Keep your BlackBerry Bold 9000 series device clean of old email messages. From time to time you may need to delete more than one email message at a time. Here’s how:

1. Highlight a message.

2. Hold down the Alt key.

3. Roll the trackball up or down to highlight multiple messages.

4. Release the Alt key.

5. Press Menu.

6. Click Delete Messages.

You can also purge messages that are prior to a certain date.

1. Highlight a date field.

2. Press Menu.

3. Click Delete Prior.

4. Click Delete.

Don’t want your BlackBerry Bold 9000 series smartphone to answer calls when you remove it from the holster anymore? There is a setting that controls this.

1. In the phone, press the Menu key.

2. Click Options.

3. Click General Options.

4. Change Auto Answer Calls to Out Of Holster or Never.

5. Press Menu.

6. Click Save.

So you have an incoming call and you are already on a call. You fumble around trying to answer the call, but how do you answer the incoming call on your BlackBerry Bold 9000 series without disconnecting the first call?

1. When the call comes in, press Menu.

2. Select  Answer - Hold Current.

Now you might want to swap back to the other call when you get done with the second caller. You can do this by pressing Menu > Swap.

For some people, the timeout for the backlight on the BlackBerry Bold 9000 series times out way too soon. You can set the

1. Open Options and select Screen/Keyboard.

2. Set the Backlight Timeout to a time you desire.

3. Press Menu and click Save.

Want the image of your callers to appear when they call you on your BlackBerry Bold 9000 series? Here’s how to add a photo to a Contact.

1. Highlight a contact.

2. Press Menu.

3. Click Add Picture.

4. Highlight the picture.

5. Press Menu.

6. Click Select.

7. Center the picture how you’d like it to look.

8. Press Menu.

9. Click Crop and Save.

How to clear the browser cache on your BlackBerry device.

1. While in the browser, press the Menu key.

2. Click Options.

3. Click Cache Operations.

4. Next to a cache type, click Clear.

Unless you disable this message on your BlackBerry device, it will place a message that says Sent from Blackberry Wireless device at the bottom of every email you send out. Here is how to prevent it.

1. Select Messages.

2. Select Options.

3. Select Email Settings.

4. Set Use Auto Signature to No.

You can do the steps above or just change the Auto Signature message.

Since Apple announced that they will be releasing new tools for the iPhone in June, people seem to be all excited about the iPhone again. I have read that the iPhone will replace the BlackBerry, and I couldn’t disagree more. Have we forgotten that the iPhone has a host of problems? The largest problems being that it’s very difficult for the average person to type a message using the touch screen. A BlackBerry has a keyboard with actual buttons. This disadvantage alone is enough for corporate America to just say no to iPhone.

At a time when the United States is headed into recession, I don’t think companies are going to be buying $400 devices for their sales teams when they can get a BlackBerry for a fraction of the cost. I don’t see why the rest of the world would either. It’s another classic case of people going ga-ga over every single Apple announcement. The same thing happened with the AirBook, where the press overlooked that it doesn’t have an Ethernet port or CD-ROM drive. You can buy a more powerful laptop with more features for $500 at Wal-Mart.

Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone is a fairly cool device. It’s a solid product for consumers. I look forward to seeing some of the games that come out. The ability to move your iPhone around and control objects on the screen gets me a little giddy. But, replace devices in the corporate world? I think the device needs to be redesigned before that will happen.