Posts Tagged ‘featured’

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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Posted in Fun and Games, Productivity, Reference | No Comments »

Announcing the CREDO Mobile/Netroots Nation Blogger Awards

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Three bloggers to win BlackBerry Curve smartphone and 12 months unlimited service from CREDO Mobile.


CREDO Mobile and Netroots Nation are teaming up to award a BlackBerry® Curve™ 8330 smartphone, plus one year’s service, to three deserving recipients.

There will be one winner, determined by the highest number of votes submitted via text message, in each of three categories:

  • Best National Blogger
  • Best State or Local Blogger
  • Blog Activist of the Year

Please cast your votes today! Just text the keyword (“national,” “state” or “activist”) plus your favorite blogger’s name or “handle” to short code 27336. Examples:

  • National ravenbrooks
  • State Nolan Treadway
  • Activist mary rickles

One vote per category per voter; you’re welcome to vote in all three categories if you wish. Please note:

  1. Vote for your favorite blogger (a person)—not your favorite blog (a site).
  2. If your favorite blogger usually posts under a handle or alias, please use that in your text message, not his or her real name.

Voting closes: Saturday, August 15th 10:00 a.m. ET

Winners will be announced Saturday evening, August 15, at the Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh.

Contest Rules:

Voting:

  1. Voting eligibility is restricted to US-based mobile phone numbers.  One vote per category (total three) per phone number; multiple votes in the same category from the same  phone will be discarded.
  2. CREDO reserves the right to discard any votes that are not submitted in the format specified above.
  3. Voters do not need to be registered attendees of the Netroots Nation 2009 conference in order to vote.
  4. There’s no charge to vote, but standard text messaging charges from your carrier will apply (unless you’re a CREDO Mobile member, in which case text messages to 27336 are free.)

Prizes:

  1. One BlackBerry Curve Smartphone and one year’s domestic unlimited voice and data service from CREDO, plus contract buyout reimbursement up to $200.
  2. A prize winner residing in a location without CREDO coverage may choose an alternate prize of a $1000 directed donation from CREDO to their favorite 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
  3. Winners must be actively engaged in posting online progressive political commentary or activism on one or more publicly-available websites.
  4. Winners need not be present at (or registered attendees of) the Netroots Nation conference to win.
  5. Prizes are not transferable.
  6. Employees of CREDO Mobile and Netroots Nation, as well as their immediate families, are not eligible to win.
  7. CREDO reserves all rights at its sole discretion to cancel, modify or postpone this contest.
  8. Void where prohibited.

——————————————————–

UPDATE 8/13/09 5:00 PM From the Netroots Nation Conference in Pittsburgh!

Here’s the leaderboard as of about two hours ago (all vote totals unofficial at this point).  Clear leaders are emerging in each category — but the contest is still wide open, so make sure to cast your votes today!  Please remember voting rule #1 above — one vote per category per mobile phone number.

National
- Leo Gerard 51
- Jesus’ General 14
- Punditmom 6

State
- David Dayen 59
- Vince Liebowitz 20
- Goldy 16
- tparty 15

Activist
- Kerry Trueman 30
- Jaelithe 8
- nyceve 4

——————————————————–

UPDATE # 2  8/16/09 — Winners announced

Our winners as announced this evening from the Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh.

National: Leo Gerard

State/Local: David Dayen (a.k.a. dday) of California

Activist: Kerry Trueman (Eating Liberally)

Vote totals for the top vote-getters in each category are listed below.  Many thanks to all who participated!

National

Leo Gerard 56

Jesus’ General 14

Paul Blumenthal 7

State/Local

Dave Dayen 65

Vince Leibowitz 21

Goldy 17

tparty 15

ak muckraker 11

Julie Pippert 5

Activist

Kerry Trueman 109

Ari Rabin Havt 36

Jaelithe Judy 9

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Posted in Uncategorized | 22 Comments »

DIY: Bike-powered Cell Phone Charger

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

We love this DIY project on make.com: replace your traditional plug-in cell phone charger with your bike. It’s an innovative way to use less electricity and lighten your cell phone’s carbon footprint. It’s also a handy device if you’re camping or spending a few days without electricity.

blog-bike

Author Alastair Bland successfully modified his bike headlight generator to charge his cell phone – with just $25 worth of electronics equipment from Radio Shack.

Bland’s test ride was a success: starting with a dead cell phone, he was back at a full charge after a three-hour bike ride around San Francisco, rarely exceeding 4 mph.

His post includes lots of helpful pictures and provides clear step-by-step instructions. Check out the full post here, including the parts list and detailed instructions:

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/06/how-to_pedal-powered_phone_charger.html

You may have heard that uneven charges or using modified chargers are somewhat bad for your phone. That may be sort of true so try this at your own risk but general consensus here is that it will likely be just fine.

Curious to try this yourself? Tell us about your experience. Or, if you’ve tested another kind of environmentally friendly phone charger, let us know!

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Posted in Green, Travel and Maps | 2 Comments »

Posting to YouTube from your BlackBerry Curve…

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

(…or other mobile device…)

Since my parents live on the other side of the country and don’t get to see their granddaughter very often, I’ve been exploring ways to use my new BlackBerry Curve to keep them in touch.

First, I discovered the Flickr app for BlackBerry — so now I just take a picture, hit the BlackBerry key, scroll down to “Send to Flickr” and upload it. No computer required…I just start the upload and put the phone back in my pocket…and the pictures are actually pretty good in terms of pixel quality.

Then, I started trying do the same thing with videos. There’s no YouTube app for the Blackberry just yet…BUT, YouTube does provide an email address unique to each account where you can send videos, and they’ll automatically post to your account. So I set it up this morning and it was a breeze.

Just log on to YouTube from your computer, click on account, and then look for a link on the left-hand side called “Mobile Setup.” You may need to specify and/or register your mobile phone number…but at the end of that process, YouTube will tell you a unique email address to which you can send your mobile videos. Save that into your BlackBerry as a contact…and then once you’ve taken a video from your phone, just email it to that address, and presto! Your BlackBerry video is now uploaded to your YouTube account.

I haven’t used it in a social change setting yet, but it’s easy to imagine where/when it might be very handy to get a video right onto the web from my phone. For example, situations like the Oscar Grant shooting…politicians’ “macaca” moments…or, on a broader scale, the very important human rights work done by Witness.org.

(You’ll want to keep an eye on your data usage, however, as videos are usually pretty big in terms of file size. If you want to upload more than one or two videos per month, it’s probably a good idea to get on an unlimited data plan so you don’t have to worry about going over your limit.)

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Posted in Video | 6 Comments »

Finding Yourself with Blackberry Maps

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Aren’t you glad that you didn’t buy your BlackBerry from AT&T? Yes, there is the warrantless wiretapping, their contributions to right-wing politicians, and the censoring of Pearl Jam. Almost as important is the fact that BlackBerry Maps doesn’t come with your AT&T phone. BlackBerry Maps is a free and very user-friendly mapping and navigation application that comes pre-installed on your CREDO Mobile BlackBerry Curve. Unlike other mapping apps, it integrates seamlessly with the other features of your BlackBerry.

Here are my top uses of BlackBerry Maps:

1) Where am I? – Lost while biking? Just choose Find Location, then Where I Am. Boom, you get a nice detailed map of the neighborhood.
2) How do I get there? – Now that you know that you are in a sketchy neighborhood, find out how to get out fast. Choose New Directions, then Where I Am as your start location. You can then type in a new address or even select a friend’s address from your address book. Finally, don’t forget to select Avoid Highways unless you are good shape. You now have turn-by-turn directions to your destination.
3) Where is the nearest Whole Foods? – You are out of steam and need an organic energy drink. Choose Local Search and type “Whole Foods”. Shazam! You can choose between the closest locations and get directions or call.
4) Tell a friend – Your biking buddy calls and wants to meet you, but you don’t know where you are. Choose Send Location and then Email or SMS Text. They will receive a link to a map of your whereabouts.
5) Send directions – You are out of steam and need to call home for a ride. Choose Send Directions and your directionally-challenged driver can get there ASAP.

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Posted in Travel and Maps | 4 Comments »

Impacting change while you are mobile

Monday, July 6th, 2009

As the good citizen that I try to be, I am always looking for ways to speak out on issues that mean a lot to me.  So when I got wind of this application that allows me to write to my legislators, view their voting record, compare my votes with theirs, all on my Blackberry.  I was super excited.Visual Vote on the Blackberry

Visible Votes seems to be the perfect solution for the on-the-go activist.  The Blackberry application can be found here http://www.visiblevote.us/blackberrybetainfo.php If you have the CREDO Mobile BlackBerry Curve, point your browser to the second link http://visiblevote.us/bb/legacyv11/visiblevote.jad

See a demo of the app on YouTube

Another cool thing about Visible Vote is that it syncs up with your Facebook account, never mind that the process was not a seamless one. It took me about 20 minutes to download the app to my Blackberry, and set up my Facebook profile – way too much time for a vehicle that is supposed to be nimble.

I would give this app 4 out of 5 stars only because it is very cool to be able to write to your representatives on the go from your smartphone which is not insignificant.

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Posted in News, Political | 7 Comments »

My second favorite use of my CREDO BlackBerry camera

Monday, June 29th, 2009

If you were to scroll through the photos stored on my phone, you’d find quite a few that look like this:

Parking Lot B, Level 1

GPS is fancy and all, but where I really need location-based help is in a confusing parking garage.

Ever forgot where you parked your call in a mall? Or has your mom ever lost her car in short term parking when picking you up at the airport?

GPS might help you find the nearest Peet’s Coffee, but it won’t help you find your parked car.

Here’s an easy way to make sure you can find your car when parking in a multi-level parking structure: Just use your cell phone camera.

Whenever you park in a confusing indoor parking structure, just take a picture of the sign that’s supposed to help you navigate back to your car.

When it’s time to return to the parking lot just click on the camera icon in your phone’s applications. Usually it defaults to the last picture taken. If yours doesn’t, just open the camera function, hit the “menu” button and you should be given the option to “view pictures.”

Try it out, and don’t forget to tell your mom.

(What’s my favorite use of my CREDO BlackBerry camera? Check out sf.mybikelane.com.)

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Posted in Productivity | 5 Comments »

Drive by Texting

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

I live in the city, am a proud bicycle commuter (and user of myBikeLane.com, on occasion), and have never owned a car.  But for those times when I need to make a  really big grocery run or pick up a special visitor at the airport, I use a car sharing service.  It’s great — I pay as I go, get to drive spiffy cars, and never have to worry about parking or getting broken into.

My car share company, Zipcar, has always used text messages to remind me about upcoming reservations and to let me know when I’m due back at the lot.  If I wanted to extend my reservation, though, I had to get on the phone and talk to a real live agent who would then make the changes in the computer.  While not necessarily cumbersome, it wasn’t the easiest process.

So I was overjoyed to hear today that I can now extend my reservations by text message.  It works like this:

  1. While on my bi-monthly drive, I  get the text reminding me that my reservation ends in 1/2 hour and asking me if I want to extend it.
  2. I pull the car over to a safe spot, out of the way of traffic.  It’s the law, after all!
  3. I text back “ext 1h” to let them know I want another hour.
  4. They text back “confirmed” and I go about my important errands, without having to worry about rushing home.

It may seem simple, but it’s a perfect use of text messaging.  Zipcar tells me what I need to know, and I tell them what they need to know.  And it makes it that much easier to keep from having to own my own car and reduce my carbon footprint!

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Posted in Green, Messaging, Travel and Maps | 8 Comments »

Top 5 Must-Have Apps for your CREDO Mobile BlackBerry Curve

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

You’ve probably seen from our website that we now offer the most popular smartphone in the US, the BlackBerry Curve.  This sophisticated and powerful device is a must have for organizing, managing, and keeping up with the latest on the go.

Here are some basic applications that I found useful to have loaded on my BlackBerry Curve.

1. BlackBerry App WorldBB App World

BlackBerry App World is the one stop shop for finding applications to outfit your BlackBerry device.  The App World includes everything from games and social networking applications to weather and business applications.  Although I found that the browsing App World was at times a bit slow and not the easiest interface for finding what I’m looking for, it is still one of the most convenient place to go to find apps.

To download the BlackBerry App World Application

  1. Select the Blackberry HELP! icon in your main menu. It should be the one that looks like a plus sign. This will launch the BlackBerry home page
  2. Under “What’s New” click on the link “BlackBerry App World – Download Today!”
  3. Scroll down and select the Download button. You will then see another screen with “Download”.  Click on the button to start downloading the application.
  4. Once download completes, it will prompt you to reboot your BlackBerry.  The Blackberry App World icon will appear on your main menu after the reboot.

2.  Facebook  for Blackberry Smartphones

If you’re like me, I find out what my friends and my favorite organizations are up to through my facebook page. I can check the latest post from CREDO Mobile on the Food, Inc. Movie while waiting for the train by using the Facebook application on my BlackBerry.

Facebook app in BlackBerry App World

Facebook app in BlackBerry App World

To download the latest Facebook app

  1. Go to the BlackBerry Help! icon to get to the main BlackBerry Home page where the Facebook application is featured in the “What’s new” section.  Alternatively, type  http://www.blackberry.com/facebook in your browser.
  2. Follow the questions on the subsequent pages.  Select your desired language and start downloading the app.
  3. After the download completes, the facebook application icon will be added to your main menu.

3. Twitterberry

It’s not just celebrities anymore – approximately 200 members of congress  are reportedly tweeting and communicating with constituents over twitter.   You can follow them and remind them to support your cause from your BlackBerry using Twitterberry.

twitterTo download Twitterberry

  1. Go to http://orangatame.com/ota/twitterberry/ from your BlackBerry
  2. Click on download.
  3. Once the download completes, the twitterberry application icon will be added to your main menu.

4.Google Maps
google-maps

This is one application that you can’t find in BlackBerry App World – probably because it competes with the Maps application that comes installed on the device.  I’ve found the Google Maps to be faster in retrieving map data with a few more features than the pre-installed Maps application.

Google Maps works much like the Google Maps on the internet.

  • You can get Transit and Walking directions in addition to the Driving directions
  • There is an option (press 8 while navigating within the directions) to see the street view where available
  • You can get up to date traffic information overlayed on the map

To download Goggle Maps

  1. Go to m.google.com/maps from your cell phone browser or alternatively, go to the google website from a PC to type in your phone number and send an SMS with the download link to your phone.
  2. Click on the “Install Now” link to start the download.
  3. After the download completes, the google maps  icon will be added to your main menu.

Try it out the next time you’re trying to find a protest location.

5. Opera Mini

operamini1mj

Sure, there is a default browser that comes installed on the BlackBerry, but who says you have to use it?  Just like I choose to use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer on my PC, I choose to use Opera Mini on my BlackBerry.  It has faster page loads, some useful features such as speed dial that allows you to bring up your bookmarked pages by dialing * and a number, and most importantly does a descent job of loading full (not mobile) websites.

To download Opera Mini

  1. Go to mini.opera.com on your BlackBerry
  2. Click on the download link
  3. After the download completes, an Opera Mini icon with a Red letter “O” will be added to your main menu.

Go to Bookmarks-> Edit Speed dial -> to customize your speed dial options.

Let us know what you find useful – you might even discover a great new app while browsing App World.

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Posted in Messaging, Productivity, Travel and Maps | 9 Comments »

Liberate the bike lanes via mobile phone

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Bike lanes are key in getting more bikes on the road.  They provide safety, comfort, and a sense of belonging for those on two wheels.  Unfortunately, a lot of motor vehicle drivers don’t take bike lanes seriously.  On my daily commute in the Bay Area, I usually see at least one car parked in the bike lane.  As a result, bikers are forced into traffic, risking their safety and slowing down other traffic.

Fortunately, your mobile phone can help liberate bike lanes from such oppression.  Check out mybikelane.com.   At this site you can post pictures of cars parked in the bike lane.  There are different sites for various cities (e.g., sf.mybikelane.com).  Here’s how to do your part.

Register:

  1. Go to mybikelane.com from your desktop
  2. Click on register in the upper right
  3. Create user name and password and pick a primary city

Take a picture of the scofflaw:

  1. Use the camera on your phone to take a few pictures of the vehicle and its license plate
  2. Save it on your phone

Post the pictures via mobile phone:

  1. Point your phone’s browser to the relevant site for your city (e.g., sf.mybikelane.com)
  2. Log in with your user name and password
  3. Click “Report a bike lane violation”
  4. Primary photo:  Click browse to begin looking for the picture.  I store my pictures on the media card
  5. Add secondary pictures as necessary
  6. Complete the posting with the license plate of the vehicle, a brief (but witty!) description of the offense, and the address (for mapping)
  7. Click the “Add” button on the bottom

OR; email the pictures to yourself and post from your desktop later that day:

  1. You should have an “email” option after taking a picture (looks like a little picture of a letter on a BlackBerry)
  2. Email to your personal email box
  3. From your desktop, open email and download the pictures to your desktop
  4. Point your desktop browser to sf.mybikelane.com (or other city’s site)
  5. Finish posting as per the directions in the “Post the pictures via mobile phone” section.

ralston2
Thanks for your help in making the road safe for bikers!!!

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Posted in Green, Travel and Maps | 6 Comments »

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