5 favorites.

  1. You can backup all of your BBM contacts to a remote location via email. If you ever lose or replace your phone, your contacts can be restored without having to send all those friend invites again.
  2. You can add friends by taking a picture of their unique BBM barcode and you get your own barcode too! If typing in an email address or PIN was too much, and you happen to be meeting in person, adding them as a contact is just a camera click away.
  3. You can set a profile picture. Now you’ll be able to tell between the 5 Kellys that may be in your contact list.
  4. Emoticons- a whole variety of them including the must have beer and coffee.
  5. See what song you’re friends are listening to.
     If they are sharing by clicking on the “Show what I’m listening to” box in their profiles setting.

    What are you listening to?

    [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Technorati]

Tags: ,
Posted in Messaging | 1 Comment »

A Game of Teeter on the HTC Touch Pro

Friday, October 16th, 2009

I have to admit I’m not much of a gamer. But there are some games that most everyone enjoys playing like Tetris and Bubble Breaker. Teeter is one of those games.

The HTC Touch Pro has a motion sensor much like the iPhone. An accelerometer or G-sensor in the phone detects the orientation of the phone. The game of Teeter makes use of this G-sensor. Navigate the marble through a series of mazes by tilting the phone, as if you were playing with a real marble.
gsmarena_s128
The game starts easy enough, maneuver around a few holes and you arrive at the goal. But the game escalates quickly adding a more complex maze of walls with more holes, then to a maze of holes with no walls to leverage. By the time you reach level 20, the maze has turned three dimensional and placing that marble in the green circle is nearly impossible.

Teeter can be found on the HTC Touch Pro in the following menu: Programs -> All Programs -> Teeter

Try it out and see if you can get to all 32 levels.

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Technorati]

Tags: , ,
Posted in Entertainment, Fun and Games | No Comments »

Top 5 links in the CREDO Mobile home page

Monday, September 28th, 2009

We’ve recently refreshed our CREDO Mobile home deck: http://m.credomobile.com. We’ve featured some of these links in past blog posts and now they are conveniently located in our mobile home page and just a few clicks away. Here are my top 5 picks:

  1. Facebook
    You don’t have to have a smartphone to check your facebook account. Sometimes, the mobile site works better than the downloadable Facebook application on the smartphones.
  2. Zipcar
    Locate and reserve a car, extend or cancel a reservation, and call customer service, all from zipcar’s mobile website.
  3. Handmark’s Content Store for smartphones.
    An alternative to Blackberry App World and it also has games, apps, and ringtones for Windows Mobile devices like the HTC Touch Pro that we recently started carrying.
  4. Opentable
    I love that you can search restaurants to see who has availability. You can even make reservations up to 15 min till your arrival time.
  5. Bing
    Microsoft’s new and improved search engine. I’m in the habit of using google search but it’s nice to have an alternative.
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Technorati]

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Quickvite: SMS Evites that aren’t Quick At All

Friday, September 18th, 2009

Evite’s Quickvite service is in concept a good idea. Text your friends a simple invitation to their mobile phones for casual get togethers. However, I found it inconvenient to use and not very “mobile”. evite

First, you have to setup groups and enter friends’ phone numbers on the Quickvite website. Then, you can create and send out a text message invitation to your friends from your computer. That’s right – from your computer. I don’t know that I would sit at a computer to text my friends an invitation through this website when I can text my friends the conventional way: through my phone.

I did find the Evite mobile site http://m.evite.com and some of the other mobile features like send to phone more useful. I can see my upcoming events, map the location, get directions, and even change my reply if I need to. Too often, I am running out the door without directions or the address to a party. With my phone in hand, I’ll be sure to get there. Maybe not on time, but who goes to parties on time anyway?

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Technorati]

Tags: ,
Posted in Entertainment, Messaging | No Comments »

Stephen Colbert Jr calls on your phone

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Several years ago, the San Francisco Zoo hatched Stephen Colbert Jr, the Bald Eagle that Stephen Colbert adopted as his son.

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Stephen Jr. Update
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Protests

Stephen Jr has since been released into the wild and has been spotted all along the West Coast most notably in Oregon and California and as far away as Canada.

The Center for Biological Diversity, a non-profit conservation organization dedicated to the protection of endangered species, has released a recording of Stephen Jr, from a recent spotting in Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge.

You too can set your phone’s ringer to Stephen Jr’s calls by downloading his ringtone.

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Technorati]

Tags: , ,
Posted in Entertainment, Music and Tones, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

How to transfer your contacts onto a new phone

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Maybe you are thinking of upgrading your 3 year old Sanyo Katana for one of those new phones with a Qwerty keyboard for texting. The reason you’ve held off so long in upgrading the handset is because you don’t want to go through the trouble of reprogramming your contacts into a new phone. Surely, a daunting task. Or maybe not.

Most of the phones today including the Sanyo Katana, support Bluetooth technology. You maybe probably most familiar with using Bluetooth to connect a Bluetooth wireless headset to your phone for hands free talking while driving. 6 states now require hands free headsets while driving and 18 ban texting while driving – though no bluetooth headset wouldn’t help you text. The same technology you use to connect your Bluetooth headset can be used to transfer your contacts into a new phone.

Here is how you do it.

  1. Enable Bluetooth on your old phone and your new phone. Usually, it’s located in Menu -> Settings ->Bluetooth
  2. Next, make sure that the phones can see each other by turning Visibility on. There are probably a few choices under visibility. Select Always visible.
  3. Now you’ll need to pair the phones so that you can communicate between the phones. In the Bluetooth menu on your old phone, go to Add New -> Search. The phone will scan the area for Bluetooth enabled devices and your new phone should appear in the Search results.
  4. Add your new phone as a trusted device by selecting it from the search results list.You may need to enter in a passkey to make this pairing between the two phones. You can choose any passkey. Just make sure you enter in the same passkey on both phones.
  5. Highlight your new phone on the trusted device list and select Options -> Send Item-> Contacts. Follow the onscreen instructions to select and send your contacts. You may have to enter in the passkey again for your new phone to receive the contacts files.

    6. Voila! All your contacts in your new Qwerty text phone. Instead of having to use your Qwerty keyboard to enter in your contacts, you can go straight to texting them.

    [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Technorati]

Posted in Green, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

« Older Entries