4) Change Your Signal Strength Display from Bars to Numbers

Most modern cell phones offer up some form of the "five-bars" to display users' wireless signal strength, and the BlackBerry default mode is no different. But if you want more precision than bars can offer, you can change to the numeric signal strength display mode.

The numeric mode shows wireless signal strength in decibels per milliwatt (dBm), a ratio measured power in decibels (dB), referenced to one milliwatt (mW).

To switch from bars to numbers, navigate to your BlackBerry home screen, hold the ALT key and enter in "NMLL." The signal display will then automatically display a dBm value. In general, a reading from -45 to -85 is considered very strong. Any reading that's lower than -85--for instance, -100--is weaker. To switch back to bar mode from numeric, just hit ALT again and retype "NMLL."

The numeric display can be helpful to determine specifics on how much a wireless signal degrades as you move from place to place. (It's also geek chic to read your cellular signal strength in dBm instead of boring old bars.)

5) Bring Up "Help Me" Screen for Device, System Data

Your device's Help Me screen displays useful device and system information like your vendor ID, BlackBerry platform version, OS version, PIN, International Mobile Equipment Identity (EMEI) number (which identifies your GSM device for the telecom carrier), cellular signal strength, free and total available memory and more. Most of this information can be found in various locations throughout your BlackBerry Options, but the Help Me offers a simple way to access all the data on a single screen.

To pull up the Help Me screen, navigate to your home screen and then press ALT, either SHIFT key and the letter H. To return to your Home Screen, hit ESCAPE or open the MENU and select Close.