BlackBerry Connect (BBConnect) for Wizard (T-Mobile MDA)

[ne1fl0w5]

Hi,

Maybe I am beating a dead horse but could somebody please help me with these questions about BBConect.

Device: T-Mobile MDA with ROM version 2.26.x

Questions:
1. What are the advantages of using BBConnect (other than receiving emails from BB Servers)
2. Where does it write emails to (Outlook Inbox or any designated folder)?
3. If I use BBConect can I still use ActiveSync to synchronize with other Outlook Inbox folders?
4. I have seen somewhere that the WAP proxy needs to be changed: How does it affect other apps like T-Zones? Can I still connect to the Internet using GPRS?
5. How easy is it to install, configure & operate BBConnect?

Also if somebody could give a step-by-step install guide (all pdfs I downloaded are not in English), that will really help out.

Thanks in advance.

[cvdbl]

Before answering, I can tell you that rom 2.26 and the current BB connect client do not work. You will have to use a different rom. For me, based on postings on teh forum, qtek 2.17 and cingular radio 2.25 work well.

Now to your questions:

1. What are the advantages of using BBConnect (other than receiving emails from BB Servers)

replacement for bberry service and device. if your company has a BES server, you can now use your MDA to get corpoarte email. (I do not believe it works with blackberry internet service)

2. Where does it write emails to (Outlook Inbox or any designated folder)?

designated folder

3. If I use BBConect can I still use ActiveSync to synchronize with other Outlook Inbox folders?

yes

4. I have seen somewhere that the WAP proxy needs to be changed: How does it affect other apps like T-Zones? Can I still connect to the Internet using GPRS?

yes. BBerry will use a different connection. My MDA deals pretty well with switching from one connection to teh other (automatically)

5. How easy is it to install, configure & operate BBConnect?
if you have the right ROM, pretty easy. see the other posts on teh forum. But you can't6 use rom 2.26 yet.

[ne1fl0w5]

Thanks for the answers.

I guess I will wait for T-Mobile to update the ROM.

I am not against running other ROMs, it is just that I have bricked couple of devices and wasted too much time to get the data back.

-G

[mras]

Is there any option to have blackberry and MSN Messenger simultaneusly connected?

[cvdbl]

not really: they use different GPRS access point.

[Rafael K]

I know this thread is dead for some time, but I would like to get ne1fl0w5 wave here.

I have a Qtek 9100 from Claro (Telmex Brazilian sub). It was running 2.22.17.1 PTB ROM and 2.46.11 radio rom. First tried all BBConnect clients available (they were many). All installed but would halt at "Not connected" after first provisioning of the device and connection through GPRS/EDGE. After duly CIDunlocking the Qtek at imei-check (mine is a G4, I forgot to mention), I took a deep breath and decided to give it Vodafone's ROM a shoot.

I followed these instructions (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=276371&highlight=blackberry) and managed to make it work.

Now, to your questions:

Questions:
1. What are the advantages of using BBConnect (other than receiving emails from BB Servers)

First of all, I have to say that I find (or thought, at first) BB email services excelent, but the devices really bad. Those little keys are small even for my 9-month old baby. Besides that, that trackwheel will certainly cause repetitive stress injuries. I used for less than a day and my arm started aking (please, don't say I am fragile) :) In addition, it was not made for lefties such as me. And the 8700g does not have an efficient cursor (for instance, if you are to delete a letter in the beggining of a line (or two words before the cursor), you would have to delete everything and retype the text. :mad:

For those reasons, I prefer the Qtek...

As per the system itself, I have to say that emails are delivered really fast to each of them. In Blackberry connect, the calendar items are also syncronized correctly as well. However, it did not sync my contacts (and it is probably not meant to), as opposed to the Blackberry device, in which both were available.

2. Where does it write emails to (Outlook Inbox or any designated folder)?
Designated folder. You can chose which server folders you want sync'd as well.

3. If I use BBConect can I still use ActiveSync to synchronize with other Outlook Inbox folders?

Yes. However, BBConnect uses a dedicated GPRS connection and it will compete with Outlook for the radio. You will probably have issues if you are looking for concurrent exchange push functionality.

4. I have seen somewhere that the WAP proxy needs to be changed: How does it affect other apps like T-Zones? Can I still connect to the Internet using GPRS?
Whenever you connect to do anything else, your BB connection will be lost.

5. How easy is it to install, configure & operate BBConnect?
It was hard to install all Roms required to make it work, but once you have this part finished, it is very easy to get things going.

Also if somebody could give a step-by-step install guide (all pdfs I downloaded are not in English), that will really help out.

The post above gives you all the directions (except for creating the blackberry.net connection, which is not necessary).

Sorry for the lenghty (and completely out of time) post, but I would like to share this with you.

Also, I would like to say that I was not very impressed with the way things eventually got working. first thing I noticed was that the reconciliation with the server was not complete. For instance, read messages did not display as such at my server, only at the device. In addition, the BB service uses lots of storage and memory.

In the end, I prefered my Qtek 2.22 rom (much faster to load) and much better loking style. Because of all this, I have just reverted to Qtek's rom and decided to go with email redirection to an external exchange sp2 account. Although we have that in the office, they have high security standards (but forgot to prevent email redirections).:p

Rafael K

[KarmaNP]

Blackberry is running smoothly in Universal with WM6 Rom all thanks to c0rnholio. He figured out a way to change the string that will work through decoding>changing>encoding and flashing and finally a small aku registry change.

I was wondering if same thing can be done with wizard.

Here (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1144237#post1144237) is how-to from c0rnholio

[edsub]

I managed quite easy to get BB Connect running (for company email via BES).
I had the 2.24 (Mr Clean) OS ROM, 2.24 Bootloaders and 2.25.11 Congular Radio. I knew that would not support BB.
I took the OS and ExtROM from the QTek 2.17 package, changed the pagepool to 8MB (BB was said to be a memory consumer), repacked them to a new nk.nbf (with only OS and ExtROM), upgraded, installed BB Connect 2.1.2.31 (downloaded from the Vodafone.de website) and voila!
By just following the Blackberry Connect tutorial (also downloaded from vodafone.de) I had it going.

Good to know:
-I did this exercise after I received my Blackberry device from my employer (I was happy with the functionality, not with the device). So I was sure that the BB functionality was Ok for my company email account.
-When I generated the key for my PDA PIN the Blackberry device was no longer functional (I can think of reasons why).
-I did not have to use the SIM I have in the Blackberry device, in my PDA I am still using my Voice SIM (which also has a data plan)

[jelleeelco]

Hi

I'm also working on getting BBconnect to work with the newer roms. I managed to get it to work with the latest Tmobile rom 2.26. But Crossbow still no luck.

I looked at the solution for changing the strings, but unfortunatly the strings mentioned are not in the crossbow rom...so can't change them (I guess they're different?).

I have contacted Faria; he seems to have a way to tweak the system so that it will work. He's currently on holiday but as soon as I have some info I'll post it here.

[edsub]

Did you try to get it to work on the latest aku3.3 rom?

[jelleeelco]

I've got it now working on all roms...including Crossbow. There is a detailled explanation in the developing forum that shows how to change the rom for BBconnect to work.

[rafaelk]

I am not a complete newbie, but I am certainly no expert in hex editing, so I was wondering if there is an wasy way to make it work on other Wizard ROMs, including the Brazilian provider I am hooked with.

Currently I am using Tmo's ROM, but there are a lot of features in this ROM I do not use and that take lots of space...

Thanks

[edsub]

Hacking isnt that difficult, it's just that you need to understand how it works.
The thread in Development & Hacking says it all.
I think (just have to dare to flash the hacked os now!) I managed to hack the official AKU3.3 WWE ROM.