Chris Miller announced this afternoon the return of IdoCheckin for Lotusphere 2010.   I regularly use Brightkite , and I recently had a problem configuring the Brightkite for Blackberry application on to my Blackberry Tour, so I thought now would be a good time to share ( I never determined the cause of the problem, as you will see below others had the same issue, so I am not saying you will have the problem, but if you do hope this helps)  Every time I tried to login to Brightkite, I received the following error on my Blackberry:

Network Error: Your network coverage is insuffucient for a data connection to Brightkite.  Try again later.

I found this a  bit odd since my network coverage was fine, and to the best of my knowledge there were no policies on the BES server preventing me from using the GPS, or the application itself.  I tried uninstalling, rebooting and reinstalling same result. Finally after searching around a little I found the answer in a conversation on Brightkite.  The solution was to check the box for “Disable Connection Check” I am not really sure what the “Connection Check” is, and it gives a nasty warning about why disabling it is bad”

Disabling the network connection check may result in errors.  It is HIGHLY recommended that you leave this enabled!!

but I ignored that and continued and sure enough it fixed the problem!

I have been running an old beta build of the BlogSphere template for a while now, this week I finally got around to upgrading to the latest release 3.0.2.  One of the main features I was looking for in 3.0.2 was the built in mobile UI which supports iPhone and Blackberry.  When this site is loaded from either of those devices it now renders in a mobile version instead of the entire page making it much more readable. When I checked the site on my Droid, it was still rendering as the full layout, not the mobile UI.   I decided to fire up the Designer Client and see what I can find ( yes I know I am an Admin, but I am still under my quota for Designer this year so I figured it’s use it or lose it).  I started out in the Script Libraries section and worked my way in to the “RenderEngine.Blog” Library where in the “InitializeRenderEngine” section I found this: Without digging to much further I decided to try adding one line of code so it looked like this I decided to leave the BrowserType set to iPhone since I really didn’t follow the logic forward, and figured the screen dimensions and layout are about the same.. Once I saved the changes I tried it again on my Droid, and sure enough it now renders in the mobile format Note: I have not made these changes on my actual blog yet, I did this in my little sandbox where I had been testing the upgrade to 3.0.2.  I will make the change in this blog as soon as I can. Now that I have the template upgrade completed, I have to see if I can finish the redesign of the blog.  Nothing radical, mainly fixing a few things that don’t really work all that well and cleaning it up a little, though I highly doubt that it will happen before Lotusphere.

You all probably know by now I love my iPhone, not there aren’t things that don’t drive me crazy about it (beyond just the poor battery life).  Apple does like to control every last aspect of the device and they can drive us all crazy with their ridiculous App Store approval process (and where is my iPhone app for Google Voice already?). There is however one area where Apple got it right is that they control the OS when they decide their OS is ready for the device they release it via iTunes the individual carriers are not involved. On the other hand we have RIM who can only pass OS upgrades out via the individual carriers, who seem to generally take 8-12 weeks to test and finally release any updates.   This morning an an article on the new Blackberry OS (5.0) caught my eye, it provided a list of existing devices which will officially support OS 5.0

It would appear now that RIM will be making available to carriers BlackBerry OS 5.0 upgrades for a variety of their previous generation models. Models that are expected to have OS 5.0 upgrades available include: Bold 9000, Curve 8330/8350i/8900, Pearl Flip 8220/8230, Storm 9500/9530, and Tour 9630. Right now, these are the only previous generation BlackBerry models expected to be able to run the version 5.0 OS.

It all sounded good until you get to the next paragraph

The one part of the situation that RIM will not likely be talking about is the fact that it will be up to the actual carriers to pass the OS 5.0 with their devices in technical acceptance testing and then decide if they will actually make it available to their customers. What this actually means is that you actually may own a device that is able to run version 5.0 of the OS, but the carrier may elect to not make it available for whatever reason.

So yep you got it RIM will release the OS to the mobile carriers, who may or may not actually make it available to subscribers, where is the logic in that?  Yes I know there are ways around the carriers to upgrade the OS on a device, but I really think RIM needs to work harder with the carriers to improve this process. I also wonder how Apple will deal with this as the iPhone becomes available on more networks, but I hope they stay with their current model.  BlackBerry OS 5 on the horizon

Looking over todays IBM Press Release  from WES I noticed that there is now a ship date for the new Lotus Connections Blackberry client from RIM

The next generation BlackBerry Client for Lotus Connections, developed by RIM and available May 8, will meet a need in corporate human resources to help manage an increasingly mobile workforce through social networks with blogs, activities, communities and tag clouds. Now, employees can form communities adding new contacts at conferences and other meetings while inventorying skills and expertise in the process. In addition, tag clouds help drill down through information on a myriad of contacts to the core expertise being sought locally or globally, wherever the customer may be.

The press release also contains some announcements regarding Sametime and LotusLive clients for the Blackberry IBM Helps Customers Work Smarter With New Software and Services for BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0

Yesterday I purchased my first App from Blackberry App World, while it was hardly a major investment  (I purchased TalkLock for $2.99) it got me wondering about what happens to your purchased applications if you switch devices. A little digging around brought me to Blackberry KB17625 Transferring BlackBerry App World items to a new BlackBerry smartphone. The good news is purchases are transferable all you need to do is install App World on the new device, and login with the same Paypal account used previously on the old device which will give you the ability to reinstall your applications. A bonus tip for using Paypal with App World (and yes Paypal is the only method of payment supported by App World).  Paypal offers an optional Security Token as additional protection for your account.  I have had one of these for a while it takes an extra 3 seconds to push the button and enter your code when logging in, but I think it is a good layer of security for my  account. When I log in on my PC after entering my password I get an additional prompt for the six digit number.  I wondered how this would work on App World, the answer is simply append the six digit code to your password when logging in on the Blackberry.