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Lack of HTML formated email on your Blackberry got you down? You’re not alone. Due to security concerns, Blackberry’s do not offer HTML support in emails at all. Even in its consumer phones, the Pearl and Curve, HTML email isn’t even an option. Unfortunately, a lot of email sent these days have some sort of HTML in them and the lack of support makes those emails hard to read when using a Blackberry.

Enter the Empower HTML Mail Viewer. This piece of software installs as a plugin to the Blackberry mail client and displays HTML formated email the way it was meant. The product is in beta and its shows.There have been some obvious problems with previous builds. Fortunately the latest beta has fixed most of the bugs that caused me to disable the plugin while I was testing it. The only issue I have left is pictures do not display at all. You just get an outline of a box. The program is yet to be perfected but even in the beta form, its usefulness easily outweighs some minor issues. If you want to enter the world of HTML email, just point your Blackberry to http://www.getempower.com/emv.php and install OTA. I would be sure to bookmark the page and check back for any updates as there has been 2 in the last week that have fixed numerous bugs.

Comic Collector Live, the Windows only database program for comic books has finally launched their Live Market. Live Market sets out to be eBay for comics. This is the one feature I have been waiting for as I have a lot of comics I would like to sell. As soon as I got the email, I booted up Vista via Boot Camp and installed the new version of Comic Collector Live. From there it took no more than 10mins to setup a sellers account. Right now they have two different packages - a $14.95 all you can eat plan and a $0.25 pay per listing plan. If you’re going to sell any more than a handful of comics, the $14.95 seems the better deal as it is only $0.01 to sell and the listing doesn’t expire. Otherwise, its a standard 7 day listing. Selling comics is easy if you have already entered the comic into the program, just click sell and then rate your comics condition. You can rate individual comics or as a group. Also, you can sell individually or as a lot.

Right now I only have up the first 15 issues of Venom as I was playing around but in the next week or so I plan on going through my books and selling anything I don’t wait. From the stats on the homepage, it doesn’t look promising. As of this writing there are 1095 items for sales and only 33 sold. The site did just launch so hopefully over the next few days, the user base will increase. I’m going to give the service a month to see how I make out. Its too bad this is a Windows only, it would be made a great Web app.

One of my favorite bands, Cauterize, has recently released a new album called Disguises. This is the first album released on Darrin Pfeiffer of Goldfinger’s label High 4 Records. First off after looking at the track list you notice that its basically their independent release Paper Wings with 4 new tracks. Since I have Paper Wings, the album doesn’t do too much for me. When broken down there are 4 new songs, 2 re-recorded songs and 6 remastered songs. The new songs are good with my favorite song on the whole album being Don’t Stop Now. My favorite song off of Paper Wings, Closer, was also re-recorded and will serve as the first single off the album. For being one of my favorite bands, its sucks a little to only get 4 new tracks after 2 years but the new songs are awesome. Don’t Stop Now and Slivers rock. The band has gotten heavier with there sound over the years and it really shows.

Since I was one of the first 500 people to pre-order the new CD, I was send a 5 song acoustic CD called Unmasked. Also both CD covers have been autographed by the band which was a nice touch. If anyone wants to check them out, go to their Myspace page to stream some tracks from the new album.

I’ve whipped up a Workflow for encoding videos for the Blackberry Curve. You will need to head over to my post on encoding video for the Blackberry Pearl for instructions but here is an updated Workflow that should format videos to the correct screen size. I do not have a Curve to test this so if anyone has one and would like to give me feedback, I’d appreciate it.

[Download Workflow for Blackberry Curve]

Bandwagon, the iTunes backup program, has finally released their version of software that supports backup to an FTP server. They have had a version that supported Amazon’s S3 service for a couple months now but now you can backup to any FTP server including another computer on your local network. I tested it last night by backing up my iTunes music to a Buffalo Linkstation I have on my LAN. The 40 gigs of data took about 2 hours to backup so speed was good. I’m probably going to try a backup to my Dreamhost site soon but thats going to take some time. Everything worked great except the app was always at 100% CPU usage when it was running. The program is in beta so bugs are expected. For a first release tho, it offers a great way to backup your iTunes library locally or offsite.

Also they are offering a free 6 months to any blogger who posts about the release. Just make a post, not unlike this one, and post a trackback to the post on their blog and you will get a code good for a 6 months free.

No, thats not the answer after a drunken night of co-ed naked Clue, its the name of my new website and podcast covering the weekly comic books. As you may know from some of my blog posts, I recently got back to into comics a few months ago and now I’ll be producing a weekly podcast covering my view of the weeks comics from the eyes of a new comic reader. Bare with me as I try to get everything working smoothly. I hope to polish my public speaking skills, get more comfortable working in Garageband, and get on a solid release schedule, but the first episode is up and you subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or just stream it from the webpage.

From a recommendation from The Totally Rad Show, I picked up Book 1 of Avatar: The Last Airbender from Netflix. I just finished the 5th DVD and I’m hooked on the show. While its definitely still aimed for kids, its easily enjoyed by adults. The plot revolves around Aang who is the Avatar, the last master of all the elements. The world is divided up into 4 nations, Water, Earth, Air and Fire, and the Avatar helps the balance between all the nation. Fire nation attacked the other nations 100 years ago and the Avatar disappeared. So fast forward 100 years and two children from the Water tribe, Katara and Sokka find Aang trapped in ice. After they free him they learn he is the missing Avatar and the last of the Air Benders. Benders are people who can manipulate their nations elements. So we pick up with Katara, Sokka and Aang setting out to put the different nations back in harmony. There is more going on but thats the basics.

The show offers a great mix of martial arts action, spirits, comedy and surprises. It feels like a Miyazaki film brought to life as a TV show. And I would suggest anyone who is a fan of Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke to check out Avatar The Last Airbender.