Hi there, everyone.  My name is Tim Jensen, and Peter has asked me to be a contributor to BerryTastic.com.

Today, I wanted to introduce you to a free application that you can use on you Blackberry.  We all know that cell phones are used for text messaging.  Many Blackberries are unique in that they have a full keyboard, unlike most normal cell phones, which use a T9 dictionary.

What if you could just SPEAK your text message to your Blackberry and have it use voice recognition software to turn the spoken word into a text message?

I work for a US cell phone company.  One of my customers was showing me what he had on his Blackberry.  He was able to speak into it, and out came his text message.  The he just clicked his send button, and off it went.

The application is called Vlingo, and can be found at http://www.vlingo.com.  With it, you can also hook up with Yahoo's OneSearch feature and speak into your phone, tell it to find all of the hotels in a certain city, and watch it work. 

The best thing about Vlingo is that it is a free app!  Go check it out today!  Then, come back here and post a comment to this post to let me know what you think of vlingo!  What other types of apps do you know about that you would like reviewed here?  Let me know!

More another time,

This is a question people often only discover after they have bought a blackberry from Ebay or have acquired a Blackberry second hand.It often catches many people out and i am afraid to say a lot of the frontline telecoms operators frontline customer service agents have no idea about this issue either.This then causes even more frustration to the new Blackberry user.

What is Unlatching

When Rim (the manufacturer of blackberrys) produce a handset, on most occassions they will tie it into a network for example T-mobile.When the new owner of the phone gets it he will have to visit a special T-mobile Blackberry site to setup his email and to tie his particular phones Pin number to the blackberry service.Whilst this all sounds very complicated its actually very simple.The pin number of the phone is its unique address.The user is simply telling RIM to direct all emails connected to his blackberry address to that pin number.

This works great until the owner sells the phone on.Even if the new user sim unlocks the phone meaning that it will take a sim card from a different network provider you still need to inform RIM of the addresss and pin number of that new phone so that you can start receiving your emails.However unless the phone has been unlatched ie removed from Rim's systems then you will not be able to set this system up.Rim will still believe the phone is registered elsewhere and wont let this change take place.This is where you need to get the phone unlatched or taken off the original network.

The problem is that for security reasons you will normally need the original owner to do this.Otherwise how do you prove to Rim or to your own provider that you took possession of the phone legitimately.Therefore if you are considering buying a blackberry from Ebay or if you have already done so and are in this predicament contact the original owner and ask them to contact their original network and have them remove it from their system.This is normally done free of charge and is a very quick job provided you get to speak to the technical department

 Original Post by Peter W

Blackberry messenger is without doubt in my humble opinion the best and unfortunately most secret application in the mobile world today.With SMS or text messaging being ridiculously expensive the advantages of the free blackberry messenger service just continue to grow.Whats more i cannot believe RIM have not promoted these advantages more because in my opinion they are sitting on a goldmine.

What is Blackberry Messenger

Blackberry messenger is a little piece of software very similar to MSN or Yahoo instant messenger which connects Blackberry users to each other worldwide and for free.It works by using the PIN number of your individual blackberry.This unfortunately means that it only works between blackberries.Once you have added each other to your own individual lists you can then message away to your hearts content .

But not only is this totally free (well ok included in your blackberry subscription) as it simply uses data but you can also send picture messages instantly to your friends for yes you guessed it FREE.How cool is that.Think of all the parents worried sick by their teenage son or daughters texting obsession.Worried about the phone bill.Well dont be.Get them onto the blackberry along with their friends and bingo.Everything is sorted.You know the price the bill will be so your worries stop.Whats more they can message away all they like and they will think you are the best parents in the world......well at least until then next time you dont give them whatever they demand:)

Thats all for this post but next time I will be talking about Really Simple Syndication or RSS and teaching you how to utilise your blackberry even more to keep up to date with the latest news,sport or interest.

Firstly I would like to welcome you all to my blog which incase you have not worked out is all about blackberry phones.I have always been very interested,some would even say addicted to mobile phones and the length of time that I have kept any one particular phone is always a bit of a standing joke at work."what phone have you got this week Peter ? is a question that was regularly asked of me.However whilst there was a lot of joking and wind ups about this those very same people were always the first to ask my opinion on which new phone they should buy or what was the best tariff they could go on to save them money,so it was obvious for all their joking around that they respected my opinions.

Whilst still a phone addict things changed for me about 3 years ago when i got my first blackberry.I had obviously heard a lot about blackberries and how addictive they were but i had never really paid them that much attention.After all they only did email right? Well for some reason i decided to try one and i trundled off to the T-mobile store and got myself a nice shiny new Blackberry 8700.

How things changed.I kept that same phone for nearly two years a world record for me.Infact i still have it to this day and i still totally love it.(I dont use it as my main phone now but i keep it for posterity sake :).Don,t get me wrong I dont just have blackberries heck my addiction is too bad to just have one phone) but the berry is my staple diet.

And so after a few years of talking to people non stop about berries I decided to write this blog.In it i hope to help and assist people with any berry problems they have.I will give my opinions on each new berry as it is released and I will be critical as well as positive should RIM (the makers of Blackberries) make any mistakes or errors.