A Thin Line between Love and Hate: Based on True Events

I’ve been away from the blog sphere for a while due to the fact I lacked inspiration.  I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t consistent with my posts; no discipline.  One thing I took out from all of this is that writing is art that can take years to master.  Evidently to master this art, like every other, you must love it.  Me? I’m convinced that I don’t love it enough to continually drop posts about nothing.  It is for that reason that my blog is nothing more than some of my thoughts, transcribed in the simplest of form, “for hell of it”, nothing more nothing less.  So this is what’s been going through my mind on this past week. 

Research in Motion (RIM abbreviated) is a leading telecommunications company and is renowned for its Blackberry smartphones.   I for one am an enthusiastic owner and manipulator of a white Bold 9780 model.  Like the rest of the world, my handheld allows me to make phone calls (captain obvious), send and receive emails (Hotmail, Gmail, university, etc…), and most importantly send and receive text messages (SMS) and via the hated, then loved, then hated again Blackberry Messenger (BBM).  The latter is a unique feature, it’s an “instant messenger application included on BlackBerry devices which allows messaging between BlackBerry users”.  The BBM application is great for the following reasons:

• Carry on a real-time conversation with friends and colleagues in several different locations -- or carry on several conversations simultaneously.
• Chat with a group.
• Send and receive an unlimited number of messages worldwide for free with no per-message charge.
• Get messages without filling up your inbox.
• Know whether a buddy is online, available or busy.
• Let your contacts know your own availability for instant messaging.
• Manage log-in and contacts as you would if you were using an IM program from your PC.
• Continue using other programs and send and receive e-mails while BlackBerry Messenger is running.
• Invite someone to join your buddy list and start communicating without setting up a separate IM account.
• Be notified by a specific ringtone or vibration setting each time a message arrives from a particular person.

Most notably, the greatest asset is that all communication over BBM is encrypted.  From my limited understanding, each time you send a message to any person listed as a contact, the message is transmitted to one of the data centres and from there it is sent out to the recipient. Yes, talk about security! While this process is safe, it can be vulnerable to network failure.   The reality is that network systems are prone to crash occasionally, and it happened to RIM.  As a result, the repair process may takes more time in some cases than others.  So with that being said, let’s go down memory lane:

“Yesterday (12/24/09) I was having unexplainable issues with my BlackBerry’s network. I couldn’t receive or send emails, couldn’t use Snaptu or Uber Twitter. Couldn’t access Pandora Radio. Couldn’t use Facebook or MySpace. Most importantly, I couldn’t access the internet. It turns out that I wasn’t the only one. No, not by a long shot. Apparently anyone and everyone with a BlackBerry, at least in the US, experienced the same frustrating issues with their network. The cause? Well according the RIM, the company behind the popular Smart Phone, has just posted a public apology for the inconvenience as well as an explanation for why everything crashed over on BlackBerry.com. It turns out that the two new versions of BlackBerry messenger (5.0.0.55 and 5.0.0.56) had some sort of fault that caused a huge network outage.

The newest version, 5.0.0.57, is ready for download and fixes the issues with the two previous versions. RIM highly recommends all Berry users download it immediately to prevent future network crashes from occurring.

For more information, head on over to the official BlackBerry website.

It was certainly a major blow to the company but they bounced back perfectly.  However on October 11, 2011, the network crashed once more (Canada and U.S.).  This time around it was considered the worst disruption of services since 2009. Initially I caught the newsflash while streaming the news on Al-Jazeera, on October 10^th.  Many users in Africa, Asia and the U.K. were deprived access to emails, browsing and of course BBM.  The day after, North America was hit harder than the Ortiz knockout, courtesy of Mayweather.

To make matters worse RIM didn’t make an official statement to reassure the world right away; they should have.  Around my way, I witnessed unimaginable “fuckery” (self-explanatory).  The world went crazy, many panicked, and others threatened to end their relationships with their phones. (C’MON SON).  What I want to know is how many jumped off buildings during this “crisis”.  It’s a good thing I hadn't forgotten how to send an SMS the regular way; you know my phone number to another.  Was all the bickering about BBM being down necessary?  You tell me.

 I never thought much of the term crack berry but after last week, well it goes without saying.  And those broadcast messages (…send this to all your contacts and your service will be restored b.s) drove me insane.  Eventually people (around my way) came to their senses the following day, since everything gradually came back to normal.  I’m happy to say that they’re still in relationships with their Blackberry phones; they gave it “one more chance”.  

Dependence much???