Comments on: Day 1 with My BlackBerry Storm

By: Kelly Carter

Kelly Carter — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:27:57 +0000

Jenine,
Glad you found my story and it helped.
Kelly

By: Jenine

Jenine — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:27:19 +0000

Thanks for mentioning the unlock button on the top of the screen. I just got my phone and accidentally locked it and was freaking out.

By: Kelly Carter

Kelly Carter — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:10:32 +0000

Joseph,
You’re right–I was wrong. I’m not even sure where I got that statistic, but I fixed my article accordingly. Thanks for your feedback.
Kelly

By: Joseph Adler

Joseph Adler — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:57:14 +0000

Macon is not the 2nd largest city in Georgia. It is the 6th. Reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(U.S._state)#Ten_largest_cities

By: Kelly Carter

Kelly Carter — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:48:32 +0000

ace,
I’m not sure if I followed all your details, but it sounds like you were doing basically the right things. Let me suggest something slightly different. First, export your dad’s Storm’s Address Book to an ASCII (comma separated value, CSV) file. It’s actually good if it has at least one good contact in it so you can see not only the headings but the format required under each heading. For example, phone numbers must be formatted as general numbers with no hyphens, commas, decimal points, etc. Open that exported CSV file in Excel and examine it closely to understand the headings and cell formats under the headings.

Next, open the text file of desired contacts in a separate Excel file. I’m assuming it’s in CSV or similar format that Excel approves of. Now, copy and paste from one file to the other until you’ve moved all the contacts into the file with good headings. Do any reformatting and clean-up that’s necessary. Save that resulting file in CSV (which is one kind of text file) format. The name of the file isn’t that important, but keep it simple like “Contacts.csv”.

Now, try to import that file using Desktop Manager into your dad’s Storm. If you kept all the headings intact and got all the cells formatted correctly, it should import perfectly.

I hope that helps. It’s easier to show than describe in writing.
Kelly

P.S.–If all else fails, you can email me the text file if you’re willing to trust me with that data. I should be able to fix it. I can’t do this for everybody, but I can do it for one or two.

By: ace

ace — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:24:42 +0000

This looks like a nice site. Just found it googling “Ascii importer address book
“. I am trying to send a text file to my father’s Storm for contacts. In the Desktop Manager, I found the mapping page and deleted the arrows that didn’t match my fields in my access query. I put the access query in the same order as the DM then exported at text. I just gave it a name and put in on my desktop. When I did the DM sync setup I browsed to the file on the desktop and it loaded in a light grey color. After ten tries, It keeps coming up with the same 186 deletions occured bla bla bal. And we get nothing. Sounds like I am supposed to use a special file name or tell DM a name but don’t know how to. Thanks for any assistance.

ace

By: Deb

Deb — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:13:44 +0000

Thanks Kelly – The info on the Pearl was extremely helpful!

By: Kelly Carter

Kelly Carter — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:08:21 +0000

Deb, I have two very important articles that you must read. The problems you're experiencing are very common, and there are definite measures you can take to improve the situation. Please read these, then come back and ask if you need more help: Article on Pearl Memory Problems Article on SoftReset--A Terrific Application that Helps Kelly

By: Deb

Deb — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:25:50 +0000

I have a Pearl and am experiencing horrible memory problems. Is there something I can do to increase the memory in the phone? Sadly, I’m not very tech savvy so I’m hoping either you or one of your readers can help. I’ve deleted unused/unneeded items and have received some relief that way but not enough. While I’m not dropping texts or emails anymore, I can’t take pictures and perform other tasks that I’d like. I also find that I’m a fanatic about deleting emails and texts in instances when I wouldn’t mind keeping them around for awhile. Can anyone help with this question? Is there something I can buy to add to the phone to increase memory? Thanks for your help.

By: Kelly Carter

Kelly Carter — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:33:17 +0000

Dr. Black,
I have an article about that at http://newbbie.com/2008/01/19/managing-contacts-in-the-address-book-using-excel/. It is for a slightly older version of Desktop Manager, so the screenshots won’t perfectly match your screens, but I believe it’s still very close. And, yes, you can do all this in Excel 2007, as it does have a “Save As…” “CSV (comma separated value) .csv” option.

Here are the important steps in using Excel to manage your Address Book for your situation:

1. Use her Curve to first EXPORT her Curve Address Book in CSV format to your computer (general directions to follow). If her Address Book is currently empty, enter at least one contact in it just for this purpose. Open the exported CSV file in Excel and study the column headings: you’ll need to get her existing Excel addresses in this same format. The data under each heading has a specific format that must be matched, too. For example, I seem to remember that phone numbers must not have hyphens or parentheses in them–just numbers. This may be time-consuming, but still much easier than entering them all in by hand.

2. In Desktop Manager, the process is a bit clumsy, if you ask me. First, you have to set up DM for “synchronization” (not “synchronize” yet). You have to set it for synchronization FROM the Device TO the ASCII Importer/Exporter (which is a confusing way of saying “to the computer, in a text format). You also have to make up a file name for it to save to, such as AddressBook_2008-12-12.csv, and let DM create an empty file by that name.

3. After completing Step 2, then you connect up the Curve and run the Sychronize function. That runs the synchronization up the way you just set it up. It will export the Curve’s Address Book to the aforementioned file.

4. Now is when you open the resulting file to understand the format of the file.

5. You might want to start with only a few records from your wife’s Excel addresses to test your understanding of how all this works. Change those records (headings and cell data) to match the BlackBerry Address Book format.

6. Return to DM and change the Synchronization setup to reverse directions so that it will sync FROM the ASCII Importer/Explorer TO the Device. And run Synchronize.

7. Use the Curve to examine the Address Book entries that were imported. If you find mistakes, you might need to delete the entire Address Book and repeat until you get everything just right. You can delete the entire Address Book in DM, but you can ask me about that later, if you need to.

I hope the length of this reply doesn’t scare you into not trying it. If you read the comments left by readers of my Excel article, I think you’ll get a feel for how successful most readers have been in doing this. If you’re pretty handy with Excel, you should do just fine. Return and ask more questions if you need to.

Kelly

P.S.–I’ve considered rewriting the article for a newer version of DM, but there are so many versions being used by people, I’m not sure if that would help or not. I’m currently using version 4.7 because I bought a Storm, and that’s what it came with.