I have not written any new material in a long while about new experiences. I guess it is time to write about my experience so far with the BlackBerry operating system, which only runs on BlackBerry devices, of course — both developed and sold by RIM (Research In Motion). Hence when mentioning the name BlackBerry one can refer to either the OS and/or hardware.

When BlackBerry first came out, the system was designed as a two-way pager with a QWERTY keyboard, which could receive and send e-mail through its proprietary network and email relay service. Some time later, the system supported phone service and a walkie-talkie service. The next generation included a limited web browser. Nowadays the system supports third party applications, a better web browser, Java, voice recognition; and usually comes with a built-in photo/video camera.

The BlackBerry OS is a fairly robust product although I trashed the system configuration — not the OS itself — of my first unit several times and practically destroyed the hardware of a second unit. I am currently using a rather new model with OS 4.6.1.259 and kernel 3.8.5.50a — no idea what these numbers mean in terms of the OS and its related technologies. So far, this new unit seems good and reliable. Of course, I will try my best not to break it although I want to really play with it.

Perhaps the biggest plus (biggest sales pitch, for that matter) is the e-mail service that allows a BlackBerry device to send and receive corporate e-mails — sort of a relay.

Of course, having a QWERTY keyboard comes very handy although it only has 35 keys, over 100 characters or less depending on model using ALT (alternate) and SYM (symbols) keys.

What has caught my attention is the resolution for such a small screen (about 2.5" in most current hardware) with a resolution of 320 by 240 pixels (65,000 colors, not shabby at all) to watch videos, read electronic books using MobiPocket, or go on-line using Opera Mini, (instead of its default web browser) via its 802.11b/g connection.

It is a pretty descent OS tightly intertwined to the hardware that it was written and/or configured for. Nonetheless I should point out is that once in a while you need to do a cold boot removing the battery to clean zombies in RAM or memory overflows or other garbage data although it has Memory Cleaner (utility to clean up temporary data).

I have not studied the inner workings of the OS. As a matter of fact, I am not sure where I could read about it, but I should point out that some of these units are more powerful — higher processor speed and RAM — than some of the desktops or laptops that I have owned. It is exciting having that much power in a device that fits in my hands.

The OS is fairly closed, practically no access for the user. I have not yet found a way to explore configuration files or any system files, for that matter.

The directory structure is similar to Unix as seen below.

Device Memory
 + Home
   + /Device Memory/
     + Documents
     + Pictures
     + Music
     + Ring Tones
Media Card
   + BlackBerry
     + documents
     + music
     + pictures
     + ringtones
     + system
     + videos
     + voicenotes
     + [user-defined sub-directories]
   + [user-defined sub-directories]

Note that the memory card (MicroSD) is mounted at the root as Media Card. Only in Media Card, the user has access to create, hide and delete sub-directories other than the ones needed by the system. Some program installations also write data to Media Card. In any event, these phones can be mounted as external drives via USB connection.

One thing that I find fairly strange is that notes, tasks, calendar, contact and all configuration information is stored in the phone and not in the MicroSD — not even transferable. In order to copy this data, one has to sync the phone with a desktop using a proprietary application. System configuration and user data are stored as a backup file, which can be used to restore the system or to transfer configuration files to another BlackBerry device.

One way a user can have some access to the system is via its Java VM. BlackBerry OS provides an SDK to write programs accessing all hardware including the trackball and as of late its touch pad.

By the way, I wrote all the previous text and part of the HTML of this page using my current BlackBerry just for fun and for no other reason.