Disorderly Content

2008-05-16

Curse of the BlackBerry

I actually had to use my BlackBerry as a phone when I was in Calgary a few weeks ago. Problem was, the company pays that bill but not my iPhone, and I didn't want to get hit with big roaming charges. (For some reason, AT&T treats Canada like it's a whole 'nother country. Imagine that.)

Okay, as much as I love my iPhone, how bad could using the BlackBerry be, especially for just a few days? Pretty bad, as I discovered that the thing had no ringtone, nor could I figure out how to set one up. So I had to keep it in its case, so it would at least vibrate when a call came in. Or watch it carefully while I was charging, since it can't go in the case when the cable's connected.

Anyway, later I discovered I'd lost speakerphone capability. That's when I realized that it wasn't bad design; it was screwed up. So I tried the usual things, like powering it off. When that didn't work I pulled the battery. And when that didn't work either, I went to the Intertubes for a little guidance.

Ignoring the posts about giving the phone a hard reset, which would wipe out some things I might actually care about, I found the magic combination for a soft reset: Alt + Right Shift + Delete. And suddenly I could hear all the ringtones I'd found in the phone. And my speakerphone stopped not speaking to me. And, since I'd found the place to set the ringtone, and that was actually working, I went to the site Crackberry.com, where I was able to email the Robot Chicken closing theme to my phone, and where it is now my ringtone. So if anybody ever calls it, I'm gonna know about it. And that's a good thing, right?

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