Hi. I have the blackberry 7100. Am I able to bluetooth my address book to another cell phone that has bluetooth? Thanks

Nope, Blackberry BT is limited to headset communication and some keyboards, thats it.

This question is getting really annoying, why doesn't RIM just enable it an the story can end !

Because Bluetooth data transfer is inherently unsafe (Bluesnarfing) and RIM is a security conscious company.

Yes I agree but if all companies did that there would not even be a thing as wireless access at all. Other phones, and EVERY laptop comes with wireless and some with bluetooth, granted the default is disabled and the user gets to decide on their own to enable it or not.

Hell if you have a perminate connection to the internet that is unsafe also. There was even pictures taken from a cell phone and guess what it didn't have bluetooth on it either. That is why they have BES so you can set your own restrictions per company. If someone enables wireless on a laptop or connects their PC to the Internet and gets hacked is it the company that built the laptop or gave you the Internet access at fault or is it the person that enabled it?

It is always the person that enabled but should be the person or companies choice if they want the risk or not. There is more hacking on PC's connected to the Internet and wireless than on bluetooth. If you want security on your PC all you have to do is disconnect the NIC or wireless access to your PC and that is the only way you are secure.

Microsoft used to say they were C2 compliant if there was no NIC or modem in the server but than isn't everything complaint than without network access

There is NOTHING that can be 100% guaranteed to be secure if it is wireless and or connected to ANY network. If that was the case there would never be a need for security updates for any OS.

Also if RIM was also that tight with security wouldn't they also enable the password locking of the blackberries right out of the box? That is disabled by default and you have more risk losing your BB with it unlocked which not only give all your information out but also allows the person who finds it to be able to call anyone they want till you report it missing.

It should be a choice just like for anything else you buy cause without a choice there would never be wireless ANYTHING cause if all companies that made phones did the same thing there would never be a Bluetooth at all now would there. If all laptop companies didn't allow wireless there would be no wireless data at all either. Laptops can be locked down by the companies through policies, regular cell phones with bluetooth can't but with RIM bluetooth and everything else can with BES.

Well I have spent the past few months writing software on Blackberry's and I have a pretty good idea of what is and is not possible on the platform considering the restrictions of the APIs. Bluetooth is capable of sending data with an application plus it is possible to access the address book. So it may be possible for a third party to implement a client on the Blackberry device and a program on a desktop to proccess the data and save it via bluetooth.

Something like this may be possible but difficult to impliment.

Also there are technology's that already exsist that make this possible w/o bluetooth that will sync the device OTA with a sever. Something called SyncML/Sync4j. (this is totaly free but difficult to setup)

I don't really understand why they didnt impliment some kind of security around the data being sent in addtion to the security already on bluetooth and just make it. Maybe they didn't see a need for it with BES already being able to do this so they just initally made it voice only. But really it's a big lie and bluetooth can do data (why all the keyboard stuff is just starting to come out and GPS devices).

What would be really useful would be bluetooth sync. I remember an early explanation of the possibilities of bluetooth that mentioned always having your phones address book automatically sync'd with your PC.

Bluetooth has been around for some time now. I just bought a Blackberry 7290 from T-Mobile. The salesman said it had bluetooth and I could exchange files with other Bluetooth devices. Well I have found out from this forum and hours of fiddling, that it wont. What a load of old rubbish. If I want to make my phone visible, I sould have the choice. Its going back to the shop next week! What a con trick.

No, you got bad information from an uninformed salesman.

Caveat emptor.

Yes that's correct! However the Blackberry is not what I expected. No File manager, cant see what files I have or use a graphical explorer to view and move files. Cant play my own sounds or video. Cant take a basic picture. Help from RIm or T-Mobile is evasive and unhelpfull. No voice activation or individual call settings. And Bluetooth is not activated! Mickey mouse piece of kit. Going back to the shop or the bin. , no point having a brick in your pocket if it wont fit with the others in the wall.

Sounds like you need a nice Palm Treo 600 (take a basic picture - no BlackBerrys have cameras and they NEVER will) - the BlackBerry isn't for everyone. Or in your case, it certainly isn't for you!

I notice that you don't mention secure, fast wireless e-mail - in other words, what the BB excels at!

Yes the email and the qwerty keypad or the only good things about a Blackberry... I could live with it if the Bluetooth worked properly. I have other Bluetooth phones and computers, they all link fine. Blackberry only for headsets or some keyboards. What a load of nonsense. This is like going back to the ZX81

I just got rid of my Treo 600 after three consecutive cracked screens within about three weeks...each costing $200 for Bell Mobility to replace. I had been a faithful Palm user for almost a decade but the Treo phones are not built for the real world. The phone-cam was a neat feature as was the SD slot that could hold 2Gb of MP3's but the whole device was rendered totally useless when the LCD would crack. The Treo could run most PalmOS apps but many of them are poorly coded and will cause the phone to crash.

After coming from a Treo the only thing that I miss in my 7250 is the SD slot and an MP3 player but I'm happy to use my laptop for music while on a plane or in my hotel in exchange for a much more rugged phone/pda with stable software.

How come in my manual for my 8703e it says that I can back up my address book through Bluetooth if they have it locked down? I thought I was doing something wrong.

Why not use Desktop Manager with BT? I do it daily...works great.

Roadrider,
Thats what I'm trying to do but I cant make it work. The bluetooth option was greyed out when I installed desktop manager.

1. Are you using XP SP2?

2. When you look at the bluetooth properties on the device, do you see

Services:

Headset
Handsfree
Desktop Connectivity
Wireless Bypass

Soapm is steering you on to the right path. I'll just add that the BT option in Desktop Manager will be disabled unless your phone is paired with the PC. So focus on making this happen first.

It just occured to me that when I installed desktop manager on my pc I might not have had it paired with my blackberry at the time. I is paired now. I'll uninstall the desktop manager and reinstall it. I;ll post the results but I bet thaqt will make it work Thanks so much for the help guys....bob

Well still no luck. I am running XP SP2 and I do see all those services in the device options. I'm beginning to think that it is my laptop. Im using an Iogear bluetooth to usb dongle since I didnt order the laptop with bluetooth . It seems to work fine for my other phones but maybe it is having issues with this. It does work fine for the voice gateway on my computer. (Kinda useless).... If anyone else has any ideas let me know and thanks again...bob

Ok- you may be running into the problem that Desktop Manager has with non-windows BT stacks. You may want to go to this RIM link and try it.

Livelink - Redirection

I had the same problem as you and had to remove the 3rd party stack and just use the native Windows BT stack. Has worked perfectly since.

Well I think I'm gloing to throw in the towel. I tried the steps in the link you gave me but when I uninstall my Iogear dongle software and then go to look for Bluetooth in the control panel like it says, I dont see anything about Bluetooth. I'm afraid that when I ordered this laptop from Dell I ordered stupidly without Bluetooth. I'm wondering if they didnt install the generic bluetooth manager? Oh well its not that big a deal to hook the usb cable up. Thanks to everyone for the help and have a nice new year.