Justin Haygood’s Blog

Got a stuck trackball on your Blackberry Pearl, Blackberry Curve, or Blackberry 8800? Try cleaning it!

1. Using a thin plastic screwdriver blade (the ones in those little kits), pop off the silver cover around it
2. Take out the whole trackball assembly
3. Get a glass out of the kitchen
4. Put a few drops of dishwater detergent in it
5. Fill to brim with HOT water
6. Drop trackball assembly in it
7. Swirl cup around until your almost out of water
8. Fill cup back up with hot water and keep rinsing
9. Drain glass, remember to not let the assembly go down the drain!
10. Dry the assembly. You should be able to air dry it or dry it by hand, but if your really anal, use compressed air or a hair dryer
11. Place dried assembly back into Blackberry
12. Replace cover
13. Enjoy your non-stuck trackball!

I now have a new cellphone: The T-Mobile Motorola W490. Like all recent T-Mobile phones, it has their fabulous myFaves service and EDGE data. Like any respectable modern cellphone, it has Bluetooth 2.0 support, as well as a microSD slot, exterior screen, and 1.3MP camera.

Pros:

• World Phone (GSM) on T-Mobile USA’s amazing network, with free national roaming on both 850 MHz and 1900 MHz.
• Fast EDGE data with free tethering via the USB port or via Bluetooth (requires a proxy on the tzones plan)
• Uncrippled phone for the most part (Java apps have iffy Internet access, but I’m just on the tzones plan)
• Stylis “thin” Motorola phone, people thinks its a KRZR (at NONE of the cost)
• AIM/ICQ/Windows Live/Yahoo! Messenger

Cons:

• the Motorola buttons are a bit.. odd
• You can’t use exterior screen as an egocam
• J2ME applications can’t use the internet without some hacking that damages the built in applications

Got any more comments on this phone, T-Mobile service, what not? Hit me up in the comments.