• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help Yet more newb questions

rogand

Newbie
Dec 29, 2010
17
0
Hi all,

Just came over to android after >12 years of PalmOS pdas and phones and have a few questions I haven't found by searches. Have a new epic 4g now. Have about 3 or 4 opening questions.

First, when setting up sync on the phone (which is mostly working fine) I notice there's an option to enable/disable sync of books. Just what books are they talking about here. Email, contacts etc are self explanatory, and maybe books _should_ be, but I don't know what it's referring to here.


Also, I have a contact that I created in gmail, and which properly and automatically sync'd up with all my desktop and laptop installed outlook clients (I use google apps sync for business), but for some reason, one particular contact won't show up on the phone (though others all seem too) I've stared at it a lot, trying to find what would be unique about this particular contact, but am coming up blank. Any ideas on where to start troubleshooting individual sync items between a gmail account and the built in contact manager?

Recommendations on alternate contact managers (which I'll still be using to sync with google directly, and indirectly with outlook.) ?
The built in one is OK-ish, but doesn't allow me to categorize upon initial entry (that I can figure out anyway) so I then have to remember to go backk and re-edit in gmail or outlook. Annoying.

Lastly, any good android 2.0+ book recommendations? Something above a 'dummies' type book (I'm an engineer with a moderate amount of sw background) but not something understandable only by pro or advanced hobbyist coders. I'm not that strong there, but would like to get the lay of the land. Things like knowing where contacts 'in the phone' (vs in google) are stored and other similar stuff. I guess in short, something for someone that wants to return to power-user status they'd built themselves up to over years of palm use.

Any help appreciated gang.

Love this phone so far.

Regards
Roger
Austin, TX
 
Hi all,

Just came over to android after >12 years of PalmOS pdas and phones and have a few questions I haven't found by searches. Have a new epic 4g now. Have about 3 or 4 opening questions.

First, when setting up sync on the phone (which is mostly working fine) I notice there's an option to enable/disable sync of books. Just what books are they talking about here. Email, contacts etc are self explanatory, and maybe books _should_ be, but I don't know what it's referring to here.

I'm pretty sure its Google Books - a book reader. It syncs books you download on the PC to your phone.


Lastly, any good android 2.0+ book recommendations? Something above a 'dummies' type book (I'm an engineer with a moderate amount of sw background) but not something understandable only by pro or advanced hobbyist coders. I'm not that strong there, but would like to get the lay of the land. Things like knowing where contacts 'in the phone' (vs in google) are stored and other similar stuff. I guess in short, something for someone that wants to return to power-user status they'd built themselves up to over years of palm use.

Any help appreciated gang.

Love this phone so far.

Regards
Roger
Austin, TX

I'd just play around with it and ask here when you get stuck. People here are pretty helpful. It all seems foreign at first but becomes second nature faster than you'd think.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rogand
Upvote 0
  • Like
Reactions: rogand
Upvote 0
Thanks all,

I'll keep reading - a lot to absorb.

I'll also throw out another question.

One app I'm finding especially deficient so far is the built in contact manager.
I haven't quite identified the rhyme/reason of it all, but it often doesn't find contacts that I know are there (KNOW, as in verified in the sync it does with google and outlook and because it also comes up in the aurora search tool and an app I downloaded called "contact lookup"

I've manually edited a ton of contacts, but I can only do that for so many, and it's frustrating when your 7 year old palm phone could do better.

So, a couple questions

1) what all fields does the native contact app search? I know it doesn't even consistently find the "Company" field, which is a pretty glaring omission.

2) what alternate contact managers do people like? I'd gladly pay a little for a really good one.

3) how would I make that contact manager app callable by the contact 'button' that is on the bottom of each of my home pages.

thanks again all
Roger
 
Upvote 0
I'm not sure what the Samsung searches by default, but the native Google search does do names, numbers and companies. Don't think it does addresses or emails though.

For contact searching, then, ahem, Contact Lookup is good. Doesn't search all the categories in the free version though (primarily missing Notes search). Works best with Contact View, though if the contact viewer on your Samsung is readable then it's not a necessity.

You probably can't integrate it with the call button (unless someone lets me know what Intent action this kicks off). It's currently best driven from the Google Quick Search Box, though the paid versions will soon pop-up on long-pressing the search key.

Other free alternatives are Google's Gesture Search. More of a stand-alone app, but again, doesn't search all categories though.
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones