As submitted to http://acanac.org/blogs/geek/

Recently, I've been trying to do more with my BlackBerry 8703e.  The way I see it, if it's going to be constantly by my side, I'd like to get the most out of it.  I've been looking at some of the more common things that I do  with my desktop and trying to apply them to my berry.  The goal has been things like messaging and browsing; the results have been less than satisfactory.  This post is going to focus on the messaging piece.

My first adventure came when I attempted to messenger it up with the mobile device.  As it turns out, RIM (the manufacturer) provides a couple of messaging clients with the BlackBerry product right out of the box.  Yahoo and GoogleTalk to be precise.  For people who use those services, this works out pretty good.  For the AIM and Windows Live Messenger people, this leaves much to be desired.  The good news is that RIM is working to release versions of both the AIM and the Live Messenger products.  You can read about messaging from RIM at http://na.blackberry.com/eng/devices/features/instant_message.jsp .  You can visit the following links with your mobile browser to try to download the messaging clients right onto your berry.

• www.blackberry.com/livemessenger/
• www.blackberry.com/aim

A few good things to note.  First and foremost, if you don't have an unlimited data plan, you will incur charges.  Luckily, I happen to have an unlimited plan.  Secondly, you should know that I had poor luck using these.  Only select carriers actually allow the Live Messenger service.  In Canada, Bell is the only provider and they charge extra for the service currently.  My berry is on the Telus network, so I get this nice error message that says:

"Sorry, your device does not meet the system requirements that are needed to support Windows Live Messenger." 

Sadly, this is misleading.  My 8703e can easily handle this application, I get the error because I am using Telus and they are blocking it.  My attempts to download AIM resulted in the same failure.  I was not impressed and spent a couple of days looking for a workaround.  While numerous web sites and forums offer potential solutions, most of them report majority failure.  I'm not sure why Microsoft isn't releasing a mobile version of the popular messenger; the one on the RIM site is apparently something that they developed independently.

There are several third party messaging clients that will allow you to connect to AIM and Messenger, however I'm not interested in trying those at this time.  I'm very disappointed in RIM and the wireless carriers for their ridiculous attempts at control.  In a future post, I'll tell you about my mission to improve mobile browsing.  Stay tuned!