Contributed by John J. Herzog
I am a Samsung epic user. My phone has the Touchwiz UI, and in my opinion, it's pretty accessible with Android 2.1, the only noticeable exception being the call log. This is not the case for the Epic running Android 2.2, which has a number of accessibility issues and which I discuss in another post. Here I describe how to work with the call log in Touchwiz devices running Android 2.1.
In the epic running 2.1, the initial screen of the call log does not speak with either Talkback or Spiel. As you navigate up and down the list of calls, you hear a click each time you move the arrow keys, but nothing is spoken. This is not a show stopper, though, because you can press enter on the keypad to get a list of details that you can navigate through accessibly.
So if I go into the call log and hit the down arrow a couple of times, I don't hear anything. But when I hit enter on a random spot, I find out that I called my dad. Talkback speaks his number, and the phone shows me a list of all the times I have previously called him.
At the top of this Details screen is a set of buttons, which the phone also reads correctly. They are Call, Add to Contacts, Delete, and so on, and I can use the left and right arrows to move from one button to the other.
Below the buttons is the first entry/call--the most recent. The line below that is the call I made several days ago, etc., all the way down the screen from newest at the top to oldest at the bottom.
To get back to the main screen of the Call Log, I press the back button. Once there, I can continue scrolling down the list to other calls, pressing enter every time I want to know whom I called or who called me. I know this is not the most convenient way of doing things, but every other screen on the Epic with 2.1 works better than this one.
You can use the Details screen to delete one or more calls from the same person. Deleting all but the most recent call makes navigating your call log easier. If you don't delete things, you may find yourself returning to the same list of calls over and over as you arrow through the main Call Log screen and press enter on another call to or from the same person. So to save yourself aggravation, review all the times you called a certain number, and delete all calls or any repetitions in one fell swoop.
To delete call entries, open the Details screen, where the calls for a specific person are listed. from here, press Menu. Right-arrow to the Delete button, and press enter. Focus moves to a list of check boxes. Select all the calls you want to delete by arrowing to each check box and pressing enter. At the bottom of the list is a delete button. Press enter on it to get rid of the entries you selected.
Note that, for some strange reason, the select all check box is spoken by Talkback, but it is not clickable. It would be great to just click that and arrow to delete, but that does not appear to be possible.
The information in this post covers working with the call log of the Samsung Epic, a phone running the Touchwiz UI with Android 2.1. This is the only aspect of the phone that is negatively affected by the UI; however, before considering a Touchwiz phone, please read my post on the Epic with Android 2.2.
dimanche 20 février 2011
How do I add and edit contacts in Motoblur on my Motorola phone?
Contributed by Chris Gilland
cgilland1@carolina.rr.com
If you are a Motoblur user, one of the things you notice is that the Contacts manager isn't as accessible for you as it is for vanilla android users. Where accessibility is especially broken is in the new contact screen. This post gives you information about how to add or edit a contact in Motoblur as well as how to do some basic contact management.
I don't know how much variation there is in Motoblur, so I don't know how much your mileage will vary. But we tested this information on two Moto blur phones, one running Android 2.1 and another running 2.2, and we found that Both brought up the same screens and responded in the same way. The only differences were minor changes of terminology (e.g., the "add new contact" option in 2.1 is simply called "new" in 2.2, and the given/family name fields of 2.1 are the first/last name fields of 2.2).
Getting Familiar with the Contacts Manager in Motoblur
When you open the contacts manager on a phone running Moto Blur, you land in a list of all your contacts. Here, you can hit the selector to filter your contacts by Groups, Favorites, or All Contacts. By default, you're set to All Contacts.
If you down-arrow you highlight each contact individually as you go, so think of this screen as a vertical list like Settings or any other group of options.
Managing Contacts in Motoblur
To find someone, You don't have to just down-arrow contact by contact. If you start typing part of the first or last name, the phone finds the contact, if no results are found, you get an option that says, "New contact using," followed by whatever you typed. So this makes it really easy to jump to a contact quickly.
To read a contact's details, Arrow to or search for the person and press the selector. That opens up the details for that contact. This is information like Home Phone, Mobile Phone, Work Phone, Other Phone, Email, Street Address, and IM Address. So if you've added a home number and want to find it, down-arrow here to read items like, "Home: 555-1212.
To contact the person, you can move to an item in the Details screen and press the selector. For example, Short-pressing the selector on the phone number calls the person, or long-pressing on the phone number brings up options you can arrow through like Call Contact and Send Text Message.
To make changes in Contacts, start by viewing a contact's details as described in the previous paragraphs; then press the Menu key on the bottom left of the screen to bring up things like Edit and Delete. Edit let's you make changes to a contact's details and works like the screen for a new contact. Delete removes the contact.
To completely delete a contact, you don't have to go into the contact detail's page. There's a shorter way. Out on the main contacts screen, highlight the contact, and long-press The selector. That gets you a somewhat lengthy context menu. Down-arrowing through that list of options gets you to Delete.
Whatever way you delete a contact, you get to exactly the same confirmation screen. You're asked to confirm your decision. At this point you have two buttons. Yes is on the left, and no is on the right. Arrow left or right to the button of your choice, just like you would for any other screen, then hit the selector. Whichever you do, you are then taken back to your contact list.
Adding a Contact in Motoblur: Explained
Some of the instructions in this section seem counterintuitive, but they work, so put on your seatbelt: it's going to be a rough ride.
As I said before, when you open the contacts manager, you land in a list of all your contacts. You can down-arrow through the list of contacts or press the Menu button to access other options.
A word of warning, If you down-arrow to a contact after opening the app, your menu on the bottom left of the screen gets disabled, So don't down-arrow after opening the app. Just go straight to the menu. If it's too late and you already started arrowing, then hit the Back key or touch the bottom right of the screen like you'd do normally to return to a previous screen. In this context, pressing the Back button unselects everything.
So when you're on the main contacts page, before you highlight anything, touch the menu button at the bottom left of the screen. The first option on the top row of your menu here is new contact. Press the selector there.
When you do that, the first thing that happens is that you land in a text box where you can now write the contact's given name. Type the contact's first name, for example, John.
Now, hit your down-arrow one time. That puts you in an edit box. Visually, this is located directly below the given name box. This is for the family name. Type Doe, and by the way, if you need to put Sr. or JR. here, that's fine, do it.
Here is where the road starts getting rocky. So follow along carefully.
After you type the last letter of the last name, down-arrow one time. Now, be aware, Talkback doesn't say anything, Nada, Absolutely nothing. That's okay. What just happened is that you've landed on a green plus sign, which is an Add icon. It's not labeled. That's why Talkback isn't saying anything.
But go ahead and hit the selector. When you do, a box that wasn't on the screen suddenly appears. That's where you can type the phone number. You're not in the box itself yet. you're on a drop down button that says, "Home, dropdown button."
Push the selector on this button, and a context menu comes up. here, you can simply up and down-arrow through labels like Home, Mobile, and Work.
Arrow up or down to go to the label you need, and hit the selector. If you don't like any of the labels in the list, you can make up your own.
To make up your own label, down-arrow to Custom, which is an edit box. Type Skype. Down-arrow to OK, and hit the selector. Boom, we made a custom Skype label.
Now, whether you picked a label or made one up, you're back again at the Label dropdown button, Only instead of Home, you hear whatever label you picked for that number.
the box for the phone number is next to this Label button. Right-arrow one time to get into it; then type the phone number associated with that label for your contact. Type 5555555555 for the area code and phone number, no hyphens needed. You also don't need to press the alt twice before typing. The phone knows it's a number edit field and expects to type numbers.
When you finish adding contact details, press alt+down-arrow to get to the bottom of the screen, where you find two buttons. On the left is Save, and on the right is Discard. arrow to Save and press the selector.
Adding Another Phone Number/Email for a Contact in Motoblur: Explained
Now, if you want to create a contact with two or more phone numbers, the ride gets all-terrain in a big way. You have to follow me exactly for this to work.
Do what I discussed in the previous section only don't save the contact yet, so you're on the New Contact screen, and you have a first and last name and a phone number for this person.
It helps if I explain what the screen looks like at this point. If you were to down-arrow, you'd get another icon which Talkback doesn't read. This is to add a field for an email address. It works on the same principle. You press the selector to open a dropdown box for your email label; then after finding the one you want and selecting it, you right-arrow to get to where you type the actual email address.
However, we're not going to do that quite yet. You just typed the last digit of the first phone number, and you want to add a second phone number. To the right of this phone number field, you have two buttons: The first is a green plus sign for adding another number, and the second is a red minus sign for clearing the phone number edit field. It works this way on all the other fields on this screen, so keep that in mind as you read this post.
Because accessibility is broken, you can't just arrow once to the right to get to that green plus sign, after you type the last digit of the first phone number. You're going to have to do something different. It's tricky but not that tricky. The important thing is to ignore Talkback as you do the next part to keep from getting thrown.
after typing the last digit of the phone number 5555555555, up-arrow one time. this lands you to the right of the letter e in Doe. In other words, you're right after the last character in the family name/last name field.
Then right-arrow once. This puts you on a button where if you hit the selector, you get more fields like middle name, phonetic name, etc. don't hit enter on that.
Instead, down-arrow once. I know, you're thinking that'll land you in the phone number box. No, it won't. It puts you on an unlabeled image button.
Hit the selector. Boom! You did it! Now you're on the dropdown label for your next phone number. Set it, move to your right, and type the next number.
Need a 3rd number? okay, cool. up-arrow to the family name box, then right-arrow, then down-arrow, then hit the selector.
It's important to understand that the first phone number you enter is at the bottom. In other words, every field you add, regardless of the detail type, gets pushed down and the new one goes on top. So if the first number I added is a home number and the second is a mobile, the mobile number shows up above the home phone.
When you finish adding phone numbers, down-arrow to move to another icon that Talkback doesn't read. This is to add a field for an email address. It works on the same principle: press the selector to open a dropdown box for your email label; after finding the one you want and selecting it, right-arrow to get to where you type the actual email address; finally, if you want to type additional addresses, up-arrow, right-arrow, and down-arrow, pressing the selector on the unlabeled image button with the green plus sign to bring up a new Label option, and so on.
In other words, to get to the plus symbol that adds another of the same contact detail for any given item, like phone, email, etc. you have to up-arrow to the previous field, then right-arrow once from the previous field, then down-arrow. Last, you hit the selector to open the Label dropdown list.
I know it's totally cock-eyed, but That method works.
Finally, when you finish adding contact details, press alt+down-arrow to get to the bottom of the screen, where you find Save (on the left) and Discard (on the right). arrow to Save and press the selector.
Adding a Contact in Motoblur: Step by Step
Let's repeat what we did to add a new contact only this time I'm giving you a step-by-step description of the process.
1. Open contacts, and press menu at bottom left of screen.
2. Arrow to and press the selector on new contact.
3. In the given name field, type John, and down-arrow once.
4. In Family name, type Doe, and down-arrow once.
5. There is absolutely no spoken feedback where you land. Press the selector anyway to get to the Label button, and press it again to open the dropdown list of labels.
6. Down-arrow to the label you want and hit the selector to choose it.
7. Right-arrow once to an edit box, and type the number with area code, 5555555555 (no hyphens).
8. Down-arrow once from the phone number to add an email address.
9. There is absolutely no spoken feedback where you land. Press the selector anyway to get to the Label button, and press it again to open the dropdown list of labels.
10. Down-arrow to the label you want and hit the selector to choose it.
11. Right-arrow once to an edit box, and type the email address, john.doe@gmail.com.
12. Save your changes by pressing alt+down-arrow to get to the bottom of the screen. Arrow to Save and press the selector.
Adding Another Phone Number/Email for a Contact in Motoblur: Step-by-Step
Let's repeat what we did to add a second or third contact only this time I'm giving you a step-by-step description of the process. We'll add some hone numbers first, then some email addresses.
1. Follow steps 1-7 of the previous section to start a new contact and to type in his or her name and phone number.
2. After the last digit of the number, add another phone number by up-arrowing to the family/last name, right-arrowing once, then immediately down-arrowing once, and pressing the selector, not enter, on an unlabeled image button.
3. You're now on the Label button. Press the selector to go in, arrow to the phone label for the next number, and hit the selector again to pick it.
4. Right-arrow to the Phone edit box, and type the number.
5. Repeat Steps 2-4 for each additional phone number.
6. After finishing Step 4, add the first email address by down-arrowing once to a silent item, hitting the selector twice to bring up and open the Label dropdown list for email, navigating to the label you want, choosing it with the selector, right-arrowing to the Email edit field, and typing the first address (Steps 8-11 of the previous section).
7. Add a second email address by doing the following:
a. Up-arrow once to the edit field of the last phone number you find. If it's not the last one you typed, don't panic. Remember that, when you're adding fields to a contact detail, the new field is going to pop up above, not below, the last one.
b. Right-arrow, then down-arrow, once. This is just like adding more phone numbers.
c. Hit the selector, NOT Enter, on an unlabeled image button, and boom, now you're on the Label dropdown for the 2nd email address. Arrow to your label, and press the selector on it.
d. Right-arrow once, and type the second email address.
8. Save your changes by pressing alt+down-arrow to get to the bottom of the screen. Arrow to Save and press the selector.
Mission accomplished. The process isn't as convoluted as it sounds.
cgilland1@carolina.rr.com
If you are a Motoblur user, one of the things you notice is that the Contacts manager isn't as accessible for you as it is for vanilla android users. Where accessibility is especially broken is in the new contact screen. This post gives you information about how to add or edit a contact in Motoblur as well as how to do some basic contact management.
I don't know how much variation there is in Motoblur, so I don't know how much your mileage will vary. But we tested this information on two Moto blur phones, one running Android 2.1 and another running 2.2, and we found that Both brought up the same screens and responded in the same way. The only differences were minor changes of terminology (e.g., the "add new contact" option in 2.1 is simply called "new" in 2.2, and the given/family name fields of 2.1 are the first/last name fields of 2.2).
Getting Familiar with the Contacts Manager in Motoblur
When you open the contacts manager on a phone running Moto Blur, you land in a list of all your contacts. Here, you can hit the selector to filter your contacts by Groups, Favorites, or All Contacts. By default, you're set to All Contacts.If you down-arrow you highlight each contact individually as you go, so think of this screen as a vertical list like Settings or any other group of options.
Managing Contacts in Motoblur
To find someone, You don't have to just down-arrow contact by contact. If you start typing part of the first or last name, the phone finds the contact, if no results are found, you get an option that says, "New contact using," followed by whatever you typed. So this makes it really easy to jump to a contact quickly.To read a contact's details, Arrow to or search for the person and press the selector. That opens up the details for that contact. This is information like Home Phone, Mobile Phone, Work Phone, Other Phone, Email, Street Address, and IM Address. So if you've added a home number and want to find it, down-arrow here to read items like, "Home: 555-1212.
To contact the person, you can move to an item in the Details screen and press the selector. For example, Short-pressing the selector on the phone number calls the person, or long-pressing on the phone number brings up options you can arrow through like Call Contact and Send Text Message.
To make changes in Contacts, start by viewing a contact's details as described in the previous paragraphs; then press the Menu key on the bottom left of the screen to bring up things like Edit and Delete. Edit let's you make changes to a contact's details and works like the screen for a new contact. Delete removes the contact.
To completely delete a contact, you don't have to go into the contact detail's page. There's a shorter way. Out on the main contacts screen, highlight the contact, and long-press The selector. That gets you a somewhat lengthy context menu. Down-arrowing through that list of options gets you to Delete.
Whatever way you delete a contact, you get to exactly the same confirmation screen. You're asked to confirm your decision. At this point you have two buttons. Yes is on the left, and no is on the right. Arrow left or right to the button of your choice, just like you would for any other screen, then hit the selector. Whichever you do, you are then taken back to your contact list.
Adding a Contact in Motoblur: Explained
Some of the instructions in this section seem counterintuitive, but they work, so put on your seatbelt: it's going to be a rough ride.As I said before, when you open the contacts manager, you land in a list of all your contacts. You can down-arrow through the list of contacts or press the Menu button to access other options.
A word of warning, If you down-arrow to a contact after opening the app, your menu on the bottom left of the screen gets disabled, So don't down-arrow after opening the app. Just go straight to the menu. If it's too late and you already started arrowing, then hit the Back key or touch the bottom right of the screen like you'd do normally to return to a previous screen. In this context, pressing the Back button unselects everything.
So when you're on the main contacts page, before you highlight anything, touch the menu button at the bottom left of the screen. The first option on the top row of your menu here is new contact. Press the selector there.
When you do that, the first thing that happens is that you land in a text box where you can now write the contact's given name. Type the contact's first name, for example, John.
Now, hit your down-arrow one time. That puts you in an edit box. Visually, this is located directly below the given name box. This is for the family name. Type Doe, and by the way, if you need to put Sr. or JR. here, that's fine, do it.
Here is where the road starts getting rocky. So follow along carefully.
After you type the last letter of the last name, down-arrow one time. Now, be aware, Talkback doesn't say anything, Nada, Absolutely nothing. That's okay. What just happened is that you've landed on a green plus sign, which is an Add icon. It's not labeled. That's why Talkback isn't saying anything.
But go ahead and hit the selector. When you do, a box that wasn't on the screen suddenly appears. That's where you can type the phone number. You're not in the box itself yet. you're on a drop down button that says, "Home, dropdown button."
Push the selector on this button, and a context menu comes up. here, you can simply up and down-arrow through labels like Home, Mobile, and Work.
Arrow up or down to go to the label you need, and hit the selector. If you don't like any of the labels in the list, you can make up your own.
To make up your own label, down-arrow to Custom, which is an edit box. Type Skype. Down-arrow to OK, and hit the selector. Boom, we made a custom Skype label.
Now, whether you picked a label or made one up, you're back again at the Label dropdown button, Only instead of Home, you hear whatever label you picked for that number.
the box for the phone number is next to this Label button. Right-arrow one time to get into it; then type the phone number associated with that label for your contact. Type 5555555555 for the area code and phone number, no hyphens needed. You also don't need to press the alt twice before typing. The phone knows it's a number edit field and expects to type numbers.
When you finish adding contact details, press alt+down-arrow to get to the bottom of the screen, where you find two buttons. On the left is Save, and on the right is Discard. arrow to Save and press the selector.
Adding Another Phone Number/Email for a Contact in Motoblur: Explained
Now, if you want to create a contact with two or more phone numbers, the ride gets all-terrain in a big way. You have to follow me exactly for this to work. Do what I discussed in the previous section only don't save the contact yet, so you're on the New Contact screen, and you have a first and last name and a phone number for this person.
It helps if I explain what the screen looks like at this point. If you were to down-arrow, you'd get another icon which Talkback doesn't read. This is to add a field for an email address. It works on the same principle. You press the selector to open a dropdown box for your email label; then after finding the one you want and selecting it, you right-arrow to get to where you type the actual email address.
However, we're not going to do that quite yet. You just typed the last digit of the first phone number, and you want to add a second phone number. To the right of this phone number field, you have two buttons: The first is a green plus sign for adding another number, and the second is a red minus sign for clearing the phone number edit field. It works this way on all the other fields on this screen, so keep that in mind as you read this post.
Because accessibility is broken, you can't just arrow once to the right to get to that green plus sign, after you type the last digit of the first phone number. You're going to have to do something different. It's tricky but not that tricky. The important thing is to ignore Talkback as you do the next part to keep from getting thrown.
after typing the last digit of the phone number 5555555555, up-arrow one time. this lands you to the right of the letter e in Doe. In other words, you're right after the last character in the family name/last name field.
Then right-arrow once. This puts you on a button where if you hit the selector, you get more fields like middle name, phonetic name, etc. don't hit enter on that.
Instead, down-arrow once. I know, you're thinking that'll land you in the phone number box. No, it won't. It puts you on an unlabeled image button.
Hit the selector. Boom! You did it! Now you're on the dropdown label for your next phone number. Set it, move to your right, and type the next number.
Need a 3rd number? okay, cool. up-arrow to the family name box, then right-arrow, then down-arrow, then hit the selector.
It's important to understand that the first phone number you enter is at the bottom. In other words, every field you add, regardless of the detail type, gets pushed down and the new one goes on top. So if the first number I added is a home number and the second is a mobile, the mobile number shows up above the home phone.
When you finish adding phone numbers, down-arrow to move to another icon that Talkback doesn't read. This is to add a field for an email address. It works on the same principle: press the selector to open a dropdown box for your email label; after finding the one you want and selecting it, right-arrow to get to where you type the actual email address; finally, if you want to type additional addresses, up-arrow, right-arrow, and down-arrow, pressing the selector on the unlabeled image button with the green plus sign to bring up a new Label option, and so on.
In other words, to get to the plus symbol that adds another of the same contact detail for any given item, like phone, email, etc. you have to up-arrow to the previous field, then right-arrow once from the previous field, then down-arrow. Last, you hit the selector to open the Label dropdown list.
I know it's totally cock-eyed, but That method works.
Finally, when you finish adding contact details, press alt+down-arrow to get to the bottom of the screen, where you find Save (on the left) and Discard (on the right). arrow to Save and press the selector.
Adding a Contact in Motoblur: Step by Step
Let's repeat what we did to add a new contact only this time I'm giving you a step-by-step description of the process.1. Open contacts, and press menu at bottom left of screen.
2. Arrow to and press the selector on new contact.
3. In the given name field, type John, and down-arrow once.
4. In Family name, type Doe, and down-arrow once.
5. There is absolutely no spoken feedback where you land. Press the selector anyway to get to the Label button, and press it again to open the dropdown list of labels.
6. Down-arrow to the label you want and hit the selector to choose it.
7. Right-arrow once to an edit box, and type the number with area code, 5555555555 (no hyphens).
8. Down-arrow once from the phone number to add an email address.
9. There is absolutely no spoken feedback where you land. Press the selector anyway to get to the Label button, and press it again to open the dropdown list of labels.
10. Down-arrow to the label you want and hit the selector to choose it.
11. Right-arrow once to an edit box, and type the email address, john.doe@gmail.com.
12. Save your changes by pressing alt+down-arrow to get to the bottom of the screen. Arrow to Save and press the selector.
Adding Another Phone Number/Email for a Contact in Motoblur: Step-by-Step
Let's repeat what we did to add a second or third contact only this time I'm giving you a step-by-step description of the process. We'll add some hone numbers first, then some email addresses.1. Follow steps 1-7 of the previous section to start a new contact and to type in his or her name and phone number.
2. After the last digit of the number, add another phone number by up-arrowing to the family/last name, right-arrowing once, then immediately down-arrowing once, and pressing the selector, not enter, on an unlabeled image button.
3. You're now on the Label button. Press the selector to go in, arrow to the phone label for the next number, and hit the selector again to pick it.
4. Right-arrow to the Phone edit box, and type the number.
5. Repeat Steps 2-4 for each additional phone number.
6. After finishing Step 4, add the first email address by down-arrowing once to a silent item, hitting the selector twice to bring up and open the Label dropdown list for email, navigating to the label you want, choosing it with the selector, right-arrowing to the Email edit field, and typing the first address (Steps 8-11 of the previous section).
7. Add a second email address by doing the following:
a. Up-arrow once to the edit field of the last phone number you find. If it's not the last one you typed, don't panic. Remember that, when you're adding fields to a contact detail, the new field is going to pop up above, not below, the last one.
b. Right-arrow, then down-arrow, once. This is just like adding more phone numbers.
c. Hit the selector, NOT Enter, on an unlabeled image button, and boom, now you're on the Label dropdown for the 2nd email address. Arrow to your label, and press the selector on it.
d. Right-arrow once, and type the second email address.
8. Save your changes by pressing alt+down-arrow to get to the bottom of the screen. Arrow to Save and press the selector.
Mission accomplished. The process isn't as convoluted as it sounds.
How do I move contacts from my Nokia to my Android Phone?
Contributed by J.J. Meddaugh
http://www.ATGuys.com
Many of you, like me, were using Nokia phones previous to experimenting with Android. One of the tasks I wished to accomplish early was to import my contacts, as I certainly did not want to reenter these. If you're in this situation, here is some information on how I accomplished this.
Exporting Contacts from the Nokia
First, I exported my contacts from my Nokia phone. On my N82, I did the following:
1. Opened my list of contacts on the phone.
2. Pressed button 1 for the Options menu, arrowed down to Mark/Unmark, and pressed OK.
3. Selected Mark All and pressed OK.
4. Returned to my list of contacts, pressed button 1, selected Copy, and pressed OK.
5. Selected To Memory Card and pressed OK. The contacts are copied to the memory card on the phone. Note that if your phone has internal memory, you may need to adjust this step slightly.
Copying contacts to the Computer and Preparing them for Android
Next, I connected my phone to my computer. On the memory card or mass storage is a folder called Other. under the Other folder is a subfolder called Contacts. The Contacts subfolder contains a VCard or .vcf file for each individual contact. These files are in plain text, so you can open one with Notepad to make sure it's fine or to find out how these types of files are formatted.
In order to import my contacts, I needed to combine all of these separate .vcf files into one Large file. Here's how I accomplished this:
1. On the computer, opened the command-line shell by pressing Windows-R, then typing "cmd" and pressing enter.
2. Switched to the directory where my contacts were located. For instance, if your contacts are on a memory card on drive E, you might type the following line followed by enter:
cd e:\other\contacts
3. Used the copy command to combine the separate files into a single.vcf file with all of the contacts by typing the following command and pressing enter:
copy *.vcf all.vcf
Now the directory should contain a new file called All.vcf. You can again open this file with Notepad or another text editor to verify it is right. When you do, you should find an entry for each of your contacts.
4. Typed exit and pressed enter to close the command-line shell.
Uploading Contacts to the Google Cloud
Finally, I needed to import these contact files to a Google account that is linked to my Android phone. You can use a Gmail account or another Email account connected to Google Apps. Here's what I did:
The following steps involve going to the Gmail page. If you are using the Basic HTML view, you will need to switch to the standard view to accomplish these steps. The link to do this is near the bottom of the page. If your screen reader does not support standard view, you may need to download NVDA or another alternative to complete these steps. Note: I had better luck with NVDA in Firefox than in Internet Explorer.
1. Logged in to my Gmail or Google Apps Email account.
2. From my Inbox screen, Selected the Contacts link. You may need to refresh your webpage buffer to find the contacts in your account.
3. Selected the Import Contacts link.
4. Pressed the Browse button, and selected the All.vcf file I created earlier.
5. Selected import to upload my contacts.
Be aware that if other contacts were already on your Gmail page, these will also be synced to your Android. You can delete them ahead of time or just decide to copy all of them.
Importing Contacts to Android
If your Google account is linked to your phone, which it probably is, your contacts sync within a couple of minutes. If you need to link an account, you can do that from the phone. On your Android device, open contacts, press the menu button, arrow to accounts, and follow the prompts to add a new Google account. You can also choose if you want to sync your contacts between your computer and phone.
http://www.ATGuys.com
Many of you, like me, were using Nokia phones previous to experimenting with Android. One of the tasks I wished to accomplish early was to import my contacts, as I certainly did not want to reenter these. If you're in this situation, here is some information on how I accomplished this.
Exporting Contacts from the Nokia
First, I exported my contacts from my Nokia phone. On my N82, I did the following:1. Opened my list of contacts on the phone.
2. Pressed button 1 for the Options menu, arrowed down to Mark/Unmark, and pressed OK.
3. Selected Mark All and pressed OK.
4. Returned to my list of contacts, pressed button 1, selected Copy, and pressed OK.
5. Selected To Memory Card and pressed OK. The contacts are copied to the memory card on the phone. Note that if your phone has internal memory, you may need to adjust this step slightly.
Copying contacts to the Computer and Preparing them for Android
Next, I connected my phone to my computer. On the memory card or mass storage is a folder called Other. under the Other folder is a subfolder called Contacts. The Contacts subfolder contains a VCard or .vcf file for each individual contact. These files are in plain text, so you can open one with Notepad to make sure it's fine or to find out how these types of files are formatted.In order to import my contacts, I needed to combine all of these separate .vcf files into one Large file. Here's how I accomplished this:
1. On the computer, opened the command-line shell by pressing Windows-R, then typing "cmd" and pressing enter.
2. Switched to the directory where my contacts were located. For instance, if your contacts are on a memory card on drive E, you might type the following line followed by enter:
cd e:\other\contacts
3. Used the copy command to combine the separate files into a single.vcf file with all of the contacts by typing the following command and pressing enter:
copy *.vcf all.vcf
Now the directory should contain a new file called All.vcf. You can again open this file with Notepad or another text editor to verify it is right. When you do, you should find an entry for each of your contacts.
4. Typed exit and pressed enter to close the command-line shell.
Uploading Contacts to the Google Cloud
Finally, I needed to import these contact files to a Google account that is linked to my Android phone. You can use a Gmail account or another Email account connected to Google Apps. Here's what I did:The following steps involve going to the Gmail page. If you are using the Basic HTML view, you will need to switch to the standard view to accomplish these steps. The link to do this is near the bottom of the page. If your screen reader does not support standard view, you may need to download NVDA or another alternative to complete these steps. Note: I had better luck with NVDA in Firefox than in Internet Explorer.
1. Logged in to my Gmail or Google Apps Email account.
2. From my Inbox screen, Selected the Contacts link. You may need to refresh your webpage buffer to find the contacts in your account.
3. Selected the Import Contacts link.
4. Pressed the Browse button, and selected the All.vcf file I created earlier.
5. Selected import to upload my contacts.
Be aware that if other contacts were already on your Gmail page, these will also be synced to your Android. You can delete them ahead of time or just decide to copy all of them.