Calendar Tips

Go to “Options” by clicking the track wheel and scrolling down.

“Enable Quick Entry” should be set to “Yes.”

You probably want to change the “Start of Day” to an early time.

Setting up a second profile

Set up a second profile:

1. Set the BlackBerry to “vibrate” during for phone calls, calendar events, and direct connect.
2. Set the BlackBerry to do nothing for e-mails.
3. If the BlackBerry vibrates, look at it.

When you are in meetings or other places where you do not want the BlackBerry to "ring," set this one as your active profile. Your BlackBerry will vibrate when you truly need to at least look at it. E-mail will not vibrate when you are using this profile. You will be able to trust that if the BlackBerry vibrates, you truly need to look at it.

Continuing with profiles

If the Blackberry gives the same alert for an important call and junk e-mail, you cannot trust the alert feature.

What’s the strategy here?

What’s the strategy here?

E-mail should be handled as a group several times a day—not every time one comes rolling in.

Profile Settings--Messages

“Messages” and “Level 1 Messages” will be set to “Vibrate.”

Profile Settings--The Calendar

Select “Calendar” and change the notice to “Vibrate+Tone.”
The phone and any other “real time” communications should also be set to “Vibrate+Tone.”

Working with profiles

Profiles controls ringing, sounds, and vibrating for e-mails, phone calls, direct connect, and appointments.

Press the “Enter” key to open the “Active” profile.

The strategy is for the Blackberry to do the following:

Phone—Vibrate+Tone
Direct Connect—Vibrate+Tone
Appointment—Vibrate+Tone (different tone)
E-mail—Vibrate only

You can tell by the sound what is happening

Don’t let your Blackberry cry “Wolf!”

Do you really want your BlackBerry to ring every time an e-mail rolls in?

Over the next several posts, we will look at how to set your "profile" so that you BlackBerry alerts you the way you wish.

Programming the "convenience key"

The “Convenience Key” can be programmed. I want to be able to get to my task list quickly, so I have programmed the convenience key to take me to the task list.

You do that in “Tools” or “Options.”

1. Go to “Screen/Keyboard.”
2. Scroll down to “Convenience Key Opens.”
3. Press the “Space” key until it says “Tasks.”

Pressing the Convenience Key from anywhere now takes you straight to your task list.

The post below gives several screen shots from this process.

Programming the "convenience key"

Let the BlackBerry turn itself on and off

You can have the Blackberry turn itself on and off automatically. Go to "Tools" or "Options" on the home screen. Select "Auto On/Off."

Change “Disabled” to “Enabled.” Select on and off times.

Substitutes for the track wheel

In general, try using either the “Enter” or “Space” key as a substitute for clicking the tracking wheel.

Other shortcuts

Holding a key for a moment will capitalize that letter.

Hitting the "Space" key twice will insert a period.

E-mail addresses

Here is a shortcut when you are composing a new e-mail and have to key the e-mail address. When you get to the spot in the e-mail address where you should insert the "@", simply hit the space bar. When you get to the spot where you would insert the dot, also hit the space bar. The blackberry will automatically format your e-mail address.

Troubleshooting the BlackBerry--the soft reset

I have run across a couple of problems since I started using the BlackBerry in August, and both have been fixed by the "soft reset."

One problem I was seeing was an error message that would prevent me from accessing the task list. I have not seen that problem since the first week I was using the device.

The other is a problem that not only has happened to me, but also to one of my co-workers. The BlackBerry was not making the correct sounds that the Profile was saying they should make. Instead of the phone using the ringer or sound we had selected, it either would not ring (but would only vibrate) or would use the default ring tone. Any alerts that had been attached to appointments or tasks would only vibrate even though the profile specified they would ring.

If you are seeing anything like this, the soft reset is a good first step. Simply hold down the ALT key, the CAP key, and press the DEL key. Another way to accomplish the same thing is to take the battery out and put it back in again. In either case, you do not lose any data. You will find it may take the BlackBerry several minutes to restart, so just be patient.

E-Mail best practice

Scan the e-mails on your Blackberry for urgent messages and those you can respond to quickly.

Wait and handle the bulk of your e-mail on your computer.

Now, dump all of the e-mails from your Blackberry.

Deleting a group of messages at one time

Want to get rid of a whole bunch of messages at one time?
Hold the “Shift” key and roll the track wheel.
Now, hit the “Del” key.

Deleting messages easily

Done with the message? You can delete it by hitting the “Del” key.

There is no need to click the trackwheel and choose the delete option from there.

In fact, many of the tricks you will see here involve ways around using the trackwheel.

E-mail--scrolling a screen at a time

As you read the e-mail, you can scroll the track wheel OR you can hit “M” to jump down a screen or “U” to jump up a screen.

BlackBerry Tricks and Tips--An Introduction

At the beginning of the school year, each administrator in our school system was issued a BlackBerry. I had been a Palm user for about 5 years, so I was looking forward to what I thought might be a learning curve. Yes, there are differences between how I organize with the BlackBerry versus what I did with my Palm.

Over the last several months, I have become keenly interested in 1) how many people I see on a day-to-day basis who are using a BlackBerry; 2) the growing number of questions I see posed about how to organize (especially tasks) with the BlackBerry; 3) the little I see written that specifically addresses how to use the task list effectively.

This post starts a series of outlining tricks, shortcuts, and strategy I have learned along the way. I will begin with the track wheel, or more specifically, how to get around using it. Using keyboard shortcuts instead of the track wheel eliminates many steps.

Let's start with opening an e-mail message. You could click the track wheel, scroll the wheel to "Open," and click the wheel. An easier way is to simply hit the “Enter” key.