1. Omnibar

In order for me to ditch Chrome (and I did try a few times), I had to have the single bar for search and urls. It is such a basic concept. When I need to fix something on my wife’s computer and need to use the web, everytime I type a search into the url bar and I get the annoying OpenDNS error message explaining that the website I am trying to visit is down. Ugh.

Omnibar is the single bar solution for Firefox. It is very convenient. Here is a screenshot incase you have not used Google Chrome or cant picture what I am talking about. Notice the small search bar in the top right is gone? Use the one bar for everything!

2. AutoPager

So you visit many websites in a day, how much time does it take clicking through pages of forum topics or of blog posts of a recently found site as you scan for relevant content before you add the author to RSS or Twitter? Autopager takes care of the pages for you. This extension is fantastic as it loads and appends the next page for you to the bottom of your current page. All you as the user must do (if the site your visiting has an AutoPager setup and tons of them do) is scroll down. When AutoPager recognizes that you are 80% to the bottom of a page it will load the next page in the background and append the contents within the current page you are at.

3. Mr Uptime

This has become my most recent favourite. Familiar situation: Visiting a web page that you know exists with the url you have but the website is not loading? How do you remember to come back? Keep the tab open and manually refresh? Not anymore. When a website is down, Mr Pingdom displays a small bar where you can add a ‘Watch’ with a single click. The extension will continuously check in the background for you and alert you, opening a new tab with the now working web site.

The Mr Uptime website has screenshots and a better description of the other features.

1. Reboot Time – It takes more time to reboot the Bold then it does to reboot my desktop and then my laptop one after the other. For a full five minutes the device is useless. I wish I understood why it takes so long.
    
2. Slow Processor – The Bolds 624 mhz processor is the fastest among BlackBerrys. Why then is the device so bloody slow? I see the animated clock icon all the time. Granted, I use the device a little harder than most, and even though I hate to seem like the guy who can’t be impressed by anything, let’s be honest: the performance of  some of the apps is laughable. For example, my Keepass database is roughly 100kb, regular AES encryption. Using KeepassBB to open the DB on the Berry takes roughly 30-40 seconds. My Windows Mobile that is currently over 3 years old can do the same thing in less than half the time. Again, I would love to understand–maybe its the programs algorithm–not sure.
    
3. Battery Hog – This thing goes through batteries like I wish I could go through video cards. It needs to be charged daily, even after purchasing AutoStandBy and a 25% larger 1700 mah battery.
    
4. No .NET Compact Edition - This is too much to hope for, but I wish the Blackberry supported .NET CE. I know this would be too good to be true, but would attract new developers to the platform.
    
5. Developer Tools – I am not the best judge, but from what I have seen and experienced so far, the programming for Blackberry is far from a perfect experience. The Eclipse plugin is just becoming functional, the JDE is a blast to the past and the developer site is not as good as it could be. Supporting Java ME apps is good and it appears like RIM is extending their APIs with the newer OS’s
    
6. Some programs launch at startup, even if you dont want them too – A couple apps that I have to have on my Blackberry launch themselves when the device boots for no apparent reason other then to annoy me. There is no way to disable this in the app, but there is also no security or startup setting on the OS that will let me prevent these lame apps from starting.
    
7. No built in Multi-Alarms – Seriously, what is going on with this one? I can only have one alarm at a time with the software the RIM ships. 
    
8. Cant change default browser – I wouldn’t want to change it to Opera just yet as it lacks essential features for me (send page address via email) but I shouldn’t be locked into using one browser when I click links from other applications.
    
9. BlackBerry Desktop Software Sucks – Does the Blackberry desktop manager work properly for anyone? I dont think so. I know it attempts to upgrade your foreign language packs every time you turn it on, even if you dont use those languages. Backups are broken with custom ring tones/alarms. Roxio is garbage.
    
10. Creaky Battery Door – The Bold has this fancy pleather backing on the battery door. Too bad the door does not fit onto the device 100% so the door wobbles a bit with soime pressure. This also drives me nuts. I need to do a electrical tape modification just so the back door fits.
     
11. No changelog between Operating System revisions – This is one of the biggest complaints I have. There seems to be a new Beta OS for new RIM devices every couple weeks. I think it is great that they ship code so often. The problem I have with it is they dont include changelogs between builds. Users post what they think is different between releases including bugs, new issues, or even how they feel that the browser is faster or their 3G is speedier even though it is likely RIM did not touch code relating to either. Not that big a deal, it will only be a few more months until all support is put into the new and upcoming devices.

So there are all my complaints. Other than the above mentioned things this is a fantastic device. For those who might read that and think the Bold may not be any good, it took me a good long time to think up all those complaints after a month and a half of use. I could think of a list that long about an iPhone and I’ve only used one of those for a couple of hours.

Stay tuned, I will post the next series of my essential apps soon.

This is an exciting time for Windows users! I don’t remember there being this much hype for a Microsoft product for a very long time. Windows 7 has been receiving a lot of great press even on many high profile blogs. Windows 7 touts massive improvements in the usability of Microsoft’s operating system, updates and upgrades to many of the stock Windows tools and noticeable speed and performance increases.

I have been very happy using Windows Vista. I admit that I did not adopt the OS until SP1 had landed in addition to Nvidia providing stable video drivers (which were the cause of the majority of Windows crashes at that point). I love Vista, it performs and looks great but one of my biggest complaints is the way the company tried to get us to upgrade.

I am a PC gamer. Microsoft attempted to convince gamers that DirectX 10 was going to be some hot new technology that would become essential for new games. Well it wasn’t hard to read through the poor marketing ploy as game developers were brutally honest about the technology not measuring up to the hype and well, the screenshots between DX9 and DX10 didn’t look all that different! A hardware survey by Valve Software as recently as December 2008 reports 23% of gamers systems (of a sample size in the 10s of millions) being DX10 compatible.

So DX10 isn’t the revolutionary technology Microsoft told us it was, so whats the point of upgrading? A visual improvement? Not worth the cash. That was my mindset and was until I required an upgrade from my aging Pentium 4. I purchased a Q6600 with 4gbs of Ram which I got dirt cheap. I assembled the system and installed Windows. Unfortunately I forgot, a 32 bit operating system only uses up to a maximum of 4gbs of memory including system memory and memory from peripheral devices, Windows XP reported I had 2.8 gbs of ram, my video and sound card apparently using the rest. I had 1.2 gbs of ram available that was not being used by Windows. An utter waste! A 64 bit OS now all of the sudden looks appealing. Why did Microsoft not sell me on the idea of 4gbs of ram? Ram is cheap and makes my computer respond fast. Directx 10 was a scam.

Long story short, XP 64 is a compatibility nightmare. Vista 64 is great but expensive as hell. But wait, what is this problem of 64 bit versions of drivers not being available? This is the CURRENT operating system! Why is Dlink, Creative and other big name manufacturers skimping out on 64 bit drivers when they are essential to for my new computer and operating system?

Here is my rant: If Windows Vista was shipped as a 64 bit OS only, it would have forced hardware manufacturers to either release an updated 64 bit version of their drivers or not support the new OS at all. The system requirements for Windows Vista clearly require a 64 bit capable processor. Have you ever seen one user using Vista on a 32 bit only machine? If so I want pics!

Releasing a 64 bit only version of the OS would have eliminated this half-way support manufacturers are doing now. “Well, we support Windows Vista but only the 32 bit version”. Screw you Dlink and Creative. Guess who isn’t buying anything from you again.

Why is Microsoft making the same mistake with Windows 7? What happens if drivers do not get 64 bit versions again! I want all my hardware available in this new OS that appears to be great (I will try it Saturday). If I am willing to pay for Windows 7, I better not have to buy new hardware.

Microsoft is pushing the Games for Windows series. Wouldn’t standardizing 64 bit architecture open up new possibilities for all game developers? Instead of some shops like Crytek which offered 64 bit versions of the original Crysis for a short while experimenting and poorly supporting 64 bit the executables? Wouldn’t it be nice to have all game developers utilizing my new hardware instead of a few just testing the waters?

I for one am very disappointed that 32 bit versions are being offered for download. I genuinely hope that Microsoft does not offer 32 bit versions of Windows 7 when it is released later this year. I hope that you all will join me in protesting Windows 7 32 bit and join in the movement to standardize the next Microsoft Windows 64 bit operating system.

The knobs at the front are my fan controller where I can manually adjust the fan speed for every fan in my system (except cpu which is fixed 100%).

I have included a WordPress plugin called MobilePress that provides content nicely to mobile devices and I have added my Xbox tag and many social media sites to the right sidebar. Feel free to add me and expand your and my social network.

Essential CrackBerry Apps Part 3 coming soon…