AndroidTapp. Android App Reviews, Android Apps, News, App Recommendations, Interviews

Ask NerdGirl: Linking Contacts, Apps Not Available for Android 1.5, and Full Security!

Posted Saturday, June 12th, 2010 at 11:00 am by n3rdg1rl 1 Comments

No User Ratings Yet

I’m learning a lot by answering these questions. The nerd in me is loving this!

How do I get all my “phone” contacts to Google? Via phone preferably (via CSV won’t import stuff like pictures, birthdays, etc). For instance: I’ve got several restaurants that I imported to the phone from Outlook. They are marked as “phone” contact. How do I mark/pass it to “Google” contact.

I’m using stock HTC Desire.

Cumprimentos/Regards

Nuno Miguel Vivas

Well, after much searching there isn’t an easy way to do this. There’s no way to just change it nicely. So here’s the way I figured it out.

Export your contacts. Then connect your phone to your computer and log into your Gmail account. Import the contacts there. Then when you go back to your phone, sync your contacts with Gmail. Yes, everything will be duplicated. However, the phone will notice that it’s the same information as the one on the phone and in the upper right hand corner of the contact it will say “Link.” When you tap that it will merge the contacts with the same name into one and keep all the information you originally had.

When that is done you can go back to your computer and clean up the duplicates that may still remain from there after it syncs.

Hello,

After upgrading to 2.1 I noticed that my contacts on my hero (2.1 with Sense) have a little linking button on the top right corner. It looks like the coupling that ties together two train cars. Maybe this was there in 1.x too, but I just noticed it. I see that you can use it to ‘link’ two contacts, but what can I do now that they are linked? What is this for?

Thx

This kind of ties into my previous answer. The link allows you to merge contacts so you don’t have duplicates. I have all of my Facebook contacts on my phone. I also have a ton of those people’s numbers in my Gmail. Once I linked them I now have all the information for them in one place. This allows you to use the menu bar at the bottom to see their information on Flickr, Facebook, Google, and your phone together.

I am so thoroughly frustrated and annoyed with the fact that many times when I find a really cool app and try to download it, that a message pops up in the android market stating that the search can’t be found. Yet I find current user reviews of these apps. So where is everyone else downloading from? I have a Samsung Moment whose firmware has not been upgraded from 1.5 yet. At first, I was just nervous about the process. What’s holding me up now, is that my computer is being a butthead and I can’t access anything in a timely manner, if at all. So does not having updated firmware automatically restrict me from certain downloads? If it helps, some of the apps that I’ve had this problem with are LaunchPro beta, Home++, TagHome, and Flikie. Either way, I really need help with this. It’s been an ongoing issue for the two weeks since I bought my phone. Thank you in advance for your help.

Shonte Steele

I’ve noticed this in a few cases myself. Not all the apps available are on the Market. Some you have to go to the developers site to download and install it. It’s also possible that you are trying to download apps made for 1.6+. It’s like trying to run a program developed for Windows 7 on a Windows 98 machine.

Samsung nor Sprint will send the update to your phone, you have to do it yourself and we strongly suggest doing it. We’ve written a handy step-by-step guide to update the Samsung Moment with Android 2.1.

Now for your specific apps:

• LaunchPro Beta is actually called LauncherPro Beta and is on the Market.
• Home++ is on the Market and it requires at least 1.6.
• TagHome must have at least 1.6 installed.
• Flikie is on the Market and is called Flikie Wallpapers HD.

Do you know of any security software that offers reliable remote lockout without needing to be the default home app?

I currently use Lookout and iTag (both at the recommendation of Android Tapp) and have tried Wave Secure in the past. I ditched Wave Secure because it repeatedly failed to actually lock when I sent lock commands from the website. It would respond to a “scream” command and the locate function worked about half the time, but it would only lock if I rebooted the phone after issuing the command. Even then I was able to completely bypass the lock by long pressing the home button. Talk about FAIL! Anywho, Lookout is great, especially the auto-backup of media files, but it does not offer remote lockout. iTag, on the other hand, requires that it be set as the default home app in order to function properly. That’s fine and dandy until a guy wants to use a home replacement app! Any suggestions?

(Moto Droid running 2.1)

Thanks again,

Chris

I’ve seen these issues too with Wave Secure, Chris, but I am still using it. Another program I would suggest is Mobile Defense as it has remote wipe, lock, locate and doesn’t not require it to be home replacement app. Today, however, Norton released a beta version of Norton Security for Smartphones. It’s free on the Market right now, so it might be something to look into. It has remote lock and wipe so it sounds promising.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I have a stock 2.1 Motorola Droid. I downloaded Nemo Player from the Droid Life forums & liked it. Problem was I read the comments the next day and it said that it caused the gallery to forceclose repeatedly so I uninstalled.

After I restarted my phone I’ve had the same problem every time.

They posted a solution in which you copy your entire SD card to a computer, delete the Android folder, format SD card and then copy everything back to SD. I do not have a computer so my question is, can I delete the Android folder from my phone with a file manager and restart my phone to fix it or does my SD need to be reformatted? I would appreciate any help because I have many pictures of my kids on my SD that I could never replace.

Sorry my question is so long. You can see their solution here. http://www.droid-life.com/2010/06/01/fix-force-close-in-gallery-after-installing-nemoplayer/

Unfortunately, this may not work. Like any program, be it on phone or computer, there are remnants that you may not see that cause the problems. The format step is to clear those out. What it sounds like, is that the force close is caused because there’s a piece of the Nemo Player stays behind. When you copy your SD card there is probably hidden folders that don’t get copied and these are what you need to delete.

~n3rdg1rl

Updating...