Blackberry basic help

[Ho Ho Bird]

Thinking about getting a blackberry but struggling to get my head around how the email works.

There are full explanations for setting it up with hotmail / Gmail etc, plus another section talking about big corporate email set-up, but I'm not sure it will work with the email I get through my website.

Sorry if my ponderings are a little dumb. I don't need full set-up details, just want to know if they are being used successfully with the type of mail system I'm likely to get through my hosting (Fasthosts...sorry!)

Cheers

[pinbrook]

i use my hosting control panel to forward my domain email to a 2nd acct which downloads into outlook, i also forward to gmail and blackberry picks this up.

thus i have 2 full copies on both devices.

[Ho Ho Bird]

Thanks Jo. It is upgrade time again so Vodafone are trying to tempt me. I've lived without mobile email so far but sometimes wish I had access to it. They have the flash Blackberry Storm (touchscreen...mixed reviews) which looks tempting. No Wifi but 3G and 'unlimited' data plan.

Don't know if I'm just being tempted by the flash phone. Other plan is to go to Asda paygo Mobile (vodafone network) at 8p/min and stay in the old world!

[grantglendinnin]

I genuinely would feel at a loss in life without my Blackberry. There's always that time of day when you remember something and need to tell somebody about it - I've got mine set up with a single e-mail address which I use for this sole purpose and use all CC as my usual e-mail used on the desktop machine.

The new Storm is awesome, time for an upgrade soon!

[pinbrook]

Thanks Jo. It is upgrade time again so Vodafone are trying to tempt me. I've lived without mobile email so far but sometimes wish I had access to it. They have the flash Blackberry Storm (touchscreen...mixed reviews) which looks tempting. No Wifi but 3G and 'unlimited' data plan.

Don't know if I'm just being tempted by the flash phone. Other plan is to go to Asda paygo Mobile (vodafone network) at 8p/min and stay in the old world!


I am due to upgrade in august too, at the mo i've got BB curve on email package only, and funnily enough asda PAYG for calls/text. (i can leave BB at home for time off)

Personally i will be looking for wifi on my upgrade. I want wifi for travelling overseas.

I've got mine set up with a single e-mail address which I use for this sole purpose and use all CC as my usual e-mail used on the desktop machine.
i forward to gmail for 2 reasons - one - i get a full offsite backup of email i can interrogate from whereever i am. Two - a second spam filter means no spam on BB

[Duncan Rounding]

Mobile email is a boon for small businesses - I don't know how I managed without it. But don't make any rash decisions - stay on your current setup for a while longer and give yourself more time with less pressure form their sales.

[pinbrook]

as much as i love BB i will need to decide which is best for me

vodafone/bb
o2/iphone

one gives push email and excellent coverage - the other gives wifi. I want all 3 on one provider :D

[Duncan Rounding]

I don't see the advantage of push. I poll my mail server every 30 minutes whilst out which is enough - I could make it every 5 minutes if I wanted to.

Having wifi on the iPhone is very good with free coverage at most places but the general 3G coverage is not as good (for me at least) as Vodafone.

[jont]

i forward to gmail for 2 reasons - one - i get a full offsite backup of email i can interrogate from whereever i am. Two - a second spam filter means no spam on BB

I do this via GMX to my mobile device to notify me immediately of emails and to run the spam through a second filter service (neglecting the cowboys harvesting from online Actinic files this works very well.)

[grantglendinnin]

i forward to gmail for 2 reasons - one - i get a full offsite backup of email i can interrogate from whereever i am. Two - a second spam filter means no spam on BB
as much as i love BB i will need to decide which is best for me

o2/iphoneAfter recent events in the news surrounding Apple and Foxconn, I'll think twice about buying Apple products again, regardless of how cool you will look walkin' down the road with your iPhone telling you where the nearest coffee house is ;)

[guccij]

So long as your email arrives via a pop account you can set it up yourself on a BB. If it's a corporate email server then you need permission off the IT dept who will probably say no to an enterprise server acct as it "compromises the company's security". Yeah, right.

I have a BB Bold. It has Wifi but that's not the main reason I have it. I could not run my business without it - today I was at the pool and picked up several important emails which otherwise I wouldn't have got for a few hours. The children didn't notice that I was working - they were too busy drowning themselves - so everyone was happy.

[Ho Ho Bird]

Thanks!

Yes, it does arrive by a Pop account, into my Outlook. I suppose I'll still want a copy going to Outlook, as most responses will still be created there. I assume that is a common requirement.

Seems like a big thumbs-up for mobile emails and Blackberrys in general.

[Mark H]

Nirvana for me is an iPhone and a hosted MS Exchange email package. Total sync between the phone, PC based Outlook and web based OWA. Not the cheapest option but works out at about £2.50 per day, which is fine in context.

[NicolaUK]

iPhone/MobileMe user here, does everything I need it to, and yes wifi is essential for overseas.

[pinbrook]

I don't see the advantage of push. for me it the overseas thing again. Push on BB doesnt cost me any extra when out of the country, collecting email via 3g would be using roaming minutes which can add up or wifi means going somewhere to collect.

[Mark H]

Push - also, it depends how you're using email. I tend to find myself having "conversations" with customers where we might swap emails every couple of minutes. In the good old days we would have talked on the phone, but this suits us better (because you can be dealing with other things at the same time, and you can be anywhere).

Even waiting 5 minutes would lose some of the immediacy (like having to wait 5 minutes for every response in an online chat system). If you don't do this, you probably don't need push.

[guccij]

I suppose I'll still want a copy going to Outlook, as most responses will still be created there.You can also set it up so you get a copy of every email you send from the BB device to a nominated account. The emails you receive on the handset will appear in your email client regardless.

[Ho Ho Bird]

OK. Vodafone were suitably flexible in their negotiations and new Blackberry Storm in the post, so I need to get serious in understanding how to best set-up my hohobird.com email.

As I said, it is hosted with fasthosts and is a POP3, which I currently grab with Outlook on my desk PC, NOT leaving a copy on the fasthost server.

If I use the POP3 service (as per guccij), do I have to poll the server for messages every x minutes (as duncan). Also, does this method mean that if the message comes to the BB it won't be there to drop onto my PC later?

If I do the forwarding route (which it allows) to say a hotmail address, and I reply to a forwarded message via the blackberry, will it show as coming from my hotmail address, rather than my hohobird address?

Sorry to be asking so much on what must be a common problem, but my best efforts on the vodafone and blackberry forums are not yielding much!

I am getting the Blackberry Internet solution with my plan, if that adds anything to my confusion.

Many thanks

[plantsforshade]

Hi

We use a blackberry storm on vodafone which is very good just watch the battery life (lasts two days just about). Setting up is very straight forward and just follow your instructions very easy and no problem to download from several accounts on different servers, including direct from your actinic account. It only receives a copy and the emails are available for download as per normal. If your outlook account is open and set to auto download only a proportion of the emails will arrive at the BB though, unless you set outlook to leave a copy on your server.

Nigel

[Ho Ho Bird]

Just to close this up for the future. Blackberry storm arrived and is now a permanent addition to my hip. Really really impressed. The email system is so simple it makes by initial questions look daft; but I'm finding it very easy to stay on top of my mails, deciding which one's I'll deal with later on my desk machine.

The BB is actually keeping me away from my desk machine - I used to turn it on several times a day to check for emails and get distracted elsewhere on the web. Seeing the emails as they arrive on my BB means more productive time in my workshop.

Finding the battery life is around 3 days (once I turned down the backlighting which was eating juice). Most impressed overall.

Thanks to those who helped with my initial questions.