Section 85. Use Your Device As a Flashlight and Mirror


85. Use Your Device As a Flashlight and Mirror

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

11 Install a New Application to Your Device


You probably never thought of your BlackBerry device as potentially serving as such a mundane tool as a flashlight or a mirror. However, an unbelievably simple add-on application enables your device to fill exactly these roles. I'm referring to MyFlashlight, an application developed by Stefan Adrian Burghelea that turns the screen on your device into a flashlight or mirror.

I have to admit to being a little let down that the MyFlashlight application didn't pull any crazy tricks with screen brightness or maybe an unusual refresh rate to generate incredibly increased luminescence. All MyFlashlight does is display a screen that is solid white (flashlight) or solid black (mirror). Even so, the solid white screen does indeed give off enough light to use it as a primitive flashlight, and there really is no other easy way to produce a solid white screen. The solid black screen is considerably less useful as a mirror when you consider that any electronic device with a shiny face can be used similarly. In fact, your BlackBerry screen turns into a "mirror" (solid black) by default any time you leave it alone and the screen shuts off. However, if you find yourself in a pinch and desperately need a flashlight, MyFlashlight could come in very handy.

1.
Download and Install the MyFlashlight Application

The MyFlashlight application is available for purchase and download from the Handango mobile software store at http://www.handango.com/. Unfortunately, there isn't a demo version of MyFlashlight, but its purchase price as of this writing is 99 ¢. After purchasing MyFlashlight from Handango, you download a file to your desktop PC that allows you to install the application to your device. After installing MyFlashlight to your device, an icon is added to the Applications screen where you can launch the application.

85. Use Your Device As a Flashlight and Mirror


2.
Open the Applications Screen

Scroll to the Applications icon on the Home screen and click the trackwheel. The Applications screen appears, showing a list of applications you can launch.

3.
Launch the MyFlashlight Application

Scroll to the MyFlashlight icon and click the trackwheel. The MyFlashlight application launches and appears.

4.
Switch from Flashlight to Mirror

The initial screen for the MyFlashlight application is surprisingly simple. In fact, nothing is shown on it at all, and that's precisely the ideamaximize the number of white pixels on the screen to generate as much light as possible. There are no graphical tricks at work here, but the solid white screen does indeed provide some illumination in the dark.

Switching MyFlashlight to mirror mode simply turns the white screen black so you can see your reflection on the screen. To switch to mirror mode, click the trackwheel and select Mirror from the menu that appears. Click once more, and the screen turns black to provide mirror functionality.

NOTE

I found the mirror feature of MyFlashlight to be significantly less useful than the flashlight feature. You might or might not decide that it's worth 99 ¢ for a simplistic flashlight on your device, but I found it to be a neat little application.

5.
Exit the Application

To exit the MyFlashlight application, click the trackwheel, select Exit from the menu that appears, and click again. Then press the Escape button or the End button to navigate back to the Home screen.



BlackBerry in a Snap
BlackBerry in a Snap
ISBN: 0672326701
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 149

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