electric relaxation

I recently switched out my BlackBerry yet again; I traded in the 8830 that I used for just under a month in exchange for the new 8130 Pearl on Sprint. I loved my old 8100 Pearl despite the fact that it only lasted a year of abuse at my hands (I doubt any other phone would have lasted a month), and the exchange was part of the game plan all along. I had read somewhere that the 8130 would be released before the end of the month, and so I bought an 8830 betting that the 8130 would come out before my 30 day trial expired. Shockingly, this crazy plan actually worked.

The Sprint 8130 is really sweet: GPS, EVDO, Bluetooth DUN, camera with video, external SD card slot, and standard 1/8″ headphone jack.

Anyway, the first thing I do with a BlackBerry (I can say that now that I’m on my third one) is to unlock the vendor themes via the standard “delete Vendor.xml and edit BlackBerry.alx” trick described on the BlackBerry forums. This gets me access to the sweet Vodafone theme that everybody likes.

Unfortunately, the unlock trick also resets BES activation status. I have already set/reset my status three times in the last month: once when I first got the 8830, next after I did the unlock trick for the 8830, and then again when I got the 8130. I was too ashamed to file yet another ticket when the new 8130 OS finally became available (access to the OS install package is a prerequisite for performing the unlock).

Fortunately, I figured out a way to install the Vodafone theme OTA without requiring an OS update or re-install of any kind:

1. Install the new OS package.
2. Navigate to %PROGRAMFILES%\Common Files\Research In Motion\Shared\Loader Files\<release>\Java.
3. Find the theme you want. They’re named according to type and vendor ID. The Vodafone vendor ID is 120, and the theme I wanted is named net_rim_theme_120_today_240×260_b.cod.
4. Copy the .cod file to a web server, and follow these instructions to create a .jad file to wrap the .cod for OTA installation.
5. Add the .htaccess file, then point your BlackBerry browser at the .jad URL.

So, without further adieu, here’s a link to install the Vodafone theme for the 8130 Pearl OTA:

[WARNING: Don't try this on anything other than an 8130; the .jad is not well formed and you might screw up your phone. I will not be held responsible for any damage you might do to your phone or anything else that happens in your life after you install this thing.]

BlackBerry 8130 (Pearl) Vodafone Today