I just had to give up my Sprint powered PPC8800 for a Blackberry Curve 8310 so I could be on the communal rate plan and also have real-time Exchange access for e-mail at work. After doing so it forced me to do a lot of research on applications and ways to better my Curve.

I figured some other people are going to go looking for this info as well, so I’ve compiled what I learned here. Its not my most organized post, but there is a lot of information and I didn’t want to spend forever getting the post out. Hopefully if anyone knows of other cool, free stuff for the BB you’ll drop a comment below and let me know.
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I keep wondering two things, why does the RIAA continue to persecute people, and more importantly why do people do stupid enough things to keep getting prosecuted?

That organization exists for the sole purpose of suing the pants off of people, but they can only do so when people leave plenty of evidence about their activity - namely hosting content on their computers and allowing others to download it. Most of the time it seems these foolish people aren’t even aware that what they are doing by running Kazaa, eMule, Gnutella, or some other file sharing application puts them at risk.

But why in the world would anyone share their music, movie or software collections via open, anonymous connections? Especially when there are other virtually risk-free alternatives? (By the way, know your rights if RIAA comes calling.)
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Google recently acquired a company called GrandCentral, which I was preparing to do a review of anyway after testing the service out a bit. This only makes the offering all that much stronger, and in my opinion it’s something everyone should try out.

Here is the Google acquisition announcement which took about 2 seconds to download directly from my voice mail:

GrandCentral links all of your phone numbers together and layers on a TON of new features. How? They are giving people One Number…for Life - a number that’s not tied to a phone or a location - but tied to you. This number will consolidate your voice messaging, route calls to wherever you are, and even allow you to screen your calls.
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I previously posted about the famous Etch-A-Sketch artists, but at the time I had no idea that there is a virtual Etch-a-Sketch that anyone can use to practice online! But guess what… there is!

Head on over to the online Etch-a-Sketch and give it a whirl. It works exactly like a real one, which means you’ll be frustrated in no time.
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The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger! Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!).

This issue needs immediate support or the future of free radio is in jeopardy. According to Pandora founder Tim Westergren:

The survival of Pandora and all of Internet radio is in jeopardy because of a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC to almost triple the licensing fees for Internet radio sites like Pandora. The new royalty rates are irrationally high, more than four times what satellite radio pays and broadcast radio doesn’t pay these at all. Left unchanged, these new royalties will kill every Internet radio site, including Pandora.

At this point there are only a few weeks left to protect the future of Internet based radio stations. Even if you don’t listen to them currently you should be very, very concerned because these stations are how you’ll listen in the future - and that is exactly what the media giants are trying to prevent! Read on and I’ll explain…
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My buddy Hrafn over at Inkblot Earth found this incredibly cool screen saver called Twingly. In a nutshell it does the following things:

• A visual representation shows blog postings from around the world in real time.
• You can zoom in and out with your mouse’s scroll wheel, and you can rotate and spin the globe by clicking and dragging.
• It’s possible to tell where the most articles are coming from because bars get taller as more posts come in from certain places.

Read on to see a video of it in action!
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Virtually every retailer now days offers “price match guarantees” and purchase protection after the sale in case you find a lower price within 30 days. But when was the last time you actually kept an eye out on the prices for something after you bought it?

Yeah, that’s what I thought… and the retailers are counting on people making the purchase and never looking back. Well now there is a great little service called Price Protectr that allows you to specify the Web site of the item you purchased as well as the date and price, and it will watch that product for 30 days and notify you via e-mail if it finds a lower price.
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MIT’s OpenCourseWare project aims to offer the complete course material for every class online, free of charge.

President Susan Hockfield offers this explanation:

“OpenCourseWare expresses in an immediate and far-reaching way MIT’s goal of advancing education around the world. Through MIT OCW, educators and students everywhere can benefit from the academic activities of our faculty and join a global learning community in which knowledge and ideas are shared openly and freely for the benefit of all.”

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People routinely ask about my favorite software so, I’ve decided to gather all my top picks in one place to make every one’s life a little easier.

All of the software listed here is free for personal use, meaning:

1. Any of this software can be installed and used at absolutely no charge, forever. There is no nagging, spyware, or anything else nasty.
2. Because it’s totally free, sometimes there is very little support. You either figure out how to use it, or just get rid of it.

So, without further ado, here is the list categorized by type of application:
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If you live in the US, you can print and fax in this form for a free subscription to Cure magazine.

Cure has excellent overview articles both for laypeople and physicians.
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It’s amazing how much communication costs. If I add up my cellular bills, Internet bills and home phone service we’re looking at $250 a month! $3,000 a year is more than the average income of a family in 90% of the countries on earth. That is simply criminal!

Luckily, ever since the advent of the Internet those costs have been plummeting, and I would expect them to continue dropping until it costs almost nothing to talk to anyone, anywhere. (When wi-fi Internet has the same coverage as cellular networks all calls will be free!) For now, however, I’ve put together this handy little guide to help decrease the various costs associate with making phone calls.
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The new Site24×7.com Web site monitoring service is a fantastic free service which offers some fairly advanced features for monitoring and alerting owners to Web site issues.

After signing up for the service, I added and configured 5 different domains and asked the service to test each domain every 5 minutes. If the site does not respond, or if there is too much delay (latency) I also receive a notice.
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