Category: Girl’s View on Technology

How to get back your missing AppWorld on your Blackberry.

Okay, a few months ago, I was prompted by my Crackberry to update my AppWorld to version 1.1.0.35 and so I did. It seemed like a routine update but it all went downhill the moment my Bold 9700 Bold 2 rebooted. The AppWorld icon had disappeared and it was nowhere to be found, not even in the Download folder.

I looked and looked through my phone and finally confirmed that the AppWorld was indeed installed and updated on my phone, however it’s only visible when I do the following steps; Options > Applications > Add-ons. It didn’t matter though because I still couldn’t open AppWorld or download any other application. Even when I tried to download the file directly from native browser, it’s useless. Basically AppWorld was b0rked and with it, so was the ability to install other applications.

Missing AppWorld :(

Then I did what anyone would have done, reinstalling AppWorld. I think I did it for like 6 times, all futile attempts. AppWorld refused to be saved. I searched the forums and realised that many people have also been experiencing similar predicaments and the problem does not limit to Bold 9700 only. Other models like Curve and Storms are also facing the same issues. Then someone mentioned that doing a security wipe to the phone and reinstalling would “probably” help but it seemed such a chore to backup and reinstalling.

So I lived with the problem for a couple more months hoping that RIM would come up with a more convenient solution. I don’t know if they ever did.

In the meantime, I kept trying to update my phone’s firmware but the damn Blackberry Deskstop Manager was giving me problems as well. Everytime I want to update my phone, this message would pop out, “Blackberry Application Loader needs to be updated before you can continue. Do you want to want to update it now?“.

When I click Yes, it would take about an hour to download more than 17MB of file (that’s probably my ISP’s fault) then this message would pop up,”Existing BB software has been detected, on you computer and must be closed before proceeding. Disconnect your device and click OK to close these applications. Otherwise click cancel to stop the installation.”

So I’d disconnect my Crackberry and then click OK, but then the Blackberry Desktop Manager would opened again and the whole damn cycle repeated itself! So I didn’t update my phone for a while due to this. After several attempts, I gave up updating my phone’s firmware.

You probably think that by now, I should just do that damn security wipe but I don’t know why I held on.

Today, I tried reinstalling AppWorld again but the icon refused to appear, as expected. So next, I tried to update my phone’s firmware and went through the same “Blackberry Application Loader needs to be updated blablabbla” thing again. However I did something differently this time.

Instead of disconnecting my phone and click OK, I disconnected my phone first and manually closed Blackberry Deskstop Manager which was running in the background. Then only I clicked OK. And voila, almost instantaneously, the Application Loader installed and updated normally. And then I connected my phone to my PC again, opened Blackberry Desktop Manager to update my phone’s firmware and it did so without a glitch (although it did take about 2 hours to finish updating).

And then, guess what…my AppWorld icon came back and it’s working like normal! Like nothing ever happened!

Yay! It’s back!

I don’t know if my scenario is exclusive to everybody out there who’s got a vanished AppWorld, but it’s worth a try to update your phone’s firmware to get it back.

By the way, my Bold 9700’s latest firmware is 5.0.0.593. Good luck!

p/s: And uhmmm, please do this at your own risk. I’m not responsible for you bricking your phone following my instructions!

2nd anniversary of Tweeting.

Two years ago, I chose the maligned date of 1st April to join Twitter. It’s been 730 days with 5085 tweets and counting. I am following 170 people and my account has successfully amassed a humble number of 654 followers.

@kimberlycun

I’ve been trying for a while to find out my very first tweet but at last, twitter.com doesn’t keep archived tweets for that long. So if you’re reading this and you think you might still have time, check out website like this and this to find out what your 1st tweet was.

Along the way, I also got into the habit of posting pictures on my tweets via twitpic.com. I absolutely adore it! My very first twitpic was this picture I took of myself at the salon to immortalise the only time in my life where I had a nice hairdo…for 2 days.

The 1st twitpic.

And by the way, I found the hair salon by asking on Twitter.

I love how I can contact my bf faster by tweeting than a call or sms. I love how I feel closer to my mom now that she’s on twitter too. On a side note, do follow her she gets very excited when she gets a follower! I love how we can organise a fairly large outing with #porkgang through twitter (although it’s fast being replaced by Blackberry Messaging, hehe). I love how everyone is so quick to offer solutions or opinions when I asked on Twitter, it has saved me from trouble so many times. I love how twitter has become the eyes and lips of KL traffic conditions. I love how you can see totally see how witty or un-witty a person is in under 140 characters.

Of course there are things that I don’t like too. Like how I don’t like it when the fail whale appears. Oh man, I really don’t like when I accidentally twitted something personal via a client’s corporate account. I don’t like it when people RT incessantly. Really, something is wrong when you have more RTs than original tweets. And I don’t like it when a bunch of social media douche bags claim themselves to be authorities of the “social media tool” and start offering talks, sometimes charging people for it.

So yes, Tweeting is a major part of my life (and I realise how fucking pathetic I just sounded). Yes, it’s absolutely self-indulgent and narcissistic to do so and yes, I have the unfortunate delusion of believing my tweets are super interesting and funny. So follow me at https://www.twitter.com/kimberlycun and help me get 1000 followers :D

Great Free Kitchen Design Planning Software

I find myself at a dead-end whenever I try to figure out what I want to do with my new kitchen. I mean, I have a general feeling and idea of what I want: industrial, heavy duty and still cosy but for the life of me, I’m not able to find any remotely close inspirational pictures on Google images. I guess it’s not easy…how the heck do you combine industrial and “still cosy” together aye? I know -_-

So I searched around the Internet for a software that allows me to design a kitchen without needing to know any 3D rendering skill. The most popular one seems to be the one from Ikea, but I found the kitchen planning tool limited and the 3D render not so impressive. I’ve also tried Google SketchUp before. Well, it’s not for the fainthearted as you’d end up with a gigantic fridge and a oven fit for the use of an ant. Crazy ratios -_-

After searching around more, I landed on a website called Free Kitchen Design Software. To be honest, I was very skeptical because of how the website looks like. It’s dated and looks more like a spam site then a genuine website. The URL alone screams spam central. I don’t know what possessed me but I thought I’d give it a try and I’m glad I did.

What I found far exceeded my expectations!!!

#1 – You can customise the size of your space, number of windows, doors and their positions.

#2 – Then you can drag all the wall cabinets, floor cabinets, appliances and other things onto the 2D plan of your kitchen.

#3 – You can also customise the colours of almost everything including cabinet handles, floor finishes, wall finish, cabinet material, worktop material etc. It’s awesomesauce to the max!

#4 – You can only drag the objects onto the 2D plan but you can view the results in 3D. This is my favourite part of the software :)

Think the colours are a bit depressing eh? No problem! Just click the Design button and fix it there.

#5 – Wooden cabinets for a fresher look. You can also rotate the 3D render to view it from a different perspective.

You see what I mean by how versatile this software is? It is also very stable, unlike the Ikea kitchen planning tool which have a tendency to hang on my computer. That said, there are still several things that I feel are lacking on it, primarily the objects. I want wall cabinets that suspend from ceilings as well as aluminum shelves, which they don’t have. I don’t like the gap between ceiling and cabinets cause it’s gateway to dusty-ville.

So, while I can kind of visualise more accurately how my kitchen will look like with this application, it’s still not 100%. I’m leaving that to a good friend who is a kitchen designer. Happy kitchen planning!