Blackberry OS Upgrade (4.2 to 4.5)

Posted by liquidpooled on March 27, 2009 0 comments

I recently had the pleasure of upgrading my Blackberry from OS 4.2 to 4.5.  Normally this would be a “no brainer”00, but as with all things in life I had to be difficult and perform my upgrade from a Windows Server 2008 workstation.

Without further ado:

  1. Install the latest version of Desktop Manager (DM) that works with your operating system.
    • Verify that DM is connected to the BES.  If DM is not seeing your BES, your device will not reactivate after the OS upgrade is complete.
  2. Install the 4.5 package.
  3. Unplug your handheld from your PC and reboot.
    • A reboot was required in my case as DM and Windows did not detect the new device drivers for the handheld.
  4. Plug your handheld into your PC.  Windows will automatically detect the updated device drivers.
  5. Start your handheld upgrade from DM.
  6. Wait.
  7. Wait some more.
  8. Did I mention you should still be waiting?
  9. ??? Profit ???  Really RIM, does an upgrade need to take this long?
  10. After the successful completion of your upgrade, DM will automatically reactivate your handheld with the BES.

Important notes:

  • If you are connected to a Windows domain, when upgrading with DM, make sure you are signed in to your domain account that is tied to your handhelds email configuration.  If you do not do this, you will most likely not reactivate on the BES, and that is a BAD thing.
  • If the upgrade does not take the first time, be sure you have rebooted and that you are utilizing the newest device drivers for your handheld.

Why would you want to upgrade and go through the pain?  For some of the following:

  • BlackBerry Maps with Points of Interest
  • Improved media player with playlist support and automatic playlist generation
  • Voice note recording
  • Video recording on Curve models
  • Streaming support for YouTube and Sling Player
  • Microsoft Office document editing with DocumentsToGo
  • And more…

In Case You Missed It – Content Deployment Webcast

Posted by liquidpooled on January 7, 2009 0 comments

Spencer Harbar presented an excellent webcast on content deployment in SharePoint 2007 yesterday. If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about it, now is the time.

Go check it out.

Microsoft Web Platform Installer

Posted by liquidpooled on December 1, 2008 0 comments

Microsoft has just released the Web Platform Installer (RC1).   What is the Web Platform Installer you ask?  From Microsoft:

“The Web Platform Installer (Web PI) is a simple tool that installs Microsoft’s entire Web Platform, including IIS7, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and the .NET Framework. Using the Web Platform Installer’s user interface, you can choose to install either specific products or the entire Microsoft Web Platform onto your computer. The Web PI also helps keep your products up to date by always offering the latest additions to the Web Platform.”

The Web PI certainly looks promising as a quick ramp-up when setting up a development environment (or even a one-off server environment).

Getting Started With Windows PowerShell and SharePoint

Posted by liquidpooled on October 13, 2008 0 comments

Today was my first experience with PowerShell, and I have to say I’m impressed.  PowerShell truly does appear to be a command prompt for the .NET generation.  While it can be agravating at times, I can see PowerShell quickly becoming a “can’t do without” tool in my arsenal.

Resources: