The little woman went out and bought a brand new blackberry smartphone. It’s shiny and I get to use her old Samsung smartphone…
Unfortunately, she wants me to set it up. That’s not fun. I could transfer her contacts list from the Samsung to her FTP server but the Blackberry would not download it. It turns out you only get to download “links” from pages, not from URLs entered properly in the browsers… OK. Then I had to make up some HTML to provide such a link and got it to her Downloads directory. I should be home-free, right? Not so fast…
“Your search – import contacts from csv – did not match any documents.
No pages were found containing “import contacts from csv”.”
That’s what Blackberry’s helpful site has.
Some guy on the web thinks I need certain desktop software to do the job…
This stinker makes Android/Linux and GNU/Linux look absolutely amazing by comparison, but, hey, if I get a small portable unit from Samsung to contact my server from anywhere on the property, it might be worth it.
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12768
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3
2
23909 
11859 
11711 
4638 
4261 
1641 
198 
14 
2 
0 
0 
0 
Are you actually claiming that your wife doesn’t even have temporary access to Outlook?
Because that’s all it takes.
Finally Pogson’s mad hacking skills are put to the test.
Just install Windows before you break things.
DrLoser, apologizing for M$, wrote about using Outlook to transfer Contact info from Android/Linux to BB10….
Doesn’t work. People with access to Outlook are having the same problem. This looks like a big FAIL for BB.
see BlackBerry Link Personal Information Import and Synchronization – Update
They have a bunch of official recommendations and they don’t work. If transferring an open-standard file format by an open-standard protocol won’t work, nothing much else will work either.
That’s the problem with closed-source software. The twits don’t see beyond their laboratory doors. What kind of browser cannot download a file from a typed URL???!
To be truthful with blackberry 10 the only way that I have found that works is connect to activesync server. The outlook plugin from blackberry only works with BB 9 devices and under at this stage.
Since Gmail is getting rid of activesync support it going to be fun. That stop Jan 30. Blackbery instructions presume it still works. This is why that instruction fails.
http://help.onemediahub.com/?topic=is-funambol-going-to-be-available-on-bb10/
Yep funambol is not going to bother about a bb10 client. Funambol on the android device. Zafara or Sogo a Linux box/virtual-machine and a Blackbery phone.
Really I don’t know how a normal user is really going to be able to sink. A person like me or Robert can pull this off but its asking way too much from the general user. Syncml is a faster way of dumping the information out of the Android device than using activesync.
cvs import/export of blackbery has been borked for a long time. Even that you can create extra sections in the address book on the blackbery they will not import or export by its cvs option. only columns you have got is the defaults in the cvs file.
Yep only working option is activesync that I know of. On BB9 and before only working option is Funambol without paying out money to make all the information across. Yes the outlook exporter for BB9 and before does not export everything any custom entries in your contact list go by by.
Android is a pain in ass to connect to Linux desktops at times. Once you pull it off it works perfectly all the time. A iphone is also a pain in ass to connect to Linux same thing applies once you get it it works. BB9 and under minor annoyances every issue workable around.
Heck I would take old Motorola custom evil Linux phone over a blackberry 10. I never ever suspect I would have something that make a old Motorola custom evil Linux device look good.
Motorola ones managed todo something really evil to the CVS file. \r\n end of line said this line was the list of columns. \n\r was a comment and \n was data. You try getting any cvs editor todo that. Then just to be fun the phone will lock up if you give it two lots of column defines to import that are different resulting in lose of address book in phone.
Yes it is quite impressive to be worse than that BB10 pulls that off because I require a server to work around lack of transfer method. But the Motorola tools worked like 90 percent of time. You just remembered to always export before importing so if it did nuke you still had it all.
PS never ever do a two way sync between a BB9 and before to outlook or any other contact list it finds. From time to time it gets creative instead of syncing of just syncing the different entries across. It deletes any entry that has been modified at either end.
DrLoser that sync tool of blackberry is not a savour. Using the one way syncs it is ok. Again you still end up losing entries.
I hope a fixed tool for blackberry appears soon. Nothing is worse than people coming to you saying can you recover X data and having to say no.
I am hoping with the new version of the tool for BB10 they fix the two way no more magic disappearing entries. But its a bit bad to release the phone ahead of the sync tool. What is most transferring users going to want to do sync data.
I think with BB10 they presumed all there customers would have servers. So did not bother about any of the other sync functionality.
I expect BB will eventually fix CSV import. Otherwise the little woman will be forced to reenter stuff. Not fun and silly. Perhaps I will make up an on-line database for her. I can set up an encrypted site just for her… The smartphone is proving valuable for me. Today I will take it out for a walk with GPS. It seems very accurate even in the house.