So I’m a huge BlackBerry fan.  I have been for a while now and used a BlackBerry as my primary device until my Nexus One got Gingerbread.  In that time I’ve switched from AT&T to T-Mobile and now back to AT&T.  The bottom line is I don’t have a BB plan on my account any longer and I’m of the understanding I can’t add it to my iPhone sim.  So I’ve put a spare sim into my BB and it works on many fronts but not for email.  I figured this would be the case and unfortunately BBM doesn’t work either but I can live with that.  But I can’t live without email, that and a battery that will go the distance, at least 1 full day is what I need from the BB.  Battery isn’t an issue but email is.  I’m currently using the Gmail Mobile app which is ok and liveable because it’s not my primary device.  My 2 issues is 1 not having color coded tags, yes I know, the iPhone doesn’t have that, but Android does and I want the best of all worlds.  I can live without it for now.

What I can’t live without is the Push.  I can’t live without it on a BB if I’m going to take it out and about like to a trade show.  I live in my email especially at trade shows and must have Push support.  I was told by a good friend that he uses this app for some of his email on his BB and I got the feeling he had is being Pushed.  I could have misunderstood him but that’s what it sounded like to me.

So my question to my readers is, Is there a way to get the BlackBerry Gmail Mobile app to sync more often and hopefully at near instant speeds?  I guess I could live at a 1-2 minute delay but not longer then that and that’s really pushing it.  Thanks!

I use messaging a great deal, from sms to email to instant messaging to Twitter to video chat to voice mail (unfortunately), I spend a lot of time communicating.  I was thinking recently when will we see messaging apps evolve again?  I’m hoping Google Wave will help but I don’t think it will take it as far as I’m thinking.  I would really like to see what Googles Gmail does.  Gmail right now just puts your email and IM (it’s an option you have to turn on) in one overall inbox.  Also Google Voice shows you all your voicemail and sms in one inbox.  So when do we get ONE inbox for everything???

I use emoze (a client of mine) and Nokia Messaging for email, Ovi Contacts and Nimbuzz & Fring for IM, the built in text message (sms) app and Dabr for Twitter on my mobile phones and would really like to see an overall inbox that we can see all incoming and outgoing communications.  I would like to see my email, sms, voicemail, IM, and @/direct messages (I use Topify) in one place.  This could be similar to what Nokia has in it’s messaging folder already where it includes email and sms.  I’m sick of going to all different in-boxes.  When can I just have one.  Things should be color coded, easily filtered and have sub folders so it looks more traditional the way some would like to see it.  I for one would really like to have one of these messaging apps include it all.  It may need to be something more like emoze that is heavily embedded in my phones messaging folder so it can access sms and voice messages too.

I’m envisioning something with tiny logos and colors for each different means of communication but a standard view with different lines for each message showing who it’s from and a time/day stamp.  Maybe when I highlight the message the first few words of the message would appear.  I would also like the address book from the phone to include all the contact info from each contact platform but we’ll save that for another blog post.

So basically when will it all come together in one place but include awesome filtering for divided views too.   I hope we get this very soon and on both the desktop and mobile platforms.  It would really be great if it was all done with something like IMAP so it was all in sync to.  I may be asking to much but come on it’s 2009 and if we can’t have flying cars this decade can’t we at least have one inbox?

By: Jeb Brilliant
Jeb is a technology enthusiast and mobile communications junkie.  He works in the industry as a writer, consultant and event producer.  Follow Jeb on Twitter @JebBrilliant

In this time of economic uncertainty I have been asked by a few different companies how I think they can save money. My answer to all of them is emoze. All the companies provide phones for their employees but they also pay a significant amount of money for push email. It’s something that they have all grown to count on and many of them use in place of instant messenger. They also can’t live without it but can’t afford to pay for it anymore.

emoze is a push email system that is free for a single account, $13/year for an account with multiple emails to access and there’s also a price for companies with multiple licenses. In my opinion this is the answer they’re looking for. Some companies implementing Emoze will save many thousands of dollars but keep everything they have gotten used to with push email. emoze was tested against Blackberry push email a few years back and beat them in terms of speed.

emoze is a great at downloading reading and responding via Gmail, Hotmail, MSN, OWA (Outlook Web Access), Exchange and just today announced their support of AOL.

I use emoze and it is a great alternative to high priced push email services.  You can see a video of it here.
If you have any questions emoze is available on Twitter at Twitter.com/emozePushEmail
To get started visit www.emoze.com and give it a try or on you mobile visit m.emoze.com.

+ A little bird told me that in approximately a month Emoze will start to support what was once the most popular email service in the world and is still ridiculously popular.  Along with Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook Messages, most work email, hosted email, and ISP email, AOL will be getting Emozed.  This means that anyone with almost any current mobile phone and any that supports Java can basque in the glory of reading their AOL email on their handset.  All they will have to do is download the Emoze client, put in their user name and password and voila, they will be reading and responding to email in minutes.

Download the Emoze email client via your phone at m.emoze.com and read about it further here.

So in the last few years I have become a bit of a mobile email junkie.  I think I have been doing mobile email for about 5 years now, I know I’m late to the game compared to some. I had a very interesting conversation with a “high up” from AT&T last night.  I was very interested with what he had to say when it came to mobile email.  Now I’m not going to reveal any propriatary numbers but he was telling me that young people are spending a very significant amount of time typing versus talking on their mobiles.  AT&T has a few handsets specifically geared toward messaging with QWERTY keyboards, I’m hoping to play with some of these next week.

Now my question is how are they getting to their email?  Are they using services like Emoze (client of mine) who provides a very useful and enhanced user interface for your email?  Are people using an email client that comes built in on the handset when they purchase it?  Are they downloading the Gmail Java app for use with only Gmail? I’m really curious how people access their email on mobile handsets?  I’m guessing most people just use what comes built in.

If you’re a user of mobile email or you want to be there are a bunch of different 3rd party applications that are free and downloadable. Now I will find out next week at CTIA if any of the AT&T handsets are able to download apps.  I’m guessing they can at least run a Java apps like Emoze has.

Please let me know what you use for mobile email.

Update just before I hit publish: AT&T will be selling the epic Nokia E71 and the rumor is it will run $99 on a new contract.

I have been using mobile email for many years now and most recently been I have been using Nokias new beta email service. I am not 100 % sure why, but I really enjoy it. It is more or less reliable (keep in mind it is still in beta) though it has stopped working for me to a point that I had to remove it from my phone and reinstall it at least 3 times. I have also had it lose 4 days worth of email at one point and it never showed back up.

Nokia is moving right along with their offering, most notably for me is they have added the ability to retrieve email from multiple addresses now.

There are a few things I would like to see added to the service.

1. I am dying to have the ability to send email from something other then my @gmail address (I dump all my email into Gmail so that’s how I check it on the phone), like from my @BrilliantExpos.com address which when I’m on the Gmail website I can email from there.  The Gmail Java app also sends email from my default address I have set in Gmail which is my @BrilliantExpos.com address.
2. I would like the ability to have Nokia Email beta active on more then one handset at a time. I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this or maybe it’s just me, but I’m not able to have email automatically downloaded to more then one handset at a time.

3. I would like Nokia (a mobile phone company) to offer a mobile site for their Nokia Email website
This is all I can think of right now sitting at my dining room table on my day off but I know there are more.
What changes or additions would you like to see to Nokia Email beta?
By the way Nokia KEEP YOUR EMAIL SERVICE FREE. It is something that should come stock on your handset like the old email app you have on there now. It enhances the device and should not be a premium service. Nokia you guys make phones primarily not email programs. Sell phones not email apps.

So I’m shopping for a UMPC or Ultra Mobile Personal Computer, it’s a really small and light laptop and I have all kinds of questions.

What are the brands I should be looking at? What do I want out of it? What features must be present? And what are my minimum hardware requirements.

Well my options are vast, there is Asus, Acer, MSI, HP, Dell, Lenovo, Sony, and a whole bunch of other brands I can’t think of right now.

I want a UMPC also known as a NetBook to have a few key components. For starters an Atom processor, 1 gig of ram minimum, bluetooth and a 6 cell battery (I would like it to last at least 4 hours at a minimum). I need this thing to be a work horse for a single task at a time. I will be using it for entertainment for my daughter when we travel, so she can watch movies on a 14 hour flight. I need it for email, surfing the web, IM and video conferencing the rest of the time. I plan to run my email over GMail so that will be in a web browser and then I will be surfing the web in the same app. I have also been hearing good things about Meebo, it’s an IM client that runs in a web browser. So there is most of what I need all based in one single app. I also need to run Skype separately and SightSpeed/Dell Video Chat when I get alerted that someone wants to do a video conference. SightSpeed is great when the bandwidth is at a minimum.

So there you have it, I will probably run 4 apps regularly on the UMPC. Now which one should I get? I can’t just go to the store and play with them, most electronic stores don’t sell them yet and if they do it’s probably only 1 or 2 brands and models. I don’t want to go online and purchase 5 or more netbooks just to return all but 1. So I need to rely on my readers to give me some advice. What do you plan on buying or what do you have already?

Lastly do I want a solid state drive (SSD) or a regular spinning hard drive (HD)? And do I want it to run Linux or XP?

I’m leaning toward the Asus 901 for $429 , the Acer Aspire 1 for $399, Dells high end offering for $494 (specked the way I want it), or the MSI Wind for $506. I just can’t decide.  I would prefer it to run XP.