What’s your favorite BBM tip? If it isn’t listed make sure you leave a comment and let us know

1. BBM Instant Action

The next time you need to send someone a BBM message on your BlackBerry Q10, try using Instant Action to hop into a conversation with a specific contact quickly.

From the home screen, all you need to do is type ‘BBM’ followed by the name of the contact you’d like to message, e.g. bbm Ty. After doing this, tap the contact when they appear and you’ll be brought into a conversation window so you can start chatting.

If you’re using a BlackBerry Z10 with BlackBerry OS 10.1 you can use Instant Action too! Just tap the search icon along the bottom of the home screen followed by entering bbm <contact name>.

2. List or Grid? You decide

By default, BBM contacts are displayed in a grid layout but you can optionally switch to a list layout. Personally I love the grid view because all my contacts frequently update their display pictures and some of them are really interesting and eye-catching.

If you’d like to try out each view however, open BBM and swipe down from the top of the screen. Then, tap Settings followed by changing Contacts Layout to Grid or List.

3. Request High Quality Pictures

The next time someone sends you a picture over BBM, if you’d like to get a higher quality version of the picture all you need to do is tap and hold the image followed by tapping HQ on the menu that appears on the right. After doing this, the person who sent you the picture can choose to send you a higher quality version or optionally say no to the request.

Keep in mind, requesting and sending higher quality images will use a bit more data than a regular picture, so I’d recommend using this feature when you are connected to a Wi-Fi network or hotspot.

Tip: To save a picture someone sends you using BBM, tap and hold the image followed by selecting Save Image from the menu that appears on the right.

 4. BBM Music Updates

If you want to show what song you’re listening to while using the Music app, open BBM and swipe down from the top of the screen. Then, tap Settings followed by changing the “Show What I’m Listening To” switch to On.

If you do not want to see music status updates from your contacts in your BBM Updates listing, you can turn this feature off by opening the Settings screen and changing Music Status Updates to Off.

5. Link Contacts

After you’ve set up all your various accounts, you’ll notice that the same person, if they appear in multiple accounts, will be automatically merged together. If a contact with multiple entries doesn’t merge, you can manually link them together using the following tip:

1. Open the Contacts app
2. Tap and hold a contact you’d like to link together, e.g. Ty
3. Tap Select More
4. Tap the other contact you’d like to link, e.g. Ty Williams
5. Tap Link Contact from the menu

To learn about a feature on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone or troubleshoot an issue, there are several great options available to help. Visit http://www.blackberry.com/support for access to product manuals, how-to demos, tips and tricks, YouTube videos, support forums, knowledge base articles, Twitter support, and contact information for your region.

You can quickly perform a number of tasks when you type certain commands on the home screen on your BlackBerry Q10. For example, some of the shortcuts you can use are:

• Make a call – Type “call contacts name” or “call phone number”
• Send an email – Type “email contacts name” or “email email address”
• Send a text message – Type “text contacts name” or “text phone number”
• Start a BBM chat – Type “BBM contacts name”
• Update your Facebook status – Type “Facebook status update”
• Post a tweet – Type “tweet tweet”
• Post a LinkedIn update – Type “LinkedIn status update”
• Add a note to BlackBerry Remember – Type “note note details”
• Add a task to BlackBerry Remember – Type “task task details”

To learn more shortcuts, check out the Home screen shortcuts section within the BlackBerry Q10 user guide or open the Help app and search for “Home screen shortcuts.”

2. Easily insert symbols such as ® and ™

Looking to insert some symbols? All you need to do is press and hold a key at which point a dialog will appear with symbols. For example, holding R will display an option to select the registered mark, ®, along the bottom of the screen.

3. Hold 0 for Voice Control

The Voice Control app can make multitasking easier by allowing you to perform a variety of actions and tasks with your voice. To use Voice Control, you can open the Voice Control app, press and hold the Mute key or, my preferred method, press and hold 0.

To learn more, when Voice Control is open tap on the “i” that appears next to “What would you like to do?” and you’ll be able to review a list of the various actions with examples of how to use them.

4. Customize your Automated Assistance Options

Make sure you review the Prediction and Correction options that can be found within the Language and Input menu. Within this screen you’ll be able to customize several options that can help you type faster. For example, you can turn on Prediction Display which will cause your device to suggest words as you type. To try this feature out, complete the steps below and make sure you review the Help app to learn more about these options if needed.

• While viewing your Home screen, tap Settings
• Tap Language and Input followed by Prediction and Correction
• Turn on Show Predictions

5. Text Selection and Cut, Copy and Paste To help manage text, here are a few important things you should know!

• Cursor Indicator – Drag the cursor, or tap left, right, up or down on the cursor itself to move it to a specific location.
• Selecting Text – Touch and hold the text, then move the cursor indicators to change your selection.
• Copying Text – Tap and hold the highlighted text and select Copy
• Cutting Text – Tap and hold the highlighted text and select Cut
• Pasting Text – Touch and hold where you want the text and select Paste

Got a question or tip? Leave a comment and let me know!

To learn about a feature on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone or troubleshoot an issue, there are several great options available to help. Visit http://www.blackberry.com/support for access to product manuals, how-to demos, tips and tricks, YouTube videos, support forums, knowledge base articles, Twitter support, and contact information for your region.

Happy Friday #TeamBlackBerry!

On deck this week, five tips for the BlackBerry 10 camera, such as how to geotag photos and how to access your photos and more from a DLNA compatible device.

1 – Use different Shooting and Scene Modes

The BlackBerry Z10 has lots of options to help you capture the perfect picture depending on your situation, so after opening the camera make sure you review the various options available to you.

For example, in addition to the Normal shooting mode, you also have the option of using a Stabilization or Burst shooting mode. Stabilization is great if you’re like me and can’t keep still when taking pictures. Burst on the other hand is a great way to capture the perfect action shot, such as your dog catching a tennis ball or jumping into the family pool (ed – make sure you are out of the splash zone!). On top of Shooting Mode options, you also have several Scene Modes available to you such as Action, Whiteboard, Night and Beach or Snow.

To access these options tap the icon with three dots that appears in the bottom right corner and customize the settings to your desired preferences.

2 – Move the Focus Box

Whenever you are using the camera you’ll notice a box appears in the middle of your screen. This is the focus box and you have the ability to drag it so it centers on the item you want to be in the sharpest focus.

3 – Fast Preview

Need to review a photo you just took to make sure it’s perfect? Instead of tapping on the previous picture thumbnail that appears in the bottom left corner, touch and hold the thumbnail followed by moving your thumb up or to the right. When you do this you’ll notice that the thumbnail expands, allowing you to verify if the picture is perfect or if you need to snap another one.

When finished, remove your thumb and the image will shrink to the bottom left corner again as a thumbnail.

4 – Copy pictures to your PC or Mac using BlackBerry Link

The easiest way to access, sync, share and organize all your photos, music, videos and other files over Wi-Fi or USB is BlackBerry Link. If you haven’t installed this software yet I highly recommend doing so because it makes working with media files easy. You can also use BlackBerry Link to backup your smartphone, which is something I recommend doing once a month at a minimum.

As mentioned earlier, you also have the ability to copy files to and from your smartphone using a Wi-Fi connection, which makes accessing and managing your media really easy. To learn more about this feature, click on one of the following links.

• BlackBerry Link for Windows 1.0.1 – About Connecting to BlackBerry Link
• BlackBerry Link for Mac OS 1.0.1 – About Connecting to BlackBerry Link

5 – Put in on the big screen using Media Sharing

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

You can wirelessly share media files from your BlackBerry device with supported DLNA compatible devices, such as computers, TVs, or other home entertainment equipment using the Media Sharing feature that’s built into your smartphone. Here’s a quick overview of how to enable Media Sharing options for pictures, as well as how to specify which DLNA compatible devices can access your shared media files.

1. Tap Settings followed by Media Sharing
2. Set the Share Pictures switch to On
3. Tap Devices and select the checkbox next to each device that you would like to give access to your media files.
   • To stop sharing media files with a specific device, clear the checkbox beside the device name
4. Tap Back when finished to save your changes

After completing these steps, you can access pictures stored on your smartphone provided you’ve granted access to the DLNA compatible device you are using.

Bonus! Geotag pictures

When taking pictures you have the option to geotag the picture with your current location. For example, I used this feature the last time I was at the family cottage and now I am able to see where I was on each lake whenever I took a picture.

1. In the Camera app, swipe down from the top of the screen
2. Tap Settings and set Geotag Pictures to On

Tip: Need software that supports geotagged pictures? Check out Windows Photo Gallery if you use Microsoft Windows, or iPhoto if you are using a Mac.

To learn about a feature on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone or troubleshoot an issue, there are several great options available to help. Visit http://www.blackberry.com/support for access to product manuals, how-to demos, tips and tricks, YouTube videos, support forums, knowledge base articles, Twitter support, and contact information for your region.

1. Device Password

Considering the amount of personal information stored on our smartphones, enabling password protection is something I cannot help but recommend. I’ve lost my phone once and thankfully someone sent it back to me. But the experience made me realize one thing – a device password provides peace of mind when you can’t find your smartphone.

Follow these steps to set up a password on your BlackBerry device:

1. While viewing the Home screen, swipe down from the top bezel
2. Tap Settings followed by Security and Privacy and finally Device Password
3. Set Device Password to On and enter your desired password

2. Message displayed on locked screen

In addition to setting a password, I encourage you to set a custom message that will appear on your screen whenever your phone is locked.

For example, I set a custom message that has my name and contact details so whoever finds my phone can contact me; ‘If found, please call (XXX-XXX-XXXX) for a reward’.

Follow these instructions to create a custom message:

1. While viewing the Home screen, swipe down from the top bezel
2. Tap Settings followed by Display
3. Customize the Message displayed on locked screen fields
4. Tap Back to save your changes

3. BlackBerry Protect

[YouTube link for mobile viewing]

All it takes is a flick of a switch on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone and you’ll be able to remotely lock, wipe, beep and/or locate your misplaced smartphone thanks to BlackBerry Protect. Check out the short video embedded above to find out why I love this feature and strongly recommend enabling it on your smartphone.

Here is how you can activate BlackBerry Protect on your smartphone:

1. While viewing the Home screen, swipe down from the top bezel
2. Tap Settings followed by BlackBerry Protect
3. Set BlackBerry Protect to On
4. Tap Back to save your changes

4. Updating Passwords

Ask yourself this very important question, when was the last time you updated the passwords that you use to access your smartphone, email accounts, social networking accounts, apps, services and more? If you can’t recall the last time you did this, stop what you are doing, look at your calendar and set some time aside to do this in the near future!

5. Media Card Encryption

Depending on what type of information you have stored on your media card, you may want to consider enabling media card encryption. This provides additional security but you need to be mindful of the fact that media card encryption is linked to your smartphone – in other words, if you remove the media card and place it into another smartphone, you will not be able to view the contents unless it was decrypted first.

Note: An encrypted media card will become inaccessible if the device is wiped. Please turn off media card encryption before performing a security wipe on your device. 

1. While viewing the Home screen, swipe down from the top bezel
2. Tap Settings followed by Security and Privacy and finally Encryption
3. Set Media Card Encryption to On

Do you have a security related tip? Leave a comment and let us know!

To learn about a feature on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone or troubleshoot an issue, there are several great options available to help. Visit http://www.blackberry.com/support for access to product manuals, how-to demos, tips and tricks, YouTube videos, support forums, knowledge base articles, Twitter support, and contact information for your region.

As per usual, it’s Five Tip Friday. Today’s topic: five tips for using the BlackBerry Z10 Contacts app.

Note: Rather than blur all of my contacts, you’ll notice in the screenshots I’ve performed a search for my own contact card, “Ty Williams”

Merging contacts

Your BlackBerry smartphone automatically merges contacts when its clear that those contacts are the same person (for example, they share the same first and last name, mobile phone number, BlackBerry ID, and so on). If you still see duplicate entries in your contact, you can merge those contacts into one entry using this handy tip:

1. While viewing your contacts, touch and hold a contact
2. From the context menu, tap Select More
3. Tap the contacts that you want to merge
4. From the context menu, tap Link Contacts

Filtering contacts

Listed below are two methods that allow you to view a specific set of contacts as well as instructions on how to hide a set of contacts.

View contacts by account

If you want to see only people whom you can contact in a certain way (for example, through BBM), you can quickly filter your contacts list to do so. To view contacts in a specific account, tap the Contacts ‘All’ icon in the bottom left corner, then tap on the account you would like to see.

Hide a set of contacts

You can completely remove a type of account from your contact list. For example, if you mainly follow celebrities only on Twitter, you might not to want to see them in your contact list.

1. In the Contacts app, swipe down from the top of the screen and tap Settings
2. In the Show Account in Contact List section, set the switch that appears beside an account you want to hide to Off.

Sharing contacts

You can share a contact’s details with others in .vcf format. This is like passing around a business card, but digitally.

1. In the Contacts app, touch and hold a contact
2. From the context menu, tap Share Contact

Mark your favorite contacts

When you add contacts to your favorites, their pictures appear at the top of your contact list so you can quickly connect with them. To mark a contact as a favorite, use one of the following methods.

From the Contacts listing:

1. In the Contacts app, touch and hold a contact
2. From the context menu, tap Add to Favorites

While viewing a specific contact:

1. Tap the star icon that appears in the top right corner

Copy contacts to and from your SIM card

Your SIM card can store contact names and phone numbers. Copying contacts to and from your SIM card allows you to easily transfer contacts from one device to another. When you insert a SIM card in your BlackBerry smartphone, you can view contacts that are stored on the SIM card in your Contacts list. You can copy the SIM card contacts to your device memory so that the contacts are available to you even if the SIM card is removed.

To manage SIM card contacts, complete the following steps:

1. On your BlackBerry Z10 Home screen, tap Contacts
2. Swipe down from the top of the screen and tap Settings
3. Complete one of the following actions:
   • To copy all of the contacts stored on your SIM card to your smartphone, tap Import Contacts from SIM Card
   • To copy all of your contacts stored on your smartphone to the SIM card, tap Copy Contacts from Device to SIM card
   • To view your SIM card contacts and decide which ones you want to copy to your device, tap Manage SIM Card Contacts

Note: If you added a work account to your device that uses BlackBerry Balance, you will not be able to copy work contacts to your SIM card.

To learn about a feature on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone or troubleshoot an issue, there are several great options available to help. Visit http://www.blackberry.com/support for access to product manuals, how-to demos, tips and tricks, YouTube videos, support forums, knowledge base articles, Twitter support, and contact information for your region.

Reader Mode

To help you focus on reading articles or other text on a webpage and remove distracting clutter like ads, you can use the Reader Mode. To do this, open the Browser, go to a website and press the action key followed by tapping Reader Mode.

Browser Startup Settings

Controlling what happens when you open the Browser is pretty easy. For example, you can have the Browser open a specific website, such as your favorite blog, or open and load any tabs (aka websites) you were viewing the last time you closed the Browser. To specify what you would like to occur whenever you open the Browser, complete the following steps:

1. Open the Browser and press the action key followed by tapping Settings
2. Tap Display and Actions
3. In the On Startup field, select one of the following options:

• Show My Home Page – The Browser when opened will open display a specific website (based on the Home Page setting found in step 4)
• Show Last Tabs – The Browser when open will load any tabs (aka websites) that were open the last time you closed the Browser

4. In the Home Page field, select one of the following options (Note: These settings only apply if you select Show My Home Page in step 3):

• Open a New Page –The Browser when opened will show websites you’ve visited recently.
• Open a Specific Page – The Browser will open a specific page. If you were viewing the website you would like to set as your Home page before accessing this settings menu, use the Current Page option to insert the website address or manually enter the website URL.

5. When finished, tap Back to save your changes.

Change your default search engine

Depending on what you are searching for, you may need to change your default search engine. To do this while using a BlackBerry smartphone, complete the following steps.

1. Open the Browser and enter a search term
2. In the top right corner, an icon that represents the default search engine will appear
3. Tap this icon, and from the drop-down list, select your desired search engine.

Private Browsing

This option prevents the Browser on your smartphone from storing any information – for example, your history, cached files, cookies, and so on – whenever it is enabled. When you turn off private browsing, any browsing information created while this option was enabled will be removed from your smartphone.

1. Open the Browser and press the action key followed by tapping Settings
2. Tap Privacy and Security and set the Private Browsing switch to On.

Add a website to your Home screen

If you want fast access to some of your favorite websites on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone, you should consider adding them to your home screen. To do this, open the Browser, go to a website and press the action key followed by tapping Add to Home Screen.

Bonus: Change permissions for specific websites

As you browse the Internet, you might grant permissions to allow websites to access information, such as your location. You can review and optionally remove those permissions at any time using the following steps:

1. Open the Browser and press the action key followed by tapping Settings
2. Tap Site Permissions and tap a website you’d like to review
3. Customize permissions and tap Back to save your changes, or tap the Trashcan icon to remove permissions for a specific website.

To learn about a feature on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone or troubleshoot an issue, there are several great options available to help. Visit www.blackberry.com/support for access to product manuals, how-to demos, tips and tricks, YouTube videos, support forums, knowledge base articles, Twitter support, and contact information for your region.

Pinch to Zoom in Day View

The next time you are viewing your calendar in the Day view, using two fingers, slide them together to zoom in, or slide them apart to zoom out.

Calendar Display Settings

One of the first things I do whenever I set up a new smartphone is hop in the settings so I can customize everything to my liking. When it comes to the calendar, here are a few things you might want to customize.

1. In the Calendar app, swipe down from the top of the screen
2. Tap Settings followed by General
   • To change how long your meetings are scheduled for, in the Meeting Duration drop-down list, tap a new duration.
   • To change the default reminder time for events, in the Meeting Reminder or All-Day Meeting Reminder drop-down list, tap a new time.
   • To change the snooze intervals, in the Snooze Interval drop-down list, tap a new snooze time.

Create a meeting from an email

Whenever you are in the BlackBerry Hub and someone in an email thread asks to schedule a meeting, all you need to do is to tap the action key followed by Invite To Meeting. When you do this, your invitation will be populated with the subject line from the email and the recipients of the email become the invitees.

Hide a calendar

Depending on how you manage your calendars, you may want to hide a specific calendar. To do this, swipe down from the screen, tap the Manage icon and clear the checkbox beside the calendar you would like to hide.

Change your default calendar

When you add an event to your calendar or send a meeting invitation, your device adds the event to your default calendar. To review your default calendar settings and change them if needed, complete the following steps:

1. While viewing the BlackBerry Z10 home screen, swipe down from the top of the screen
2. Tap Settings followed by Accounts
3. Tap Set Defaults
   • To change the default calendar that you add events to and send meeting invitations from, in the Calendar drop-down list, tap a calendar.
   • To change the default account that you send email from, in the Email Address drop-down list, tap an account.

Bonus: Get a six-month view of the calendar

The next time you are in the Calendar, switch to the Month view, tap the center of the screen and slide your finger down to quickly switch between months.

To learn about a feature on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone or troubleshoot an issue, there are several great options available to help. Visit www.blackberry.com/support for access to product manuals, how-to demos, tips and tricks, YouTube videos, support forums, knowledge base articles, Twitter support, and contact information for your region.

View conversation threads instead of single messages

Setting your Z10 to display email threads in conversation view instead of appearing as single messages is a great way to manage your messages. To turn on conversation view, complete the following steps:

1. In the BlackBerry Hub, tap the action key
2. Tap Settings followed by Display and Actions
3. Set Display Style to Conversation
4. Tap Back to save your changes

Tip: Make sure you review the other options found in the Display and Actions settings such as the ability to display your message count, show filed or sent messages as well turning on the ability to download images contained in emails automatically.

Mark Prior Read and Delete Prior

A fast way to manage your messages is the ability to mark messages read in bulk as well as delete emails en mass. To do this, switch to the BlackBerry Hub, tap and hold the date banner and you’ll notice a menu slides in from the right. This menu contains options to Mark Prior Read, Delete Prior as well options to jump to the top or bottom of the BlackBerry Hub.

Note: Depending how your email account is integrated, messages that are removed from your smartphone as a result of using the Delete Prior option will also be removed from your mailbox.

Search (including filters!)

Finding a particular message using BlackBerry 10 is fast thanks to powerful search and filter options. To start a search within the BlackBerry Hub, tap Search along the bottom of the screen. After doing this, you will be able to enter a search term or tap the icon with 3 bars (circled in red below) that appears in the top left corner and you can filter your search results. For example, if you wanted to view your unread messages only all you need to do is start a search followed by tapping the 3 bar icon and selecting the Unread option.

You can also perform a search without tapping the search icon; tap and hold a message in the BlackBerry Hub and the action menu that appears on the right will contain options to Search by Subject and Search by Sender.

Quickly switch between accounts (as well as hiding them)

By default, BlackBerry Hub will display messages and notifications from all of your accounts. If you want to view a specific account however all you need to do is tap the BlackBerry button in the bottom left corner followed by tapping which account you would like to view. After doing this, to view all of your accounts again, tap the account icon in the bottom left corner followed by tapping Hub.

If you want to hide specific accounts from appearing in this menu, complete the following steps:

1. In the BlackBerry Hub, tap the action key
2. Tap Settings followed by Hub Management
   • To show an account, set the switch to On
   • To hide an account, set the switch to Off

Set your default email address

When you share something (for example, a picture or a website) by email or when you compose a new email, your BlackBerry Z10 sends the email from your default email address. Depending on how you setup your Z10 you may want to change the default email address. To do this, complete the following steps:

1. While viewing your Home screen swipe down from the top of the screen
2. Tap Settings followed by Accounts
3. Along the bottom, tap Set Defaults

Tip: In addition to setting your desired default email address you can also specify which calendar should use as default whenever you are sending event invitations using your smartphone

Bonus: Setup an email signature

To set your email signature while using a BlackBerry Z10 smartphone, complete the following steps:

1. While viewing the BlackBerry Hub, tap the action key
2. Tap Settings followed by Email Accounts
3. Tap an email account, set Auto Signature to On and enter your desired signature
4. When finished, tap Back to save your changes

To learn about a feature on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone or troubleshoot an issue, there are several great options available to help. Visit www.blackberry.com/support for access to product manuals, how-to demos, tips and tricks, YouTube videos, support forums, knowledge base articles, Twitter support, and contact information for your region.

Essential Keyboard Gestures

Check out the gestures below, and also make sure you review our blog post on how to customize the BlackBerry 10 touchscreen keyboard to learn more about personalizing your typing experience.

• Show the keyboard – Using two fingers, swipe up from the bottom of the screen or tap a text field.
• Hide the keyboard – Swipe down from the top the keyboard using two fingers or tap and hold the space key.
• Delete a Word – Swipe back on the keyboard from right to left. If you type in a right-to-left language, swipe from left to right.
• Switch between Text, Numbers & Symbols – Using one finger, swipe down from the top of the keyboard to swipe between input methods

Calendar – Pinch to Zoom

The next time you are viewing your calendar in the Day or Week view, slide your fingers apart to zoom in or slide your fingers together to zoom out.

Easy Text Selection

I like using the Share option in the Browser to share a webpage with a friend, but sometimes I want to share a snip of text only – perhaps a funny joke or a quote I liked. To select text on a website so you can copy it, all you need to do is tap and hold the text followed by sliding the cursor indicators so the desired text is highlighted. After doing this, tap and hold the text, and from the menu that appears, select Copy (or if you’re drafting something, Cut).

Instead of sliding the cursor indicators to select text, tap and hold the text, and you’ll notice that the longer you hold your finger, your smartphone will begin highlighting the word you tapped followed by the sentence and the paragraph. After your desired text is selected, tap and hold it to view the menu with options to Copy or Cut.

Hub – Fast access to accounts

If you are a viewing a message that arrived on one account and you would like to quickly switch and view another account in the BlackBerry Hub, tap and hold the Back button followed by sliding your finger to the right. You’ll notice that a menu appears on the left that shows the icons of your other accounts. Tap one of these icons and you’ll be taken to that account so you can view your messages. The trick here is to tap and hold the Back button followed by sliding your finger to the right (1st screenshot); if you tap and hold anywhere else on the screen and slide your finger to the right, you’ll be able to peek at your Hub only and the account icons will not appear (2nd screenshot).

Screen Lock – Disable Gesture Support

When you press the Power/Lock key and lock your screen while using your BlackBerry Z10, you can wake up the device by swiping up from the bottom of the screen. If you find that you are accidently waking up your device by mistake, consider disabling gesture support when your device is locked – this will require you to hit the Power/Lock key first, followed by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.

1. On the BlackBerry Z10 Home screen, tap Settings followed by Display
2. Set Allow Gestures when Locked to Off
3. Tap Back to save your changes.

After doing this, to wake your device when the screen is off, hit the Power/Lock key followed by swiping up from the bottom of your screen to unlock. To learn more about locking your device, make sure you check out the BlackBerry Z10 User Guide – Lock your screen section.

To learn about a feature on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone or troubleshoot an issue, there are several great options available to help. Visit www.blackberry.com/support for access to product manuals, how-to demos, tips and tricks, YouTube videos, support forums, knowledge base articles, Twitter support, and contact information for your region.

To celebrate the weekend, here are five tips that I think everyone with a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet should know about.

1. How to cut, copy and paste text

Working with text on the tablet so you can cut, copy or paste is really easy. More or less it’s just a case of tapping and holding the screen followed by selecting your desired option

Cut or Copy Text – Touch and hold the text you’d like to cut or copy and when the cursors appear, adjust them accordingly. When you’ve finished selecting the text, tap Cut or Copy.

Paste Text – When you are ready to paste text that you’ve cut or copied, simply tap and hold where you want to text to be inserted and select Paste from the menu that appears.

2. Pairing with BlackBerry Bridge

Do you own a BlackBerry smartphone? If so, you should consider pairing with your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet using BlackBerry Bridge. Doing so allows you to take advantage of several features such as the ability to browse the web on the tablet using your BlackBerry smartphones connection (if supported by your wireless server provider).

Setting up BlackBerry Bridge is really easy as well. All you need to do is start the BlackBerry Bridge setup process on your tablet which will guide you though installing BlackBerry Bridge on your smartphone as well helping pair your smartphone and tablet. To start the setup process, complete the following steps.

1. On your tablet home screen, swipe down from the top of the screen to access Settings
2. Tap BlackBerry Bridge followed by selecting Setup
3. Specify your desired Tablet Name and tap Next
4. Do one of the following:
   • If you have BlackBerry Bridge installed on your smartphone, tap Continue
   • If you do not have BlackBerry Bridge installed on your smartphone, tap Install Now and following the prompts to install BlackBerry Bridge on your smartphone. When finished, tap Back on the tablet and followed by tapping Continue
5. Follow the instructions on your tablet to scan the barcode which will start the pairing process

After pairing your smartphone and tablet, make sure you check out the BlackBerry Bridge User Guide to learn more.

3. Securing your tablet

I don’t know about you but my tablet contains personal documents, images, videos and more so to prevent others from accessing my personal data, I’ve set a password on my tablet.

Doing this allows me to have peace of mind because in the event I lose my tablet, unless the person who finds it knows my password (ed – which they shouldn’t because passwords are secrets!) they will not be able to access to my personal files.

If they try to guess my password, after 10 invalid password attempts, my tablet data is automatically deleted as a security precaution.

To set a password on your tablet, complete the following steps:

1. On your tablet home screen, swipe down from the top of the screen to access Settings
2. Tap Security followed by selecting Password
3. To set a password, set the Enable Password switch to On
4. Specify your desired password
5. Tap Ok

4. How to copy files to, and from the tablet

Want an easy way to connect to your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet for file sharing? If so, you should try Wi-Fi File Sharing since it allows you to drag and drop documents, pictures, videos, music, and more between your computer and tablet without the need to track down a USB cable.

To setup and start using Wi-Fi File Sharing, complete the following steps.

1. On your tablet home screen, swipe down from the top of the screen to access Settings
2. Tap Storage and Sharing
3. Set the Wi-Fi Sharing switch to On
   • To set a password to help protect your files, tap Password
   • For more information on securing Wi-Fi File Sharing, please review the Help app on your tablet
4. On your tablet, tap About.
5. In the drop-down list, tap Network and make note of the Wi-Fi IPv4 address for your tablet.
6. Do one of the following:
7. If your computer uses a Windows operating system, click Start followed by Run. Type your tablet IP address in the following format: \\xx.xxx.xxx.xxx.

If your computer uses a Mac operating system, open Finder, select Go followed by Connect to Server. Type your tablet IP address in the following format: smb://xx.xxx.xxx.xxx.

• Drag a file from a location on your computer to a folder on your tablet or vice versa

5. Set Up Print To Go

One of my favorite apps is Print To Go because it allows me to print a variety of files such as webpages, images and more to my tablet. For example, every time I come across a new recipe online I’ll use the websites ‘Print’ option, select Print To Go on my PC and within minutes I’ll be in my kitchen following the steps on my tablet thanks to Print To Go.

To get started with Print To Go, you’ll need to visit http://blackberry.com/printtogo to download and install the Print To Go software on your personal PC.

After installing the Print To Go software on your computer, print a file like you normally would and select Print To Go as the printer. In the fields that appear on the screen, enter your BlackBerry ID and password and click Sign In. When printing is complete, tap the Print To Go app and you’ll see the new file has been added that you can view using Print To Go, or Adobe Reader on your tablet.

Do you have a question or comment? Let us know below!