brendanz.net

RIM has finally announced the long awaited BES 5.0, which sports a few interesting features including

• Retrieve corporate documents behind firewalls
• Add, read, rename and delete folders on the handset and have those changes be applied to the desktop email client
• Create rules within the inbox to filter email and have those changes be applied to the desktop
• View attachments in calendar entries and meeting requests
• Download and store emails and email attachments onto microSD cards

They are a fair while behind schedule, although, I do believe that HTML email and remote server search were originally going to be implemented in BES 5.0 too, however they were included in a service pack. I will be interested to see the pricing schematics they have in mind for it – perhaps in order to upgrade to BES 5.0, it may be a one off fee, similar to going from 4.0 to 4.1. I hope they don’t increase the CAL prices.

I have been lucky enough to be using my Javellin 8900 for several weeks. Honestly, it’s a really a solid device. It’s the *almost* perfect mix between the Bold and the Curve, except it’s lacking 3G.

BGR has reported that a 3G Blackberry Gemini 9300 may be coming out towards the end of 2009 or early 2010. Possible specs from BGR are inserted below.

• The screen will be larger than the BlackBerry 8900, and that will also include a higher resolution
• The CPU will also be beefed up. We’re not sure if this means it will include something more powerful than the Bold’s 624MHz processor or not, but we’d like to think so.
• The device is said to be silver (think BlackBerry 8830)
• The keyboard is a little more rounded than the BlackBerry 8900
• The Send/End keys are rounded instead of being flat on the sides
• Styling is not drastically different — it keeps with the 8900/Storm styling
• It of course rocks quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, and tri-band UMTS/HSDPA
• Wi-Fi and GPS was not confirmed, but we’d say there’s about a 99.99% chance
• Camera specs were not confirmed as well, but you can bet you’re looking at 3.2 megapixels or better

I was trying to deploy Google Maps over the air from a BES we manage for one of our customers. It looked like it installed correctly to the Blackberry, but I was receiving the following message when trying to launch the application from the device.

“Class ‘net.rim.device.api.system.WLANInf0$WLANAPInfo’ not found”

The problem was the lack of free space on the device. Check the free space available on the Blackberry device (Settings/Options > Status). I encountered this error several times when trying to push the application down to a group of pilot users. Most users had other languages installed on the device which took up a substantial amount of room, and after removing the languages and the failed install of Google Maps, it pushed down again successfully.

Don Kerr from the  WMOz blog has informed us that there are several new guides available for MDM SP1 Integration. These include integrating MDM with:

• Existing Web Sites or Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server portals
• Microsoft Exchange Server
• Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007

These guides are available from the following Technet page.

If you haven’t heard, Vodafone and 3 have announced that they are to merge their Australian businesses together to form VHA (Vodafone Hutch Australia).

Interestingly enough, Telecom NZ actually own a 10% stake in 3’s Australian business – and in NZ, Vodafone are Telecom’s main rival.

I have inserted several comments from a Gizmodo article below, which were taken from a conference call that the companies hosted.

• The new merged company will have about 6 million customers, with annual revenue of about $4 Billion and about 26% market share in Australia
• Nothing will change for 3 customers. All contracts will remain. There will also be no change to the Crazy Johns brand.
• They refused to confirm whether the 3 brand would be completely phased out (considering the press release mentioned that they could maintain and use the brand until the transition and thereafter). That includes rebranding the 3 retail stores. In the end, they said that they need to work out the details of how the new joint venture will present itself to market. I wouldn’t be holding my breath for 3 to stick around though…
• The network arrangement between 3 and Telstra for 3 customers to roam on Next G later this year is still in place. I’m not sure how this will work – they were short on details – but apparently it will still go ahead.
• There will be redundancies, probably most from 3, but nothing has been decided yet.
• The whole thing isn’t set in stone. It still needs approval from shareholders (it’s been unanimously recommended by the boards of both companies), the ACCC and the Foreign Investment Review Board.

A highly coordinated attack on dozens of ATMs around the world happened last night. A company called RBS WorldPay has service which allows employees to be paid onto a system similar to debit-card accounts, that can be used from most ATMs.

Someone hacked into their site and found several vulnerabilities that were exploited, allowing people to use fake cards to withdraw money from people’s accounts. Additionally, they also found a way to remove the maximum withdrawal limit so they  could essentially take out as much money as the ATM had. Reportedly 130 ATM’s were targeted for a total of 9 million dollars – roughly $70 000 per ATM.

So far, the FBI have made no arrests and have no leads, other than the pictures of people at a few of the ATMs. A class action lawsuit has already been filed.

Initial thoughts were had that it was organised by the mob, but it does seem a little too dispersed. A few users comments on Slashdot posted a much cooler alternative – that it was a group of hackers with a small, organised worldwide user base. Wouldn’t surprise me either way.

Imagine how the phone call would have went to the CIO in wee hours of the morning!

Not only poor people should experience this.

These words were quoted from Bill Gates as he unleashed a swarm of mosquitoes onto an audience he was in the middle of addressing.

This is going to make me sound like a huge geek.

But someone else has to tell me that this reminded them of the scene in X-Men the movie (2000) where Magneto tries to make all the world leader mutants with that special machine? It would seem rather fitting that Bill Gates infect a large group of powerful people with Malaria.

That’s the first thing that came to my mind when I read this. Luckily, the mosquitoes released were not carrying malaria.  I’m glad he made his point though, but wow, what a way to do it.

Johann posted today that OCS 2007 R2 has officially launched. It adds quite a few new features that are definitely worth checking out.

Release notes can be found here.

A 180 day trial can be downloaded here.