[istracpsboss]

Hi

I have recently got my first Blackberry and I'm finding it surprisingly unintuitive. I'm still trying to get it to work as a phone properly! It is an 8100 Pearl.

At the moment it is only any use for incoming calls, redialling recent calls or initiating brand new numbers. Trying to find existing numbers in memory otherwise is mostly a non starter, yet ordinary cheap mobile phones do it easily.

The numbers are all in there, because the majority of incoming calls identify with the caller's name correctly. They were all entered in when I first got it and synchronised things.
However, If I want to phone someone and go into addresses, the lists of people there are missing dozens of names and I cannot work out where Blackberry hides the other ones. There is clearly more than one address book in there and the missing one is far bigger than the visible one and contains much more important numbers. Other Blackberry users that I have asked for help have been mystified too.

Something else I remembered. If I use the search facility to try to search for a name it denies the existance of names I know are in there and only appears to search in the shorter and only apparent address book.
Conversely, if I manually enter in a familiar phone number, when I start to dial it will affirm the name even though the search denied they were known. Incoming calls from the same people show their names even though the visible address book does not list them, nor a search admit their existance.

Until I can get it at least to function properly as a phone I haven't dared to graduate to setting up for emails!

Are there enough clues there for some kind reader to point me in the right direction?

Cheers

Peter

[FF2]

I don't know the precise steps, but I've read that sometimes FILTERS get enabled that will hide names/number in the address book. So while in there, using the Menu Key (has the BB logo, looks like dots to me but a blackberry fruit to others) and see if there's filters applied.

Wish I could be more specific...

Good luck

[takeshi]

There's only one address book. As FF2 says, make sure it's not filtered so you can't see entries that don't match the filter criteria.

[Thatzmister2u]

Maybe she has some stored on the device and some on the SIM card?

[istracpsboss]

Thanks for the answers so far. I still find a BB very unintuitive. I've worked with computers for 20yrs but I find BB logic very different. I've looked around it and find internal instructions just don't match what I find.
For instance, I found something about synchronizing SIM and address book.
It starts by saying 'go into address book and click on menu'.
When I go into address book, there is no menu and I think one would have been reasonable anyway. All I see is the list of names, topped by the word 'Personal' and 'Find' top left.
Using the Blackberry button only gives options for the highlighted name, not the list as a whole
If a menu would show for some of these things I could make much more sense of it.

Cheers

Peter

[KimMazz]

When you are viewing your address book click the blackberry button (the one to the left of your track ball.) You will see an option of filter. click that and see if any of the filter options are checked.If so, clear that check and then view your address book again. You should see all your addresses then.