Mobility Banking - Secure Internet Banking

Seems to be a big grey area in the market these days.

Only one notable Australian Bank has come to the plate with mobile banking, enter, Bank of Queensland (BOQ).

This is one of the areas that is easily steaked in the group as a competitive advantage to the rest of the market. Now let's not forget IT's roots here, to support the business.

This is a primary example of where technology is capable of doing 256 Bit HTTP SSL Encryption over an AES Data connection and a business not being to "scared" to be the first to offer it.

I look forward to the day the desktop is obsolete. I pretty much only use it for research, banking and remote-desktop these days anyway

IM (MSN, GTalk, YMessenger), Email (Desktop,Windows Live Hotamil,Gmail), SMS, MMS, Phone-calls, Feeds, Cricket Scores :), Facebook and of course the once a day Accuwhethere Push Service all are done from my 8310 Curve.

Banking on my Blackberry would be fantastic, it might even be a pre-requisite in the not too distant future for which bank (no pun intended) I go with.

Here's to reading your last 7 days transaction whilst in transit minus a laptop :)

OCS 2007 Certification

One thing I did forget to mention was that Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Certification for Blackberry Enterprise Server will not be granted until service pack 6. Lotus sametime seems to be the flavour of the month, and why not? Lotus is by far the largest messaging/communications solution for the the US fortune 500.

Link to SP5 PDF from Webcast

SP5 WEBCAST PDF LINK

Thanks to Dataoutages :)

Service Pack 6 - Confirmed

Due out later this year apparently :)

What little goodies will we see ?

Aaron Stuart from RIM stated "released later this year"

BES SP5 WEBCAST .... Flooded !!!

Well here I am.... 4:06am AEST ..... trying to get onto the RIM resourcecentre website to watch the official presentation for BES 4.1 Service Pack 5 and it appears that the site has been swamped. Even using an overseas proxy still would produce no results when trying to attempt to connect.

Hopefully I will have something to post in the next hour.

and hopefully I didn't get up @ 4am for nothing to :)

EDIT: Just checked out the forums.... everyone is unable to get in :-(

Although annoyed it is very satisfying that there is such demand for a newly relesed service pack.

Onward soldier...

Jumping Ship

Sorry for the amount of time between posts, been busy getting myself a new Job @ Optus Australia :)

One thing I am definately looking forward to is the Wireless Lan Pearl that's on offer through Optus.

UMA is definately the future....

Blackberry Wishlist / Need List

Ill start the ball rolling now, not conclusive, but I am going to put up my Wishlist for the Blackberry Solution, ones that are easily added to the device and aren't unrealistic (i.e a key dedicated to producing wormholes :P )

1. GPS Notification Icon - Doesn't that just bite when ur battery goes dead because you have left GPS on all day ?
2. BES Management Console for the Device, i.e. So BESadmins can add and remove and reset passwords on the go.
3. Ability to remotely hide/show icons on users devices rather than just the service. i.e Hid the compose icon.

EDIT: Good to see atleast one of my ideas was fixed with SP5 :)

more to come.....

The Inner Workings of a Blackberry Curve 8310

Bang!

Shouts of Horror!!

I nearly lost my Blackberry today.... the world most definately would have ended... lol

Until I got another one out of the Cupboard @ work tomorrow ... lol.

While it was smashed into smitherines from my accidental throwing of the device I decided to check it's guts out :)

The design is very well made, complements to the chef :)

But one thing caught my eye and that was , you guessed it, the trackball. I had always been wondering what it looked like underthere and how it all worked (engineering background/nature) but i had always been "too busy" to pull it apart.

It actually works like the legacy ball mice for PC's but there are 4 rollers rather than 2, thus surrounding the trackball on 4 sides.

The rough texture of the Trackball is actually by design, thus making it grip.

Anyway.... i was intrigued...

Scrubbing Part 2

After looking through my Website stats I have notice that people are looking for a particular duration of the scrubbing feature.... Unfortunately it cannot be quantified exactly, but, in real life terms on my 8310 it takes about 2 hours to complete.

Hope this helps.

Blackberry Messenger Transports

Over the ages at work, Lee Williams and Craig Pringle and myself have been discussing enhancements to the Blackberry device.

One particular enhancement that would definately see success would be to allow transports to be added to the built-in messenger client thus allowing connection to public IM communities.

www.quickim.com provides a solution to MSN/Live Mesenger problems, but just doesn't have that feel as good as the Blackberry Messenger (as basic as it is).

When will RIM step up to the task to allow users to access public IM communities through their proprietry browser ?

Just ask ?

While perusing around the Internet and seeing Toyota is now more popular in the USA than ford (http://abcnews.go.com/Business/IndustryInfo/story?id=4080834&page=1) I discovered this add in one of the frames.

http://www.blackberry.com/select/ask/

At first I was a little surprised by it all as it is not their typical style of advertising.

They are definitely trying to capitalise on the whole "love for the Blackberry" thing.

Check it out and see what you recon.

NZ's 8830 WorldMode Edition

Excuse the crappy quality, was taken in reduced quality for MMS format...

As stated before I am just about to fly back from NZ after providing training for the Blackberry Helpdesk for Telecom NZ. The first device for corporate customers only at the moment, is the Blackberry 8830 WorldModel edition featuring access to both 800/1900 Mhz CDMA2000 and 900/1800 Mhz GSM/GPRS networks. I think this device is brilliant for Governnet and C level Clients and security personell, but I wish that RIM could have made available an 83XX WorldMode edition handset, as this would have been more appealing to the wider community. The pearl 2 that is due to be released early next year should be a breath of fresh air by then when Telecom NZ receives this device as it will be a long time between drinks by then :)

4.1 Service Pack 4 Maintenance Release 4

After hearing along the grape vine about installs with Exchange 2007 failing due to the public folder database not being created (as MS are fazing this out) this MR fix's this issue.... Not much else to report.... Bring on SP5 :)

I'm still here !!!

I'm just over in NZ training some Blackberry Administrators for my good friend NZ Geek Girl.

http://nzgeekgirl.wordpress.com/

... just listening to the BB Cool podcast and just found out that RIM has now launched an official Blackberry store in Michigan...

Will we ever see a dedicated Windows Mobile/Intellisync/Goodlink store ?

Doubt it..

Scrubbing

One handy feature of the OS is the scrubbing after wiping feature.

RIM defines it as the following -

"the process of rewriting over memory to remove any residual unmapped data on the BlackBerry device. The scrubbing process could take up to several hours."

I am still trying to find out the exact details of scrubbing, as it is still a bit hazy, would love to post the exact method/mathematical formula/algorithm used.

I like this part -

"Note: Once scrubbing has been triggered, there is no way of stopping it. The process must be fully completed before the BlackBerry device may be used. Removing and reinserting the battery of the BlackBerry device will only start the scrubbing process again from the beginning.

The duration of the scrubbing process depends on factors such as the actual processor speed of the BlackBerry device, the amount of memory that it has, and the actual memory speed."

RIM the Confusing :)

Q: How do I determine if an MR is a hotfix or a rollup?
A: The www.blackberry.com web site and Release Notes clearly identify the MR as either a hotfix or rollup

Taken from Here

I'm still a little bemused by it all....

Mobility Man Enjoying Beer !

Well... he would be if he wasn't on standby waiting for his new child to arrive in this fine world.

Sporting a Mo, as we are all supposed to be as Movember is a great cause, since us blokes rarely visit the Doctor.

He has more on his site here

Aussie Media Coverage

Since my inbox was overflowing with emails surrounding this article, I thought i'd post here.

A few interesting comments around expected growth.

4.1.4 Maintainence Release 3

RIM seem to be pumping the fix's atm, when will the features arrive ?

Apparently sp5 is not due out until Feb 2008, check the RIM Lifecycle Page.

Remote Services

I recently had the pleasure of being asked to train up some of our NZ boys around Blackberry. Fun was had by all, esp. the Greek in the middle :P

Mark had brought something to my attention whilst doing a remote router service install and noted that the usual registry entry change needed for remote services was already enabled.

It seems the remote service's are now crying out for mummy when installed, thus enabling it automatically.

Nifty idea ... but can this be exploited somehow ?