Tom's Two Cents - Latest Comments

Re: The Complete Guide To Importing Contacts Into Android’s Gmail

Past Palm — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:35:28 -0000

I share your frustration with finding a decent syncing system. I was a long-time (since 1994) Palm user and couldn't face making the switch to a smartphone. I researched like crazy until I found this app called B-Folders. I was able to just *import* all of my Contacts (it even put stuff into the right fields!) and my Memos (over 1,200) from Palm desktop (no re-keying). I was transferring to a Mac so it used “tab&return” instead of CSV, but it did it flawlessly. Amazing.

Their nested folder system works just like Palm's categories (only you can have an unlimited number of them and can combine Contacts, Memos, and Passwords all the in the same folder if you want). It's more versatile than Palm (it has this feature of "customizable cards" to keep all sorts of stuff).

I had been using an encrypted password program in addition to Palm before - now it's all in this B-Folders program which even auto-fills your passwords into the login pages you've stored.

Can you tell I really like it? :) And it's all "off the cloud" secure, just like Palm. And easy backups provide a great sense of security - especially when I’ve never had to use them! :)

Re: Found a Recipe for Legoland-style Apple Fries

Barny — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:19:21 -0000

I enjoy fries made of potato, not apple!

Re: Publishing Open Textbooks to Lulu and Create Space

tom4cam — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 20:28:55 -0000

I like it! I'll play around with CreateSpace a bit more, but that might be the way to go. Hopefully we can talk Amazon into supporting CC and playing nice with open sharing. I shouldn't have to give them bank info.

Re: Publishing Open Textbooks to Lulu and Create Space

David Lippman — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:53:15 -0000

Just a thought - could you put a PDF of the book up on some free/cheap hosting like S3 or filedropper, then put a link to the PDF in the print book's description on Lulu?

Re: Publishing Open Textbooks to Lulu and Create Space

David Lippman — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:51:38 -0000

I really don't understand Lulu's change in book downloads. As an author, you used to be able to provide a free download link on the book listing. Now they treat the ebook and print version as separate projects. Quite annoying. I didn't know createspace did such cheap color books - if our book was under 500 pages I'd make a color version available there :)

Re: Using Instamapper & GPS Phone to Track MS150 Bike Ride

Tablet PC — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:22:51 -0000

Thank you the great information .....

Re: Found a Recipe for Legoland-style Apple Fries

Patman — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:19:00 -0000

Sorry. This will turn out like an apple pie filling, and not like apple fries.

Re: The Complete Guide To Importing Contacts Into Android’s Gmail

Smith — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:13:36 -0000

Converted my Zire 71 contact list to Gmail contact list with little effort using the instructions on this page. The only glitch was that I had to highlight my contact list on the Zire 71 in order to export. The Gmail list then automatically updated my new galaxy nexus phone. We've come a long way!

Re: The Complete Guide To Importing Contacts Into Android’s Gmail

Tree_whish — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:21:48 -0000

you can import your csv. file into gmail and exported again but by choosing the option export to vCard format,then put it on ur mobile on the SD ..by this it will find it and won't return error as it did with u.

Re: A Big Day for Open Policy

tom4cam — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:34:13 -0000

David, I agree that some of the concerns raised at the hearings are very valid. Rep. Carlyle has generated some important discussion through his proposed legislation. They key question is if an open license should be mandated for all publicly funded educational materials across all public institutions of higher education in Washington. Based on the conversation yesterday, perhaps a more strategic approach involves getting high quality, open textbooks in place first. I think it's less about IF and more about WHEN we set the default to open.

Re: A Big Day for Open Policy

Cable Green — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:22:33 -0000

I was not able to attend the hearing and testify. If I was there, I would have asked the committee members:
If state and federal gas taxes were used to build a road to the University of Washington, should the contractor who built the road (paid for with public funds) be allowed to (a) own the road and (b) charge the public a toll to drive on it?Or, should the public that paid for the construction and maintenance of the road have the legal right to drive on it?When the public pays for the creation and maintenance of education resources, should the public have access to use the resources it paid for?It's the same question: Do you think public tax payers should get what they paid for?

Re: A Big Day for Open Policy

David Lippman — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:48:51 -0000

Interesting. I am a huge advocate for OER, but I'll be honest - this bill may be a bit overreaching. I'm imagining faculty who use images provided by the textbook publisher in their PowerPoints. The idea of requiring them to go edit those slides and remove all those copy-written images so they can put online a potentially useless version of those slides just seems silly. Also, the notion of a technophobe teacher being required to compile all their course materials and post them digitally could be a logistic nightmare. I'm all for open being the default. I'm not so sure I'm totally behind open being the only option. I hope the bill gets amended in a way to address some of these very legitimate concerns.

Re: A Big Day for Open Policy

Cable Green — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:12:48 -0000

Well said, Tom. I added Rep. Carlyle's FAQs for the bill here: http://blog.oer.sbctc.edu/2012...

Re: The Complete Guide To Importing Contacts Into Android’s Gmail

Bangalore Apartments — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:14:35 -0000

Thanks for guide was looking to import the csv into my HTC Wildfire

Re: Going Open: Lessons Learned from the Open Course Library

tom4cam — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:19:27 -0000

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Re: Effect International: Building Schools, Reshaping Luck

whitney dastrup — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:54:47 -0000

This is really great, it is amazing that such a large difference can be made with such little money!

Re: Schema.org + OER = Mmmm Good!

BCmoney — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 21:46:15 -0000

Agreed that Schema.org will continue to be an important resource, but there must be a way to add that Metadata automatically rather than expect everyone to add it manually...

Hopefully we see some tools along those lines roll out, but I suppose the WordPress and other CMS integrations would add alot of that automatically... anyway I'm rooting for more automation as adding metadata is boring and monotonous whereas reaping the benefits is educational, fun and exciting!

Re: The Complete Guide To Importing Contacts Into Android’s Gmail

tom4cam — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 15:33:24 -0000

I'm afraid I don't have a solution for this. Does anyone else have an idea?

Re: The Complete Guide To Importing Contacts Into Android’s Gmail

Jrfranks — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 15:22:22 -0000

I can see all of my 'people' contacts from my old Palm Treo 755p, but the 'business' contacts never show up. We've done 1/2 dozen transfers without luck.
I downloaded 'Import Contacts' app from Market, but it doesn't see the .csv file I loaded, it is only looking for something called vCard files. It returns an error message that no .vcf file was found.

Re: The Complete Guide To Importing Contacts Into Android’s Gmail

tom4cam — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 19:27:51 -0000

Hmm, I'm not sure why this is happening. Sorry!

Re: The Complete Guide To Importing Contacts Into Android’s Gmail

tom4cam — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 19:27:09 -0000

Thanks for adding those points! I don't think the Android contact importer app existed when I wrote this blog post a couple years ago!

Re: The Complete Guide To Importing Contacts Into Android’s Gmail

tom4cam — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 19:25:44 -0000

Since the Android system is designed by Google, all your Gmail contact should automatically transfer over as long as you have wifi or some kind of Internet connection. I'm assuming you are using the same Google account for your Gmail and your Android phone.

Re: The Complete Guide To Importing Contacts Into Android’s Gmail

Johnandlesley — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 05:24:56 -0000

Its all very fine getting the contacts into gmail but how do you sync them into the phone from gmail?

Re: The Complete Guide To Importing Contacts Into Android’s Gmail

Kimberly Patrizi — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 10:41:35 -0000

I moved from BBerry to Android phone. RadioShack was nice enough to sync contacts from my bbrry directly to phone. But now can't figure out how to get all that are on phone to sync with Google Calendar on PC. New ones I create on phone or PC are synching, but all ones that were imported directly to phone from bberry are not... help :}

Re: Using Instamapper & GPS Phone to Track MS150 Bike Ride

China TenQ — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 03:38:17 -0000

I like Android Tablet PC