hemorrhdroids

No Gmail account? No worries. VZ only offered 2 solutions: import to gmail or have VZ store transfer the contacts.

You can export all your contacts from Palm Desktop into Droid, w/o any 3rd party intervention.
1) In Palm Desktop go to / Contacts / "Select All"
2) Go to File / export / choose "export as Vcard"
3) connect your Droid to PC / MAC , and select "Notifications" / USB.. / "Mount" on the Droid.
4) Locate your Droid microSD, (it will show up as a new drive letter), Copy your Vcard export to the Droid card.
4A) Unmount/disconnect your Droid from the PC before proceeding to step 5.
5) open Contacts on the Droid, select "Import/Export"
6) Select Import from SD card.

total process takes about 5-10 min.

For reference, 1 contact record on the Vcard is about 1k, while a book of over 600 contacts, is about a 121k vcard.

The export will carry over all your numbers, emails and addresses for each contact, as well as some notes.

Hope that helps..

Last edited by hemorrhdroids; November 14th, 2009 at 04:52 PM.

droid99999

Does the vcf need to be in a specific location on the card?

Scratch the above... the file is being found but apparently cannot read it.

This seems like a very straight forward solution; I wonder what the issue could be with the vcf.

Last edited by droid99999; November 14th, 2009 at 03:26 AM.

droid99999

Finally, got my contacts imported from Palm Desktop. While the Droid could not read the vcf, gmail contacts imported it nicely.

For whatever reason I never saw anyone else suggest going the Palm Desktop / vcf -> google import route. Everything was centered around using csv files which had problems.

Thanks much for leading me down this path!

dmgabe

It is much easier to just get the FREE gmail account. Not only will it sync automatically, but you have a nice backup of all your contacts. I really don't understand why people are so afraid of using the amazing services google has to offer.

hemorrhdroids

I copied my vcard to the root directory level (same level where your amazon, dcim etc. folders are on the droid microSD.)

I reviewed my steps and needed to add one key detail in response to your question:

4A) Unmount your droid before proceeding to step 5.

(It appears that when your sd card is mounted as an external drive to your pc, the droid may not see it, so it has to be unmounted to access the files on your SD card.)

Glad you were able to port your contacts.

droid99999

In my case it was not about staying away from Google; it was about actually using them.

Google did not have a way to directly import from Palm Desktop. So I went the csv route. But Google doesn't have a clean way to import from that either. They have info on "create a csv" but only specify about 5 fields that could be imported. Very frustrating that Google did not provide more info.

I can understand that its generally a one-time deal for people to import contacts, but there is a HUGE opportunity for Google to make it much easier than it is now.

Nepherim

Much as I love google and it's products, I have no desire to provide them personal details of all my contacts. I do not consider this to be my information to give away.

I'm also coming from a Palm, so thanks for this info. Now to find replacements for eWallet (no Android version on th near horizon), ReDo, and DiddleBug...

jesup

Note that Select All, export as VCF loses all the grouping from your Palm contacts.

I saved each group as a separate VCF file, then you can import them and tell Google to add each to a new group in gmail.

This works, and nicely creates a gmail version of what you had on the palm with all your groups (Personal, Doctors, Business, etc). These get synced to the Droid - great! However: on the droid they're all merged into one huge contact list, with no groups visible I can see. ARGH.

The group on gmail isn't even visible in Edit Contact.

Another note: you probably want to check the VCF files *before* importing - look for --Unnamed-- entries (probably because you had a Company name with no personal name) - those will all end up merged into a single huge --Unnamed-- contact. I advise copying the organization name into the last name field with your text editor.

Still looking for some way to sort by something other than first name, and to get working groups....

ricktssf

I am using a Paint App as a Diddle Bug replacement... I have tried several and am currently using Bluebrush.

Nepherim

@ricktssf: Neat, thanks.

danachee

Actually, it is. When in contacts, go to Menu -> Display Options and select your gmail account. Then scroll down and check/uncheck which groups you want to see.


Now this one I'm trying to find. I'd think it was there somewhere!

velo

Gd point Jesup, in the palm if you left the f/l name field blank as may be the case with a company only listing, the Droid puts the phone number as the name and shows up at the top of your contact list in numerical order. So good idea to change it in your palm desktop etc.

As nephrim pointed out the phone is a bit too 'G' centric. If VZ gets the Pre, I'll give it a serious look. hopefully a few SW updates will address the quirks.

I'm going to check the apps forum for a better integrated contacts organizer.

Thanks for adding your tips!

katahdin

What do you use to replace Memos? I use (used to) memos lot - from short notes to almost little data files (csv) etc

Nepherim

The two I'm checking out are "Note Me" (supports tagging, and has a good UI), and "Note Everything".

cheesehead007

I settled on GooMemo to replace the Memos from my Centro. I exported each category from Palm Desktop to a TXT file, then made a few modifications to each TXT file to match GooMemo's import format... namely, adding the tags (to be synonymous with the categories on the Palm side). Had 107 memos to move, it was pretty smooth.

katahdin

cheesehead007 / Nepherim

Did you happen to look at AK Notepad or 3banana ?

So many choices !! TIA

katahdin

GooNemo exports/imports from SD - how did you get the txt files to the sd?
TIA

minyangmao

Former Palm Centro user here, switched to Droid on release.

Palm to Droid:

Contacts, Tasks, Calendar Events, and Memos Sync:
use CompanionLink:

Sync your desktop software with Google and your phone

it's a time-limited trial, but you only need to sync once. I tried a buncha methods and this was the easiest and most comprehensive. It sends To-Do Lists to google calendar (not the most elegant solution but may have changed since then), and Memos to Contacts as |M| Your Memo Title |M| - also very inelegant but what can you do.

For Tasks:
I now use gTasks; syncs with Google tasks in Gmail; sync is wonky at times, but I like to have laptop access to my tasks list so the sync is key for me;

For Memos:
I now use GDocs Notepad; syncs with Google Docs; wish companionlink woulda linked my old memos to my google docs, but hey you can't have everything I guess. My new memos are now sync'd with Google docs, and I can easily archive them in google docs when i'm not using the memos as much; i still miss having all my old memos easily accessible, but eh I'll live =) I mean on second though Memo to Contacts actually works okay because search will pick up the titles of the memos...I guess i miss the "search all the memo text search" that palm had...

For Calendar:
Use google calendar; love it;

For Contacts:
Use Gmail contacts; takes a while to clean everything up after sync with companionlink, but having all your email, phone, physical addresses, etc in one place is unbelievably awesome.

Cheers!

minyangmao

Former Palm Centro user here, switched to Droid on release.

Palm to Droid:

Contacts, Tasks, Calendar Events, and Memos Sync:
use CompanionLink:

Sync your desktop software with Google and your phone

it's a time-limited trial, but you only need to sync once. I tried a buncha methods and this was the easiest and most comprehensive. It sends To-Do Lists to google calendar (not the most elegant solution but may have changed since then), and Memos to Contacts as |M| Your Memo Title |M| - also very inelegant but what can you do.

For Tasks:
I now use gTasks; syncs with Google tasks in Gmail; sync is wonky at times, but I like to have laptop access to my tasks list so the sync is key for me;

For Memos:
I now use GDocs Notepad; syncs with Google Docs; wish companionlink woulda linked my old memos to my google docs, but hey you can't have everything I guess. My new memos are now sync'd with Google docs, and I can easily archive them in google docs when i'm not using the memos as much; i still miss having all my old memos easily accessible, but eh I'll live =) I mean on second though Memo to Contacts actually works okay because search will pick up the titles of the memos...I guess i miss the "search all the memo text search" that palm had...

For Calendar:
Use google calendar; love it;

For Contacts:
Use Gmail contacts; takes a while to clean everything up after sync with companionlink, but having all your email, phone, physical addresses, etc in one place is unbelievably awesome.

Cheers!

cheesehead007

I connected the Droid to my laptop with the USB cable, which will show the Droid's microSD card as a new drive letter. You have to rename the TXT file to "import.txt" and copy it to the "goomemo" folder on the SD card.

The TXT file also has to be "tweaked" to split your memos into multiple GooMemo entries, and tag them. The included documentation (in menu > help) describes the input file format pretty well.

Nepherim

@katahdin: I tried AK Notes, and found it just too basic. Although to be honest, I don't remember what features it did have -- tried too many to remember

katahdin

minyangmao, cheesehead007, Nepherim

Thanks for your input ! This thread should help out a lot of folks.
I probably would test out them out anyway !! LOL

Companion Link was what I ended up using. And works / interfaces as they say ! Initially I used an incorrect version, so I spent a lot of time searching for other solutions. A little disappointed in adding memos to contacts, because one of my main uses is to be able to search the memos for keywords or strings of characters.

Negative also must display all all contacts/memos in order to search and disconcerting that they are at the top of the list. I'm thinking that having all that info in contacts that maybe its what messes up Voice Dial.

Although I wish I had known about CompanionLink previously. To sync my palm contacts and calendar with gmail would have been of great use. Several times I had cal info in one and not the other !!

I tended NOT to use palm ToDo - using gCal with sms/email for reminders and also I use Jott.com (pay) for reminders and verbal notes !! Expect that there will be a Droid app to replace Jott.

>>I connected the Droid to my laptop with the USB cable,

Duh - I havent done that yet - makes sense. Thanks

On the GooMemo import - can you do that in batches, ie by category, or does it expect all the memos as exported.?

Thanks All

cheesehead007

I did it one category at a time, no issues.

katahdin

I'm testing one category, but having problems getting GOOMemo to make tag - ex:
---
## tag=Business
flfjdkfj;dfkvmd;vmd
jdfkldf

---

## , tag=Business
or maybe I have to include the date...


Oh Ohhh.... My eyes are blurry - 1st I used a - instead of =, then I didnt cap Tag !!
I wont delete this just in case someone else see it !!

Any Idea of max size of a note/memo in GooMemo?

Last edited by katahdin; November 23rd, 2009 at 03:17 PM.

drwiremore

People are afraid to put things on those "free services" because Google retains the right to use your information, read it, scan it, and to otherwise use it for their own purposes. Also, although they will protect your information, it is only for 2 years; and if you quit the services, your information can be made public after those same 2 years.

Google makes money from your data; you have little rights to privacy. That is why people are afraid to use those amazing "free" services, in my opinion. dw

katahdin

No kidding !! I did not know that.

sailmor

I am also concerned about the privacy issue. What other convenient way is there to backup (or sync) the Droid without using the gmail account?

rcyphermd

gdocs has a limit of 100 memos

katahdin

I accepted the google non privacy issue for the calendar & gmail. I am not sure about how to handle memos/ notes which normally sysns with your pc if using a pDA.

tranzz

I'll hafta look at gtasks, I haven't heard of it before.

I liked GDocs, but this 100 limit is troublesome. Also moving my existing Palm memos into google is a project.


NoteEverything Pro looks like the best for old Palmy's
-making quick notes
-freehand sketches
-attaching pics to notes
-imports Palm Memos !!!!!! and keeps them in groups (categories)!!!
- can import and export multiple formats


"Pro" version
- lets you markup pics like you could on your Palm
- can do full backups - which you can keep externally


BUT (presently at least)

doesn't use "the cloud". No interface with googledocs/ gmail/ googlecalendar etc.


I'm still trying to get more familiar with NoteEverything, and now I'm wondering about 3Bananna. Anybody got any experience / insights with it?

Last edited by tranzz; December 18th, 2009 at 06:09 PM. Reason: spelling

sailmor

Thanks katahdin. I also finally went with the google contacts sync.

Can anyone suggest the best way to transfer my Palm Desktop Calendar to Google Calendar? If the best way is with Companionlink, can I transfer ONLY the calendar without touching the contacts, etc.? I have already exported my contacts using the V-card export method (which worked very well btw. Got everything over in separate categories, just as I wanted.) Now I need to move my calendar over, as well.

minyangmao

yes, you can specify on companion link which you want to sync (just calendar, just contacts, just memos, or all of them). Just make sure you check / uncheck options before doing the sync.

sailmor

Thanks for the help. Companionlink worked fine and everything looks good except for one day that shows all my appointments with colored bars and no text on the Droid (ok on Google Calendar, though). Some minor glitch. Otherwise, this was a major help without spending the $ on Dba2Csv as some others have done.

katahdin

The only issue I found was that addresses are tagged with work. Easy enuf to change ;=} I havent looked to figure out why - maybe it was GIGO or maybe if there is an entry on company name - it assumed it was work addr.

Stevsadvary

I am trying to convert from about 13 years of Palm experience to Droid. Trying to move contacts over first as described however I receive an error... Reading of vCard data has failed. Failed to parse vCard for unexpected reason (Invalid line:"/9j.... blah, blah, blah). Anyway, I went back and searched the file using WordPad and found out the the pictures I had associated with the contacts were failing the import. Removed the pictures from the contacts, reattempted import and all is well. Thank you so much. 868 contacts imported in a couple of short minutes, nice.

sailmor

I never received the error message as you did. The pics just didn't move to the droid. I never had to remove them to do the export. However, I did copy and paste them to my desktop, then to my droid contacts. I only had about a dozen or so, so it didn't take too long......something to keep me busy during our snow storm here in northeast!!

tjoebgen

Thanks for the tip on GooMemo! If I had hair, it would all be gone right now from all of the apps I've tried and deleted this week while trying to find a decent replacement for my Palm m515 notepad. GooMemo comes REAL close! There are other note apps out there with categories, but this one fits my needs for now. I'm now trying to find out when the Pro version will be available.

tjoebgen

Presently I'm becoming a fanboy of GooMemo. This is really close to what I'm looking for to replace Palm Notepad. It has user-created categories (tabs), works directly on the SDcard, quick and clean interface. The Pro version is suppose to let you import/export individual notes as TXT on the SD too (presently only supports import/export in a single import.txt or export.txt file). It'll also support gDocs, but that's not a plus for me - seriousl?? limit of 100?? holy carps!

For sync'ing of the SD card, I'm looking at Best Sync 2010. There are plenty of sync programs out there but they all only seem to sync (or backup) whole directories instead of individual files. Many let you filter out unwanted files but when I want one file out of 100, that's not much of a solution. Best Sync is easier for me to exclude but I'm still looking for a better way (gosh I miss HotSync and DocsToGo).

So, I'm tinkering with 2 different note apps: B-Folders, and GooMemo. B-Folders will really be something if they come out with their desktop app. It's suppose to let you edit notes on the PC and then provide 2-way sync with the phone. Until then, GooMemo is beating them in my productivity tests.

tranzz

I had more trouble than use out of "Documents to Go" on my Treo, but it is available for Android in the Marketplace now. I messed with the "lite" version and promptly uninstalled it. BTW, BeamReader does pdfs far better than "Doc's to Go" ever did.

What's out there for a "local" PC / windows app that'll sync with gmail contacts?

tjoebgen

LOVED Docs2Go on my palm m515. I have many kinds of files spread across my office's network and I need to be able to view and or edit them. I didn't care for D2G's pdf viewer so much, but the word and excel editors worked great in a pinch. I didn't have much use for the power point part of it - but now that mini-projectors are coming out, I can see where it might be real handy.

jeffdlb

What about using Palm's own Data Transfer Assistant, which is meant for people transition from Palm OS to Web OS, but can supposedly do a one-time transfer to Google for events and contacts? Palm.com : Data Transfer Assistant (Windows)

stephejo

Another former Palm Centro to Droid Switch Experience.

One word... CompanionLink. Agree with the OP. Use the Free Trial. You will only need to do this once. Use the specific palm to Google product. It sent my 1000+ Contacts and Calendar over in a snap. I had flawless data transfer! No errors!! Even the Notes went to the right place and were not truncated.

Palm to Droid:
Contacts & Calendar Events using CompanionLink

For Memos:
I also used GDocs Notepad syncing with Google Docs. I am having to copy and paste them to Google Docs though.

For Calendar:
Use google calendar; love it and I used Palm Cal for 10 years.

For Contacts:
Use Gmail contacts

Bravo!

katahdin

I'm still incredulous that there is NO integrated PIM app that has the functions of the OLD OLD OLD palm pda pim and desktop !

I still messing around and messing up my memos using the various notes apps. Note Everything definitely has the most responsive developer. I sent him an email regarding the difficulty of importing memos from the palm, with a few suggestions, he installed the palm desktop and within a few days wrote the option to import memos from a palm export !!

Evernote is pretty good having a pc based DB of your notes, but is really a replacement for Googles notebook which is based on web clipping etc . Its droid app is slow aamong other issues. Would be nice if you could control which notes stayed on the pc and didnt get sent to the web. But thanks to Note Everything, you can import to evernote from note everything !

I found the companionlink import using the contacts notes as unusable for my needs. Just didnt display enuf of my notes and the type way too small.

3banana might be ok but will not save large notes - I only have a few - but I want them , and I dont really want to put my notes on the web for security. Plus initially dont like the web format.

So I have ALMOST settled on using a roundabout solution! That is using the description field for my notes in .. ... the calendar event !! It syncs immediately, is searchable via aurora and online.

actually by using this, you can search for your Doctor name, get the appointment info, contact info and memo notes items. Actually a function I liked in my PDA

tranzz

I'm not quite understanding,,,, your achieving searchable notes, for your contacts,, by entering them in calendar events??? I mean, I'm happy for you if you're getting good results, but would love to understand enough to emulate your methods and results!

Additionally

- I also have high regard for the NoteEverything developer as being very responsive, continuously refining and improving the app, etc.. It is presently the best notepad / memo app I've used on my DROID. I have not however attempted to use it with documents larger than a page or 2.
- The GDocs developer has removed the 100 doc limitation of his app in a recent update. I believe that GDocs stores a local copy of docs which have been viewed or edited on your android device, which means that you can quickly open a given doc to view and edit, even if you have poor/no network connection at your location at the moment.
- a "withdrawn" release of aTAKEphONE was the best "Contacts" app I've yet found, but the developer is struggling to get it working reliably on the growing variety of Android devices. Keep an eye open, we may get a decent phone app with good search abilities fairly soon.

tjoebgen

Received as a Christmas gift, today is 1 month for me on the Droid. My response to friends that ask me about it is that "it is really a techy's phone. Not something you buy your less tech-savy spouse or child and let them go crazy". It's a decent phone, and a great web browser (just wish you could do both while on 3g), and it can run apps. A great PDA or a PIM it is not. Fair to good... maybe, but not great. They relied to heavily on the open source community to build good apps for it instead of shipping it with a good solid set of apps that could be enhanced or replaced (like us old old old Palm users are use to).

That's great news about Note Everything having a better import for palm data than before. Their previous method failed miserably for me (and I'm a data import/export professional). Maybe I'll take another look at them.

Presently I'm using GooMemo to take the place of Palm's MemoPad and using GDocs to take the place of Documents To Go, and using Google Calendar until the people at Pimlico finish their DateBk app for Android. Sorry Google Calendar lovers but it just can't do what power-calendar people need, and the developers of it are NOT interested in what we want.

Cloud computing with Google Docs and a few of the other note applications has its advantages, but it also can be a real pain. I want my data accessible quickly and not dependent on spotty network access. I was in a meeting last week and went to access a document that I had just loaded up prior, but it couldn't load it. The screen just kept telling me that the document was loading- it was not that big of a file. After 15 minutes (and the meeting was over) I finally gave up. Got back to my desk and was able to pull it up just fine - I must have been in a spot not covered on our Verizon map :P
Perhaps I'll contact the GDocs people and see if they can build in an option to automatically save a copy of all documents to SD upon synch. If that can be done, then I'll really like it. The only thing missing then would be to have a live link to the real document on my office network (like Documents To Go does with Palm). And, no, getting my entire office to switch to Google Docs and put all of our data on their servers for sharing purposes is not an option.

I really like GooMemo for a memopad replacement. It could be better by having an easier way to share data with my PC. Although thumb-typing is convenient when away from my computer, there are times when I want to create or edit large amounts of info. A real keyboard is a must for that. Using voice is intriguing, but not always convenient either. I couldn't use GDocs for this since it had a 100 document limitation, and I still really need to have the data physically in the phone and not in the cloud.

Google Calendar is handy in its ability to share calendars with others, and to have multiple calendars layered on yours. I can easily add appointments myself or by others that I've shared it with - VERY nice. But it still needs plenty of improvement (just check out their help forum for the hundreds of suggestions that get ignored). It is just not a power-user's calendar.

The iPhone can't do these things well either, but the Droid was suppose to be the iPhone killer, not just an alternative. I'm hopeful that someone will create the ultimate app for being more like a PDA or a PIM.

tjoebgen

SWYPE - A great way to ease your transition from Palm to Droid.

Okay - I saw this name a few times over the past month or so, and I looked at a screen shot once and wasn't interested. First, I hadn't gotten use to the virtual keyboard yet and I was determined to use the physical keyboard as much as possible. Second, I thought it was a bad implementation of Graffiti (drawing over the keyboard? wtf?)

Well, I just ran across it again (while reading an article about the Nexus One and it seems to have it built in??). My love affair with the virtual keyboard and the physical is long gone... neither were living up to my expectations. So I thought maybe going back to Graffiti is worth a shot.
SWYPE is soooo much more than Graffiti... Check this out! Watch the first video: How To Swype.
Swype | Text Input for Screens

After watching a couple of times, trying to convince myself that it won't work as shown, I researched a bit more and downloaded a trial version from the link provided here:
Swype keyboard preview for Droid leaked DroidMuff.in

No rooting involve, just a manual install. This thing is magically intuitive! You don't draw letters or memorize gesture shortcuts - you simply trace your finger from one letter to the next! It's kind of like a Ouija board. Anyone who's seen my other threads on this board (or the moto board) know that I am NOT easy to please. Within seconds I was doing the exact same text entry that they were doing on the videos. I'm blown away.

This very app has seriously brought my droid back into the Love It category.

SWYPE FTW!


Terry

Kevin-B

[Hope this works] I posted a message about my experiences converting from Palm Centro to Droid at the address I hope appears below. If the link doesn't appear, my thoughts are in the Droid Tips and Tricks forum under the topic "Sync Outlook Contacts & Calendar to Google."

I may take some advice from the rest of you about Notes, though. Google Docs doesn't seem to let me edit on the Droid, which is a bummer. And I'm not crazy about having to use muliple products on my PC just to get at the four core apps (Calendar, Notes, Tasks, Contacts).

It certainly isn't a mature PDA yet. But it's awfully cute.

http://androidforums.com/how-tips/16345-sync-outlook-contacts-calendar-google.html#post378525

SCramer

If you have assigned a photo to a contact you may need to remove it before Android will import.

Steve

tranzz

If it wasn't for 3rd party apps this 855 would be trash!
Power Search and Contact Search+ kept me from going back to my Treo
G Dialer widget is great; it just does what should be native / default (like PowerSearch)

Is there a windows desktop app that'll sync with either the Droid or gmail contacts? (I don't mean import/export, I mean SYNC) My laptop and desktop don't always have a connection to the net either, but I always want my contacts available!

Corvus

Hey guys new here, as I was reading regarding note pad I came across the note everything post and decided to try it. Works good, it opened my note pad text list I have for medications and whatnot. My question is,is there a search function so I can find indivual items?
Thx to any1 who answers this