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Blackberry To G1. Migrating Contacts From Outlook To Gmail.

Christopher Earle — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:00:37 +0000

One of the advantages of a G1 with Google is that contacts are synchronized seamlessly between the G1 and its associated Gmail account. This means that the contacts are available both on the handset and on virtually any computer connected to the internet.

This can pose a problem for people migrating from BlackBerry to the G1. One solution is one of the many synchronization utilities for Outlook and Gmail, such as gSyncit or GoodSync. These are good solutions, however many people simply switch from using Outlook to using the Gmail web application for email. For people who are migrating, there is a free and simple way to move your data from Outlook to Gmail.

There are three basic steps to accomplish this:

Export your existing Outlook contacts to a .csv file.
Decide if you want to keep your existing Gmail contacts. If you already have a lot of contacts in Gmail, it is probably a good idea to keep them. If most or all of your Gmail contacts are duplicated in Outlook, deleting the existing Gmail contacts might be a good idea.
Import the .csv file from Outlook into Gmail.

Export a .CSV File From Outlook

Exporting your existing Outlook contacts is easy. Do the following:

Click the Contacts tab in Outlook
Go to the Import and Export command under the File Menu
Click Outlook…
Select Export to a File in the dialog box that pops up
Click Next
Make sure that Comma Separated Values (DOS) is selected
Click Next
Make sure that Contacts is selected in the tree view
Click next
Browse to where you want to save your .csv file
Click next
Click Finish to export the .csv file.

Decide On Deleting Existing Gmail Contacts

Once you have the .csv file, you need to consider whether or not to delete your existing Gmail contacts. One consideration is the number of existing Gmail contacts in your account. Another is whether there is extensive duplication between Gmail and Outlook. If you are a new Gmail user, you probably don’t have many contacts, so you can skip this consideration.

There isn’t an easy answer to this question. If you have extensive contacts in both systems, importing the Outlook contacts over the top may cause duplication of records. In this case, you will need to go through and delete the duplicate records. If you don’t mind losing your Gmail contacts, you can delete all of the contacts in Gmail before importing the Outlook contacts. This works well if Outlook was your main repository of contact information.

If you want to delete ALL of your Gmail contacts before importing the contacts from Outlook, do the following:

Please Note: ONLY do this if you are SURE you want to start with a clean slate in Gmail before importing the Outlook contacts. This WILL remove ALL of your current Gmail contacts! You are not required to delete all of your Gmail contacts. If you don’t, and you have duplicate names in Outlook, those records will simply be duplicated.

Click “Contacts” on the left side of your Gmail screen
Gmail will not allow you to delete more than 500 contacts at a time; if you have more than 500 contacts in Gmail, click the first contact then scroll down a bit and shift-click some distance below; the number of contacts selected is in the information pane to the right
To delete the contacts, click “Delete contacts”
Repeat this until all of your contacts are gone.

Import Outlook .CSV to Gmail

Once you are ready to import your Outlook contacts in to Gmail, open Gmail and do the following:

Click Contacts in the pane to the left of the messages
Click Import in the upper right hand screen of the Contacts pane
Choose the .csv file you exported above
Click Import.

This procedure worked well for one user with over 1,000 contacts in Outlook. The only problem that occurs is this: Outlook contacts with only a company listed, with no name of a person in that company, will appear as expected in Gmail; however, they will appear as phone numbers only on the G1. The way to fix this is to copy the company name as the name of a person on the G1 and re-save the contact.

Automated Dialing For Calling Cards Explained

Christopher Earle — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:54:37 +0000

Do you use a calling card for international long distance with your G1? Want to program in the access number and pauses so that all you have to do is press a button to dial the sequence? It isn’t hard. With most cell phones, the G1 included, a comma in the phone number field adds a one second pause. The first thing to do is gather some information before creating the new dialing sequence. You will need to know the following:

The access number for the calling card (usually on the back of the card)
The number of seconds before the calling card service asks for your PIN
The PIN for the calling card
The number of seconds before the calling card service asks for the number you are dialing
The destination phone number.

Once you have the information, it is simply a matter of entering the numbers with commas between them to delay the dialing of the next numerical sequence. For example.

The access number is 800 555 1212
There is a 4 second delay (it is a good idea to add one or two seconds more than the actual count)
The PIN is 123456
There is a 3 second delay before the service asks for the destination telephone number (again, add another second or two to this count)
The destination telephone number is, including your country’s international access code, 001 886 35 555 555.

Based on the above information, you would enter the following into your G1:

8005551212,,,,,123456,,,,00188635555555.

Please note the addition of an extra second to each pause sequence. This mimics the time a person might take to look up the number that follows. Some services might need to have an additional two seconds added, which would look like this:

8005551212,,,,,,123456,,,,,00188635555555.

This technique isn’t limited to calling cards. It can help automate the checking of your home or office voicemail or any other situation where you might need to navigate through voice prompts. Some people use this as a quick and easy way to reach their cellular carrier’s customer service.

Remember that voice prompts sometimes change. What you program today may need to be changed if the sequence of prompts is changed by your carrier.

4 Tips For Improving Battery Life On Your Android G1

Admin — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:05:19 +0000

Wouldn’t it be nice to get an extra couple hours out of your T-Mobile G1 battery? Some people remain in doubt, but the G1 battery problems have been well documented. Even after all the tricks and hacks, users have to constantly “manage” their battery each day. It is often the first thing we look at when turning on our screens. If you ever miss a night of charging, you are certainly screwed.

If you are still frustrated with the current battery technology, please read our tips. They have been tested by a group of G1 users and guaranteed to work every time. The users in our testing reported a 34% increase in average battery time.

1. Turn off all the features of your phone. Customers who have contacted T-Mobile and complained about their battery life have been told to turn off features such as WiFi, GPS, and 3G. We go further to suggest uninstalling any apps which attempt to access these features. In fact, we do not recommend downloading any apps from the Android Market. These apps use up CPU cycles which drains your precious battery life.

2. Use a land line or borrow a friend’s phone. It has also been reported that if you make fewer phone calls with your G1 you can increase your battery life 57%. Whenever possible, use a land line or borrow a friends cell phone. If you have no friends, you could also purchase a 2nd phone and line from T-Mobile for $9 extra a month.

Never worry about low battery level again

3. Purchase extra charges for every room of your house and get a car charger. By constantly having your phone plugged in, you can avoid any unnecessary drain on your battery. If you plan on being outdoors for an extended period of time, you can look into getting a solar charger.

4. Order a couple extended batteries and charging dock. High capacity batteries are beginning to show up on Ebay and Amazon. You might have trouble fitting the G1 in your pocket with one installed, so we suggest getting a belt clip. Another solution is to purchase several extra batteries and a charging dock. With 3 extra batteries at your side, you should be able to get through the work day.

p.s. eestor, where the heck is that barium titanate super capacitor already???

Setting Up RSS On Android. A Must Have For G1 Users.

Admin — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:42:29 +0000

RSS was invented for Android. There are many benefits of RSS for desktop users, but its true potential is realized on the Android mobile platform. Some readers may have never used RSS or even know what it stands for. Read along as I show you how to set it up and explain why you need it.

Google Reader Mobile Version

Really Simple Syndication allows web sites to easily share their updates in a standard format which users have the ability to subscribe. By signing up for multiple updates or feeds, the user has the power to scan a wide variety of sites and information on a single screen in a short amount of time. This is great for anyone who wants to have the latest information on a given topic, but does not have the time to visit multiple web sites.

Android is the perfect match for RSS because it allows you to get those same updates wherever you are. It also strips down website pages to pure text so the page load times are much faster over Edge and 3G. Once RSS is setup on your phone, you can read all the days news as it happens. Google has also included some unique features that allow you to book mark and share the news that is important to you.

I have been a Google user for years, but I realize many T-Mobile G1 owners are new to having a Google account and all the other services that they offer. Google Reader is Google’s RSS client and available in a mobile format. The steps to setting up RSS feeds on your Android device are as follows:

Some of my Android feeds

Point your Android browser to http://google.com/reader and sign in if needed.
Create a new bookmark in your browser to the Google Reader page.
Return to your Android desktop by pressing the home key.
Long press on the desktop to add a new shortcut to your home screen.
Select add shortcut and then select bookmark.
Browse your bookmarks and locate the link to Google Reader.

With the bookmark now linked to your desktop you have easy access to your Reader. You are now ready to add feeds. You can either search for feeds inside Google Reader or you can visit your favorite sites and look for the orange RSS button. Our RSS link is located in the top right corner with text “Subscribe to RSS Feed“. After clicking a RSS link Google will give you two options: add to Google homepage or add to Google Reader. After several feeds are added to your reader you can tag and organize them into groups using the desktop client.

Notes I added to a post

Speaking of the desktop client, you will be forced to use it in order to have access to all the options. The mobile version has several settings like setting your start page or allowing outgoing links to be reformatted for mobile browser, but that is about it. Hopefully, Google will be releasing a full featured Reader client for Android soon.

Google Reader also has some cool features like such as the ability to share your favorite items and add your own notes to them. Once you share a story, Google publishes the results to your profile page where others can view it. I have not explored this option too much, but I am considering several creative uses for it.

If you have had a chance to use the mobile Google Reader, please share your thoughts with us. What features that are missing would you most like to see? Are you content with using Google Reader inside your mobile browser or would you like to see a dedicated app?

Having trouble setting up RSS? Leave a comment or contact us and we will do our best to help.