Importing Contacts to Blackberry with Google

I found another method for doing this in the crackberry forums that I admittedly did not try because this method seemed easier.  Every other way seemed to rely on MS Outlook, which is not necessarily an option for us Linux/ Open Source users.  This how to is from the perspective of populating an empty address book.

First, backup your current GMail contacts.  Make sure a few of them have phone numbers associated with them so that the necessary fields are there.  In Gmail, go to contacts then Select Export and choose All and the Google CSV format.  Save As google_backup.csv.

Next make sure you have google sync installed on your blackberry, but do not sync yet, or at least not contacts.

Now you have several choices for the contacts on your current phone.  Basically you need to get them into spreadsheet format the easiest way possible.

Now open google_backup.csv (using Open Office Calc of course)and Save As google_bb.csv so that changes you make to this file won't screw up your backup.  Now cut and paste from your current contact spreadsheet into the relevant fields below your current contacts.  Finally, erase the non phone contacts above.  It's better to do it in this order so you have something to use as a reference when cutting and pasting.  Remember to delete the whole row(s) when getting rid of the contacts you don't want on your phone.  Finally, save this file.

Now go back into Gmail contacts, choose all and Delete Contacts (don't worry, you have your backup!).  Now choose Import from the upper right and import the google_bb.csv.  Now open up google sync on your blackberry and under options choose to sync contacts and then sync now.  Viola!

Now uncheck sync contacts if you want and re-import your original contact list.  I actually took the opportunity to go through the file and clean it up.  Again, leave the original backup file intact!!!!!!!   ie  DON'T CHANGE THE ORIGINAL BACKUP!  This saves you lots of time if you mess up.

The whole process takes about as much time as, or less, than reading this how-to.  Let me know how it goes!

The Usual Suspects: the Windows Collection

There are several programs which I generally use in every Windows installation then a few specific to my netbook, mostly having to do with writing in some form or another.

For security, I use Comodo Firewall. It is honestly a bit on the technical side but I like that and it is in the end worth the extra brain time to see what is trying to connect to the internet that the Windows firewall would let through. I have found free antivirus to be enough; my top picks are: avg, avast, and bitdefender. The antivirus that comes with Comodo seems to have trouble for me, though I like it more for doing so it identified quicktime as a virus; so I usually disable it. I use AVG the most though I have been trying Bitdefender lately.

Next come System Utilities. Revo Uninstaller and CCleaner come first. For defragmentation I like MyDefrag or Defraggler. I use a combination of Speedfan - which I set to show my CPU temp in the taskbar - and Process Hacker - which is essentially a suped up Task Manager. I set Process Hacker to run at startup to keep tabs on my CPU cycles. I find Launchy to be an indispensable utility. If you check out any check out this one. It seems so simple yet can be so functional - especially on a netbook where you may have trouble with the mousepad at times - it is so much easier and faster to start programs and open folders and playlists, etc, from Launchy! Also, I use Terabyte for file transfers. It seems to be much faster with a better GUI than the standard drag and drop.

SandboxIE is a great utility for opening questionable executables or if you are visiting websites that you are worried might install crap on your computer. Clonezilla is a great backup utility - essential for not losing all your hard work! I like FoxIt reader - it works well, is small, and integrates nicely with Firefox - Oh yeah - Firefox! I love it and use it exclusively. The add-ons I cannot live without, from betterGmail to ScribeFire - which I am using to write this blog. For pictures I like FastStone Image Viewer. It is a great editor as well. Picasa works well too.

As far as multimedia software goes I use VLC for movies and sometimes music, and Foobar2000 for music. I create playlists for Foobar and store them in a separate folder that I catalog with Launchy so that I can start them with a few keystrokes.

For office software I have Abiword and the open source suite Open Office. I am also using a diary program called Efficient Diary which I enjoy and I recently downloaded a program called StoryBook for when I get to writing my novels.

Please note: Every program I have mentioned is FREE for personal use. Sorry for not hyperlinking but there are just too many to mention. I am always trying new stuff, especially new utilities, so if you have any suggestions let me know!

I settled on an Acer Aspire One from Newegg. The exact model is the AOD 150-1577. The price was right and I am very happy with it and the extended battery life of the 6 cell battery. The Asus EEE-PC was a strong contender and honestly the choice came down to price. I may have gone with a Dell if the price was more competitive but I have had problems with very long waits from them.

One of the primary reasons for using an Aspire was the plethora of community documentation and support in relation to lesser known Linux distros that I like to play with, especially Puppy Linux. The more mature distros like Ubuntu seem well supported across most of the hardware, though, and I am happy to see so many netbooks shipped with Linux.

Mine came with XP and a lot of bloatware. I heartily reccomend a program called Revo Uninstaller when first buying a computer with lots of crap pre-installed. It does a good job of getting rid of installed programs more completely than the standard uninstallers. Or you can geek it up...

After confiming that everything worked correctly, the first thing I did was replace the hard drive and RAM. For the hard drive, I took apart a 320 gig Western Digital external drive and put that in place of the standard 160. I saw plenty of how tos that showed taking the case apart and putting it back together with the old netbook drive installed, but by the time I got the drive out the case was not really reusable. Thankfully I had a spare external case handy. Next I put in a 2 Gig RAM stick (20 bucks from newegg) and ended up with a faster machine with more storage.

Partitioning the hard drive is always the first step. There are plenty of how tos for that so suffice it to say I partitioned it out to hold my XP, a few Linux distros, swap, and about 200 Gigs left over for storage.
I really prefer Linux as an OS but I enjoy XP as well and find it very tweakable, so I started off with that as my primary OS. I used a version available 'around' called TinyXP. I had the good fortune of being able to use a friend's Acronis Enterprise with Universal Restore. Basically, I installed the OS into VirtualBox, added a few programs and then backed it up with Acronis, then used the recovery software off a USB drive to install it onto the netbook, using the Universal Restore feature. Initially I had trouble with the install failing until I discovered these SATA drivers, which I used at the appropriate step in the Universal Restore recovery process (These drivers would be useful in any process of intalling XP outside of the version provided). The result was a fully functional, stripped down, very efficient and pre built fully updated XP into which I installed all the additional drivers found on Acer's website. I really liked this process of preparing the OS as a virtual machine and then migrating it to the hardware.

Next I installed Xubuntu 9.04, which seems to work right out of the box - wireless and all. I have been messing with XP for now, though that will change soon, I am sure.

Next I'll go through my list of favorite programs.

Netbook Specs

I recently purchased a new netbook and I will be documenting most of my
'work' on it here. A friend recently saw it and said he was considering
getting one and asked for my help and I thought I may as well write my
suggestions down for all my readers.

First, you have to consider what you want to use it for. I started by
salivating over the Archos 5. I have been very interested in something
small that can network. When I started thinking about everything that I
would want to do, however, like VNC and word processing - writing more
like this and journaling - I realized that what I really wanted was a
netbook - something small that could do basic computing tasks: web
browsing, basic word processing, and handle media files. If that is all
you are planning to do then a netbook is a great idea.

For more complex tasks like image manipulation or low end gaming or
simply bigger screen size then a laptop would make more sense. And then
for high end gaming and video processing and virtual computing a desktop
would make more sense.

As far as minimum requirements for a netbook mine were: at least 1 gig
of RAM with the capacity to upgrade to 2 Gigs. This is important
because some motherboards did not support such an upgrade. I wanted a
minimum of 1.6GHz processing power/speed. I think this is the area where
we will see the most improvement as the newer generations come out.
Finally, I preferred a standard 2.5"HDD vs the smaller and more
expensive SSDs. However, the SSD does drastically reduce size and weight
Since I was going to playing a lot of media I prefer to be able to store
it locally but it makes sense to use a home server or small external HDD
as well.

2 considerations: Buy a cheaper model with 1 gig of RAM and upgrade to 2
yourself. Also, buy a smaller hard drive for a better price and if you
need to upgrade. Both of these imply a third important factor for those a
bit more on the geek side: ease of access to components. This feature
has evolved toward the easier access route.

Finally, battery life. Your choices are generally 3 cell with an
approximate 4 hour battery life and 6 cell with a 7 hour life. Again a
bit of research could save you some money - if you can get a 3 cell for
a good price and a battery separately then go for it.

My preferred sites are: Newegg, TigerDirect, and Amazon. I will always
check the comments on all three to get a good picture of what I am
getting as well.

Next I'll reveal which one I got and start going into the modifications and tweaks.

Testing...

I've noticed it's not so easy to post videos here on facebook (this blog is being ported to facebook) so I am wondering if videos post through this blog on the notes page - like this one made from the last thanksgiving beach blast....

And I have noticed that gifs (animated pictures) don't seem to work - but I wonder if the monkey one does....

Boot Ubuntu from Floppy/ Fix Windows MBR

If you live in a Windows only household with non-technical users and you have been held back from doing a dual install Linux/ Windows system by the fact that most Linux OS's, and Ubuntu in particular, changes the boot process thereby causing a potential uproar in the house, then this blog is for you! Faced with this situation I found by combining instructions from several different sources and simple head exploding trial and error how to create a system with Ubuntu and Windows that maintains the Windows boot process and uses a floppy to boot into Ubuntu and a frugal install of Puppy Linux 301 - 3 OS's to choose from!

This blog is part 2 of my previous blog which details how to install Ubuntu as a second OS using GParted to manually create partitions. However, it is applicable in any situation that uses GRUB as a bootloader, since essentially I am just putting the Windows MBR back and running GRUB from a floppy. In addition to having Ubuntu already installed you will also need mbrfix, a very useful little Windows utility that can be placed on a floppy and used to fix the MBR. Detailed instructions are provided with the program.

So we start from the install of Ubuntu in addition to XP which has GRUB loaded at boot. Boot into Ubuntu (or just let it do so automatically) and follow the instructions to make a GRUB boot floppy (taken from here):

To keep from having to type sudo over and over, in the terminal type:

sudo -s

and enter your password. Now format the floppy:

mke2fs /dev/fd0

Now mount the floppy and copy the necessary files:

mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy (note: there is a space between fd0 and /media)
mkdir /media/floppy/boot
mkdir /media/floppy/boot/grub
cd /boot/grub
cp stage1 stage2 menu.lst /media/floppy/boot/grub
umount /dev/fd0

Now start GRUB in interactive mode by typing

grub

and the command prompt should change to 'grub>' after which you type the following commands:

device (fd0) /dev/fd0
root (fd0) (note - I get an error message the first time I type this but it works fine if I repeat it)
setup (fd0)
quit

Now you have a bootable floppy. However, this did not work for me without a couple of extra steps.

Restart and boot from the floppy. You should see a screen exactly like you were booting from the hard drive, with a list of OS's and Windows XP at the bottom. Choose the Ubuntu and if it starts then you are good to go. However, I always got an 'error 15 file not found' message. Press any key to continue and then 'c' to go to the command line. Type

find /boot/grub/stage1

one line of output should be the disk - fd(0) - and the other is the partition that your Ubuntu is on, something like (hd0,5); make a note of this for later.

Now take out the disk and poweroff with the power button and then reboot into Ubuntu. Put the floppy back in and open up a terminal and type

sudo -s
mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy
gedit /media/floppy/boot/grub/menu.lst

This opens up the menu.lst document in the default editor as root, allowing you to make changes. Scroll down to the sections that don't start with #. You'll notice the titles are all the same as those listed on your initial screen when you use GRUB to boot. The first section is the one that you default boot from. Delete the last two lines of the first section:

quiet
single

and then Save. This should alter the menu.lst document on the floppy. To make sure close the terminal, go into the /media/floppy/boot/grub folder from the Places menu and open the menu.lst file by double clicking on it and making sure those two lines are missing.

Now reboot with the floppy in and Viola! it should boot into Ubuntu as if you were booting from the hard drive/ MBR-GRUB.

Finally, reboot into Windows. Run mbrfix.exe in the commandline to replace GRUB with Windows' standard boot code by opening the command window and typing:

cd
Mbrfix /drive 0 fixmbr /yes

This will replace GRUB with the standard Windows Boot code. Now when you boot you will go straight into Windows and the only way to access your Ubuntu/ other linux distros is with the floppy. You now have a hidden Ubuntu OS, since the linux partitions are not visible to Windows without special software.

Using Windows Partitions/Drives in a Linux OS

How to use Windows XP Filesystem in Linux (Kubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn)

This is probably the most basic thing to learn if you want to get started using Ubuntu in a dual boot system. If you are having trouble with things like storing documents on a drive that was formatted under Windows or playing music from your Windows drive this will most likely solve your problem. I should have written this down before because it always bites me in the rear when I do a new install and I pull my hair out thinking it is something more complex than it is.

A brief overview of file systems. Your computer stores and retrieves information from a medium like a hard drive or disk using a predefined system of dealing with data, ie a file system. The default system for XP and Vista is NTFS. The default for most Linux Operating Systems is Ext3, and sometimes Ext2. They are pretty much mutually exclusive - Windows does not even acknowledge the existence of an ext3 formatted drive (shows up as unformatted) without special software, and until recently Linux OS's could only read from NTFS and not write to it (ie save stuff to it).

Enter NTFS-3g, a development that has really made dual boot systems usable because it allows a Linux OS to read and write to NTFS so that you can share disk space between Windows and Linux. Therefore you can put music on an NTFS partition and play it from both a Linux and Windows OS, or movies, or pdf files, or whatever.

These instructions are specific to Kubuntu 7.04 but they can be easily tweaked to be used under any Linux OS that uses ntfs-3g.

Install the necessary utilities. In a terminal type:

sudo apt-get install ntfs-config

This will also install a gui that allows you to different choices - you can get specific instructions here(Skip down to the Configuration section).

To see exactly what partitions are available to me I use GParted Partition Manager under Start>System>GNOME Partition Editor, which I describe using in more detail in my blog about setting up a dual boot system. This shows exactly which partitions are there and what file system they are using. This is especially useful if you have two hard drives because it seems Ubuntu only automatically recognizes partitions on the one that it is installed on (hda or sda). Make a note of all the ntfs drives by the name they are associated with - ie sda1 or sda7 or hdb3 (I'll use these as examples earlier). Next you can go to /media and see if those drives are there. If they are you can see if they are mounted by clicking on them and seeing if any files show up. If they are not, ie there are no folders or icons marked hdb3, then open a terminal and type

sudo mkdir /media/hdb3

and one will magically appear!

Now to mount your ntfs drive. BTW 'mount' is linux/unix terminology for making a drive available, so although a drive will show up in GParted, usually as /dev/hdb(N), you cannot access the drive until it is mounted. Mounting a drive transfers the files on the drive to a folder that you can then access. The folder is usually in /mnt or, as in Ubuntu, /media. The command to do this is as follows:

sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/hdb3 /media/hdb3

This will now allow access to the files on /dev/hdb3 to be accessed by clicking on /media/hdb3.

To automatically mount the drives on system start up you can install the automatix package manager and use their tool for automatically mounting ntfs and fat32 drives.

Learning to use Linux is well worth the time and challenge. I recommend using a virtual machine first but moving on to a dual boot system and using Linux with the full power of your machine. I am not one of those people hell bent on taking down Microsoft but I do think it is fun and worth the time to explore different options.

UPDATE (5-12-2008) I now think it is much better to edit the /etc/fstab file, both from a functional standpoint and from a learning perspective. Here is an excellent and informative post. I used the ntfs-config tool initially and then edited the script that generated which led me to the realization that putting tabbed spaces in the script to make everything look pretty was what was causing it to not work for me initially! Gparted was very helpful as well. There seem to be some issues with Automatix being potentially dangerous as well. Here is a very informative blog outlining problems with Automatix.