So a bit of a rant here. So for starters I do NOT own a blackberry, my wife does. Let me set the stage:
About 2 months ago my wife started looking for a new phone. She had an old razor that was working for her, but she needed something more. As the family schedule maker, group party planner ( for all of our extended family and friends ), she really needed a PDA type phone. Now at the time I had the Samsung Blackjack which I think is an awesome phone. I had reconfigured the entire home screen via the xml files, added apps for yahoo, syncing lotus notes email, then gmail, then gcal, yahoo cal, ect. At the end of the day with my cheappy little winmo device I had every app I needed for work and home without even using a memory card! Anyway she asked me what phone to get. I said I really like my phone, the only issue I have with it is when you try and dial phone numbers not in your addy book it is a pain because the full keyboard is always there. I recomended something that had either a touchscreen, or a dual slider, or combo of those ( tilt, G1, ect ) to fill the void. She looked at me and then said she would ask our friend who works at a cell phone store.
After talking with the guy he pushed the blackberry perl. It fit her requirements ( or so we thought ). It was a full pda, it was small, and it came in pink ( yes that was important! ). She asked me what I thought of blackberrys and I said " well I have only helped a couple people configure their mail on them, and I thought the interface looked cheap, but alot of people swear by them, and I have never really USED one so I dunno".
So she bought the phone! The blackberry perl to be exact ( you know the one that doesn't have a full keyboard ). Anyway she gets the phone and hates it for the first week, because the keyboard is weird. But she got used to it and proceeded to use the phone.
So here is the funny part, she chose the phone for the PDA power. She chose the phone because it had the ability to run her calendar. Wouldn't you think it could sync online with her yahoo calendar? NOPE! The "bad ass" enterprise business phone needs to be plugged in to a computer to sync to yahoo calendar! Are you fricking kidding me! what a POS! My cheap ass original Blackjack could do that out of the box! Anyway so my wife asks me to figure out how to sync it. So I think, well maybe they have a really cool app to use to do it. So I search......They have Yahoo Go! it's even a partnership with RIM! survey says! no syncing, but you can view your cal in yahoo's slow ass interface! Lame!
So I start researching today. After about 45 minutes I come up with the following "workaround" ( or hack depending on how you look at it )
I took my personal server and installed outlook 2002 ( my home version I have ), installed yahoo's desktop sync app to sync the calendar to outlook. Then I created a gmail account, then downloaded another free app to sync google cal to outlook ( note I couldn't use googles sync tool because my outlook version is too old! Finally I need to install the blackberry google cal sync tool on my wifes crappy ass phone when she gets home. So I take the following notes:
1) Blackberrys do in fact suck ass! ( unless you work for company that uses them for work, and you have a corp exchange server with rim server software installed )
2) yahoo needs to work on their toolsets
3) google kicks ass
4) good thing I have a server :)
5) I really love my wife - if it was my phone I would have taken it back and got something else!
About 2 months ago my wife started looking for a new phone. She had an old razor that was working for her, but she needed something more. As the family schedule maker, group party planner ( for all of our extended family and friends ), she really needed a PDA type phone. Now at the time I had the Samsung Blackjack which I think is an awesome phone. I had reconfigured the entire home screen via the xml files, added apps for yahoo, syncing lotus notes email, then gmail, then gcal, yahoo cal, ect. At the end of the day with my cheappy little winmo device I had every app I needed for work and home without even using a memory card! Anyway she asked me what phone to get. I said I really like my phone, the only issue I have with it is when you try and dial phone numbers not in your addy book it is a pain because the full keyboard is always there. I recomended something that had either a touchscreen, or a dual slider, or combo of those ( tilt, G1, ect ) to fill the void. She looked at me and then said she would ask our friend who works at a cell phone store.
After talking with the guy he pushed the blackberry perl. It fit her requirements ( or so we thought ). It was a full pda, it was small, and it came in pink ( yes that was important! ). She asked me what I thought of blackberrys and I said " well I have only helped a couple people configure their mail on them, and I thought the interface looked cheap, but alot of people swear by them, and I have never really USED one so I dunno".
So she bought the phone! The blackberry perl to be exact ( you know the one that doesn't have a full keyboard ). Anyway she gets the phone and hates it for the first week, because the keyboard is weird. But she got used to it and proceeded to use the phone.
So here is the funny part, she chose the phone for the PDA power. She chose the phone because it had the ability to run her calendar. Wouldn't you think it could sync online with her yahoo calendar? NOPE! The "bad ass" enterprise business phone needs to be plugged in to a computer to sync to yahoo calendar! Are you fricking kidding me! what a POS! My cheap ass original Blackjack could do that out of the box! Anyway so my wife asks me to figure out how to sync it. So I think, well maybe they have a really cool app to use to do it. So I search......They have Yahoo Go! it's even a partnership with RIM! survey says! no syncing, but you can view your cal in yahoo's slow ass interface! Lame!
So I start researching today. After about 45 minutes I come up with the following "workaround" ( or hack depending on how you look at it )
I took my personal server and installed outlook 2002 ( my home version I have ), installed yahoo's desktop sync app to sync the calendar to outlook. Then I created a gmail account, then downloaded another free app to sync google cal to outlook ( note I couldn't use googles sync tool because my outlook version is too old! Finally I need to install the blackberry google cal sync tool on my wifes crappy ass phone when she gets home. So I take the following notes:
1) Blackberrys do in fact suck ass! ( unless you work for company that uses them for work, and you have a corp exchange server with rim server software installed )
2) yahoo needs to work on their toolsets
3) google kicks ass
4) good thing I have a server :)
5) I really love my wife - if it was my phone I would have taken it back and got something else!
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