RIM held a 10:00AM conference call with investors and media, and in the conference call CO-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis said all services are back up and running. Currently backlog of messages are being “flushed” for some North American users.

The outage was caused by core-routing hardware in their network operation centres. When the initial problem occurred, it caused a snow ball effect resulting in the three day outage.

Balsille said RIM will work with carriers to compensate users, but have not come up with any difitive plans as their focus has been solely to get service back up and running.

For the third day in a row, Blackberry users are in the midst of a major Blackberry data outage rendering their Blackberry smartphones virtually useless. Sure you can still make calls and use text messaging feature on the Blackberry, but who buys a Blackberry merely for calling and texting? The bread and butter of a Blackberry, its messaging service, from e-mail to Blackberry Messenger are all unavailable due to the RIM data outage.

Blackberry users cannot access their internet browsers, use third party applications like Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo Instant Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, WhatsApp and etc…

After a decade of a near perfect track record for stability and reliabiliity without outages, RIM users have experienced nearly 10 outages in the last 2 years.

With the Apple iPhone coming out later this week, the Samsung Nexus Prime is rumoured to be released in a couple of weeks, and dozens of Android devices being released every year, it does not look good for RIM shares.

Wireless Wave locations in Costco stores are offering a $100 gift card for new subscribers activating a Blackberry Torch 9800 with Rogers, Bell or Virgin Mobile.

The 3 yr price is $179 (everywhere).

• Only for new activations
• You will have to sign a 3 yr contract with Voice + Data

The funds will go directly to purchase digital mammography machines for women in your local community.

The following hospitals are involved as partners in the campaign:

More details here.

Some analyst say, it might be too little too late.  With the debacle that was the Blackberry Storm (RIM’s first touch screen smartphone, self proclaimed iPhone killer) many users have very little confidence in RIM’s ability to make a smartphone aimed at the touch screen market.

RIM is hoping OS 6.0 will win-back some iPhone users.

1. Podcast (No specific information as to what this does)

2. Media Card memory info (self explanatory)

I’d imagine version 6.0 of the Blackberry desktop software should be available to the public in the very near future.

It’s unclear as to how RIM’s twitter client will be better than existing clients such as Ubertwitter, TwitterBerry and TweetGenius just to name a few.

Now that we know it’s available for purchase, what exactly can we do with the Blackberry Presenter?

With the Blackberry Presenter, you do not need a laptop or a desktop computer to show a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

Here’s a small snippet of the product description from Blackberry’s website,

… you simply plug it into a projector or monitor, and present Microsoft® PowerPoint® files wirelessly from your BlackBerry® smartphone. While presenting, view your speaker notes or loop slides when you’re at that big convention. And, when you need to reference information on a different slide to answer that critical question, you can easily freeze your presentation on the overhead display while you search through your deck on your BlackBerry smartphone…

It’s pretty neat, but how people will actually use this?

You can buy your’s today, by visiting ShopBlackberry.com.

Some of these error messages can be resolved by simply re-loading your device’s OS (operating system) using Blackberry Desktop Manager.

There are some error messages where the fix is not so simple and requires additional steps.

Detailed below are step-by-step instructions  to fix the infamous JVM 102 error message, without having to wipe the contents of your device.

1.  Download and Install latest version of Blackberry Desktop Manager

2.  Download JL_Cmder and extract the files to the C: drive.

3.  Connect your phone to your PC using the USB cable that came with it.

4.  Run JL_Cmder and select option 2 (event log)

5.  Scroll to the bottom of the log and look for “JVM Error 102.”

The line before it should tell you exactly what file is causing the error.

Remember file name; you will need it later. (You may want to write it down, or copy it into a Word or Notepad file).

6. Go to Start > Run, and type “cmd” then press Enter.

7. Change directory to the JL_Cmder installation folder.

cd C:JL_Cmder

(Where C:JL_Cmder is where you extracted the files from Step 2.)

8.    Type the following command to remove the offending file:

javaloader.exe -u erase -f FILENAME

(Where FILENAME is the name of the .cod file.)

8. Disconnect your phone from your PC and restart it.

The scheduled maintenance should take place overnight Saturday, March 27th and early morning on Sunday, March 28, 2010.

Here is a list of the scheduled maintenance windows and what is going on during the upgrade:

• There will be a scheduled network maintenance by RIM affecting BIS customers on March 28th between 02:00 EDT and 06:00 EDT.
• RIM will be performing a BlackBerry Internet Service v 2.8 upgrade to BlackBerry Internet Service v3.0.
• BlackBerry Internet Service subscribers may be unable to send or receive messages using their BlackBerry hosted email account or integrated third-party email accounts, view email attachments, activate email service, or request to see “more” text during the maintenance.
• Wireless service providers and device resellers may be unable to create subscriber accounts or provision services for subscribers.

As the outage will occur while everyone is sleeping or partying late on Saturday night, most users will not notice the outage. The maintenance will affect 100% of Blackberry Internet Service users in North America, regardless of carrier.