Getting Contacts onto the 808 Pureview

This may not sound like much of a task. "Just make a new Mailbox with Nokia's Exchange ActiveSync and use your Gmail contacts." Yes, tried that many times, but there is a problem somewhere causing EAS to repeat asking for my password, and getting nowhere. Grrrr!

As my new 808 is SIMless for the time being, but has Skype installed, I needed to get my 100 odd contacts onto the phone some way or other.

Tried three different ways of Exporting Google contacts from my SG Nexus, but they all resulted in either the syncing of a single contact, or nothing at all.

Finally today, I used the Android app Contacts Backup Pro, which allowed either all contacts in a single vcf file (thats what didn't work in the earlier apps) OR all contacts in a zip file! Yes.. that sounded hopeful..

And it was. I transferred the zip file to my iMac, dragged it off Android File Transfer, and copied it to Dropbox. Then on the Samsung PC I was able to use Nokia Suite to Import all of the expanded zip's vcf files in one fell swoop :)

YES, and then it synced automatically to the 808. Nokia Suite has come a long way since the bad old E61 days...

Final test was to see if these contacts showed up in Skype on the 808, and yes, they did. So, though SIMless I can communicate out of the 808. Must try Skype messaging next to see if that is two way..

DSLR-like app 'Camera FV-5' for Android users

Not sure where I first came across this app, but it is the best Camera app out there.. take a look at least here http://www.camerafv5.com/index.php

I have learnt more about my GS2 and GNex cameras from this app than I dreamt was possible. Read more about it here on the Play Store and watch the great tutorials on YouTube.

Handy Safe again

Spent a while these last few days, sorting out Handy Safe on the Mountain Lion partition (Apple Store sees both partitions as one where apps are concerned, making it impossible to install a bought app on the Lion partition, most of them, when I run up the ML one.)

The Handy people came back with a solution for me today, a package to run and a registration key to use... thank you Paragon, Pen or whoever you are.

That gave me the chance to update Handy on all devices. Quite a collection of them, now that the Nexus 10 has arrived (yesterday).

One thing I learnt, having taken ages trying to copy Safe.dat back onto the desktops) was that ES File Explorer's NET option allows one to set up Dropbox, Drive, etc., so that one can carry out a range of functions on Nexus/Android devices and transfer copies f.eks. directly to the cloud!

So much for Handy for now.

A suggestion for fanboys of either persuasion..

I was looking at the list of devices above, and it reminded me how often I'm disappointed by the quality of participants on tech podcasts.

I won't name and shame here, but Apple guys seem to be worse than the more 'open tech' inspired Android enthusiasts. The worst of them are out and out apologists for every Apple fault, and even talk of "Apple Quality", (sorry, but be honest, how many of you have not had or heard of someone with an iPhone who has trouble with the hardware buttons?

Another thing I hear, which makes me groan, is when they infer that if you already have an 'investment' in iPhone apps it makes sense not to try a device from the competition.. a weak argument in my opinion, except for the unfortunate poor.

If you don't make an average investment on both sides of the equation how on earth can you hope to give intelligent advice?! Anyway, apps on both platforms are absurdly cheap.. it isn't going to cost more than a cup of coffee for an 'expensive' app, which you get to use on multiple devices.. get real!

And then there is the supposed question of the quality of Android apps..  I have approximately the same number of apps on both platforms, about 130 I think, and the only application I use on my iPad (iPhone) which I haven't yet found a match for on Android, is Momento, a daily journal. There are no doubt alternatives, but I'm looking for one that can be accessed via Dropbox from both platforms..

Thats enough rant from me. If you want more, try a few tech podcasts ;)

Howto: Copy Handy Safe Pro database to Nexus

Why do this?

Well, although the makers of Handy Safe Pro have managed to produce a reasonably good method of syncing the iMac desktop app with iPhones and iPads, their Android solution is atrocious, and should be avoided...

Here is a method which works. NB! You will need Dropbox installed on the iMac and Android device in question.

First, search for safe.dat on the iMac (/Library/Application Support/Handy Safe Desktop) Copy this file, together with the .tmp and .ind files you'll find in the same location, to a new Handysafe folder you make for the purpose in Dropbox.

Then, on the Android device where Handysafe has been installed, simply Export the above Dropbox files one by one using "Save to SD card" (the top option in my Nexus 7's Export window) into the com.epocware.handysafe folder, and agree to Replace the three files which are already there.

Then run Handysafe and you should be in business..

This worked fine on all three of my Android devices :)