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For Dummies is a registered trademark of Wiley Publishing, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Used here by license. Power efficiencyNow, anyone who has had an ear to the ground regarding BlackBerry knows its reputation as a highly efficient little machine when it comes to power consumption. If you had the old 6000 series, you know that the device could run for two weeks without recharging. At the onset, RIM designed its devices to consume power effectively.
With the addition of colored and high-resolution screens, the much-vaunted power efficiency has gone down somewhat, especially with newer models such as the 8800 series that features a GPS. Power requirements on these devices have increased to such an extent that you need to recharge roughly every two to three days.
Memory managementWe know that memory is the last thing on people’s minds when they buy a BlackBerry. Not many know the role ample memory plays for a device because you definitely have ample free memory on your device when you first receive it. The thing is, though, that this memory does not grow as you use the BlackBerry. You’re stuck with a fixed amount of memory, which can prove limiting over time. As you install more and more applications, this free memory gets used up. In fact, you could eventually run out of memory altogether.
Does your device die when you run out of memory? No, thank goodness. Your BlackBerry is capable of monitoring free memory. If your BlackBerry is ever in danger of reaching the upper limits, it has a memory management program that cleans house to free this limited resource.
BlackBerry applications right out of the box are capable of figuring out what data just isn’t that important. For example, BlackBerry Browser caches data to enhance your experience when browsing the Web. Caches use local copies of Web pages to speed up the reloading of previously visited Web sites, so they are generally good things to have around. However, this cache also takes up space. When the OS tells Browser that the device is reaching its upper memory limit and it needs to do some housecleaning, Browser deletes this cache. This is also true for Message, which deletes e-mails you’ve already read, starting from the oldest and working its way backward.
Curious about how much available space your device has? Using your trackball, scroll to highlight the options (wrench) icon on the BlackBerry Home screen, and then press the trackball. Scroll through the list and click Status. On the Status screen, File Free tells you how much space is available.
A sentry is always on dutyThroughout the history of human existence, we’ve seen some nasty things that human beings are capable of doing. Unfortunately, the virtual world is not exempt; in fact, every day a battle is fought between those who are trying to attack a system and those who are trying to protect it. Included among those attacking the system are those who are trying to steal corporate data for their advantage, as well as individuals trying to steal personal data to carry out identity theft.
A computer connected to the Internet faces an extra risk of being hacked or becoming infected by a computer virus intent on simply annoying the heck out of you or (even worse) wreaking havoc on your computer. Fortunately, security is one of the strong points of the BlackBerry. RIM has features built into its software that allow companies to curtail activities for their BlackBerry users that they deem risky, such as installing or running a thirdparty application. Data transmitted on and from the device is encrypted so that possible snooping is prevented. RIM also has a Signature process for application developers, which forces developers to identify themselves and their programs if they are developing any applications running on the BlackBerry platform that need to integrate with either BlackBerry core applications or the OS.
Remember the I love you and Anna Kournikova viruses? These are virtual evils transmitted through e-mail, a script, or sets of instructions in the e-mail body or attachment that can be executed either by the host e-mail program or, in the case of an attachment, by the program associated with the attached file.
Fortunately, BlackBerry’s Messages does not support scripting languages. As for attachments, out of the box, BlackBerry supports very few file types, mostly images and text documents. BlackBerry’s viewer for such files doesn’t support scripting either, so you won’t be facing threats from e-mails having these attachments.
The security measures RIM implemented on the BlackBerry platform have gained the trust of the U.S. government as well as many of the Forbes Top 500 enterprises in the financial and health industries.
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For Dummies is a registered trademark of Wiley Publishing, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Used here by license.