36. Send a PIN Message  BEFORE YOU BEGIN 34 Compose an Email Message
 SEE ALSO 37 Send an SMS Message
Email is likely your primary mode of text message communication, but it is by no means your only option. Another useful option for text messaging involves PIN messages, which are messages sent directly from one wireless device to another. Unlike email messages, which must be routed from your device through email servers and often traverse a variety of network and computer configurations along the way, PIN messages are sent solely through your wireless service provider. More importantly, PIN messages are peer-to-peer messages, which means they don't go through a server at allthey are sent directly from one device to another one, much like a phone call is made directly from one mobile phone to another one. Because PIN message are peer-to-peer, they usually are sent much faster than email messages. So, why don't you just use PIN messages for all your text messaging needs? The reason is because PIN messages can only be sent to other BlackBerry devices. Every BlackBerry device has a unique PIN, which serves as the target address for PIN messages. This means you can't send PIN messages to email addresses or other devices that don't have PINs. Depending on how many of your co-workers, clients , and other contacts use BlackBerry devices, this might or might not be a limitation. For those people you can reach using PIN messages, you'll likely find that PIN messaging is very handy. You can enter the PIN for your BlackBerry friends and co-workers in the PIN field of their contact information.  NOTE Unlike SMS messages, which are pure text messages with no frills, PIN messages can be sent with attachments. However, the BlackBerry 7100 series devices are limited to sending only Address Book contacts as message attachments. Even so, PIN messages are more powerful than SMS messages, providing that your target recipient is accessible through PIN messaging.
| 1. | Open the Messages Screen Scroll to the Messages icon on the Home screen and click the trackwheel. The Messages screen appears, displaying a list of messages that have been sent and received on your device. 36. Send a PIN Message  | | 2. | Start Composing a New Message Click the trackwheel to open the Messages menu and scroll to select Compose PIN . Click the trackwheel to select the menu item and begin composing a new PIN message. The Select Address screen appears. TIP An even quicker way to begin composing a new PIN message is to simply press the L key while viewing the Messages screen. Just be sure you then select PIN Recipient Name from the menu that appears. | | 3. | Specify the Message Recipient(s) The Select Address screen is where you enter the PIN of the message recipient(s). By default, the first entry in your Address Book is selected. Scroll with the trackwheel to select the message recipient, or select [Use Once] to enter a PIN directly. The idea behind the [Use Once] designation is that you want to send a message to a PIN you don't want to add to your Address Book as a new contact. To use a PIN once, scroll with the trackwheel to select [Use Once] , and click. Click again to accept PIN on the menu that appears, and then enter the PIN. When you're finished entering the PIN, click the trackwheel, select Continue from the menu that appears, and click again. Or just press the Enter key to accept the PIN as the message recipient. NOTE You must have a PIN associated with a contact for the contact to be used as a PIN message recipient. If a contact has a PIN associated with him in his contact information, select PIN Recipient Name from the menu when you compose a new message to indicate that you are sending a PIN message instead of an email message. You can add only a single message recipient on the Select Address screen when you first begin composing a new message. To add more recipients, click the trackwheel after the new message appears and then select Add To:, Add Cc: , or Add Bcc: from the menu. NOTE The Add To:, Add Cc: , and Add Bcc: options for specifying new message recipients follow the standard To, Cc (carbon copy), and Bcc (blind carbon copy) email designations. The To designation applies to recipients who are directly receiving the message, and Cc is used to designate recipients who will receive the message but aren't the direct targets. Bcc is similar to Cc except that none of the other recipients can see the Bcc recipient, including any other Bcc recipientshence the name blind carbon copy. In addition to specifying more than one recipient for the PIN message, you can also attach a contact to the message as an attachment. To do this, click the trackwheel with the new message visible and select Attach Address from the menu. You are prompted to select a contact from the Address Bookthe contact is then sent along with the PIN message as an attachment. | | 4. | Complete and Send the Message After specifying the message's recipient(s), enter the message subject, which is the text that describes the message. The message body comes next , which is the heart of your PIN message, and is where you enter the actual message text. You can enter any text you want as the body of the message. Just keep in mind that PIN messages are composed as raw text messages with no special formatting. TIP You can use several typing shortcuts while entering text on your BlackBerry device. For example, to make the most of the SureType feature, enter an entire word letter by letter before attempting to select from the list of corrections. If you must make a correction using the SureType pop-up window, press the Next key ( * ) or scroll the trackwheel to highlight the correction and then click. To capitalize a letter, hold the letter key until the capitalized letter appears. To scroll through all the available characters on a given key, hold the key and scroll the trackwheel. To insert a period at the end of a sentence , press the Space key twice. To turn on NUM LOCK, hold down the Shift key ( # ) and then press the Alt key; to turn off NUM LOCK, press the Alt key by itself. And finally, to switch between SureType and traditional multitap modes, hold down the Next key ( * ). If you don't have time to finish entering the message or otherwise want to finish it later, you can save the message instead of sending it. To save the message for later without sending it, click the trackwheel, select Save Draft from the menu that appears, and then click. The message will appear in the message list with a special icon (a small yellow sheet of paper) next to it to indicate that it is a draft message that has yet to be sent. When you're ready to send a message, open the message, click the trackwheel, and select Send from the menu that appears. Click the trackwheel to flag the message for sending. I say that the message is flagged instead of being sent because the actual sending of the message depends on your device having access to the wireless network. If you have the radio turned off on your device or are out of the wireless coverage area, the message isn't sent immediately. When you turn the radio back on or regain wireless coverage, the message is automatically sent. |  |
