Berry Bloglines

We've included mobile RSS reader apps in our previous free BlackBerry downloads articles, but never an open source RSS app like Berry Bloglines. The app can be downloaded OTA or via PC from TheBogles.com—the same folks who created our favorite local search at for BlackBerry, Beyond411.

Berry Bloglines

The program imports users' existing Bloglines RSS reader account feeds, and unlike some common RSS apps, it offers not only short summaries of content within feeds but lets users read full articles without clicking to separate pages. It also integrates with Google's mobile content reformatting service so external pages reached via Berry Bloglines are optimized for mobile device screens. And once you've checked out a story via BlackBerry, it's marked as read in your desktop Bloglines interface.

The Berry Bloglines full source code is available here. (Note: Despite its RIM-specific name, Berry Bloglines works on any Web-enabled smartphone.)

Funambol for BlackBerry—"Push" Mail Sans BES, Exchange and OTA PIM Sync

If your RIM smartphone is connected to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), you very likely already received "push" e-mail—at least from your corporate Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise mail account—and can sync PIM data like calendar and contact information via USB. But users who want push "e-mail" for Web mail and OTA PIM sync have largely been out of luck...at least until Funambol released its latest free, open-source software.

The software consists of two parts: a push e-mail component and PIM sync component. The push mail functionality works with popular Web mail services like Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! And it also supports any POP or IMAP server, according to the company. BlackBerry users wirelessly sync PIM data with a Funambol server, which in turn can sync with a variety of additional mail and PIM systems.

The software is currently available for the full line of BlackBerry 8xxx series devices, as well as the as-yet unreleased Bold 9000. It can be downloaded for free from the company's website, and the software's full source code is available here.