Thursday, July 1, 2010

How to make your facebook application work on your blackberry

Ever since the court decided to ban some contents on some websites, the internet connection for all BlackBerry devices has been restricted to the network WAP. Since almost all of the applications on the BlackBerry devices use the internet service and not the network WAP, most of them are not working including Twitter and Facebook (the most commonly used apps in Pakistan)

This will use the WAP connection of your mobile phone service provider to connect to facebook and hence keep the blocked content blocked.

so here is a way on how to make Facebook work

Make sure you have the BlackBerry Desktop Manager installed in your computer. To download the Desktop Manager click here

Also check if you have a BlackBerry OS installed in your computer. You can check this by going to "Add/Remove Programs" (Windows XP) and "Programs and Features" (Windows Vista) in your computers control panel.
If you find a "BlackBerry Device Software" here, remove/uninstall it. It may give you problems later on

1) Uninstall the Facebook application in your device. You can do this by going to Main Menu>options>advanced options>applications. Highlight the Facebook application and press the menu button, click remove/delete.

For OS 5 users, go to main menu>options>applications>add-on (add-on is on top right corner)

2) Identify your BlackBerry Operating system. You can do this going to the Main Menu > Options > About. The numbers with the small "v" is your operating system version. e.g. "v5.0.0.592"

3) If you are running
a) OS 5 download Facebook v1.6.0.22
b) OS 4.6 download either Facebook v1.6.0.21 or Facebook v1.5
v1.5 saves battery and memory while v1.6.0.21 is a newer version
c) OS 4.5 download Facebook v1.6.9.17

Extract these files to a convenient location e.g. the desktop

4) Connect your phone via USB to your computer. Make sure that your device is connected to the desktop manager. This can be done my checking if in the desktop managers home screen shows your device pin in the bottom left.

5) Click "Application Loader" and in the "Add/Remove Applications" click start

6) Once the next window appears on screen, click browse and select the ".alx" file in the extracted folder above corresponding to your OS version

7) After you click OK window, the desktop manager will open with all of the installed applications in your phone. Amongst the apps will be "facebook v1.6.0.17/21/22" with an unchecked box. Check that box so that a "tick" is displayed in the box corresponding to the facebook app.

8) Click next and another page will open which should say that it will install facebook to your device. Make sure nothing else is being added (unless you want to add some other software) or deleted or updated. IF the list shows other app names too then go back and check otherwise click next.

Once done click finish and you are done.

This shouldn't take more than 10 minutes.

Sign in and enjoy!


Let me know if you have any problems. I will try to solve them. Don't forget to give me your feedback on it.