New OS 4.5.0.69 for BlackBerry 8100, 8120, 8130, 8310, 8320 & 8330

Here are the links for OS 4.5.0.66 and 4.5.0.69 for BlackBerry devices:

Pearl 8100:
4.5.0.69

Pearl 8120:
4.5.0.69

Pearl 8130:
4.5.0.66

Curve 8310:
4.5.0.69

Curve 8320:
4.5.0.69

Curve 8330:
4.5.0.66

Of course you know the disclaimer: if you break it - you are on your own :)

The one phone call I should have not picked up

I wanted to share a crazy story that happened to me last week. Around 1AM E.T. here in Miami - when my cell phone rang.

The dialog below is a fair reconstitution of the facts:

Me – Allo.
The Girl – hello
Me – who is this? Jenny?
The Girl – no. Who are you?
Me – allo. Is this a joke? Who is this?
The Girl – you don’t know me.
Me – Listen Lady, Its late, I’m tired and don’t have any time for this kind of BS
The Girl – Wait. Let me explain!! I don’t know who you are and you don’t know me but your number is not random it belongs to my husband.
Me – well obviously you dialed a wrong number as I AM NOT your husband.
The Girl – I know – my husband died in car crash last year. I keep hoping he will answer his phone. So I called!

BIG SILENCE

Me – I’m sorry for your loss. But I don’t see how I can help you.
The Girl – can you tell me your name?
Me – Florian
The Girl – can I call you Tim?
Me – I feel very uncomfortable continuing this conversation. What happened to you is dramatic and you need to speak with someone that can help you. Myself I can’t do much.
The Girl – Thank you. You are very patient. It reminds me Tim.

Since then – I can’t sleep. Very disturbing phone call. I wish this girl a lot of strength to recover from her tragedy.

PS: One thing I learned - better not answer unknown calls in the middle of the night.

TwitterFone V2 up and running

It has been an amazing week. First we got TwitterFone V2 featured on TechCrunch with a nice demo of Michael Arrington himself :) and second we finally have a commercial packet Data version on CelTrek SIM cards.
Pat Phelan, David Marcus, Sean O Sullivan and Ivan MacDonald are great guys to work with. Perfect harmony in productivity - best possible mixture.
Here is a short video of what you can expect from TwitterFone V2.



Below formal press release:

Twitterfone becomes more social, outlines expansion plans

Twitterfone, the service that allows you to call/phone in your message to twitter has announced new add-ons to their popular service.

The new additions to Twitterfone now allow people to listen to the last 10 messages from their friends all via their phone and directly respond to these messages or send a private message their followers.

Speaking about the new changes, Twitterfone CEO Pat Phelan said:
“The main feature request from users was the ability to not just speak to Twitter but also to listen to their friends’ Twitter messages via their phone. So I’m very pleased that Twitterfone now enables two and multi-way conversations on Twitter using any phone while you’re on the move.”

Twitterfone doesn’t need to be installed on a phone, does not need to be downloaded from the iTunes Appstore and can be used on any mobile phone on the planet. You don’t even need a screen! It’s the most accessible interface for the Twitter service.

On future expansions Phelan added:
“We’ve received a huge amount of feedback from our hyper-enthused users and we hope to provide them with what they want and we’ll be seeking some outside funding to do this. Twitterfone has become something much more than the proof of concept we initially launched.
We’re really excited about the relationship we have with our users and how we’re building a better product together.

* About *
Twitterfone Inc is privately owned Twitterfone is a US corporation with operations in the USA and Ireland. Its shareholders come from a mix of technological and telecoms background. Pat Phelan of MAXroam, Florian Seroussi of Global Roaming, David Marcus of Echovox (Zong) and Sean O Sullivan/Ivan MacDonald of Dial2Do.

* Using Twitterfone v2*
How the new Twitterfone magic happens:

You dial the TwitterFone number, press 1 and now you’ll hear your friends last 10 tweets from your home page. Simple.

Replies and Private messages? No problem:

While listening to a tweet from a user, you can send an @ to them by just pressing 2 and recording your reply. Likewise you can send them a private d message by pressing 3.

* Twitterfone Statistics: *
Twitterfone is currently available in 18 countries and will expand to many more in coming months.
Over 20,000 people have signed up to Twitterfone since it launched in May.

BlackBerry OS 4.5.0.55 for Cuve 8320

This latest version of OS 4.5 should add more stability to previous releases. 4.5.0.55 is reducing the 'unexpected general error' on BB Messenger.
Only valid for 8320 owners.

http://rapidshare.com/files/132732724/8320AllLang_PBr4.5.0_rel81_PL2.7.0.68_A4.5.0.55.exe.html

Enjoy.

SLYDIAL and YOUMAIL

SLYDIAL:

A bad news to break? You need to confirm a meeting but don't want to start a 45 min conversation? Slydial is the best solution - a free voice messaging service called that connects you directly to someone's voicemail so you can actually leave a message.
You just need to sign up for the service—free with ads tacked on, paid to skip them—and dial 267-SLYDIAL to leave a pre-saved contact or any phone number voicemail without their phone actually ringing. If you know someone's busy and want to leave a note for later, or you're just running short on time and can't afford a back-and-forth, SlyDial's a pretty handy service (especially if you pay to skip a 30-second ad).


YouMail:

Best mobile service add-on. I’ve been testing the YouMail voicemail service as a replacement to the standard, boring mailbox that comes standard with all mobile phone plans. So far, I am impressed. It’s good and free.
The most compelling features are the text message and email notification options. YouMail will text message you info about the caller, their carrier, and location even if they do not leave message. The option to receive voice mails as email attachments is great for archival and review. I have an unlimited data plan which allows me to retrieve new voicemails without wasting my peak minutes. You also have the possibility to block some callers to leave you voice mail - so useful to avoid automated phone calls.

I have been using visual voice mail for over 2 years thru Spinvox. YouMail is 3 steps ahead of their competition because :

1- IT'S FREE
2- Notification of missed calls with carrier, location, and caller ID
3- Different greetings for different callers
4- Excellent speech to text engine
5- FAST.




Voicemail is definitely not dead!!

Pandora Internet Radio block users outside the US

Pandora Internet Radio block users outside the US
Originally uploaded by Florian SEROUSSI

Fake BlackBerry commercial. Very funny :)

A must see.

New Exclusive BlackBerry OS 4.5.0.52 for Curve

Be the first to try new Beta OS 4.5.0.52 for curve. Last version I published was build 46. This new version is more stable, UMA works like a charm and device is slightly faster.

Here are the download links:

Curve 8300:
http://rapidshare.com/files/128261869/8300M_PBr4.5.0_rel75_PL2.7.0.66_A4.5.0.52.exe

Curve 8310:
http://rapidshare.com/files/128308375/8310M_PBr4.5.0_rel75_PL2.7.0.66_A4.5.0.52.exe

Curve 8320:
http://rapidshare.com/files/128259380/8320AllLang_PBr4.5.0_rel75_PL2.7.0.66_A4.5.0.52.exe

Enjoy!!

UPDATE:

Link for 4.5.0.52 for 8100

http://rapidshare.com/files/128822694/8100M_PBr4.5.0_rel75_PL2.7.0.66_A4.5.0.52.exe

$10.000.000 per day for you...

This is how much US carriers are spending in advertising to convince you to use their services. According to this study US carriers are spending over $4b per year on advertising. $10 Million per day to which we should add advertising budget of manufacturers like Motorola, Samsung, Nokia, LG, BlackBerry and Apple.

Advertising budget of mobile industry exceeds $10b per year in North America. I will not start to argue how those heavy dollars could change poverty in the world - although it could. But I will certainly argue on how wrong those carriers are to promote their services before upgrading their network.
US market is a third world market for Telecom experts. We still do not have 3G - except AT&T at a lousy speed and not everywhere. No MMS for Apple, mobile portals are old looking Wap sites, quality of service is poor, GSM coverage limited to large cities, range of devices on the market is nothing compare to Europe.
That also explains the large success of the iPhone in the US. It's like going from a 1967 VW Beetle to an Aston Martin DB9. American people are still amazed by services offered on the iPhone such as weather, stock and others.
France Telecom Mobile 10 years ago was providing such advanced services to its Itineris subscribers in France.

Here is how US carriers could spend their dollars wisely:

- Upgrade your network infrastructure.
- Give us better coverage, faster internet, more content, better pricing…

Out of the $300M you spend every month on advertising could you allocate 0.3% to charity please?

Don’t worry too much for your business US carriers – Telecom is a recession resistant industry in case you didn’t know!

One positive things about operators ads. They are beautiful. Check this TV ad of Orange in Thailand.



Source: http://www.cellular-news.com/story/31374.php

Why Sprint don't get it!

It's wrong to buy your videos.

First of all they are going to get millions of wackos trying to kill themselves to produce the *best* video. Second because sharing IS NOT about money.

Sprint don't seem to understand anything in Social Media. Nada.

Do they actually have a CMO - Marketing officer?? Who came up with such a stupid idea?
They should open a channel on YouTube and simply ask people to send their videos there.
Public - you and me- would vote for the best video. No money involved, interesting content would received more viewers and everyone is happy.

Paying mass content is wrong.

If they want a state of art mobile video - they should ask Steven Spielberg or Georges Lucas and pay the price.
My friends at Qik.com must really laugh at Sprint now. They get hundreds of real time videos on their website and they don't even pay them a dime. In fact I'm pretty sure few users would pay for a premium service offering nice placement, high bandwidth and HD resolution.
Sprint is also wrong to use a SAMSUNG in their ad. SAMSUNG is to video what Sprint is to Telecom. A bad product based on a bad technology. CDMA...pffff

BlackBerry OS 4.5 Links updated and .46 version available

Curve 8300:
http://www.shareonall.com/eight300AllLang_4.5.0.fortytwo_sfzw_exe.htm

Curve 8310:
http://rapidshare.com/files/125870303/8310_4.5.0.46.exe

Curve 8320:
http://rapidshare.com/files/125868326/8320_4.5.0.46.exe

BONUS by request

Pearl 8100:
http://rapidshare.com/files/125872378/8100_4.5.0.46.exe

Pearl 8110:
http://www.shareonall.com/8110AllLang_4.5.0.42_jlpe_exe.htm

Pearl 8120:
http://www.shareonall.com/8120AllLang_4.5.0.42_nkvp_exe.htm

8700:
http://www.shareonall.com/8700AllLang_4.5.0.42_plnn_exe.htm

8800:
http://www.shareonall.com/8800AllLang_4.5.0.42_apnm_exe.htm

8820:
http://rapidshare.com/files/125873990/8820_4.5.0.46.exe

AIR Adobe Showcase

Adobe AIR is a cross-operating system runtime that enables you to use your existing HTML/Ajax, Flex, or Flash web development skills and tools to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop.


For dummies: a cool browser that runs nice looking services on your MAC or PC. One thing: you must be online for most services offered.

Few services I like:
- Twhirl
- Adobe Media Player
- AOL 100 videos
- Google analytics THE BEST

Check out those 2 websites for showcases http://freshairapps.com/ and http://flex.org/showcase/

Here is a small video embedded here thanks to AOL 100 Videos.

Vlingo Voice to Text application for BlackBerry

My best friend is my BlackBerry. It's reliable, fast, and efficient. One thing that has been missing on BB are applications. But lately developers have worked hard to provide better mobile apps on RIM devices.
Today I will present Vlingo a cool application. Just watch the video and enjoy.



Download application here:
-- www.vlingo.com/vlingo/download.jsp
-- m.vlingo.com (OTA)
-- www.vlingo.com/getvlingo (OTA)

BlackBerry Curve 8300/8310/8320 - Pearl 8100/8110/8120 - 8800/8820 - 8700 OS 4.5 Beta 42

I just received a major update of OS 4.5 Beta Build 42. Some important upgrades here:

• BlackBerry Maps with Points of Interest
• Improved media player with playlist support and automatic playlist generation
• Voice note recording
• Video recording on Curve models
• Streaming support for YouTube and Sling Player
• Microsoft Office document editing with DocumentsToGo
• Native format attachment downloading - ONLY FOR BES USERS
• HTML e-mails - ONLY FOR BES USERS
• Over-the-air device upgrades - ONLY FOR BES USERS
• Free/busy calendar lookup - ONLY FOR BES USERS
• Searching the server for old e-mail messages - ONLY FOR BES USERS

Curve 8300:
http://www.shareonall.com/8300AllLang_4.5.0.42_hudx_exe.htm

Curve 8310:
http://www.shareonall.com/8310AllLang_4.5.0.42_ghys_exe.htm

Curve 8320:
http://www.shareonall.com/8320AllLang_4.5.0.42_hhky_exe.htm

Pearl 8100:
http://www.shareonall.com/8100AllLang_4.5.0.42_iasd_exe.htm

Pearl 8110:
http://www.shareonall.com/8110AllLang_4.5.0.42_jlpe_exe.htm

Pearl 8120:
http://www.shareonall.com/8120AllLang_4.5.0.42_nkvp_exe.htm

8700:
http://www.shareonall.com/8700AllLang_4.5.0.42_plnn_exe.htm

8800:
http://www.shareonall.com/8800AllLang_4.5.0.42_apnm_exe.htm

8820:
http://www.shareonall.com/8820AllLang_4.5.0.42_hfyv_exe.htm

Enjoy!!!

Keep in mind to backup your device BEFORE starting the upgrade process!!

BlackBerry Desktop Update 4.6

I posted BlackBerry Media Desktop 4.5 Beta last week. Here is an updated version 4.6.
Feel free to give it a try here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/121762453/BlackBerry_Desktop__460_b008_MultiLang.exe

MMM aka Mobile Monday Miami

Last night I visited Nokia's new HQ in Miami. Beautiful work space next to Miami Intl Airport. Mobile Monday Miami was held there. About 50 attendees - all very interesting people looking for opportunities to develop business relations with local/regional Florida companies. Alex de Carvalho (@alexdc) hosted the show in a state of the art showroom. Unfortunately Nokia did not display any of new smartphone. Latest phone on display was a N95 :(

Here is a short interview of Alex after the event.



For more information : www.momomiami.com/mmm

New BlackBerry Desktop Manager 4.5 Beta

Back again with more of unleashed released of BlackBerry. 24.000 downloads of Beta OS. That's a lot. Well today I'm going to post new BlackBerry Desktop Manager Beta 4.5. Nothing much to what you already have to be honest. Except a nicer interface and at last a media manager for your photos and videos.
So here is the link to download the new BlackBerry Desktop Manager :
http://rapidshare.com/files/119957560/BlackBerry_Desktop_450_Bundle14.zip

You can now upgrade your BlackBerry OS with latest beta here!

I have been using Blackberry for the last 5 years and I still think BB is the best mobile corporate solution for emails. Nonetheless RIM did not step into the smartphone business. The made a bad choice and are desperately trying to catch up. We all know they have an updated version of their OS. Lucky ones - like me- have had access to beta version since February.
In march I posted a 90 sec video on YouTube and to my surprise it drained 6000 viewers and 250 comments. WOW!



I never thought so many BB users were as frustrated as I was.

So now I decided to make a step forward and share my Beta versions with my friends.

Of course those are BETA versions. You are sole responsible for any damage to your device. Sorry for the disclaimer - we are in America :)

Instructions for updating your BlackBerry OS:

Make sure you have the latest version of Desktop Manager 4.3 installed.

Download the latest OS for your BlackBerry model to the PC then install it to the PC by running the file you downloaded.

Go to \Program Files\Common Files\Research in Motion\AppLoader and DELETE the Vendor.xml file.

Plug in your BlackBerry via USB and Open Desktop Manager. You should be prompted to upgrade.

Be patient, it can take more than an hour... Mine took nearly one hour.

DO NOT DISCONNECT THE DEVICE.

If you end up with a white screen with small icons and the number 507, re-connect to Desktop Manager again and run the application loader and it should load the OS to the device.

Curve 8300:http://rapidshare.com/files/117863222/8300AllLang_PBr4.5.0_rel52_PL2.7.0.55_A4.5.0.37.exe

Curve 8310:http://rapidshare.com/files/116659709/8310AllLang_PBr4.5.0_rel52_PL2.7.0.55_A4.5.0.37.exe

Curve 8320:http://rapidshare.com/files/116666243/8320AllLang_PBr4.5.0_rel52_PL2.7.0.55_A4.5.0.37.exe

Pearl 8100:http://rapidshare.com/files/117876039/8100AllLang_PBr4.5.0_rel52_PL2.7.0.55_A4.5.0.37.exe

Pearl 8110:http://rapidshare.com/files/117879253/8110AllLang_PBr4.5.0_rel52_PL2.7.0.55_A4.5.0.37.exe

Pearl 8120:http://rapidshare.com/files/117867249/8120AllLang_PBr4.5.0_rel52_PL2.7.0.55_A4.5.0.37.exe

8700:http://rapidshare.com/files/117869867/8700AllLang_PBr4.5.0_rel52_PL2.7.0.55_A4.5.0.37.exe

8800:http://rapidshare.com/files/116782583/8800AllLang_PBr4.5.0_rel52_PL2.7.0.55_A4.5.0.37.exe

8820:http://rapidshare.com/files/117873045/8820AllLang_PBr4.5.0_rel52_PL2.7.0.55_A4.5.0.37.exe

Puff Daddy and Me

Puff Daddy and Me
Originally uploaded by Florian SEROUSSI

Really cool guy in the VodaFone Motorhome of MacLaren in Monaco during Formula 1 Grand Prix.

Puff Daddy and my wife

Puff Daddy and my wife
Originally uploaded by Florian SEROUSSI.

Amazing picture during Grand Prix of Formula1 in Monaco 2008.