Technical @ Updates

If you are one of those people upgrading from a palm pilot to an iphone probably you are having a hard time importing your contacts from the  palm software to the iphone. luckily there is always a way to do things, so in this article I will share some tips on how to do that.

The only way to synch contacts to the iphone is by using itunes ( that’s the only way I know of) so the route we need to take is getting our contacts from the palm desktop software to Outlook and then to the iphone. some palm software have the ability to sync to outlook using software like PocketMirror etc. so that would make things simpler by just synching your itunes with Outlook.  but I guess that’s not your case, otherwise you wouldn’t be here (:-)

The Palm Desktop software does not let you export data in many formats, the most common formats you can export are .ABA and .CSV, and the only formant Outlook accept is .CSV so I guess the only option we have is to export contacts as .CVS format, here is how you do it.

Step 1: from your palm desktop software click on File and then Export . choose to export the file as “comma separated (*.csv;.text) and on range select ALL. save the file anywhere you want, but make sure you remember where it is.

Step 2. once the contacts have been exported, you need to modify the field names in the .csv file , so Outlook can recognize it.  these are some of the fields Outlook will recognize:

for example your spreadsheet will look like this:

step 3:

after you finish modifying the spreadsheet you need to import them to Outlook. to do that go to your outlook and click on File, and then choose Import and Export:

Then choose Import from a another program or file:

Choose Comma Separated Values (Windows) on the following screen:

choose the .CSV file you created earlier, by clicking on the browse button:

from here choose if you want to import duplicates or not.

select your destination folder on the next screen.

click on Finish on the following screen.

that should import your contacts to Outlook.

Step 4 :

now you need to synch your Outlook contacts with itunes.

when you open itunes, your iphone should get recognized automatically. click on the iphone icon, and the following screen will show up:

under the info tab.

scroll to the bottom, and click on Sync.

that should start the synching between Outlook and itunes.

Today a client came to me complaining her blackberry contacts were not synching with her Outlook. upon checking the contacts in her blackberry I noticed she had been saving all her contacts in her Gmail personal account. I had to transfer all her contacts from Gmail to her Outlook, so the contacts would sync with her blackberry through our BES server . luckily the process of exporting contacts from Gmail, and importing them to Outlook is quite easy.

here is how.

login to your Gmail account, and click on Contacts. then click on More actions, and then select Export:

the Export Contacts window will pop up. select the checkmark for All contacts and Outlook CSV format (for importing into Outlook or another application)

click on the Export button. a contact .csv file is created, and downloaded to your computer.

now we are ready to import to Outlook.

from Outlook 2010, click on file > Open. then click on the Import arrows:

the import wizard will come up. choose import from another program or file, and click next.

choose Comma separated values ( DOS ) on the following screen. browse to the file you exported from Gmail, and select Do not import duplicate items

choose the contacts folder on the next screen. and click Next.

click on Finish on the final screen.

that’s all.. all your contacts from Gmail should be now on your Outlook.