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Welcome back all you BBGeeks to our monthly roundup of the BBGeeks Twitter Help activities. If you have been following us for a while now you no doubt know about our account on Twitter.com.

Each and every Friday we reach out to other Twitter users and ask them what kind of problems they are experiencing with their BlackBerry devices. The response is always good. Some do not have problems at all, but just need some advice about BlackBerry software or accessories that would help them increase their productivity.

For all our readers who don’t use Twitter, we have decided to recap our conversations in which followers posed questions and we tracked down the answers.

Join us on the second Monday of each month for the official roundup. You never know what interesting information you will find.

Twitter Helps

pratt says:
Do you know of a good Outlook calendar sync for the BB? The Google one is driving me nuts.
This is a pretty common question we see around here at BBGeeks. The answer is quite simple actually.

BBGeeks Answered:

you can use the BlackBerry Desktop manager to do the sync for your outlook calendar. Here is a helpfull guide.

goldensnitch says:
Do you know if there is a way to disable web, bb messenger, and email temporarily so I am not getting data charges? Will I still be able to txt and send mms? I’m going out of the country and just don’t want to get data roaming charges
Out of town travel is a concern for many BlackBerry owners. When traveling to far off lands, the possibility of incurring massive cellular bills is a real issue.

BBGeeks Answered:

Sure do =) – on your BlackBerry go to – Options > Mobile Network > Data Service and change the setting to “off”. This will disable all of your data connections on your device while still allowing for SMS and MMS messaging to take place.

cjweb says:
I have a bb question – how do I find out what might be draining my battery if I notice unusual drain? I have 8310 curve
Battery drain is one of the issues that plagues BlackBerry devices. There are a number of ways to combat it but the issue is most likely here to stay.

BBGeeks Answered:

After a little bit of back and forth with cjweb we tried to rule out a few issues like constant data transfer or signal seeking. cjweb could not specifically identify these as possible causes (hint: to look out for this symptom check out the upload/download arrows in the top right corner of your device. If they are always moving you may have an issue.)

Ultimately we decided that the problem was most likely being caused by third party applications running in the background. A good practice is to use the escape key when exiting programs on your BlackBerry as some apps will not really close unless exited correctly. This will cause them to remain active in the background and drain your battery. Another good practice is to not use the application switcher too often and run as few programs as possible at any given time.

we suggested trying out a product called AutoStandby which allows for your BlackBerry to be put into pseudo holster mode after a specified period of inactivity.

barifrankel says:
HELP! I use Twitterberry on my curve but how do i attach links or pics to my tweets from my blackberry? Thank you!
Twitter is sure taking off and we are glad to see you all on here. If you are also new to Twitter, check out the complete Guide to TwitterBerry!

BBGeeks Answered:

To add a URL to your tweet just copy/paste URL into http://www.tinyurl.com or http://www.citebite.com to get a shortened URL then copy/paste into tweet.

For pics use http://www.twitpic.com and then copy the resulting URL into your tweet.

mas90guru added: You can email into twitpic as well – thanks to @nanpalmero for that tip. You get a special email address for your account.

drumdog00 and mcdent added: Or you can download twibble and twitpic is integrated within the app.

marcpayan says:
is Blackberry OS 4.6 available yet for my Sprint BB 8330?
Ahhh 4.6 the holy grail of RIM OS builds. . .

BBGeeks Answered:

4.6 is not available on ANY carrier for the Curve at the moment… at the moment, there is no ETA on when it will be.

arwild01 says:
Notifications to Facebook app stopped working after upgrading Sprint 8330 to OS 4.5. Thoughts?
OS upgrades are bound to wreak havoc with many BlackBerry apps. Looks like the Facebook app is one of them.

BBGeeks Answered:

You could always try a hard battery pull first to see if it fixes the issue. If not then go ahead and uninstall the Facebook app and reinstall it as there have been quite a few reports that it is finicky with 4.5 on some devices.

shimonsandler says:
what’s the best Twitter client for Blackberry?
There are a couple good Twitter applications available for your BlackBerry but . . .

BBGeeks Answered:

I would have to cast my vote for TwitterBerry as best BlackBerry Twitter client.

matt_mcgowan says:
Where can i download some good FREE games for my BB Curve? not as easy as I thought finding the right sites…
This is a question we get asked at least once a month and we are always glad to point people to what we consider to be the ultimate BlackBerry Games Resource!

BBGeeks Answered:

You want FREE games for your BlackBerry do you? Well I have a treat for you =) Check out this killer list on BBGeeks featuring Hundreds and Hundreds of FREE games for your BlackBerry!

matt_mcgowan later retweeted that link out to his list which was very much appreciated.

Tsoniki says:
I’ve never upgraded my OS for the Curve – can I do so OTA? And is it absolutely necessary? Thanks!
This is a good question. Had to do a quick search as we have never tried upgrading our OS OTA.

BBGeeks Answered:

After a little bit of Q and A with Tsoniki we determined that she was running a 8330 Curve on the Verizon network. A little bit of digging and a helpfull tweet from rickt it was revealed that it is not possible to do a Verizon 8330 OS upgrade OTA and that it must be done through the Desktop Manager. rickt suggested extracting the OS, removing the vendor.xml file and then connecting the BlackBerry device in this situation.

islandidea says:
Anyone know of a good (or any) print screen copy function for an 8830?
Not everybody who has a BlackBerry will need to be able to take screen shots of their device, but I hazard to guess that there are a few of you out there. Looks like
islandidea is one of them =)

BBGeeks Answered:

Here at BBGeeks.com we have been using the BBScreenShooter software right from the beginning to bring you screen shots in our reviews and and other informational posts when required. We highly suggest this software to anyone who needs to capture the information displayed on their BlackBerry screen.

There you go folks, all of the questions we have received in the last month through our Twitter account. If you would like to participate in our growing community of Tweeps, just download the BlackBerry Twitter application of your choice, sign up for a Twitter account and follow the BBGeeks Twitter profile.

See you all next month!

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