Tonight you’ll be able to unlock one of the easiest badges we’ve ever seen.  Between the hours of 8pm and 4am, local time, just check in to any venue and get the badge.  This is what you’ll see when you unlock the badge:    “Happy New Year!  Thanks for all your check-ins, tips, photos, comments  and badge unlocks in 2010. Here’s to a happy and healthy 2011 – and a  hangover free tomorrow.”

I have been using Google Reader for a while now as my main source to read tech blogs, world news, and other news that I am interested in. I find it much easier than going to each web page and scrolling through, and when I want so save something for later, that is simple as well. I have recently moved back to BlackBerry, after some time with the Pre as my main device, and I [...]

  Wow, all this time I’ve been talking about new badges on Foursquare and I haven’t even done a review yet?  Sheesh!  Well, here at EctoCooler, Foursquare has been a hit so far.  A few of the others (I won’t mention any names), have yet to venture into the world of location based social media.  I remember first checking out Foursquare right when it came out and I literally thought to myself, “What a stupid idea.” “Who [...]

A lot of things happening lately with Foursquare, with new badges and all.  A week ago, I reported the Swimmies Badge has made a comeback.  But, after a little more research, I found there are several new badges that have popped up in the last month or so.  One in particular, is getting a ton of news.  MTV’s Get Yourself Tested Badge is all the rage on blogs and news sites lately.  This badge is a [...]

Tether for BlackBerry is an application that does exactly as the title implies, it allows you to tether your BlackBerry to your PC or Mac via USB cable or Bluetooth. A high percentage of BlackBerry users are business people. Business people travel. Along with travel, comes down time. Now most business people that I know own a laptop, and it would be fair to say that less that 80% of those people own a mobile [...]

The swimmies badge, once a limited-time SXSWbadge, has re-emerged with different text, that suggests you need to check in five times near bodies of water. It is unclear whether there are more specific criteria to unlock the badge as of right now, but if this new-old badge is a sign of things to come, I’m sure more people will be excited to use foursquare more often. This badge seems to have been re-released today, Aug [...]

I get this question a lot.  So, I wanted to post this for those of you that are still in the dark regarding Google Voice.

  So, I finally broke down and decided I was going to enter a blog post from my BlackBerry. What better app to review than the very app I am using for this post. In this case, WordPress for Blackberry. I’ve been wanting to get this up and running lately, so I can enter quick posts on the go if and when we get some breaking news important enough for me to enter it while [...]

  Looks like the legal department over at RIM has made some changes to it’s Vendor Agreement.  The changes are small, but if you look in section 8.2, you will find changes in regard to Privacy and Data Protection.  Looks like they have made these changes due to the heat on privacy right now with Foursquare and Facebook taking some of the “heat” for the risk involved in telling everyone your home is unattended when you [...]

  So, I’ve been using Twitter for almost a full year now, which, makes me a “grandpa” Twitter user over here at EctoCooler.  The guys and I have been tweeting it up quite a bit as of late.  In fact, we’ve been typing out 140-character-or-less micro blog posts so much, our wives and girlfriends are demanding ”more quality” time.  If you’re as geeky as we are about apps and mobile phones, I’m sure you can relate.  In the spirit of all [...]

For BlackBerry, the best designed, most fully featured weather app I have yet to find, is BerryWeather. It truly has everything you could ask for from this type of application. From a clean interface, multiple locations to track, background updates, and following your GPS when updating, to homescreen badges, (you can display the current temp in the notifications area at all times) the application icon itself can show you current temp and conditions, and/or you [...]

AccuWeather is a free app for Android, webOS, BlackBerry and iOS.  The name is pretty self explanatory, a weather app that gives you all of the basic things you would desire out of a free weather application.  The application gives either GPS based or user input locations for weather data.  This review focuses specifically on the version for webOS. AccuWeather is a free download which is accessible through the Palm App Catalog.  It is one [...]

I know there are a ton of apps out there that everyone’s just going nuts over, but I wanted to highlight an app that I use almost daily.  Poynt is a free, local search application which allows you to search for people, businesses, movies and restaurants.  It allows you to search based on your current location or, if you want to search somewhere else, it’s easy to switch to a certain location of your choosing.  It’s [...]