Frugal NYC - Top 10 Popular Posts November 2008

Frugal NYC has over one hundred posts now and it may be a little hard to figure out what may interest you. I've compiled the Top 10 Popular Posts as of this writing for you to check out and hopefully get you coming back for more. I've been blogging on a steady schedule since September 2008. Please let me know if you have enjoyed the content. Your feedback is very important to me, and I would love to hear from all my readers. You can leave me a comment on a post that interests you, which gets sent to me via email, or email me directly at frugalnyc@gmail.com. If you miss my regular posts, scoot over to my Frugal NYC Twitter account for quick tips!

1. Inbox Zero - In Three Steps!
2. Affordable Dining In NYC
3. GTD - Getting Things Done
4. Governor's Island
5. 10 Free Places to visit in NYC
6. Embedding Google Maps in Blogger
7. No Time To Think
8. 10 Free Blackberry Games
9. Windows Notepad Productivity
10. Central Park Series

What post do you like best? Am I addressing the topics you enjoy reading about? If you would like to contribute to Frugal NYC in any way, articles, ideas, posts, interesting links, advice, financial assistance, or anything else, feel free to contact me via email at frugalnyc@gmail.com.

Blackberry Shortcuts - Messages

These are the shortcut keys for the Blackberry messages application.

This list is for when you are in the mailbox (not viewing a single message).
T - top of messages, newest mail
U - oldest Unread mail, next oldest unread, etc..
B - Bottom messages list
C - compose a message
V - View Saved messages folder
S - Search emails
P - jump to Previous day
N - jump to Next day
L - reply to all
K - jump to next message on the thread
J - jump to previous message in thread
I - File selected message
H - Toggle hide/unhide filed messages
F - Forward current message
E - Error delivery list
Del - Delete selected message
Enter - view selected message
Alt+I - View received messages
Alt+U - Mark read/unread
Alt+O - view sent (Outgoing) messages
Alt+V - view voice messages
Alt+S - view SMS text messages
Alt+P - view Phone logs


While viewing a single message
T,B,F,

If you run into a problem where some of the Alt shortcut keys are not working, you can see this link from Network World or Blackberry Forums for some help. It turns out that the Alt shortcut keys are actually pre-saved searches.

Did you find this post useful? Check out some of my other Blackberry posts.

24 Blackberry Shortcuts - Browser Edition

I recently wrote a post about Blackberry Shortcut Keys, that was for the Home Screen. I've since compiled a list of shortcut keys for the Blackberry Browser version 4.2. I basically tried hitting every key on the keyboard until I came up with the below list. Then I realized I could have used the Help system, and I took a peek at that. It contained most of the below as well, but not all.

I use the Blackberry Browser quite often, and having these shortcut keys handy makes it so much easier to navigate. My most often used shortcuts are G, R, T, B, space, Enter, I, L, P, X, J, and Escape. Yeah, I use a lot of shortcuts. I only recently discovered the X key, and it is very helpful!

1. A - add bookmark
2. B - bottom of page
3. C - connection Information
4. D - Switch to BB home screen (hide browser)
   
5. R - reload page
6. T - top of page
   
7. Space - next page
8. Shift+Space - previous page
   
9. F, V - Search for "text"
10. G - goto new url
11. H - Homepage
12. Enter - follow link
13. I - Browser History
14. K - bookmarks
15. L - show link address
16. O - Options menu
17. P - Get current web Page address
18. S - Save to message list (mailbox message)
19. Del - Back one web page
20. U - toggles title bar
21. X - opens a full page overview of your webpage
22. Hold Escape 2 seconds - Close Browser
23. Escape - Stop loading webpage
24. J - jumps to new section of webpage

What Browser shortcut keys do you use? Check out my other posts about Blackberry tips.

10 Free Blackberry Games

If you've owned a blackberry for some time now, you've probably gotten very good at BrickBreaker. It's purpose is like windows freecell for your blackberry, it resides on every blackberry unit and it helps you learn to use your scroll wheel or the trackball very well.

If you've wanted other games but don't want to shell out a few bucks for them, look no further than this post ;). You could go to Magmic and pay for some games, but why would you want to when you can get some of them free? From your blackberry, open your blackberry browser. If you have shortcuts enabled, just hit the B key from the home screen to bring up the browser. Click the wheel (or blackberry menu button on one of the trackball devices), choose bookmarks. Then choose the Blackberry Help bookmark, on my unit the link goes to www.blackberry.com/mobile/help/vzw/, this link will not work on desktop browsers. Once the page loads, scroll to the Fun and Games link and choose that. Accept the terms and you will be presented with some free goodies.

Short version of above description. From Home Screen: B -> Click wheel -> Bookmarks -> Blackberry Help -> Fun and Games

From this page you can find numerous things, such as themes, wallpapers, games, and many other applications. My focus here are the free games, but feel free to grab whatever else you want to download. The free games and classic games links should keep you pretty busy. You can try the trial games as well, but I will not mention those here.

Depending on your wireless carrier and device, you may get a different set of free games. I'm currently on the 8703e unit on Verizon wireless, so I will only mention what I can see from my blackberry browser application.

Klondike - Classic card game
Spider Solitaire - Another classic card game
Bass Assasin - An amusing fishing game
Sudoku - Do I really need to explain this one?
Ka-Glom - A tetris like game (pictured above)
Rooster - Why did the chicken cross the road? You can be the chicken and find out.
Midieval Kings Chess - Pretty good chess game
Texas Holdem King 2 - Poker anyone?
Circle Popper - Like Puzzle Bobble, pop bubbles of the same color by matching 3 or more!
Raging Rivers - A kayaking game I never really got into.

What device do you use? What games do you see from the above link? Do you have other sites with free software to share with us? If you've enjoyed this post or find it helpful, let me know in the comments. Happy mobile gaming!

5 Ways To Extend Blackberry Battery

If you use your blackberry like most blackberry owners do, you have probably run out of juice in the middle of browsing or some other online activity. This has happened to me more than once, and I have a few tips for you to prolong your mobile online activities. Of course the best thing to do is have a spare battery charged and ready for use, but if you do not have a spare, below are some tips to prolong its current charge.

1. Use the on and off feature of the antenna.

I tend to turn the blackberry antenna off when I get on the subway or any other method of traveling that ensures loss of cellular reception. If your blackberry has to look for a signal because it cannot find a tower, it will continue to broadcast and look for the closest tower. This is by far one of the most power consuming features any cell phone has. So turn the antenna off. Having the ability to turn the antenna off is one of the reasons I like having a blackberry, and who knows if all that research is true about cell phones and cancer.

2. Exit Unused Applications

If you've read my post on Blackberry Shortcuts, you know that you can cycle through all running applications on your blackberry. If you use your blackberry like I do, I usually have several applications running simultaneously, though not for very long. I do this only for copy and pasting information. Some applications drain the battery at a very fast pace. A battery that usually lasts me 2 days, will drain in several hours. So, remember to exit the unused applications if you are not using them.

3. Use The Holster And Profiles

Using the blackberry holster essentially puts the unit in a specific setting determined by your current profile. The screen usually turns off right away, so you will get better battery life. This also helps prevent the keyboard from being accidentally hit, which also turns the screen on. Using the proper profile, can help reduce battery drain. You can customize or use the quiet profile for minimal alerts.

4. Use Auto On/Off

I use the auto on/off feature, which turns the unit off after a certain time in the evening. In the morning it turns on automatically. For obvious reasons, battery drain will be minimized when the unit is off.

5. Dim The Screen

Turning the brightness level down on the screen is one of the best ways to improve your battery life. The screen and antenna are the two heavy hitters when it comes to battery consumption. This is only effective in low light settings of course.

Do you know of or use other tips to prolong your battery use? Did these tips help you?

Blackberry AutoText

Many blackberry users do not use the AutoText feature on their blackberry. That's a shame because it is one of the most productive features on the device. To an extend it functions a bit like a grammar and spell checker. It you type the word don't without the apostrophe, it will automatically correct it for you.

The best thing about this feature is how much you can customize it. I use several built-in AutoText shortcuts faily often, and have customized several for myself. I have set up an email signature, and you can set up as many as you want, that only requires me to type in 3 characters instead of dozens. You can even create questionaire forms, foreign language words or phrases, the list goes on and on and is only limited by your creativity.

So how do you get to the AutoText feature? From the Main or Home screen, Options - AutoText.

You'll see many built-in
AutoText(s) and can create as many as your own memory can remember. If you create too many and don't remember what they were, it would defeat the purpose.

One last tip, when typing holding a letter down for one second will make it Capitalize. No need to hold the shift key in this instance.

Hope you enjoyed this blackberry tip. Did you find it helpful? Do you know of any related tips?

Blackberry shortcut keys

Below are the most commonly used shortcut keys that I put to use almost every day on my blackberry device.

Blackberrry shortcuts from the home screen

You need to disable dial from home screen option from the phone application first. Most of these shortcuts are relevant from any blackberry unit. These shortcut keys are affected by your theme as well. I use the Dimension Zen or Dimension-Icon themes.

• T - Tasks
• D - Notebook
• K - Lock keyboard
• L - Calendar
• U - Calculator
• R - Alarm Clock
• S - Search
• M - Mail
• N - Blackberry Messenger
  
• O - Options
• F - Profiles
• B - Browser
• ALT+ESC (hold ESC) - task switcher
• Copy Text - alt + wheel click
• Paste Text - Shift + wheel click

Other keys on the 8700 series

Hitting the hang up phone key (red phone logo on top right of keyboard) brings you to the
homescreen if you are in any other backberry applications.

There are two configurable keys on the 8700 series, other models may have other keys. You can change their behavior from the default, which in my opinion does nothing, to something useful. I have my keys set as the task switcher and for google maps.

Links to Carriers

• Verizon Blackberry units
• Verizon tips on getting better battery life
  
• ATT Wireless Business Support
  
• ATT Getting Started guide for the 8700
• T-Mobile Blackberry Support
  
• T-Mobile Blackberry 8700g manual (PDF)
  

Hope you've learned a tip or two. If you know of other shortcut keys, please let us know in the comments.