due to an impending lay-off, I need to get contacts from my blackberry to my personal computer. It's an 8310. Do I just need to download some desktop manager software to my personal computer? If so, which one? Anything else I need to do?

It depends. If you are on BES, you may not be able to back it up to another computer. I cannot back up my work blackberry to my personal computer because the IT policy prevents it.

On the other hand, I can back up my personal BB which is on BIS to both my home and work computers. You just need to install Blackberry Desktop Manager on the computer you want to back up on.

Great - thanks for your response. Off to figure out if there are restrictions or not. If there are restrictions, can you download the contacts into some type of file and them import them onto a new computer?