Inside BlackBerry » customization

How to use BlackBerry Z10 Music Shortcuts

Ty Williams — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:35:23 +0000

(Originally posted on the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog)

If you always have the Music app playing your favorite tunes whenever you are using your BlackBerry Z10, you should consider turning on Music Shortcuts. Doing so will allow you to switch between the previous and next songs in your playlist whenever you press and hold volume up, or volume down. To turn on Music Shortcuts:

While viewing your Home screen, swipe down from the top and tap Settings
Tap System Volume and set Music Shortcuts to On.

After doing this, to skip to the next track, press and hold the Volume Up key, to go back to the previous song, press and hold the Volume Down key

To learn about a feature on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone or troubleshoot an issue, there are several great options available to help. Visit www.blackberry.com/support for access to product manuals, how-to demos, tips and tricks, YouTube videos, support forums, knowledge base articles, Twitter support, and contact information for your region.

Five Tip Friday – Setting up a new BlackBerry smartphone

Brian S. — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 15:39:10 +0000

Last week I had a chance to experience the joy one feels while un-boxing a new gadget or electronic device. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the notion of “un-boxing,” it’s a term used by those gadget lovers in your life when they get a new device and are removing it from factory packaging.

My un-boxing last week was a new BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 smartphone for my wife, and while going through the setup, I thought it would be a good idea to share my BlackBerry® smartphone and BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet post-power up steps with you. So if you are about to get a BlackBerry device or have just received one, then this is the Five Tip Friday for you.

BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 Settings Overview

Ty Williams — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:33:51 +0000

When the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet was initially launched, one of the first things I did was explore the various settings offered so I could customize my tablet to my desired preferences. These settings included ‘About,’ ‘Airplane Mode,’ ‘Wi-Fi®,’ ‘Software Updates,’ ‘Bluetooth®,’ ‘BlackBerry® ID,’ ‘Accounts,’ ‘BlackBerry® Bridge™,’ BlackBerry® Balance™,’ ‘Internet Tethering,’ ‘Screen,’ ‘HDMI,’ ‘Sounds & Notifications,’ ‘General,’ ‘Storage & Sharing,’ ‘Security,’ ‘Language,’ ‘Keyboard,’ and ‘Date & Time.’

With the release of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0, a few new settings have been introduced, so today, I’d like to share with you an overview of the settings available to you, some useful tips and of course, where you can learn more.

Five Tip Friday – Personalizing BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0

Ty Williams — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 22:03:45 +0000

Happy Friday #TeamBlackBerry! What a busy week it’s been – in case you hadn’t noticed, we just happened to release BlackBerry® PlayBook™ OS 2.0 for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, and hopefully you’ve upgraded to the new version. Now that you’ve had a few days to play around with the new features of the new OS, I wanted to share five tips to help you personalize your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. (By the way, if you have a tip about using BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0, make sure you leave a comment and let everyone know!

With that being said, let’s dive in:

Five Tip Friday – Five reasons you should consider using Social Feeds

Ty Williams — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 21:02:36 +0000

Happy Friday #TeamBlackBerry! It’s Five Tip Friday, and today I’d like to share five reasons why you should consider using Social Feeds – a great app built right in to BlackBerry® 6 OS and BlackBerry® 7 OS smartphones. Using the Social Feeds app, you can stay up to date with your social networks and receive the latest RSS news and information from your favorite blogs and websites – all in one location.

Before we begin, if you aren’t familiar with Social Feeds, check out my post on How to use Social Feeds 2.0 to learn more.

1. Add your own Bit.ly® account

The next time you want to share a link with friends, you can send them a short link that will be created using your Bit.ly account. This will allow you to measure things such as how many clicks your link got and from which countries your link was viewed (one of my favorite stats!). To add your Bit.ly account details to Social Feeds, complete the following steps:

BlackBerry Messenger Groups: Share pictures, lists and chat with several friends at once

Ty Williams — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:23:25 +0000

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

One of best features available in BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) is Groups, as it’s a great way to stay organized and in touch. Using Groups, you can chat, share pictures and lists, create appointments and much more with family, friends, or co-workers. (Also, to get an idea of how you can use Groups, check out Alex’s post on Starting a BlackBerry Messenger Group to see how he uses it stay on top of everything!)

Let’s take a look at how to set up and manage a BlackBerry Messenger Group. To learn additional important things such as how to administer your group, check out the BlackBerry Messenger 6.0 User Guide.

How to use Universal Search

Ty Williams — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:16:09 +0000

Being able to find information on your BlackBerry® smartphone is really easy thanks to the Universal Search feature built into BlackBerry® 6 and BlackBerry® 7 OS smartphones. Universal Search is designed to allow you to search for help, contacts, documents, files, photos and other information right from the BlackBerry smartphone home screen.

Today I’d like to provide an overview of how Universal Search works and why you should start using it to help you stay on top of almost everything!

5 Reasons Why You Should Use BlackBerry Protect

Ty Williams — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:18:35 +0000

Protecting information on your BlackBerry® smartphone and finding it in case you misplaced it is made easier thanks to the BlackBerry® Protect™ app. This free application allows you to take advantage of several features such as automatic backups of your contacts, calendar entries and more. It is a great way to help ensure you do not lose important contact information; for example, if you happen to lose your BlackBerry smartphone.

Today I’d like to show you five reasons why you should be using BlackBerry Protect if you haven’t set it up already:

How to create your own BlackBerry Avatar!

Ty Williams — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:32:53 +0000

Personalizing your BlackBerry® smartphone is really easy thanks to the Avatar Builder application – Guys Edition and Girls Edition – that’s available in BlackBerry App World™. By using the Avatar Builder app, you’ll be able to create and customize an avatar to look just like you, or anyone you want it to be!

Today I’ll be providing an overview of how to install the Avatar Builder app on your BlackBerry smartphone and showing you several ways you can share your avatar with friends and family.

BlackBerry 7: Getting Started Guide Part 2

Ty Williams — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:43:21 +0000

As promised in the first BlackBerry® 7 Getting Started Guide, here is a complete overview of every option available in the Setup wizard. For those wondering, I will be using a BlackBerry® Torch™ 9860 smartphone in this post.

Before we begin, opening the Setup app can be accomplished two ways. The first is when it opens automatically after starting up a new BlackBerry 7 OS smartphone. The second is when you open it by selecting the Setup icon that appears on the Home Screen if you’ve already set up BlackBerry 7 on your smartphone. With this being said, let’s dive in.