It has been a few weeks since we released Viira 3.1, so it’s time for a minor software update to provide some touch-ups and fixes. The latest version 3.1.1 is now available for download and contains a couple of fixes as well as a couple of addition to Viira’s capabilities.

• Email integration fix. Under certain circumstances Email tasks created from the Messages App didn’t display the full list of projects or contexts available for selection. This is now fixed.
• Copy and paste fix on Project/Context screen. It was reported to us that copying and pasting project and context notes on occasionally doesn’t work. The problem has been fixed.

We have also taken the opportunity to add a couple of new capabilities to Viira’s feature roster:

• <No Project> and <No Context>. You can now make Viira display all the tasks that haven’t been assigned a project or a context. Those tasks will appear under a heading titled <No Project> and <No Context> on the Projects View and Contexts View, respectively. To turn this feature on or off, please go to Settings->General Settings.
• Selecting a project or a context with ALT. Did you know that in addition to selecting items from a list by clicking on it with your trackpad (or tapping on it, if you have a touchscreen device) you can also open a list of available choices by pressing the ALT key? This is now fully supported throughout Viira and you can select a task’s project or context by using the ALT key to open the list of available projects and contexts.

Version 3.1.1 is available from Viira’s download page as well as through our mobile site.

We always like to hear of ways we  can make your life more organized and productive. In the most recent 3.0.2 update we have added a couple of enhancements that many of you have asked for:

• Day View Navigation shortcuts. You can now go to the Previous Day (ALT-J), Today (ALT-K) and Next Day (ALT-L) by using keyboard shortcuts
• View In Calendar. You can view any Viira appointment in your BlackBerry calendar.  Just open the calendar appointment in Viira and the select “View In Calendar” from the context menu in order to review or modify your appoinntment using your BlackBerry’s native Calendar application.

The Viira 3.0.2 update is available for download from the Viira downloads page as well as by pointing your BlackBerry to Viira’s mobile site.

View Viira Appointments in the BlackBerry Calendar

Day View Navigation Shortcuts

Short Answer: None.

The free trials of both Viira and the Viira Outlook Suite contain the exact same features and capabilities that you will find in the corresponding full version. This is by design: we want you to try out the full spectrum of what both Viira and the Viira Outlook Suite can do so that you can see for yourself the level of organization and productivity that our products can help you achieve in your day-to-day lives.

Naturally, the free trial expires after the 14 day free trial period is over whereas the full version doesn’t.

Activating the full version is easy and requires a license key that you will be given upon purchase. You won’t have to uninstall/reinstall or have to worry about transitioning your data in any way as it will all be there right after you activate the full version.

Purchases made directly from our site can take advantage of our OTA activation. With it you can quickly and conveniently activate the full version wirelessly from within Viira or the Viira Outlook Suite.

At the time of this writing there is only one minor exception to the “no differences” rule above. The Viira Outlook Suite BlackBerry client’s ability to import Viira 2 and Viira 3 data is only available in the full version of the suite - and this is largely for technical reasons. Aside from that what you see in the free trial is what you will see in the full version.

We are very excited to be announcing the release of Viira 3.0! The latest version contains a lot of productivity enhancements that many of you have requested and we are very happy to be bringing all these new capabilities right at your fingertips.

Here is what’s new in Viira 3.0:

• In-Basket: Designed specifically for the collection phase of Getting Things Done, Viira’s In-Basket provides a convenient place to quickly enter a number of tasks, ideas and reminders. All tasks, native tasks, email and SMS tasks that have not been assigned a project, context or day will appear in the In-Basket.
• Search. Quickly find the task that you were looking from Viira’s Tasks View with Viira’s fast search.
• Reminders. Many of you have asked for the ability to add a reminder to a particular task, and we are happy to bring this feature to you! Although David Allen warns against relying too heavily on reminders in your GTD system, if used properly they can be a powerful ogranizational tool.
• BlackBerry Tasks integration: Viira loads all tasks from your BlackBerry’s native Tasks application in the In-Basket from where you can further assign then to a project, context or day.
• Hide Completed. Hide all completed tasks and focus on what remains to get done. Hide completed is available from all of Viira’s views and all your completed tasks will appear once again when you select “Show Completed”.
• Quick new project/context creation: Have you ever started entering a task only to realise that the project or context you want to classify it under has not been created yet? With Viira 3 you can quickly create a new project or context right from the new task editor without having to switch views!
• And more! Viira 3.0 contains a number of other smaller enhancements, too numerous to list here.

So grab the free trial and see for yourself what Viira 3.0 can do! You can download the Viira 3.0 free trial from the Viira download page or by pointing your BlackBerry’s browser to our mobile site www.kartamobile.com/bb.

For all of you using Viira 2, Viira 3 was designed to run alongside Viira 2 so that you can check out the free trial before committing to the new version. Viira 3 will also import your Viira 2 data. Buyers of Viira 2 are also eligible to upgrade for a special upgrade price of only $19.99.

Viira 3 is compatible with all modern BlackBerry devices all the way back to OS 4.6.

We receive a fair amount of questions on how Viira and the Viira Outlook Suite compare with each other, especially in terms of set up and installation. In this article I will try to address some of the most common questions on the differences between the two.

Separate Download Required

The first (and most important) difference is that Viira and the Viira Outlook Suite require a separate download: in order to sync with Outlook you need to download and install the Viira Outlook Suite BlackBerry client. The BlackBerry client is a separate software application from Viira and can be downloaded from the Viira Outlook Suite download page or by pointing your BlackBerry to the Viira Outlook Suite mobile site www.kartamobile.com/bb/outlook.

The important thing to keep in mind is that downloading Viira (currently in version 2.2) will NOT provide sync with the Outlook plugin whereas downloading the VIira Outlook Suite BlackBerry client will.

Near-Identical Feature Sets

The feature sets of both Viira and the Viira Outlook Suite BlackBerry client are at present practically identical to the point where it is not easy to tell them apart. What you can do with one you can do with the other and vice versa.

We will continue to keep it this way and as we introduce new productivity-enhancing features and GTD techniques you will see them appear in both product lines. On occasion we may introduce a feature first in one before making it available in the next update to the other.

Side-By-Side On the Same BlackBerry

Viira and the Viira Outlook Suite have been designed to work without a problem when both are installed on the same BlackBerry. You don’t need to uninstall Viira in order to install the Viira Outlook Suite BlackBerry client and vice versa. We designed it this way in order to make it easier for you to decide which one of our two products works best for you and the way you apply Getting Things Done in your day-to-day life.

If you install both on your BlackBerry you will see each appear with a differently colored launch icon with Viira’s icon displaying the text “Viira 2″ while the BlackBerry client showing “Viira Outlook Suite”.

Viira 2 Data Import from the Viira Outlook Suite

The Viira Outlook Suite provides the ability to do a one-time import of all your GTD data from Viira. If at any point you decide to upgrade to the Viira Outlook Suite you can have your Viira 2 data seemlessly transitioned over to the Viira Outlook Suite. Viira 2 data import requires activation of the full version.

As always, if you have any other questions don’t hesitate to ask it in the comments section of this post or email our technical support at support _at_ kartamobile dot com.

In this week’s update we have added 24 hour time formatting to Viira capabilities. Appointments, both when edited and when displayed in Viira’s Day View will display in 24hr time format for all of you using Viira in countries that traditionally use 24 hour time format (or all of you who have set your device to 24hr mode). For example instead of appearing as “2:00pm-3:00pm” your appointments will now show as “14:00-15:00″.

The 24hr time formatting kicks in automatically when Viira detects that your device is set to display times in 24hr format. Otherwise the familiar 12 hour time format is used as before.

As always, this update is a free upgrade to all buyers of the full version and can be downloaded OTA by pointing you BlackBerry to our BlackBerry site www.kartamobile.com/bb.

Are you trying to download Viira OTA and seeing a “500 Internal Server Error” right after you click the link to install Viira? Turns out this cryptic error is caused by a security setting on the BES server that manages your BlackBerry device. In effect this setting ends up preventing 3rd party apps like Viira or the Viira Outlook Suite BlackBerry client to be installed over-the-air directly from our site.

For all of you using a corporate BlackBerry and seeing this error message, here are a few ways to get around this:

1. Install via BlackBerry Desktop Software. Both Viira and the Viira Outlook Suite provide a ZIPed installer which you can download and easily install by using the BlackBerry Desktop Software that comes with your device.  Just click on the Download tab above for a list of download options.
2. Add kartamobile.com to your TLS. Under Options->Security Options->Advanced Security Options->TLS, add kartamobile.com and www.kartamobile.com to the list of trusted hosts. Then go to our mobile site www.kartamobile.com/bb from your BlackBerry and perform the download again.
3. Use an alternative BlackBerry browser to download and install. On OS 5.0 and earlier BlackBerry devices like the Bold 9700 for instance, you have a choice of different browser configurations that you can use. Open your browser, select Options->General Properties and then select a different option under Default Browser. A good option would be “<Your carrier name> browser” or the Hotspot browser. Click save, close your browser then open it again and attempt to download OTA again.

We hope you find these tips helpful!

We strive to constantly update Viira’s feature set and bring the most powerful set of tools and constructs at your fingertips so you can stay productive and get things done in your day-to-day life. The freshly released Viira 2.2.3, while not a major upgrade, contains a handful of small improvements that you just might find useful.

Here is what’s new in the Viira 2.2.3 mini-update:

• Email summary of up to 300 characters. You requested it, and we added it. You can increase the email summary in email tasks by going to Settings->Email Tasks.
• Intelligent startup view selector: the 15 minute rule.  Sometimes you want to leave Viira and come back right away to exactly where you left things off. A good example of this is when you want to do a quick copy and paste from another application on your BlackBerry. In other cases you want Viira to start in your favourite view, as specified in Settings->General Settings. Viira’s new intelligent startup view selector strikes a smart balance between the two by introducint the 15 minute rule: if you have left Viira for more than 15 minutes, it starts in your preferred view as selected in the Settings. Otherwise, it opens up exactly where you left things off, ensuring a smooth transition to those moments when you want to leave Viira for a moment or two and come right back to where you were.
• Day View starts in Today.  Due to certain performance optimizations we did in Viira 2.2, sometimes Viira’s Day View opened in the last day you viewed before closing Viira. In Viira 2.2.3, we fixed this and Day View starts in today, unless your have left Viira for less than 15 minutes (see 15 minute rule above) in which case Day View will be where you left it off before leaving Viira. Remember, You can always navigate to today’s Day View by selecting “Today” from the context menu.

You can download the latest version 2.2.3 OTA by pointing your BlackBerry’s browser to our mobile site www.kartamobile.com/bb or by clicking on the Download tab above.

This article describes what to do in order to make sure your Viira data is transitioned successfully when you upgrade the device software (OS) on your BlackBerry.

Many of you are “taking the plunge” and upgrading the OS on your BlackBerry devices. While there are many benefits from doing this, the steps below will ensure that your Viira data follows you along on your freshly-upgraded BlackBerry.

It is important to keep in mind that upgrading the OS on your BlackBerry starts with erasing all data from your device . A new OS version is essentially a fresh start, and the new OS versions require a clean blank slate to start from. This is why it is critical to perform a full device backup before upgrading your OS. Otherwise, your old data may simply be lost forever.

Here are the steps to take in order to ensure your Viira data is restored correctly on your upgraded device:

1. Backup Your Viira Data. The BlackBerry Desktop Software performs a quick, one-click back up of all your device data which will automaticlly back up your Viira data in the process as well. More information can be found from our Backup/Restore How-To Article.

Note that data backup/restore is only avaialable on the full version of Viira.

2. Perform the OS upgrade. We won’t provide much details here. You know what you are doing here.

3. Re-install Viira. After your OS upgrade is complete you will need to install Viira on your newly-upgraded device. The backup file contains only application data and not the applications themselves, so performing a data restore will not re-install Viira.

Restoring your Viira data (step 4) requires that Viira is properly installed on your device, otherwise the restore will not take effect.

You can download the latest version of Viira by pointing your BlackBerry to our mobile site www.kartamobile.com/bb, or by visiting the downloads section on our site.

4. Restore your Viira data. At this point your can either perform a full restore all of of your pre-upgrade device’s data, or select only to restore Viira’s data. It really depends on what makes most sense in your case. You can select to to restore only Viira’s data by using the advanced backup/restore tips we describe in our Backup/Restore How-To.

As version 6.0 of the BlackBerry Deskopt Software introduced significant changes to the backup/restore UI and workflow, below is a screenshot that should give you a good visual idea of how to perform selective, Viira data-only restore on BlackBerry Desktop Software 6.0:

With your BlackBerry plugged in to your computer via USB, open the backup file you created in step 2, clicking “Select device data and settings” then click on “Viira 2″.  Pressing Restore will restore your Viira data to your BlackBerry.

We always strive to find new ways to help you stay on top of your schedule, make the most of your BlackBerry and have the most comprehensive, portable GTD system at your fingertips. With that in mind, we are excited to bring another powerful feature to help you get things done - action links.

Action links allow you to easily embed actionable chunks of information, such as phone numbers, email addresses and website links inside any task in Viira. Simply enter the phone number, email or URL in a task and Viira will automatically detect it and highlight it for you. Calling, sending an email or viewing the website link is then just a click away!

Action links are available in Viira 2.2.2, which can be downloaded OTA from our mobile site www.kartamobile.com/bb.