Saturday, February 21, 2009

Geotagging Pictures on a Blackberry

I'm still a relative amateur on my Blackberry but I just cracked the code on how to geotag pictures taken on my AT&T Curve 8310 running OS 4.5.

I'd Googled this and never got a concise explanation. Here's how to do it.

When you go to the Camera on the Blackberry, hit Menu and then Options. Set Geotagging to Enabled. Go back to the camera. In the lower left corner is an icon that you can't figure what it is. It is a satellite representing GPS. A red X over it means no GPS signal. No red X means you've got the satellites. Now take a picture. Save it and press Menu and View Pictures. Use the trackball to select the picture you just took. Don't click on it. Look at the bottom left corner of the screen. I don't know what the green icon means but the white dot between that and the file name means it has location data. How obscure can they make this?

When you finish with the camera, I suggest hitting Menu and then Close to ensure that the GPS is turned off.

I use Picasaweb to share my pictures. You have to go into Settings and check "Show my photo locations to others" and "Use Exif location data." Now go upload the Blackberry pictures to Picasaweb and voila!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

And The Answer Is...

...Blackberry Curve 8310.


I gave in. It really shows how far the Blackberry has progressed to being a true smartphone since my 7290.

One of my overriding criteria is portability of data between the smartphone and PCs. The SanDisk Plus USB/SD card and Documents to Go solved that for the Treo 650.

The Motorola Q9h had Documents to Go as well but the media was a micro-SD card. Without carrying the micro-SD to regular SD adapter and a SD to USB adapter with you at all times you were fairly limited in connectivity. And the cable connectivity was a micro-USB. Whens the last time you've run across a micro-USB cable? Did you trip over a mini-USB cable (like the Curve uses) between your desk and the parking lot?

Both the Motorola Q9h and the Curve have good Bluetooth capabilities and I used them extensively on the Q to transfer files (remember the micro-USB). With the Curve I've mostly been using the mini-USB cable.

The Q used the same micro-USB cable for the external speaker connection. I use this extensively as I listen to podcasts to and from work. Whens the last time you've run across a micro-USB cable? (Is there an echo in here?) Needless to say, the Curve uses a standard 3.5mm connector. The Treo used a 2.5mm connector like a cell phone headset. I had to use a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter with it.

I immediately upgraded the Curve from OS 4.3 to OS 4.5. That gives you better applications, e.g. Voice Memo, Media Player, Camera (now supports video and geotagging), etc.

I've only added a few applications to the Curve. I added BB Notepad to read and create .txt files. I also added BuzzMe to make it ring and vibrate at the same time. Without this if you have it set to Vibrate+Tone, it will vibrate first then ring. Odd. I also loaded the obligatory Google Maps. Did I mention that these are all free?

All of these loaded over the air (OTA). I haven't really missed the 3G network of the Q.

I'll post more on the Curve later.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

(Not So) Smartphone

My trusty Treo 650 is getting long in the tooth.

Over the holidays, I was googling around and found that RIM supported Blackberry Connect on the Motorola Q9h by AT&T. Then a little research on the AT&T site and I was off to the nearest corporate AT&T store.


The sales representative there was good. She didn't know everything but what she didn't know, she knew who did and got in touch with them.

I left there with a shiny new Motorola Q9h. The BlackBerry Connect loaded over the air (OTA) and pretty quick with the 3G network! The BlackBerry Connect did an enterprise activation OTA and even supported my company's BES policies.

Windows Mobile 6.1 was much nicer than Windows Mobile 5 on the iPaq hx2115. Turns out it was lipstick on the pig though.

The Moto Q9h was fun to play with. Until...

When I was showing it off to my co-workers, it started locking up. The keys wouldn't respond to anything and you had to pop the battery out to restart it.

After 3 or 4 times in the first 2 weeks, I posted on the great forums at everythingq.com. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach when one of the "gurus" responded "it just sounds like you're trying to do too many things at once."

The next post suggested a master reset which was a good idea. I got my act together and did this the next weekend.

It was rock solid for a week. But by the next weekend, it locked up 3 times in 3 days.

On the 29th day, the Moto Q9h went back to AT&T for ... (stay tuned).