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7 Killer Applications for BlackBerry

In this day and age, a BlackBerry (as well as other "smartphones", such as iPhone, Palm, etc.) is an essential tool for those of us who are constantly on the go, but need to always stay connected.

If you're one of the lucky who own and love a BlackBerry, I've come across a great article on Web Worker Daily (on of my absolute favorite blogs), which tells us about 7 applications that can allow you to accomplish even more while you're on the go. Check it out here!

Here are three applications mentioned in the article that I thought were especially nifty:

Jott for BlackBerry

In a previous article, I covered tips for getting more from BlackBerry email. One application I didn’t mention is Jott for BlackBerry, which is an extension of its main service that lets you reply to messages using your voice. Jott transcribes your verbal message to text before sending it on to the recipient and includes a link in the email to hear the voice recording in case of transcription errors. The Jott voice recognition engine is amazing - even my laid-back Aussie drawl, which is usually a challenge for anyone out of the country to understand, let alone a machine, was transcribed with 100% accuracy.

eOffice

eOffice is the only document editor for BlackBerry currently available, but its real killer feature is integration with Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Using this program, you can open and edit files in your online account, as well as save files you’ve created on the BlackBerry directly to your Google account. But it still needs work: in my testing, the connection would time out more times than not, or throw up errors that the document I was trying to open was empty or invalid.

BlackBerry Call Screener

Finally, I’ve found BlackBerry Call Screener indispensable for managing my calls. When I’m ‘in the zone’, I don’t like being interrupted with phone calls, and rather than turn my BlackBerry off altogether, I can set up Antair CallScreener to block all calls save for people on my ‘whitelist’ (mainly my partner and family) – anyone else can send me an email or leave a voicemail! Other options in the program include blocking all calls, blocking all calls save for people in your address book, and allowing all calls except for people on your blacklist.

Click here to read the entire article.

10 Tools to Get Blogging Done

Last week, I posted an article about increasing your SEO - that's search engine optimization - in which, I mentioned how great a marketing tool blogging can be.

However, blogging isn't something that just comes naturally for all of us - we're all very busy, lacking in the idea department, we aren't the most gifted writers, etc.

I'm sure you all have already deducted this, but I'm a huge fan of the blog! I read tons and tons of blogs (and if you do, too, I STRONGLY, STRONGLY recommend trying Google Reader to keep track of them all, it's A-MAZING) and am always on the lookout for helpful tips and tricks for making websites, designing, getting the most out of the Web, and just life in general, too. :) And whenever I find something really good, I like to share.

Today, one of my all-time favorite blogs Lifehacker posted 10 Tools to Get Blogging Done.

Here are a couple highlights that I think would be the most helpful for you Fox bloggers out there. Or, you may click here to read whole article.

7. Live-blog from your phone with Jott

Free voicemail-to-text service Jott can help you nail down post material while you're on the go with a phone call, but you can also use the service directly with a number of blogging platforms, including Blogger, Typepad, LiveJournal, Tumblr, and WordPress. If you're hosting your own blog, you can still use Jott's voice-to-email service in conjunction with your platform's email-to-post function to indirectly get your thoughts up online, even while you're miles from your keyboard.

5. Get topic-based post ideas sent to your inbox every day with Google Alerts

Whether you write about a team, a certain topic, or a broad trend, Google Alerts brings your post material to you. Use the same kind of advanced search operators you use on Google's main search site to laser-focus on a particular kind of web site, blog post, news story, or group post you're looking for. Decide if it gets sent as fast as Google's servers find it, or in a daily or weekly email digest. Using Alerts exposes you to a wider array of information than you'd get from a defined list of RSS feeds, and it's an easy way to keep your eyes on the web without really being at the search box all day.

4. Spend less time resizing images

Few blogs can get by with just words alone, but finding the perfect image to illustrate a post—and then making it fit right—can take more time than the post itself. If you're not committed to Photoshop or its open-source alternative, GIMP, free online image editing site Picnik is a good bet, both for its right-click Firefox extension and its integration with Flickr. If you've got a whole set of pictures you're ready to post up, you can try the Windows-only ImageResizer, or for an elegant solution, use the export-and-resize functionality of . (For more on finding reusable images, see our six ways to find reusable media.

Click here for the other seven ideas from Lifehacker's "10 Tools to Get Blogging Done".