I was forced to have my first experience with Roxio Media Manager today. It didn’t go well! Let me explain and offer the worlds greatest solution to managing the media on your Blackberry Pearl without using the Roxio Medio Manager.

It all started when my iPod was stolen from my car the other night along with my bluetooth headset. Nobody broke into my car because they didn’t have to break in. I was kind enough to leave it unlocked for them. I felt like an idiot. I live in a very safe neighborhood, but it was the first day of Spring Break and I think the neighborhood kids were bored.

I used my iPod for audio books more than anything else. My car was my rolling university as I listed and learned everywhere I went. That was over now. Fortunately I had everything on my iTunes in a secondary hard drive.

It was now time to try out the media capabilities of my Blackberry Pearl. I knew my Pearl was also an MP3 player, but I hadn’t run it through it’s paces. The first thing I did was install the Roxio Media Manager I recieved from Verizon Wireless. Over 180 gigs to download this gigantic program. Once I installed it, I was ready to put my beloved audio books onto my Blackberry Pearl. But wait… and wait… and wait…

Roxio Media Manager is VERY slow. I just upgraded to a very fast computer and everything runs perfect except Roxio Media Manager. It’s brought my machine to a crawl. No wait, not a crawl, a screeching halt! I couldn’t do anything with this software. I can’t imagine this ever went through any type of testing period. When I did manage to get a song from my iTunes library to Roxio Media Manager I couldn’t remove it. I would right click, click on “remove” and the next time I started Roxio Media Manager it was back.

Here’s the Solution:

Update: I wrote the below instruction before I discovered something very cool. Here’s how to move music directly from iTunes onto your Blackberry Pearl.

Uninstall Roxio Media Manager immediately. The only reason you need this is to access the internal memory on your Blackberry Pearl (I never store anything on there and if I do, I can manage it from within my Blackberry Pearl). If you have a memory card installed in your Pearl, you can use Windows Explorer to transfer music, videos, pictures, ringtones and voice notes. It’s as simple as dragging and dropping just like you do with any other drive or directory. No more dealing with Roxio Media Manager. I wish someone had told me this sooner.

What is Windows Explorer? It’s not Internet Explorer. Press and hold the Windows key (it’s between Ctrl and Alt in the lower left corner of your keyboard) and then press “E”. Get it, Windows (E)xplorer? Should be easy to remember.

Make sure you turn on Mass Storage

If you plug your Blackberry Pearl into your PC via the USB cable you should see it show up as a removable drive (just like a thumb or flash drive). If it’s not there, you probably haven’t turned on the “Mass Storage” on your Blackberry. Here’s how you do that:

1. From your home screen, press the Blackberry Button (just left of the “pearl”).
2. This should bring up all of the icons. Now click on Options icon (for me it’s a little wrench).
3. Scroll down to “Media Card” and select it.
4. “Mass Storage Mode Support” should be set to ON.
5. “Auto Enable Mass Storage Mode When Connected” should be on YES or PROMPT.
6. Save those setting and reconnect your Blackberry Pearl with your PC.

If you still don’t see a new “Removable Disk“, you may not have a memory card installed. You can check this by opening the little door on the left side just below the USB port on your Blackberry Pearl.

Once you have your Blackberry Pearl showing up as a removable drive, you can drag files in just like you would any other drive or folder. No need to convert your MP3’s for your Blackberry. Best of all, no more dealing with Roxio Media Manager and that’s a GREAT thing! Sorry Roxio…

Attention Research In Motion: The Blackberry Pearl is the best phone I’ve ever owned. You’re hurting your reputation by having your product associated with such a horrible piece of software like Roxio Media Manager. There must be a different solution if you plan on competing with the iPhone and iTunes. This is a battle you can win, but not with Roxio Media Manager.