For some BlackBerry owners, typing speed is a point of pride. How fast can you tap out a message? Even if it’s not a matter of ego, it just pays to get messages out faster, especially if you know what you want to say. What follows are three quick tips for better messaging.
Don’t use a period
If you want to end a sentence, it is grammatically correct to use a period. It actually bugs the crap out of me when people decide not to use the most common form of punctuation. Yeah, it’s a pain to hit alt+m, but hey, you’ve got to parse your words somehow. Or you could do it another way. Hit space bar twice after a sentence. It’ll put the period in for you AND capitalize the first letter of the next word.
Skip the shift key
If you need to capitalize a letter that is not the first word of the sentence, the normal protocol is to hit the shift key, followed by the letter. Nay. All you have to do is hold down the letter for a split second. You’ll see the letter jump from lower case to upper case.
Forget the @ in an email address
Just use a space. The BlackBerry will know what you mean. You can even skip the period before the com, org, net, whatever. Just use a space, too. So to reach me, it would be jpawlikowski bbgeeks com.
