Archive for the ‘Fun and Games’ Category

BlackBerry Themes

Monday, June 28th, 2010

With the  summer season just rolling in, I figured I would download something fitting to my BlackBerry Tour and match the nice weather. Beat the heat with a cool breeze feel of the Azure Today theme available for free in the BlackBerry App World.

There over a thousand themes available in the BlackBerry App World, many of which are free. A theme will change the layout of the icons on your handset, and give your phone an entirely brand new feel. The themes range from Holiday themes, Sports themes, Movies & TV and more!

All you need to do is:

1. Install BlackBerry App World.
2. Enter the Categories section of BlackBerry App World.
3. Select Themes.
4. Browse the different sections and download a theme that peaks your interest.
5. After the download is complete, go to Options > Theme > and select your new theme.

Just be aware that sometimes your icons may move around depending on the theme, so you will need to get used to the new layout. You can also switch back to your default theme at any time as well.

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Foursquare?

Monday, May 31st, 2010

You may have heard of it or maybe you’ve have heard of the idea. “Foursquare is a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide and a game that rewards you for doing interesting things”. At the moment it appears as if this could be the next big thing (in the social networking world that is).

Using it is simple, you check-in when ever you go to a business or event. Using you phone’s GPS, Fousquare will only show you businesses that are nearby to keep us all honest! You can add your Facebook and Twitter friends in on the fun, and whenever they check-in – you know.

So what’s in it for you?

First of all, badges. You earn badges by performing certain tasks.

Second, you earn points. Currently, Foursquare is experimenting with point redemption. Recently, Fousquare had a promotion where they actually donated money based on points earned to CampInteractive. (read more here http://mashable.com/2009/12/07/foursquare-charity-drive/)

Third (and my personal favorite), more and more businesses are using Fousquare to promote themselves. In example, last month I went to a restaurant in the Bay Area that offered a 10% discount to anyone who checks-in there during dinner hours.

Foursquare is fun and it seems like more and more of my friends are using it everyday. For those concerned with privacy I would recommend going to http://www.foursquare.com for details on how your location data is used.

Foursquare is available in the BlackBerry App World and also the Android Market.

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Follow your sports teams on your BlackBerry

Monday, April 5th, 2010

The beginning of April is always one of my favorite times of the year: It’s the start of baseball season. And this year, I’m tracking the progress of my beloved Seattle Mariners using a free app for my BlackBerry called ScoreMobile.

With ScoreMobile, you can check in on how your favorite teams are doing across numerous sports — football, baseball, basketball, hockey, golf, auto racing, and soccer. With a few clicks, you see the live scores from across all the games being played that day, the schedule for upcoming games, the leaderboards of key statistics, and the standings of teams in the league.

Wondering when an important game starts? The start times are customized based on your phone’s time zone setting, so you don’t have to worry about converting time in your head.

Miss a game? Just pull up the summary of it to see the stats from all the players of the game and a recap of all the action.

You can also personalize the ScoreMobile app by noting your favorite teams to make it easier to keep track of how your favorites are doing.

As a free app, there are ads that take up a small chunk of the BlackBerry screen. But for all of the great data you get in one app, I think it’s worth it. You can download ScoreMobile for BlackBerry from the BlackBerry App World.

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Green is the New Red this Valentine’s Day

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Valentine’s Day is one of those holidays that you either embrace … or try to forget about. For me, it means that my daughters need to produce an exponential number of handmade Valentines each year.

According to a survey just completed by ICR/International Communications Research, 68% of Americans plan to send greeting cards this Valentine’s day. While this outpouring of sentiments may be good news for the greeting card industry, you can imagine the carbon footprint left in its wake. Here are a few alternative ideas:

Hallmark Mobile Greetings. Create an account and send greetings from your mobile phone to other mobile phones. When you send a greeting, a $0.99 charge is applied to your monthly wireless bill. (The first one’s free) Data charges also apply, so I’d recommend signing up for a data plan if you don’t have one. Hallmark has many greetings to choose from. For more details go to mobile.hallmark.com

Godiva Chocolatier. Order Godiva chocolates and other gifts directly from your BlackBerry. The free app allows you to scroll through an impressive selection of chocolates, truffles and other tasty gifts. I couldn’t resist sending my daughters the Limited Edition Pink Cupcakes.

Order movie tickets with Fandango and take your Valentine to see Valentine’s Day from Warner Brothers. Sustainable practices were encouraged throughout filming, including the use of reusable water bottles, solar-powered generators and supplying the stars with hybrid cars. “Warner Brothers really wanted to see our film as changing the culture,” said Diana Pokorny, the film’s executive producer. “We tried to push what we can do and what we can do better next time.”

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Let it Snow! My-Cast Weather Keeps You Informed.

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Two new feet of snow in Tahoe this week and more on the way. With the My-Cast Weather app on my BlackBerry, forecasts are always at my fingertips, and I can dial-in timing for trips to Tahoe.

My-Cast is easy to use and has lots of useful information including advisories from the National Weather Service and predicted storm paths. Under the Forecasts tab, you’ll find:

  • Currents – great for checking if there’s fog or high winds (increasing the chance of lift closures)
  • Health Index – Includes the UV index (and reminds me to pack sunscreen)

    • mc7-fcst

  • Almanac – Will there be a full moon for night skiing?
  • Hourly Forecast
  • Daily Forecast
  • Forecast Text
  • Forecast Graph (for the analysts among us)

The latest version includes a weather quiz, which I have to admit put me to shame. So what if I scored in the 5th percentile? I learned that a tropical cyclone in Australia is called a willy-willy. Check out My-Cast in BlackBerry App World. I’m sure you can beat my score and pick up a little weather trivia as well.

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Posted in Exercise, Fun and Games, Travel and Maps | 1 Comment »

Holiday Comparison Shopping App for BlackBerry and Web-enabled Phones

Monday, November 16th, 2009

That gift giving time of year is approaching again and this year I’ve vowed to get the best deals. That’s why I downloaded the “Frugalytics Shopping for Smart People” application from the BlackBerry App store.

Frugalytics allows me to quickly search millions of products to compare prices and review ratings while I’m in a store or on the go. It’s fast, free, and helps me know that when I make a retail purchase decision I’m getting a good deal.

You can use the service from any web-enabled phone – just go to frugalytics.com. If you have a BlackBerry Curve I suggest you download the app from the BlackBerry App World. Simply open App World if you already have it on your phone and search Frugalytics or go to this URL to get a link to the app emailed to you.

http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/email/1712

As with any type of downloadable web enabled application, I recommend you have an unlimited data plan so you don’t need to worry about how much data you’re using with multiple searches.

Features:

  • Deal of the Day: This appears at the top of the page when you login.

  • Add item to Watch List: Once you add items they appear at the bottom of your screen. You can keep an eye on price changes and decide to buy if the price drops to a range that works for you.

  • Search Filters: Allows you to sort the results by factors relevant to that item. For example, my search for “audio headset” allows me to filter on items such as: Price, Brand, Plug type, Design, Ear Piece type, Store. Cool!

    • What I like:
    There is a lot to like about this app. It is fast and easy to navigate. The product images and descriptions are clear. Although not all product categories are represented equally, many are covered in great depth. If I have questions about a particular item I can easily click to retailer’s site for more information.

    Room for improvement:
    The primary downside I see with the application is that not all stores are searched. Regardless, the search seems to be large enough for many products that you can still get a really good idea as to whether the product you’re looking at is priced competitively or not.

    This seems like a solid application and I’d recommend giving it a try. If you know of other comparison shopping sites you like I’d love to hear about them.

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    Posted in Fun and Games, Utilities | No Comments »

    This should keep her busy for at least 15 minutes.

    Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

    I’m headed out a pretty long plane flight with my two-year-old next weekend. While she’s usually quite well behaved, any parent out there knows that it’s good to have a trick or two up your sleeves for those moments when you see the tantrum gathering, but there’s still time to head it off with something shiny and distracting. Enter…Daddy’s mobile phone.

    Baby Go App screenshot

    Baby Go App screenshot

    Since my daughter is always taking a close interest in my phone (which of course led to me taking a close interest in how to lock my phone), here’s what will be up my sleeve on Sunday: the free BabyGo application I found in the Blackberry App World the other day.

    Basically, the app will close down all other functions of your BlackBerry to keep them safe, and then — when any key is pressed on your phone — show that letter in a graphic on the screen that floats & bounces around, and say the letter out loud.

    Pretty basic…but could prove to be loads of fun for a two-year-old who’s just about done learning the alphabet, and wants to “use” Dad’s phone but can never seem to make it do anything.

    Of course, this got me to thinking…what other neat stuff should I put on my phone for additional distractions should we need them? So I went & did a little searching, and found some more cool stuff BlackBerry-related for parents and kids here on Crackberry.com and here on Brighthub.com (which is a little more oriented to games for the older kids.) Check ‘em out!

    So with a few free apps and a bit of luck, we hope to have the most well-behaved and quiet child on the plane — not just for our enjoyment, but that of our fellow travelers as well.

    (NOTE: Whenever traveling by plane, do please make sure to comply with all the rules as well as the flight attendants’ instructions about what devices can be powered up when. You’ll also want to be sure to turn off all the connections on your phone while in flight so it doesn’t waste battery life, and create electronic interference, searching for a signal it’s not going to find.)

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    Words of the Day: Galumph & Genial

    Monday, October 26th, 2009

    galumph [guh-LUHM(P)F] – intransitive verb

    1. To move in a clumsy manner or with a heavy tread.

    While I think today is the first time I’ve ever read the word “galumph”, I can certainly say that I’ve embodied the definition – generally it’s before I’ve had my first cup of coffee in the morning. Thankfully I can now aptly describe my pre-caffeinated state and expand my vocabulary regularly, due largely to the free Dictionary.com app I just downloaded onto my CREDO BlackBerry. Featured in BlackBerry’s App World, this application offers access to Dictionary.com’s reference content – which includes more than half a million words, definitions and synonyms. In case you’re not sure how to say words like “onomatopoeia” after looking them up to make sure you’re spelling them correctly, the Dictionary.com app offers audio to provide pronunciation assistance. The thesaurus tool is also useful – you probably could have guessed that “advanced”, “broad-minded”, “modern” and “forward looking” are all synonyms for the word “progressive” but now you know for sure.

    You can download the app from your CREDO Mobile BlackBerry via BlackBerry App World or online from the BlackBerry App World website.

    Dictionary.com App for BlackBerry

    Dictionary.com App for BlackBerry

    My favorite feature of this app is the “Word of the Day” – which I credit for adding “galumph” to my vocabulary. A Spanish version of “Word of the Day” is also available – today’s word is “genial”, which means “brilliant, awesome.” “Se me ha ocurrido una idea genial” is the example sentence provided by Dictionary.com – meaning “I’ve had a brilliant idea.” Looks like my brilliant idea today was downloading this app to my phone. Or having coffee.

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    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.
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    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.

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    ESPN Mobile Web Launcher on your BlackBerry Curve

    Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

    The ESPN mobile website is a great site for checking sports scores, news & analysis, and even full ESPN.com columns from writers like Bill Simmons and Rick Reilly. The ESPN mobile site is organized by sport and event. The site keeps the top current sports events right on the main page and stores a list of hot stories. You can also add you favorite teams to the bottom section of the mobile page by signing into the mobile site with your ESPN.com Member Name and Password. The mobile site is optimized for BlackBerry and navigation is straight-forward. A must-download launcher for sports fans and getting the latest scores on your BlackBerry.

    The best way to access the site is to download the ESPN launcher icon to your homescreen. There are two ways to download the launcher. You can either email a link to your BlackBerry or download the launcher direct from the ESPN mobile site.


    Option 1: Click here to email a link to download the BlackBerry ESPN launcher.

    Option 2: Download an ESPN icon onto your homescreen via the link on http://espn.mobi/bblauncher.

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