I no longer EnV CrackBerry users

Last week I got my second replacement BlackBerry. I just got my first Blackberry back in January of this year and I've had nothing but problems with it since day one. I've had very problems with it: wouldn't sync with my laptop, wouldn't connect to the WWW on the device, the email wouldn't work properly, it would freeze on a regular basis and I spent more time taking the battery out and putting it back in than I did using the Crackberry.

The newest replacement and the newest problem is that it shuts itself off and turns itself back on about every 3 minutes and has done that for a week.

I finally cracked up a bit when I called VerizonWireless. Let me tell you how badly this situation had gotten: I had the name and personal phone number with her extension and her personal email of a VZW technician who's been helping me with the mess that was my CrackBerry.

So I called her on Friday and finally said this was it and I hated it. I said if VZW wouldn't fix it, I was going to refuse to pay my bill and file daily complaints daily and with the Better Business Bureau until they were sick of me. She felt badly and thought I should be finished with Blackberry products. So she put me on hold and when she came back, it was all fixed.

The company is sending me a phone called an EnV2. I realize there is a phone called the EnV3 but since they were making exceptions they couldn't upgrade me to the "3". I guess the EnV2 is the Lg version of the Blackberry Curve and will do everything the Blackberry Curve would do except sync with Outlook- BUT my Crackberry Curve never would sync so I have no idea what I'm missing there.

So on Monday via Fed. Ex. I should be receiving my new EnV2 . So I guess we'll see what happens and if it functions well, like my old Strawberry Chocolate did, or if it turns out to be a piece of crap like my Crapberry... Cross your fingers that this phone functions properly. Either that or I'll be melting down.

Ring*ring,
Mags

Pandora's Boom Box- 21st century style

I went to the Verizon store the other day to have my second replacement Crackberry fixed because it's a piece of shit, but something good did come of that horrible 2 hour experience at the Verizon store.

The woman who waited on me has a Crackberry of her own and while she was updating the crap on my piece of crap phone, she asked me if I used Pandora. I had a feeling she wasn't talking about the chick with the box of a thousand horrors but something that could be Blackberry related.

Apparently I have been totally missing out on this wonderful music feature that's free and available online AND on the Crackberry- what's cool is that my cell phone is actually only good as a radio. Sad, isn't it?

Anyway, so Pandora is an online radio station. And what's even better is that it's PROGRAMMABLE! I can type in "Billy Joel" and create a Billy Joel station that will play his music and others in the style of him. I can do that with any artist I want. I even found a genre that's "Chicago Blues" which is cool. Registering is free and setting it up is free. And you can play it on hand held Blackberry like devices as well as through the computer. There is radio you can buy or subscribe to through it, but the free is great, but with just short commercials.

You can also rate the songs, you get 6 skips, you can look at the history of songs... it's awesome! You can have 100 stations total that are created. I know there's more to it- you can share your stations with friends but I have no idea how that works. Go look at it yourself- you can't expect me to do everything for ya: you know I'm technologically impaired. But hey, it's free.

So take a look and see what you can create- your own music. Listen and enjoy.

Dancin' in the sheets,
Maggie

Lots of power in my hand- but I'm clueless on how to use it

My new Blackberry Curve is a pretty nifty little toy. And it's way more phone that I'm capable of handling. So far. But it's pink!

When I got my previous phone, a Strawberry Chocolate, Mac and some of my students showed me how to work it. Now, I have no students and I think it's also more phone than Mac can just cavalierly operate. I've read the instructions and watched the little CD that came with it and I'm still at a loss.

I have a list of things I want to do and have no idea how to do it. I would love to change the ringtone to a song, but I can't. I want to make it stop pinging at me when it gets email, but I can't. I would really like the change the alert sound for the text messages so it no longer sounds like the Starship Enterprise, but I have no clue. I haven't even thought about installing my Bluetooth- I would like to be able to just answer it when it rings! It's a great phone but I'm struggling. I think I'll be resorting to calling Photographer to see if any of her high school students can help me. And if any of you out there have one and are quite capable of running your Blackberry, please let me know!

Technologically befuddled,
Maggie

Editor's note: After writing this post my cute lil' Blackberry just stopped working- no emails, no phone capabilities, no service, no text, no anything. So I called Verizon Wireless and I got the greatest Customer Service Rep in history. Murry has the exact same phone as me (except his is in silver) and he walked me through all the issues, problems and questions. Then he gave me his email address and told me to just send him an email when I have trouble and if he can't help via email, he'll just call my cell. OMG- I love this guy!