I’m in detox at the moment. Figuratively, anyway. You see, my crackberry died. Yup… katputzky, pushin’ up the daisies, dead dead dead.
It all started yesterday with some bizarre behavior. The little devil claimed that I didn’t have a valid SIM in it. Now I’m sometimes late paying the Rogers bill, but I didn’t think they would cut me off. A quick power cycle solved the problem and I didn’t think anything else of it.
This morning, while using it, the screen just froze. And then it started to decompose. Bits just started fading away. It was like watching a pair of jeans fade in the wash, using high speed stop motion photography. I flipped it over to perform an emergency battery-dectomy. For good measure, I pulled out the SIM. Left the whole thing in bits for five minutes (I’d read somewhere that you need to let the residual power drain out of those little capacitors and things in it…), and then put it back together. This is what I saw.
Heart in my throat, I pressed the scroller wheel to activate the reset button. So far so good, I thought. It power cycled, and then showed me the hour glass… and showed me the hour glass… and showed me the hour glass. Then the hour glass froze… and started to decompose.
Oh Boy… Power cycle again. This time I was presented with the very descriptive "Error 400", and given the option to reset, which I dutifully accepted. Next up, "Error 240". And so on.
Luckily I had my Nokia N90 with me. A quick swap of the SIM to the N90 and I had at least phone service. But no Blackberry Email. And I won’t be back in Canada until January 28th which will be the earliest I can fix the issue.
If there’s a RIM PR person out there who wants to earn some brownie points…
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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