On a day where a juicy story is difficult to come by, we like to throw our readers a delicious bone to chew on while we wait for RIM to fill up our doggy dish.  But let’s get back to this review, eh?  PingChat is a multi-platform application, similar to BBM.  It allows you to create a unique username (similar to IM but without all the additional setup) and send messages to anyone who has a PingChat ID.  We over here at BlackBerryDog have found this application invaluable, as not all of us have access to our BlackBerry at any given time (possibly due to our hands being tied up with chopsticks, right Taylor?) and most of us have additional phones.  More after the jump!

PingChat’s user interface is rather straight-forward and easy to use.  Most of the functions are accessible only through the BlackBerry menu, where things can get a little confusing at times.  If you start a new chat, you will not be able to add from your contacts list (which I will get into in a moment).  You must either a) remember their PingChat ID, or b) Ping them from your contact list.  A handy little feature that comes alongside PingChat is the ability to link a specific ID with a contact in your address books.  This allows you to go to ‘contacts’ as opposed to trying to remember each individual ID.

All in all, I would give PingChat a 9/10.  It is a very easy app to use and invaluable for those of you without SMS plans who would like to be able to contact those with BlackBerry, Android, or iPhone.  PingChat is now available in the BlackBerry app world as a free download.

If you’re anything like me, you listen to very obscure music.  If at any given time you can be listening to Animal Collective, the Wu-Tang Clan, or Ratatat, then this is the application for you.  More after the jump!

As you can see, Graffiti’s UI is relatively simple and easy to use, although it can be laggy at times.  Graffiti is a legitimate radio station (for those of who use an hd radio, you may already to listen to it), so you don’t get to ‘choose your station’ such as you would on Pandora or Slacker.  Despite this, Graffiti plays a laundry list of interesting hiphop, electro, freak-folk, experimental, and folk bands to keep even the biggest music snob happy.  Not only will you hear the aforementioned, but also the music that inspired that particular band.

As a whole, I’ve grown to like Graffiti.  It plays a lot of music that I like, but has also opened my eyes to different bands or new music that I have grown to like quite a lot.  If your music taste is diverse enough to match mine, you will love the variety that this application puts into the palm of your hand.  Grafitti can be found in the BlackBerry app world for free (and deleted just as easily, so it’s worth a try).  If you give Graffiti a shot, let us know below whether you liked or disliked it.

Since you probably already know I’m a tweep and that I am an ÜberTwitter advocate, I will cut right to the chase.  Beta-8 was recently upgraded, bringing about some minor bug and aesthetic fixes.  You are now able to not notify on new tweets and still receive notifications for your DMs, replies, and mentions.  To do this, go to your sound profiles, set ringtones/alerts. other and find the three ÜT options (new tweets, mentions, DMs) and modify the settings how you wish.  Also, the DMs and @ replies are no longer the solid greens and yellows they once were.  Now, they are both a gradient with their respective color on the outside fading into white in the center.

Both the bug fix and the aesthetic improvements are aces in my book.  The bug fix allows me to finally be notified when I receive a DM, reply, or mention.  The aesthetic improvement made it generally easier to read said DMs, et al.  To emphasize this, you must think that I am a relatively young guy with 20/20 vision.  If it helped me read that which was directed at me, those of you who wear glasses or have a visual impairment of some kind will find the aesthetic improvements invaluable.

First, I must establish that I am a twitter fanatic (@lovexxreverie , people!).  I absolutely love twitter, which makes it difficult for me to find a twitter client that fits all of my needs. Sadly, with all the options out there, Seesmic does not make the cut for me.  Seesmic is good for those new to twitter, the casual twitter user, or those with lower standards as to what their client must offer.  If you want the best (in my opinion) BlackBerry twitter client out there, I will point you in the direction of ÜberTwitter. But, back to Seesmic.

Seesmic boasts a very plain interface (this being my favorite part) which is a simple black text on a white background.  I found that reading text was extremely easy, although tweets are annoyingly huge which takes up a massive amount of screen real estate.  On average I could fit between 1 1/2 and 2 tweets on a page, unlike Ubertwitter’s 3-4 minimum. This seems to be a common problem among Twitter clients, and with a smaller screen like that of a BlackBerry, the real estate doesn’t come cheap. The less scrolling, the better.

You can view another user’s profile, but on a rather antagonistic note, you can look at the amount of people that someone follows, as well as those following them, but you cannot actually see who the people are!  I don’t know about you, but I like to see who is following me when I gain a follower. I like in-depth information on my followers and the people I follow.

While packed with a decent amount of features beyond the basic ‘tweet’, it is still lacking in functionality when it is stacked against competition like, ÜberTwitter. I will, however, give a lot of credit to Seesmic for making the distinction between a quote and a retweet.  I will also say that those with sight-issues will find Seesmic to be a match made in heaven.  While the aesthetics and ease of use will appeal to a new tweep, a seasoned twitter user like Taylor or a twitter addict like myself will find themselves rather unimpressed with Seesmic.  Oh, and the icon may or may not leave you dry heaving from an overdose of cute.  Tell us if you like or dislike Seesmic and why!

Google Sync is something that has been riddled with problems for many a user, including myself.  For those of you with too little time to mess with it or a lack of problem solving skills, here is a step by step way to make Google Sync work for you.

1. Backup your phone.
2. After phone is backed-up, download Google Sync (comes with the Google Mobile App).
3. Run Google Sync for your contacts and/or calendar.
4. Go into the Google account that you used sync with, and manually delete all multiple contacts (Or let Google find the duplicates and merge for you.)
5. Do partial restore of your BlackBerry and only restore contacts.
6. Voila!  Your BlackBerry will no longer multiply contacts when a sync occurs, and you will no longer have multiple contacts in your ‘Berry.

Now, some may ask why Google Sync is necessary, especially is you regularly backup your BlackBerry.  I personally like Google Sync because it gives me the ability to access my contacts from both my computer and my phone.  I am also able to, if I lose my BlackBerry or decide to go to another device, able to either manually add all my contacts back, or sync to Google Sync and immediately have my contacts restored. We hope this solution works for you, and if you have any horror stories, success stories, or anything of that nature relating to Google Sync, let us know!

I am an active Twitter user (as per usual, here is my shameless pimp out: @lovexxreverie).  I find that Twitter is possibly the best way to communicate with someone without killing my battery and draining my time.  This being said, my favorite Twitter application just got so much better.

I started using UberTwitter out of pure frustration with Twitter for BlackBerry.  I’m not knocking TfB, but if you really like to tweet, like I do, it just doesn’t cut the mustard. Ubertwitter is one stop shopping for Twitter.  It does everything that you need with the added feature of restarting exactly where you left off.  I could write an essay on why you should use UberTwitter, but I’m sure you lead a busy life.  Let me just bullet this out for you.

Pros:

• Compact
• Easy on your memory
• Easy on your battery
• Attractive
• Easily recognizable icon
• Fantastic support for media

Cons:

• Twitter is addictive
• Can lag slightly
• Themes can be a bit unimaginative

All I can say is, if you want the best in Twitter (I’ve heard Social Scope is the winner, but I cannot vouch for it) then I’d recommend UberTwitter.  I wouldn’t steer you wrong, and I can promise it is worth the download.  Please give beta-8 a try (download from the site here) and bark it up in the comments below as to how you like it and how it compares to your current Twitter client.

If you’re like me, you thoroughly enjoy connecting with people and friends.  If you’re like my parents, you often travel on business.  These applications combine the best of both worlds, allowing you to search what is near, keep your friends (or family) updated on your daily activities, et al.  If any of what I just said appealed to you, read ahead for my top five LBS applications. If not, well read anyways!

1. Poynt – When out with friends, I often fire up Poynt to find something to eat or where to buy the cheapest gas.  As a bunch of students, you can probably guess that money is a little tight for us.  On top of business location, you also have the ability to search white pages, movies, and the like.

2. Google Mobile – As an avid google user, Google Mobile has proved to be even more useful!  When Poynt isn’t quite enough, I open up Google Mobile which often provides more information on where I’m going as well as the ability to sync with Google Maps quickly and easily.

3. FourSquare – Something out there for the social networking junkies like myself, FourSquare allows you to ‘check-in’ to places, showing your friends where you currently are.  I often use this with friends so we can meet up somewhere, even if they don’t know exactly where I am.

4. Ubertwitter – For relatively accurate location tweeting, FourSquare has taken over for me in this respect, but if you want an all in one application, go for it.  Ubertwitter is the most easily used twitter application on BlackBerry (in my opinion) and has one feature that sets it apart.  The ability to start from where you left off.  When leaving the application, it can run in the background and you will start off exactly where you closed Ubertwitter at.

5. Bing for BlackBerry – The alternative to Google Mobile.  If you prefer Bing to Google as your primary search engine, this is perfect.  I would disagree with this, but both Google Mobile and Bing are well refined and easy to use.  It boils down to preference.

For those of you who have never used any LBS apps, I strongly recommend you do so.  As a student, I have found a use for them in every day life.

For those of you already using FourSquare, you will have an idea of exactly what Gowalla is.  For those of you who would like a more in depth explanation, feel free to visit this article for a better explanation.

Back at the ranch, I have downloaded and toyed with Gowalla for approximately 45 minutes with little satisfaction.  Despite the FourSquare for BlackBerry application being glitchy and difficult to use on the best day, Gowalla takes the cake as my least favorite LBS app.  The user interface is overly cartoony, very much like UberTwitter v. 5 (for those of you who used that), and rather distracting.  Also, I found that my location was way off and the list of venues was shoddy and poorly constructed.  On a brighter note, Gowalla has been known for a sort of consumer rewards program (refer to aforementioned article for more in depth explanation).  A new feature being added to Gowalla (hopefully soon) is the ability to list several destinations in a specific order and refer to it as a trip.

All in all (and considering it is in beta) I will give Gowalla a 6 on usability and performance and a 5 on appearance. For those interested in downloading/using Gowalla, visit their website here to download to desktop and sync with your device.  Bark it up with any likes and dislikes and happy trails!

via: BlackBerry Cool

Although merely a minor update, another Bolt Browser update has been released today.  This update will upgrade the version from 2.10 to 2.11, despite the fact that no new features have been added.  However, better Twitter support and faster server response time have all been added, making for a more user friendly experience.

Bolt Browser, despite it’s advantages, is just something I don’t enjoy using. Tabbed browsing is a fantastic feature, but the lack of fluidity in the browser diminishes the browser as a whole. Bolt is just not for me. But what say you? Do you like Bolt, or do you prefer the stock browser (as I do)?

via: BlackBerry Rocks

To wrap up a seemingly slow week for BlackBerry news (even more so since my ISP took two days to get me back online), I want to expand on my previous question to you all. Before, I asked “Why BlackBerry?” to see what exactly won you over and made you gear up for battle (#TeamBlackBerry). After such a great response, and the BlackBerrys’ famous keyboard clearly taking the blame (for most of you) for tipping the scales towards BlackBerry, it made want to ask further questions.

Here are the results from the last poll:

The physical keyboard is the best keyboard on any phone. 31.9% (79 votes)

I jumped ship and went to iPhone/Android.19.8% (49 votes)

I’m a long time BlackBerry user and it works perfect for me. 13.7% (34 votes)

BlackBerry Messenger FTW! 13.7% (34 votes)

I have faith that BlackBerry 6 is going to be awesome. 8.9% (22 votes)

I wanted a smartphone for free/cheap! 4.4%(11 votes)

The keyboard is the culprit for winning most of you over, but after you get it in your hands and start playing with it, what is your favorite thing about it now?