How To Former Palm Users Transition to Droid Guide

[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..

 

[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.

 

[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!

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.
5) open Contacts on the Droid, select "Import/Export"
6) Select Import from SD card.

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..

 

[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]

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!

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.

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.

 

[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.

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...

 

[Nepherim]

@ricktssf: Neat, thanks.

 

[danachee]

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.

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.

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

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

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....

 

[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]

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...

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]

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.

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]

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

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]

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

Thanks All

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

 

[katahdin]

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

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?

 

[drwiremore]

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.

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