Truck Wheels And Truck Rims

The scroll ball or “pearl” on your Blackberry is made to work in a similar way to a mouse on a computer. Unfortunately, a mouse isn’t necessarily fast, it’s simple. That’s what a mouse or scroll ball was designed to do, simply things on a computer or in this case, a smartphone. If you want fast, you’re going to need to master a little trick known as “keyboard shortcuts”.

Most people who use a Blackberry Pearl will scroll to an item, press the pearl or Blackberry button, scroll down to the selection they want and press it again. That’s a long process if you’re in a hurry. It’s not going to make or break your hectic schedule, but it does involve some unnecessary action you can soon depart with. You’re about to learn a few of the keyboard shortcuts the pros use.

Shortscuts Using Your Keyboard

A lot of businesses will spell out their phone number to help you remember it. That’s great for remembering but it’s worthless for those of us using a Blackberry Pearl. If you compare the keyboard on your Pearl with one on a traditional phone, you’ll notice the letters don’t land on the same numbers.

So 1-888-HIT-RADIO just doesn’t work. I’ve had to look at another phone to see what the numbers are supposed to be on my Blackberry. Not any more! If you start to dial the number from your home screen (1-888) and then press and hold the ALT key (that’s the one in the lower left corner with the up and down arrows on it) and use the multi-tap feature you can spell out the phone number.

Multi-tap doesn’t mean you type twice as fast, it’s actually a method of entering letters. If you look at the keys on your Pearl, you’ll notice most of the keys have two letters assigned to them. Using multi-tap, if you need to type the 2nd letter on that key you’d press it twice. So, to type the letter “V” using multi-tap you’d have to press the “7″ key two times.

If you want to make a payment using your phone with Verizon Wireless, you’d simply press #PMT and send, but not on a Pearl. Now, knowing what we just learned we can press # and then hold down ALT while we press “.” twice, “9″ once and “2″ once. If that’s confusing, take a look at your Pearl and see that this spells PMT using multi-tap. Press send and you’re all set to make your payment.

Your Messages

Now lets look at faster ways to get around your messages on your Blackberry. The shortcut I use most frequently is the REPLY key when I’m looking at my list of messages. Here’s how it works. If you’re looking at your list of messages and you see something you should have replied to earlier, just press the “!” key. It’s in the upper left corner of the keypad and shares the space with Q and W. This will instantly open up a reply message. Type your message and press send. Done.

Using the scroll wheel method, you would have to press the pearl button to open the message, then press the Blackberry button to bring up your options. Scroll down to “reply” and then press the pearl button again. Finally you’d have a reply-to window open and could start typing.

Here’s another quick tip that can save you hundreds of key punches. At the end of a sentence, instead of pressing ALT and “.” just double space and your Blackberry will add in the period automatically. This will speed up your typing considerably since it doesn’t require the use of both hands. If you’re ever typing an email address, you can do something similar. Just press space where the @ symbol goes and Blackberry adds it automatically.

One more little tip that will help you sort through all of your messages on your Blackberry Pearl. With your list of messages open, try holding down ALT and pressing “S”. This will show you just your SMS messages. Hold ALT and press “P”. That’s just a listing of your phone messages or your call log. Hold down ALT and press “V” and you’ll see a list of your voice mail messages. Hold ALT and press “I” and you’ll only see your incoming messages. When you’re done, press the escape key and you’re back to your default view of messages.

I’ve found, if I try to learn too many shortcuts at one time, I never really master them. So, instead, just focus on these few I’ve given you and you’ll have them memorized in no time at all. These are so powerful and are useful so often, they really will speed up your navigation on your phone. Than you can move on to more important things.