There's a very cool new app available on Mobihand...

MobiMouse - Turn Your BlackBerry Into A Mouse! - Personal Productivity Blackberry Software

If you have a use for it, as I do, it'll become indispensable. Even if you don't have a real need for it, it's still pretty cool to play with.

Mobimouse allows you to use your BB to control your mouse cursor, type from your BB keypad, and manage volume up/down/mute on any Windows computer - you can connect your BB via WiFi (if your BB is WiFi enabled) Bluetooth (all BBs have Bluetooth), or USB cable. Once connected, Mobimouse turns your BB into a keyboard and mouse for your computer. Ditch stuffing that mouse in your bag the next time you hit the road for a business trip!

The trackball controls the mouse cursor (press the trackball to "click" just like on the BB), you type w/the keyboard keys, and the BB up/down volume & mute keys control the sound. Right-click is the BB escape key, so you can even get to context menus.

I have a PC attached to my TV at home that I use for watching Netflix "Watch Now" movies/shows, playing iTunes MP3s off my home network, and some internet browsing. I used this app to connect my BB to my PC via BT and manage all my mouse/keyboard/volume activities on the PC via my BB. Even my always technology-blasé wife is impressed. :D

They offer a week free trial, and it looks like the app is reduced to $7.99 until the end of the month. Check it out.

I have it downloaded. How did you get yours to connect? I put in my PC's ip address but all I get is a connection Timeout

Just kidding. I installed the windows program (i assumed there would be one) and it works! pretty fun.

Can't control volume up/down/mute though.

Really? That's odd. I assume that sound is working normally on your PC? I didn't have to do anything special for it to work.

One interesting thing I noticed is that it doesn't actually move the position of the volume slider on the PC when you change the volume, but volume does change. Same w/Mute, though the sound is muted the "mute" symbol won't appear on the speaker icon in the system tray.

i've been messing around with this the last few minutes and might i say its quite the fun little app! in fact, im even typing this post using it. the only problem is that i dont know how to connect via bluetooth, but via usb, many times, i have to disconnect then reconnect as for some reason the trackball stopped moving the cursor.

To connect via BT, you need to create a BT port on your PC, and then select that port on the BT tab in the Mobimouse app on the PC.

There are instructions for doing that available at MobiMouse Instructions.

Right-click on the Mobimouse icon in the system tray and select the "Help" option on the context menu to go to the setup instructions.

You can also access a link to those instructions from the BB mobimouse app on the right-click menu - select Instructions. But it's easier to view on the PC.

Bluctrl (www . bluectrl . com) is a similar program that is free. It is a bit more limited than Mobimouse in that it only works with bluetooth and the Curve and Pearl phones.

Nothing found at www.bluectrl.com. You sure you have the URL correct ?

it is bluCTRL wireless Bluetooth keyboard and mouse

I use it a lot!

Thanks for the corrected link.

Looks like bluCTRL only supports the Microsoft bluetooth stack. Haven't tried it, but other than that limitation the two programs seem similar.

Oh - one Bluetooth caveat - bluCTRL offers instructions for "upgrading" a PC/laptop to the MS BT stack...from other BT stacks. That's not really an upgrade. The MS BT stack doesn't offer the full range of fuctionality that Widcomm and others do - biggest lacking (for me) is that the MS BT stack doesn't support streaming audio to BT headsets.

Mobimouse helps docs say it supports the Widomm, MS, Toshiba, and Blue Soleil stacks.

Funny, I'd never even heard of this type of program before, and suddenly there are two... :D

Cool Mobimouse update released on mobihand...

You can now assign specific actions or even launch programs using BB non-keyboard keys, including:

- L & R convenience keys
- Send and End keys
- Volume Keys

I've set the Convenience keys to page up and page down, and Send to launch Firefox, and End=Esc.

Provides great additional flexibility and ease of use.