Posts Tagged ‘RIM’

The Problem With Technology

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

Recently we had a client come into our computer and IT repair facility in Clifton Park.  He was having an issue with his BlackBerry from Sprint/Nextel.  The problem was centered on connecting to his Microsoft Exchange Server.

We followed our advanced diagnostic procedures for this type of issue.  When this didn’t lead to a solution, we had to contact the vendors of the product.  When all was told, we spoke with six people from three different companies.  With the exception of one person, the others weren’t even able to grasp an understanding of what the issue was.

Fortunately for our client, he didn’t have to deal with the frustration as our motto is “Eliminating HI-Tech Frustration” and we took the brunt of it.  These days there are so many variable and so many products from different vendors involved, determining exactly where the issue originates is no longer as simple as 1, 2, 3.

The problem with technology is too many large companies cut corners by providing inadequate technical support staff to properly resolve their customer’s issues.  One of our advantages is with the example of the person who brought in their BlackBerry: we are all power users and run a variety of smartphones with different operating systems such as: BlackBerry, Palm WebOS, Android and Windows Mobile.

Information provided by: HITman Services, a computer and IT services company located in Clifton Park, New York.

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Has the BlackBerry Enterprise Server Lived Beyond Its Time ?

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

For quite, BlackBerrys and the BlackBerry Enterprise server has been a hard combination to beat because of RIM’s (Research In Motion) push technology.

Setup a Microsoft Exchange account on a BlackBerry and you have a very powerful combination.  Email is sent both inbound and outbound with almost no delay. Additionally, the calendar, contacts, notes and tasks are also synced wirelessly.

Companies such as Fox News have created apps which take advantage of the push technology and send news alerts as they happen.

All of this is great, but there is one exception, Microsoft Sync.  Microsoft Sync offers many of the same features as the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, but with less cost.  RIM has recently tried to remedy this by providing small businesses with a slimmed down version of the server software, and at zero cost.

The problem is, the overhead is still there and owners of BlackBerrys are required to pay a higher fee to their wireless phone provider.

Recently I had a conversation with an insider from a Fortune 100 company who stated they have more issues with syncing BlackBerrys than other devices by a very wide margin.

Time will tell which system offers the best business solution.

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Benched

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Recently I have been having a go around with my BlackBerry Tour and a BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server). I am a big fan of the BlackBerry interface, as I believe they got a lot right. Switching between tasks handling email and appointments and other items which need to be addressed throughout the day, makes the BlackBerry a worthy tool. However this past week we implemented a BES server to sync our Microsoft Exchange accounts. The ability to browse folders on the BES server from my BlackBerry is very handy, however RIM’s (Research In Motion) policy is only a 2 week retention for calendar entries. Since my calendar dates back substantially longer than 2 weeks, this posed a big problem.

So at the moment I had to bench my BlackBerry Tour and am trying an HTC Imagio.  I am using Active Sync for the connection between my HTC Imagio and our Exchange Server.  One issue which has been resolved is the ability to set the retention policy for calendar entries.  At first use though, it looks like I may have to give up quite a bit in functionality.

Update

I have been able to restore all calendar entries to a BlackBerry Curve using the following procedure.

First I set the BlackBerry Calendar option to keep appointments forever, then I disabled the Wireless Synchronization on the BlackBerry.  Next I connected the BlackBerry to the BlackBerry Desktop Manager I set the Desktop Synchronization to only the calendar entries and to transfer all of them.  I then ran the synchronization.

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