Like many apps, I hear a recurring problem on BlackBerry. “My ‘berry has slowed to a hault - why is your application making it run so slowly?!?”. This is not a problem unique to buzzd - and there is a way to fix it.

We believe buzzd is one of the most lightweight applications out there - It wont perform any actions without you asking it to, unlike many other applications. For example, we only update your location when you ask us to, instead of constantly tracking you. So why does your BlackBerry show that dreaded hourglass?

The reality is, BlackBerries in general have this memory problem. Like old computers, if you dont hit ‘Exit’ when you close out of your applications, they run in the background and clog up your memory. In the early nineties , an explosion of software options outpaced the memory doubling theory of Moore’s law, and computers were always telling you the needed ‘more RAM’. Software was coming out faster and with more variety than the hardware could keep up with. Skip forward to the mobile trends of 2009, and its history all over again.

This problem arises from one of the best features in BlackBerry - you can run multiple applications simultaneously. You ‘berry allows you, unlike the iPhone, to seamlessly switch through applications as you wish, without having to close or relaunch them. For example, on my BlackBerry I can be listening to Pandora, find a good show near me on buzzd, and then check Google Latitude for which of my friends are nearby, then switch back to buzzd and use ’send to friend’ to  instantly move the venue details to an email in my email application, hit send, then check my calendar, all while Pandora keeps rocking me out and without having to launch or close or relaunch anything. While the nerd quotient of this behavior would be pretty high, it illustrates my point. On an iPhone, you would have to re-load and close each application, one at a time, as you go. The upside is that BlackBerry allows you to multitask, the downside is that you need to clean up the mess youre making having all those apps open.

Many people remove the battery every once in a while to combat this problem, but a better solution is to close your applications manually. So we thought we would explain how to do that!! Try the following:

• In your BlackBerry, go to the home screen (the one with all the icons on it).
• Then hit the menu button (to the left of the trackball, the one with the 7 dots / BlackBerry logo) and then select ‘Switch application’.

• This will pull up a list of all your open applications - they can all add up, but also, any one can start acting up if open too long.
• I would go through each in the ‘Switch application’ list, and go into each app with the trackball
• From within the application, choose ‘Exit’ or ‘Close application’, and repeat this for all apps you arent using.

• Do this process periodically or whenever you are experiencing slowness.

And remember, if you want to experience buzzd without opening the application, you can always access buzzd from your mobile browser at http://buzzd.com/m . Our mobile site has features not available on the BlackBerry app like friending people, category searches (like restaurants only), as well as messaging to other buzzd users. We think the app is a cleaner experience - but feel free to use both. Happy buzzing!

-Michael   :    http://unhub.com/michael_at_buzzd