As you’ve probably heard, there was a fairly significant earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. It hit in the middle of the day, so there were a lot more people out and about. Some buildings have collapsed and some deaths have been reported.

There’s a Google App called Person Finder who are either looking for people in Christchurch or have information about people in Christchurch available at http://christchurch-2011.person-finder.appspot.com.

I hope that anyone you know who is in Christchurch is safe and sound.

I went to the UK last summer and meant to write about a couple of tips and tricks I learned for travelling with your BlackBerry. Well, better late than never as they say…

If you’re a Canadian with a BlackBerry or some other smartphone, like me, then you are probably painfully aware of how expensive wireless data is in Canada compared to most of the rest of the civilized world. We’ve started to see the cost of wireless data come down in the last year or two, particularly with the arrival of iPhones and Android devices, but it’s still more expensive, generally speaking, that other countries like the US or the UK. Most of the major carriers in Canada offer some sort of international data plans to allow you to use your smartphone outside of Canada without taking out a second mortgage, but they’re still quite expensive and if you should use your phone to call someone, even what would otherwise be a local call where you are travelling, you could be looking at several dollars per minute.

But there are some something you can do to make using your smartphone while travelling a little more affordable. I have a BlackBerry 9700, but some of these tips are probably equally applicable to other devices like iPhones and Android.

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