Key features are said to be:

• One-Click Video and Voice over Wi-Fi Calls
• Incoming Call Notifications – you’ll receive a notification pop-up when a new video call comes in, allowing you to accept the call as either a video or voice call, or decline the call. It also allows a “Do not disturb” option.
• Powerful In-Call Functions – by using the picture-in-picture function you can preview your own video image prior to placing the call. You can also switch cameras from front to rear so your friends can see what you are seeing.
• Friends List – BlackBerry PlayBook Video Chat comes with a Friends List for maintaining your favorite contacts.

Tom Goguen, VP, Collaboration and Social Networking at Research In Motion (RIM) says: “We are excited to be enabling our customers to share important moments and events with family and friends via video calls.  With the BlackBerry PlayBook’s high-resolution video cameras and stunning display, a Video Chat call is the next best thing to being there.”

The new application seems aimed toward to the public, though the majority of BlackBerry users are businesses. So, is Video Chat a major benefit for you/your business?

If you were to ask yourself what a large touchscreen tablet was about a year ago, no one would have expected products from Samsung, Apple and BlackBerry to be this fast and sophisticated.

Not just this, with all of the tablets around now, it’s become more and more confusing into which tablet is best suited for your business and pleasure. The question of ‘what does X have over Y’ and ‘which would best suit my needs’ is one many questions surrounding these products.

As the tablet arena has 4 major competitors within in, I will try my best to cover all the major areas of the tablets, the hardware and more.

Apple iPad – iOS

The Apple iPad – probably the most predicatble one to start this blog with. With Apple having the head start on the smart pad market, Apple has most definately had the upper hand against the competition for a fair few months – until now.

Now when the iPad was released, it did start a revelution of smart pad competition. The only down-side with the iPad is the Hardware – the iPad has a 1GHz A4 processor (found in the iPhone 4) but only has 256MB of RAM.

The other thing with the iPad is that everyone knows that Apple holds these little conventions where they just have a massive press release and then go ‘welcome another new product to the Apple family’ – and rumor has it that there may be a new iPad on the scene around Christmas/ January time.

In terms of what could be expected from the new iPad V.2 could be anything. Undoubtedly the new iPad could punch FaceTime calling as well as a higher pixel screen for better resolution, gaming experience and just make it that little bit more cutting edge.

Read More on iOS

Samsung Galaxy Tab – Android

First Apple with their iPad, welcome Galaxy Tab a la Android. Samsung have produced this smart pad with Androud 2.2 OS which is probably the only smart pad which is close to hitting the market at the moment.

Android has definately been around on many different rip offs from China but Samsung have produced something which can be commercially sold to both SME and Consumers.

With a 1024 X 600 7″ display, the quality and pixel density is where the Galaxy Tab has the upper hand.

RIM Playbook – Blackberry OS

With manufactures such as Samsung and Apple, everyone knew that they were going to have a stab at the smart pad market. Blackberry on the other hand had a little step back, thought thoroughly about what to put into their smart pad and then just people thinking what Blackberry may actually produce.

With a dual-core 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM and both front and back facing cameras, the Playbook is something which has just come onto the smart pad market and shook it by the neck.

It is safe to say that if you’re a BlackBerry mobile phone owner, then you should be really interested in this one. Blackberry even claim that their development of their PlayBook is going to work closely with all their exisiting Blackberry products – could this be BIS and BES? Read more here

HP Slate – Windows 7

The HP Slate is going to be a smart pad but with a contriversial twist. If you notice that all of the rest of the smart pads have mobile operating systems on – the HP Slate has Windows 7 (a desktop operating system).

In comparsion to how it stacks up against the rest of the competitors – who knows?

We just need to wait for an update on what will exactly be crammed into this little bundle of joy and if it will come with a docking station for CD/DVD peripherals.

-For more information go to the original article source here at Zath

What is Microsoft Exchange?

Microsoft Exchange is a program that handles email, diaries and addresses for businesses. Its benefits include:

I already have email, so why do I need this?

Many businesses rely on basic POP3 email accounts from their internet service provider or even web mail. These are not usually ideal for business use:

One user who have made the switch said:

“It amazes people who haven’t seen it before – it is way beyond what POP3 email could ever offer.”

What is ‘Hosting’ and Hosted Exchange?

Many companies run Exchange Server on dedicated server computers on their own premises. This can prove costly for small to medium sized businesses. However, thanks to new Microsoft technology, it is possible to outsource this to specialist hosting companies such as SpiderGroup, just like you might let someone host your website for you.

This can reduce the cost, risk, complexity and support burden associated with an in-house system. It is also quicker to set up than an in-house system and can reduce your up-front costs.

Why choose hosted Exchange?

There are several reasons why you might chose a hosted solution over an in-house email system:

What is hosted SharePoint Server and how can it help my business?

Just as you can outsource Microsoft Exchange Server, it is also possible to get Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services as a hosted service. This allows you and your colleagues to work more effectively by storing business information in a secure, private intranet website that is accessible anywhere.

SharePoint is useful for:

1 Enable Memory Cleaning:

Blackberry Button > Options > Security Options > Advanced Security Options > Memory Cleaning > Enable

All blackberries’ store information on the handheld which can contain passwords, email message bodies, and private keys so to eliminate the possibility of data being compromised, Memory Cleaning has been placed on all Blackberry’s but default as Disabled for security.

2 Disabling 3G

Blackberry Button > Options > Mobile Network > Network Mode > Select 2G

The benefits of having 2G over 3G is that 2G can handle both calls, texts and data whereas 3G is optimized for faster transmission of data transfer. 3G can vary to 2G as 2G was introduced beforehand. 3G is obviously in specific areas such as cities where fast data access is required, rural areas and countryside obviously would be 2G. If you leave 2G and 3G enabled, the phone will automatically move from one network mode to another.

3 Removing unnecessary applications

Blackberry Button > Options > Applications > ‘top right, select Add-on’ > ‘all you need to do is select what you want to uninstall and just simply select the name of the program e.g. ‘blackberry maps’ and select ‘delete’

It’s a fact that all phones which leave the manufacture and sold you us comes with a tonne of applications no one would ever use. For games such as Word Mole and Sudoku on a business phone raises the question ‘why?’. Now if your addicted to these games you can leave it installed but personally I just removed it.

4 Disabling Wi-Fi

Blackberry Button > Manage Connections > ‘just make sure that the Wi-Fi is showing a red cross on its status’

It’s the same story different phone but Wi-Fi is one of these add-ons which more of a novelty rather than a useful feature with the Blackberry. If you leave it enabled, it will just simply munch through all of your battery and leave you with a phone which can be used as a paper weight.

5 Handset Security

The possibility of losing your phone or having it stolen is inevitable. Ways of preventing data being taken from the phone however is a measure which I would thoroughly recommend to anyone with a Blackberry.

6 Enabling a Handset Password upon unlock

When you unlock your Blackberry via the Padlock button at the top left of your Blackberry, being prompted for a Password which you can define upon set-up, if someone manages to get hold of your phone and attempts to get into it, either they know the password or after 10 attempts, the phone will just do a security wipe.

To enable the Handset Password,:

Blackberry Button > Options > Password> ‘Select Password as Enabled’ and then enter your desired password

Note: I would recommend a password as Characters opposed to Numbers as you would have to press ‘alt’ every time you want to enter a number.

7 Changing your profile in one click

Blackberry sure knows how to confuse people with their interface but what a lot of people don’t know is that they have actually embedded shortcuts within the keyboard to change profiles. Simply from your home page, simply hold ‘Q’ to go back to your previous profile e.g. if you changed your profile from Vibrate to Loud, you will go back to Vibrate.

8 Quickly insert a full-stop

Whilst in a text message, email or note no matter what you’re doing, if you double space after a sentence, you can insert a full-stop.

9 Switching applications in Multi-Tasking

Its surprising as not a lot of people know this but Blackberry’s do support multi-tasking, Multi-tasking is where an application can be minimized to enable another execution of an application.

Applications such as the Browser, Messenger and more can be minimized into the background. To access it just hold the Blackberry Icon button from your home screen and it will display any background running applications. To re-execute them, just move the cursor to the desired icon and select it.

10 Useful Applications

There is a whole array of applications you can choose from through the Blackberry App World which can be downloaded here.

For sat-nav, I personally use Telmap Navigator which is about as intuitive as a TomTom.

Features include:

• Clear guidance of turn by turn e.g. ‘go left onto the M32 second exit’ and works with Road Names too.
• Point of Interest search with full address, contact numbers etc of Pubs, Petrol Stations and more
• Simplistic easy to use interface
• Can run in the background if you have music playing or a call
• Traffic updates which automatically alert you and re-direct you at the click of a button

It is available for free as a 14-day trial but if you want a full license, you do have to pay £4.99 a month but it’s defiantly worth the money.

Other applications such as Twitter, LinkedIn, DriveSafely and Flixter are all free applications which I would recommend to download and if you don’t find it is not for you, just simply uninstall it.

You can do a lot of cool things with hosted Microsoft Exchange. Here are a few:

•        Set up accounts for meeting rooms. Each one will have its own calendar and you can see when they’re free or busy. To book the room, just ‘invite’ it to the meeting like any other participant. No more double booking.

•        Using Outlook to access the Exchange Server? It will cache a copy of your diary, email archives and so on locally, so you have a copy available even if you are not online. This is really handy if you are going to a meeting by car and you need to check the details and address.

•        Exchange Server works well with many Smartphones, including the iPhone but it is also compatible with Blackberry devices. Using hosted Exchange Server means that you don’t have to buy a dedicated Blackberry server as well, although additional costs are involved.

 Email anywhere

•        With Hosted Exchange Server your local coffee shop or internet café can be an emergency backup office. If your office internet connection fails or you have a fire or burglary, you can set up anywhere that has an internet connection (maybe using a Wi-Fi hotspot) and still have access to your email and business information.

•        If you employ temporary staff or have rapid staff turnover, adding a new user to the system takes minutes and is done by our dedicated support team. As soon as they leave, you can delete the account. You only pay for the users you have in any given month. If you need to take on 40 temps for a big project, they can all have email addresses for as long as they need.

 Change plans on the hop

•        Re-book a delayed flight at the airport using your SmartPhone to email your travel agent or personal assistant.

•        Pick up your email at 30,000 feet using wireless networking and satellite internet connections on certain airlines. Or at zero feet if you’re travelling on some trains which also have wireless internet connections.

•        Use the ‘Plan a meeting’ wizard in Outlook 2003/2007 to find a time when all the invitees are free to attend. No need to ring them all up to check their diaries.

•        Many people still keep a desk diary and carry a portable one with them, relying on their secretary to co-ordinate the two and deal with any double bookings. With a compatible Smartphone, you can update your diary as soon as you make a new appointment and your secretary can see the changes as soon as you make them.