First off, hello - ive been reading the boards for a while trying to learn about blackberrys, and i've finally upgraded my i860 to a nextel Blackberry 7520. Just finally registered on the boards.

Couple questions on this phone that I couldn't find anythng about while searching online or reading through the instruction manual:

-is there any way to enable the backlight to turn on if i hit any of the buttons on the phone? for example, if i want to check what time it is, its a pain in the butt to constantly try to find the small power/light button. if i was able to hit the space bar to turn the light on, that would rock.

-also, is there a way to hide icons on the main screen? there are some things i wont use - such as tasks, help, nextel.com, etc... I cant find anything in the options to hide these icons so i dont have to constantly look at them.

-is there an easier way to alert people with the DC/PTT instead of hitting the scroll whell, then alert? seems like the simple things you can do on flip phones are hard as hell on this phone - too many menus and buttons you have to press to do simple things.

-is there really no hope for text messaging on this thing? i know it wont do normal text messaging, so will people just have to use my blackberry email to send me messages? what happens if they send me a normal text message anyways? i just wont see who it is from?

Thanks for all your help. Im sorry for being a noob, but ive looked around, and cant find anything on this.

ANy help is appreciated. Thank you!

is there any way to enable the backlight to turn on if i hit any of the buttons on the phone? for example, if i want to check what time it is, its a pain in the butt to constantly try to find the small power/light button. if i was able to hit the space bar to turn the light on, that would rock.
Do a search on "BBLight" - an open source program which may do what you want. I don't use it myself.

also, is there a way to hide icons on the main screen? there are some things i wont use - such as tasks, help, nextel.com, etc... I cant find anything in the options to hide these icons so i dont have to constantly look at them.
Move to the icon you want to hide. Press the <ALT> key and click the trackwheel. A menu with the option to "Hide Application" will appear.

Thanks! Ive seen BBLight before, but i thought it was to just make the backlight stay on all the time, which i wouldnt want. Looks like it has more features too.

Thanks a ton!

I currently use bblight and it does exactly what you want. The new version allows you to select when you want the backlight to come on (out of holster, key stroke, etc...). One of the better freeware programs out there for the BB

-is there really no hope for text messaging on this thing? i know it wont do normal text messaging, so will people just have to use my blackberry email to send me messages? what happens if they send me a normal text message anyways? i just wont see who it is from?

My wife and son have a 7520 and I a 7510, we send each other messages through the BB Messenger, or we send a text as if we were sending an email, for example: (Cell Number)@teleflip.com. This works fine. My daughters each have i730, they can send a text message, but we do not see who its from, a bit annoying, but it works this way. Other people can send you a text message as well, but again, it doesn't show who its from.