My first instinct was to do an excited post about my new 8520 as soon as I got my hands on it back in early January (barely a month after it came out), but upon further thought, I figured “Let me use it for a while and then I can really let people know if it’s worth the trouble…”. Almost two months later, the answer is a resounding YES! In my humble opinion the Blackberry Curve (8520) is one of the best handsets I’ve ever owned, PERIOD. As such, READ ON for my Top Five quick reasons as to why YOU might want to get your hands on one too. *wink*

1. The TRACKPAD is the greatest thing to hit this planet since OXYGEN. Seriously, if you’re a longtime Blackberry fanatic like me then I’m sure you’ve had a BB long enough to have had annoying trackball problems. The trackball was the single reason I ditched my old Bat-phone (RIP Pearl 8100: July 2006 – January 2010), and I’m happy to report that upgrading to a phone with a TRACKPAD was seamless and WONDERFUL. The trackpad functions on the same principles as the ball did… just with less room for error and less friction (thus less wear and tear in the long run) since it’s touch sensitive. Trust me – when you go TRACK, you’ll never go back lol.



2. The screen is much more brilliant (and bigger) than my old Pearl… great for day to day use (BBMing, texting, web-surfing, etc), and even BETTER for viewing photos and video. Frankly, I’m dying to finally get on a plane so I can load it up with a movie or two and fully enjoy the beautiful LCD screen’s brilliant picture for a whole film. Bottom line – only the Blackberry Bold has a bigger, better screen than this one, and just barely at that!
3. Speaking of movies, the 8520 is GREAT for multimedia. It has Play, Fast-Forward and Rewind buttons up at the top for easy access to all your mp3s and videos, and it takes great photos too. The only down side for me is that I can’t see how RIM declared this their “multimedia” phone but neglected to add a FLASH to it. As a result, taking pics at night is tricky if possible at all, but I’ll overlook that in favour of all the wonderful other multimedia bonuses listed above.



4. Continuing on the multimedia path, I’m happy to report it has a STANDARD earphone jack instead of one that only fits RIM-issue headphones. So now you can plug your fancy-shmancy professional headphones into your BB and get brilliant sounds for your music mp3s or watch a video with crisp psuedo-surround sound. Been waiting for THIS for a while and it delivers BIG TIME. Try it and see for yourself.
5. There’s like a ZILLION great apps for Blackberry but almost all of them work better on a newer BB like this one with its faster processor and better graphics quality. The only negative thing I can really say overall about the 8520 (other than lamenting the absence of a flash) is that I really wish it included GPS. Certain apps (like Google Maps for instance), do work using Cell-Tower approximation (bouncing a signal off the closest cell-phone tower to ascertain your current location) but it’s not as accurate as GPS, and there’s many apps that don’t work because they assume a modern phone has GPS built in – which it SHOULD. Fix that RIM.

All in all I can’t say enough good things about the Bat-Phone 2.0, AKA the recently-released Blackberry Curve 8520.Great application of technology, good call quality, very user friendly – all around and great product, especially if you’re a BB lover like myself.

I’m still very curious about the 8520′s big brother, the Bold 9700 which is a little more powerful (and has the built-in flash and GPS that I now crave), but I’ll hold off on upgrading to that because NOW I’m hearing there will be a new upgrade to the touchscreen Storm…

Anyway, that’s my two cents on the Blackberry Curve 8520, so I’m off to send a BBM to Management to say that this blog post is done. Mista Vybe OUTTT!!!

Soooo – did you notice that Facebook recently changed up their Homepage (if not click the pic above to read the full article) and tweaked the basic functionality of the Newsfeeds (i.e. the way we all “maco” people’s business)? Are you wondering why this happened, while trying to get used to the “new” Facebok (again) and has it even occurred to you that all Facebook’s sudden changes recently might be part of a master plan? Well if you’re an artist/entrepreneur like me (or just a supporter of the arts or a music lover in general), then you’ll be happy to know this is GREAT NEWS! Soon we’ll be selling music on FB, similarly to the way it’s done in iTunes!

Okay, so I stumbled on to all this just now, when I was reading a post on Jermaine Dupri’s blog. JD re-posted the above article about Facebook launching their new “music gifting service”, which, broken down to layman’s terms means Facebook is about to make people start paying for music (again – click the pic for the full article). in the end, it all adds up to more possible profits for the artists, writers, producers, etc., and a more extensive network in which to have product available for sale! *excited dance*

Remember the Free Gifts app that we’ve all used at one time to send a “heart”, a “birthday cake” or some other fun “e-gift” to a friend? How about SuperPoke?

Well NOW Facebook is about to set up an app that will “allow” you to “give” all your FB friends music mp3s. I’m sure eventually it will extend to videos, movies and TV shows as well, once the concept catches on.

Knowing how internet corporations work, they’ll probably start disabling all the FREE apps people use daily right now, meaning that eventually the only kind of “gift” you can send will be one of the aforementioned ones – thus more money in their pocket (and mine by extension lol).

Why is Facebook launching all this NOW after having so much free-ness for so long you wonder?

Check out the article below (again, click the pic for the full article), in which Myspace CEO Owen Van Natta “basically conceded defeat in the race with Facebook to be the world’s largest social network”.

Did you fully get that? Facebook is now officially the world’s LARGEST Social Media network (with numbers to match – check the graphs that accompany the article).

Okay, so now that FB is literally the “biggest” Social Networking site on Planet Earth, it makes sense for them to use that to their advantage. And THUS – mp3 sales!!!

I for one am looking forward to being able to offer my music to my nearly 4000 FB profile friends and 1900-plus FB Fans all my music in mp3 form instead of having to post third party links.

The question now is: what is Facebook going to be asking of the music providers (artist, labels, production companies, etc) in return for giving us access to this service? Also, are they going to favour Major Record Companies over Independents such as myself, or is this service going to be available to ALL artists/labels GLOBALLY?

Hmmm – can’t wait to find out. *twiddles thumbs* In the meantime, Mista Vybe (soon-to-be Facebook salesperson) outttttttt!!!

Based in New York City and privately funded by Def Jam founder and Phat Farm clothing line owner Russell Simmons, GlobalGrind.com is “the ultimate online destination for the hip-hop community”. For all Hip-Hop aficionados and fans of celebrity news and gossip, GlobalGrind.com is one of the internet’s preferred websites, thanks in great part to its trend of utilising celebrity guest bloggers.

Recently, GlobalGrind has featured guest blogs by Pop Culture icons such as Alicia Keys, Nia Long, T-Pain, Star Jones, Akon, Melyssa Ford and Sean “P. Diddy Combs”, to name a few.

What did the prestigious GlobalGrind.com have to say about MistaVybeWorld.com, you ask?

Seeing is believing. Click here for the original post on GlobalGrind.com and take a look for yourself!

In a recent post on Caribbean Public Relations, blogger Karel Mc Intosh discussed the use of Twitter, and explored who uses it for what reasons.  Inlcuded in the article was a Top 40 list created by her, giving an overview of Caribbean Celebrities on Twitter, ranked by followers. Listed within the elite Top 25, Mista Vybe was up against not only his Soca music colleagues, but also Reggae artistes and various Caribbean icons, ranging from comedians to beauty queens and even some of the Region’s top athletes.

This newest online accolade is not to be taken lightly, as it puts Mista Vybe in the same digital league as several household names, including World-Record-breaking Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, Trinidad’s beloved former Miss Universe Wendy Fitzwilliam, Vincentian Pop/Soca crooner Kevin Lyttle (singer of the Billboard-Chart topping song “Turn Me On”) and Bajan Pop superstar Rihanna.

Accomplishments like this one are why Mista Vybe continues to be referred to by bloggers worldwide and numerous digital media afficionados in the Caribbean as a “2.0″ artist.

Not familiar with the term? Here’s a quick 101: Being “2.0″ is the new wave of interactivity. Surf through MistaVybeWorld.com and see how interactive Mista Vybe truly is. MySpace, Facebook, Vimeo and Twitter are the various avenues through which Fans can interact with Mista Vybe.

This approach is widely used by many other celebrities such as Ryan Leslie, Jermaine Dupri and Sean “Diddy” Combs, who are all known for being “2.0″ elites.

To read the original post, please click here.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! *deep breath… count to a million… do meditation excercises… think peaceful thoughts*

Yeah – so the Bat-Computer is now in the shop, and since the show must go on nothing stops MistaVybeWorld.com from rolling, I’m actually writing this blog from *gasp! gulp! HIDE FACE IN SHAME* a PC laptop!!!!! A freakin’ DELL for crissakes!!!

STOP LAUGHING!!!

Anyway – moving on and backtracking to the scene of the crime… I was working on the laptop over at my Mom’s house, got up hurriedly when my Mom called out to me to come do something for her quick, and in my rush to hustle over to where she was, kicked the USB cord that connected my laptop to my Blackberry Pearl at the time, in the process making the Bat-Computer topple off the laptop table it was perched on and fall to its untimely death.

I won’t even bother to go into how I had JUST replaced the malfunctioning origjnal harddrive with a brand new one just recently, or how I was musing about getting an upgraded model of the Bat-Computer at this point… that’s what the Archives are for.

All I can really let you know at this point is that I whisked the laptop off to the same folks that fixed it the last time, hoping and praying that the malfunction which kept it from booting up was at least fixable, since I didn’t exactly budget for $2000 – $3000 or more (US dollars) to buy the new Macbook Pro I want so badly.

After much hoping and praying on my part and extra prayers from the rest of the MistaVybeWorld.com Team, I’m happy to say that the problem turned out NOT to be the logic board, but, in fact, the hard drive, which at least is a fixable issue.

Sadly, in this instance “fixable” means shelling out more $$ for ANOTHER brand new hard drive and having it formated and such by the fix-it folks. Fixable, but costly and frustrating. That’s 3 hard drives in like a 2 months folks – NOT cool.

But – at least I can take some solace in the fact that the Bat-Computer will indeed ride again, and in the meantime, I’ll be posting (on this blasted DELL) and trying to retain some semblance of “normalcy” online…

In closing I just want to say a heartfelt thanks to all those who reached out to me on and offline, or who just offered prayer or Positive Energy for the unfortunate laptop situation.

Fear not people – the Bat-Computer lives… kinda.

Get well soon Bat-Computer – I need you back!!!!!

Orlando over at Informtainment.com posted a blog entry congratulating me on the success of MistaVybeWorld.com, adding: “Mista Vybe you are moving in the right direction with the new website”.

Also, my newfound friend and musical collaborator The Great Zeee, bigged me up on his infamous ZBLOG. In case the name sounds familiar, Zee produced my current single, “Sweetness (Nani’s Song)” on the Soft Tune Riddim. Thanks for the love Zeee – as you always say, “Do it BIG – Do it NOW” lol.

And to top things off, longtime supporter and renowned Soca journalist/blogger Nurse Karen gave us a thumbs up on her highly respected blog earlier this week, and I got word today that she detailed the launching of www.MistaVybeWorld.com during her live radio segment on “The Rounds” this past Sunday (August 16, 2009) as well!

Not bad for less than 7 days in existence, huh? Once again – thanks to everyone that showed and continues to show love to myself and to MistaVybeWorld.com! Stay tuned… we’ve got MUCH MORE in store – this is ONLY the beginning. Trust me when I say that you won’t want to miss what’s NEXT ;-) Blessings and love,

Mista Vybe

Anyone that truly knows me knows how attached I am to my laptop. Even the nickname I gave it (“The “Bat-Computer”) indicates how much of a necessity it is to me on a daily basis (could Batman really fight crime effectively in the comics/cartoons without his trusty super-computer? I think not lol). But as much as I love and am grateful to the Bat-Computer for all it has done and continues to do for me daily (including typing up this blog post), I have to admit, I’m in lust with another Computer Love: the new and improved Macbook Pro (2009) “unibody” model.

COMPUTER LOVE: The Macbook Pro 2009! from MistaVybeWorld on Vimeo.

In all fairness I am working on an UPGRADED Bat-Computer, as a faulty hard-drive forced me to upgrade to a faster, bigger drive (7200 RPM, 300GB) right after my Germany trip. After getting my new hard drive installed and upgrading it to run on Mac OSX Leopard, I aptly renamed my old faithful laptop “The Batcomputer 2.0″.

But… a man’s gotta dream right?

And right now my computer dreams are of this – the new and upgraded Macbook Pro (2009 model) – called the “unibody” model, because the entire “body” of this Apple laptop is all carved out of one solid block of aluminum – which makes for a sleek, ultra-modern new look… and don’t even get me started on the slick black keys and the brilliant glossy display!

Add to that more more processing power (2.53GHz is the lowest possible intel-duo processor available as opposed to my current measly 2.16 GHz), much more RAM (4GB – almost twice my current 2.16GB), a bigger/badder hard drive (320GB out the box as opposed to my original 100GB), and you’ve got a deal that can’t be beat.

For those less tech-savvy – that means it does everything faster and better than before lol ;-)

So… as much as my current companion continues to help me be the best SUPERMODELROCKSTAR I can be.. I look forward to the FUTURE… Bat-Computer 3.0: The Next Generation! :-D