I got my first blackberry curve a little over a year ago. It was one of the original 8300’s at&t let out in to the wild. I quickly upgraded it to the 8320, the version with the GPS and I loved that tool. I won’t call it a phone, because RIM (research in motion) made it so much more than that. I could administer my Windows servers and Linux Boxes from it. I could chat with my friends via gtalk, aim, facebook, twitter. I could even record video with it (after I upgraded the firmware to a beta version). It took a lot for me to give it up. Until RIM came up with the BOLD. Granted, its not an iPhone, or the yet to be released in the states Blackberry Storm, but the BOLD is everything an admin or executive could want and more.

It came while I was out of town (I received notice via email on my curve) and I had to wait until today to get at it. It was quickly unboxed and up and running. I even managed to wait most of the day before I put the latest beta release firmware on it. Needless to say, the speed enhancements between the 3G and the wi-fi make this phone perfect as it is. The fact that it has GPS built in is even better. I’m still working on finding the perfect theme for it, and installing all the must have apps, but so far I have AIM, Gtalk, mobileAdmin, gpsed, viigo and some others installed. I haven’t purchased the iPhone Theme for BlackBerry yet. I had it on the curve, and I’m not sure if I want it again. It was a nice theme, but it doesn’t feel right.

I’m working on finding the rove screenshot tool again, but I haven’t had any luck yet, I don’t know if I can rescue it from the old laptop, but I’ll try. As soon as possible, I’ll post some screenshots, and maybe some video.

So its been a while since I’ve really posted. Yes, I did some twitter updates while in Vegas (which is a cool place to visit) and yes, we did go see O. It was, as I have said, completely bizarre and I do not ever need to see it again. Parts were wonderful, other parts left me with a profound sense of WTF?!?!

When I got back to work, the moving had begun and now, my office is half of the room we keep the servers in. Wouldn’t be too bad except for the noise of the fans and the AC always pumping out cold air. Kind of reminds me of my time at National Net. I’m finally at a point where i have somewhat workable space again (which is pretty hard to do here…) and I was browsing the Crackberry forums when I noticed something about an OS beta for the 8310 (the Curve from ATT with GPS) that enabled video taking and Youtube playing on it. So naturally I was intrigued. I downloaded the sucker, installed it and sure enough, I was able to record video on my curve.

AWESOME!!

Thats what you get when you hold the phone at arms length. Could be better, could be a lot worse. I did have to go through and clean it up a bit, but otherwise, I like the 4.5 os so far.

I’m also trying out a service called gpsed. It seems to be a better way to track with GPS than Blackberry Tracker and it allows for photo uploading and GPS tagging as well. So all the better. Check back soon and I’ll have more video and a link.