Database Info

Help! I installed a new rom but my Contacts are gone!?

I went through Windows Mobile Device Center, synced all my settings before I installed a new Rom, but now it's all gone!?
Please help, I had over 200 contacts and important events!
I also did a "Microsoft my phone", and I can access it, but I have no idea what do to with it.
Thank you.

Install and run My Phone on the new rom, and sync it.

Your contacts should Sync again from your PC when it sees the new ROM. You might have to delete and re-establish the partnership.
For the future, use Sprite Backup. It has a great Restore Merge Feature that will re-install all your apps and settings to a new ROM. They even claim it will move them to a different phone.
Sprite also keeps self-executing backups on your SD Card. If you botch up something, you can quickly put it back the way it was at the last Backup. It will also backup to your your PC for another level of protection. Don't forget to periodically copy the contents of your SD Card to your PC and another safe place. I'd be more concerned about loosing that then anything on my phone.
I don't know if MS cloud backup works but I certainly wouldn't rely on it. Just ask the Sidekick users. I guess if your house burned down it might be helpful. You can do the same thing by just copying your Sprite Backups to another form of online storage. Most email providers provide some for free.
If it is important. BACKUP. BACKUP. BACKUP. BACKUP.

Pantaloonie said:
Install and run My Phone on the new rom, and sync it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I lose all my current contacts in Microsoft My Phone?
schneid said:
Your contacts should Sync again from your PC when it sees the new ROM. You might have to delete and re-establish the partnership.
For the future, use Sprite Backup. It has a great Restore Merge Feature that will re-install all your apps and settings to a new ROM. They even claim it will move them to a different phone.
Sprite also keeps self-executing backups on your SD Card. If you botch up something, you can quickly put it back the way it was at the last Backup. It will also backup to your your PC for another level of protection. Don't forget to periodically copy the contents of your SD Card to your PC and another safe place. I'd be more concerned about loosing that then anything on my phone.
I don't know if MS cloud backup works but I certainly wouldn't rely on it. Just ask the Sidekick users. I guess if your house burned down it might be helpful. You can do the same thing by just copying your Sprite Backups to another form of online storage. Most email providers provide some for free.
If it is important. BACKUP. BACKUP. BACKUP. BACKUP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But they should still be somewhere on the computer. It synced on the last ROM.

icedgreece said:
So I lose all my current contacts in Microsoft My Phone?
But they should still be somewhere on the computer. It synced on the last ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Once you run myphone and login on the new ROM, sync it and your contacts should be there.
Also when you first plug in your phone to WMC you have to setup the phone and choose which items to sync(Contacs, Outlook, Music, etc) make sure that's setup correctly.

kingofslackerz said:
Once you run myphone and login on the new ROM, sync it and your contacts should be there.
Also when you first plug in your phone to WMC you have to setup the phone and choose which items to sync(Contacs, Outlook, Music, etc) make sure that's setup correctly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) It didn't do anything except update the sync date on the Myphone site.
2) I can't check "contacts, events, etc", because there are none on the phone.

Ah, here we go.
It didn't connect properly. Thanks for the help!

You should have a fail-safe or two. I back up my contacts 3 different ways-Pimbackup (you should get this), SK tools backup, and I also copy pim.vol onto my storage card (this is not hard-you should do this). Weird things can happen. I mainly use sk tools to restore, because pimbackup has issues with 6.5 in my experience, but it's good to have multiple options (and doesn't take much effort). I also save a copy every so often on my pc, in case my card crashes.

[Q] How to backup contacts, apps and settings?

Can someone tell me, or point me to a tutorial that explains how to:
1. Backup contacts to PC
2. Backup paid apps to PC(don't want to have to buy it twice...)
3. Backup app data/settings to PC.

Using appbrain will sync your apps with your account on appbrain.com
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

So, there is no way to backup to your SD card, or PC? For windows mobile, I use Sprite, which works great. I was looking for something like that.
Thanks

Never used WinMo, but Titanium Backup might be what you're looking for. You need root to use it though.

I don't mind rooting if that is what it takes, but I can't belive that there is not an easy way to at least backup your contacts.

Backing up Contacts, several ways:
Samsung Kies -- follow the sticky at the top of this forum, it will back them up to your PC.
Export to SD Card, then copy to your PC -- Enter the Contacts app, hit Menu, More, Import/Export, Export to SD Card.
Copy them to your SIM -- Enter the Contacts app, hit Menu, More, SIM Management.
Sync them to AT&T's servers, which will do it in real-time when you add/delete them, similar to if you synced to your Gmail contacts .. the other benefit here is that you can log on to your AT&T account via the web to manage your phone contacts and it will sync your changes. Useful if you're mass-adding and want to use a full keyboard for speed. -- Enter the Contacts app, hit Menu, More, Settings, AT&T Address Book, click Auto Sync contact with online Address Book.
Backing up paid apps: I have not used it, myself, but Titanium Backup might do what you need, as the previous poster said. You can find it in the Market and read up on it.
Backing up app/data settings to a PC. I'm guessing this would be more app-specific than anything, no? I don't think Google imposes or enforces any standards on data/setting storage for apps, so any single backup tool would have to support individual apps one-by-one. Please update this thread if you find anything, because it would be pretty convenient ....

UserNamer said:
Backing up Contacts, several ways:
Samsung Kies -- follow the sticky at the top of this forum, it will back them up to your PC.
Export to SD Card, then copy to your PC -- Enter the Contacts app, hit Menu, More, Import/Export, Export to SD Card.
Copy them to your SIM -- Enter the Contacts app, hit Menu, More, SIM Management.
Sync them to AT&T's servers, which will do it in real-time when you add/delete them, similar to if you synced to your Gmail contacts .. the other benefit here is that you can log on to your AT&T account via the web to manage your phone contacts and it will sync your changes. Useful if you're mass-adding and want to use a full keyboard for speed. -- Enter the Contacts app, hit Menu, More, Settings, AT&T Address Book, click Auto Sync contact with online Address Book.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome. Sounds like backing up the contacts won't be a problem.
Backing up paid apps: I have not used it, myself, but Titanium Backup might do what you need, as the previous poster said. You can find it in the Market and read up on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will look into it. What would really be nice would be if google would do this for us. Seems like it would be pretty easy for google to remember which apps I have purchased, and not charge me next time I try to download it. Perhaps the marketplace already does this? I just don't want to buy an app and then remove it to find out....actually I will not pay for any apps until I can figure out how to back them up. I don't mind spending $5 on an app, but I do mind spending $5 for each app every time the phone gets reset...
Backing up app/data settings to a PC. I'm guessing this would be more app-specific than anything, no? I don't think Google imposes or enforces any standards on data/setting storage for apps, so any single backup tool would have to support individual apps one-by-one. Please update this thread if you find anything, because it would be pretty convenient ....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again, I don't know, this is my first android phone. But with Ubuntu Linux, pretty much all apps store their settings in a hidden folder in /home/{your-username}/ (i.e. firefox would store it's data in /home/{your-username}/.firefox/ ) All you have to do to backup all of your settings is to backup the /home/{your-username}/ folder. It is common for people to place /home/ on a different disk/partition, so that you can reinstall the OS and not loose any of your data/settings...
Android is also linux so I would think it would be similar...

cypho said:
Seems like it would be pretty easy for google to remember which apps I have purchased, and not charge me next time I try to download it. Perhaps the marketplace already does this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure how most app developers currently handle this, but I think Google made it easier a few weeks ago with the announcement of their new "licensing service for android applications". Plug that into your favorite search site (minus the quotation marks) and a post from Eric Chu explaining it on the Android Developers Blog should be up top.
But with Ubuntu Linux, pretty much all apps store their settings in a hidden folder in /home/{your-username}/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Home directories are great. =) I haven't used Ubuntu in a long time, so I'm not sure if you're saying that the system enforces it or if it's still just up to the individual developers to follow convention and store their settings in /home/ ... but I'm looking through my internal SD card and it seems like most of the apps I have installed (including the Google ones) each created their own data directory at the root level. :\

Titanium also backs up your contacts, paid apps, and free apps. The pros of rooting outway the cons. You can always un root if you need to send your phone in. I am also a newb and I've been wondering if I had to return my phone and get a new one will my paid apps carry over to a new device. I have the my license key for Titanium so I am thinking that I will be good in the event of such emergency. All of my paid apps are backed up there and I wiped my phone to factory settings the other night, I didn't un root, I was trouble shooting an issue caused by AT&. I did a reinstall of Titanium and it recognized my device because it installed donated version and I restored everything with ease.

UserNamer said:
I haven't used Ubuntu in a long time, so I'm not sure if you're saying that the system enforces it or if it's still just up to the individual developers to follow convention and store their settings in /home/ ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know, as I'm not a developer. But I would think that it would cause problems if a program tried to save data outside of /home/ The user would probably be prompted for their password every time the app tried to write a file...since sudo is required to gain write access to anything outside of home.

App to sync pictures/video to computer?

I take a lot of videos of my daughter, pictures also, and I wanted an easy way to sync my dcim/camera folder to a folder on my computer. I know I can plug the phone in and sync that way.
I already have a dropbox account and 1gb is used up with roms and such, any other alternative?

I use Titanium Media Sync to sync to my Dropbox. I take it you don't want to use up the remaining gig on your Db?

SugarSync always works very nicely with syncing and PC/Mac. And if I'm correct it may have about 2 GBs of storage as well.
P.S. Check the sig for a referral.

I didnt even know DB had a limit. Is it based on what are in the folders or overall uploads?

GatorsUF said:
I take a lot of videos of my daughter, pictures also, and I wanted an easy way to sync my dcim/camera folder to a folder on my computer. I know I can plug the phone in and sync that way.
I already have a dropbox account and 1gb is used up with roms and such, any other alternative?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
here you go u i got two for u...
Code:
http://goaruna.com/
Code:
https://www.sugarsync.com/

Photobucket works too. At least to the cloud. You'd have to pull it from there to the pc. If you're around the house you could always send them over wifi with shared folders if you don't want to plug in the phone.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

I had the same need and first tried out Titanium Media Sync (on HTC Desire) but was annoyed to learn that you only have limited options for the sync (currently "continuous" and "single one way"). I needed the app to upload (and unload) photos and videos from the device to a network location, ultimately to free up space on the device. However, with the continous sync, any files deleted on the device will result in deletion on the network as well; which does not provide much of a backup.
I ended up with Syncness, which is exactly what I needed. You can configure it to sync only with specific networks, at specific hours of the day, only at A/C power, etc. (the latter is in all fairness also supported by Titanium). It can even save original file dates/info to the remote location. You can also ask the app to delete the synced files once they have been copied to the remote location. Syncness ftp's the files to my Synology FileStation NAS server on my home network - I'm not sure what other transfer protocols are supported.
/Jakob

WM user looking at Android - some feedback pls ?

Hi,
Just as the title says, I am a very long time (since 2002) WM user. My current phone is also a WM device. I will keep it for another year, and I want to be prepared once my phone is due for an upgrade.
I use the phone both for personal stuff and for work - mainly scheduling, working with project related info, task lists, excel spreadsheets etc. Ability to share PIM data and files across multiple computers at work and at home is essential, as well as syncing to online calendar (I use Google).
Most of my work and some personal info was in ListPro database files and Excel spreadsheets. However, ListPro doesn't really work well when one has to joggle info between different computers all running different OS, plus AFAIK there's no Androind app yet. Anyway, to make life simple, and to be able to bring my data with me on a USB stick to any computer, I recently migrated most of it out of ListPro files into DOC files (can be easily converted to RTF) and Excel spreadsheets. So far, I had no problems using it on any Windows or Linux system. I also sync much of this data to my phone where I can quickly access it via Pocket Office. I prefer to use formatted text as it makes it easy to work with information, and applying formatting in Pocket Word is fast.
Finally the next big thing is information backup, especially PIM data. Don't know if this problem is specific to ActiveSync on WM, but every now and then the calendar gets completely out of whack and needs to be restored from backup which I run daily on the phone.
Anyway, sorry for the long winged intro. Here are some questions:
How easy is it to sync files on an Android phone to a computer via a direct connection (USB / BT / WiFi, i.e. not via cloud) ?
I was looking online for a good free Android editor capable of working with either RTF or Word Doc files, and couldn't find any - all I found was some paid soft. It has to be one of these formats so that I could send files to other people. Can you recommend an app ?
Can you work with PIM data on Android phone offline ? (I assume yes). Does it have to be connected to the internet at all time ? (I assume not)
Is there a free Excel compatible application other than Google Docs ? I.e. an app that can work with native Excel files and would output a file that Excel users can open on the computer.
How does backup work on Android - is there a way to automatically backup Google Calendar, Contacts, ToDos ? (I know I can download ICS files manually).
Any other things I may have overlooked ?
Thanks !

1. It is quite easy to sync files between an android phone and pc. It depends on your phone brand.e.g. - If you have an HTC Android phone, you could simply download and install HTC Sync on your pc and easily sync anything.
2. For document editing and excel format dealings, you could download and install quickoffice pro to easily deal with word, excel, powerpoint, and pdf documents.
3. Accounts and syncs (online) can easily be set to run in the background and you can download backup applications.
Good luck.

Your PIM data is backed up to Google contacts and calendar automatically. Any change made on your phone or PC syncs to the other next time you connect. As far as backups go, you can use things like Titanium Backup to back up individual/all system apps, installed apps, and their data to either the local SD card, online to DropBox, or both. And, if you root, you can take backup snapshots of your entire system and restore your entire OS and all the configuration of installed apps and widgets in just a couple of minutes. I do the full app backup nightly and the full OS backup about once a week.
Syncing is easy as your computer mounts the SD card as a drive letter on your device. There are lots of sync options out there that can be used to automatically sync files or entire folders to removable drives when they are connected. You can use them to sync documents to and from as well as things like syncing your phone backups to the computer. Both HTC and Motorola have sync software as well that acts somewhat like iTunes or Windows Media Player in syncing things like music libraries to your device. Personally, I prefer the old file explorer method.
As far as your RTF and Excel files go, there are a couple of different apps out there that work with Google Docs. If you don't want to sync with Google Docs at all or use their editors, your best bet is one of the office suite packages. I know of three or four of them that are available. Some offer free readers, but you need to purchase the pro version to edit. There is an Excel editor that I saw that was only $2 though, so there ARE cheap options out there if you don't want to go the free Google Docs route. Personally, I just sync my docs folder on my laptop with Google Docs and do any small edits I need on the Android using Google Docs. If I want to do a lot of heavy editing, I use the big screen of the laptop anyway.
If you have any other questions, I'll be following this thread and will respond with whatever I know. I know the stress of deciding to move to another platform. I've been on Palm, Blackberry, WM, iOS, and now Android. And, I have to tell you, I like the Android best of all and can't think of a single thing that I used to do on those other devices that I cannot do on this one.

Thanks, guys !
The reason I don't like using Google Docs is twofold. First, and foremost, the access to GD service via our corporate internet is blocked. I work for a major corporation, and as far as I know, at least two of our biggest competiors block GD as well. (We at least can access gmail and calendar). They see it as a potential security issue. Actually for me it's a security issue as well - if anyone ever got hold of my Google password, I definitely don't want them browsing through some of my personal spreadsheets, or any of my work-related stuff. It may be ok for them to see the list of invites to my kids' party, but definitely not my 401K rebalancing sheet . I do use Docs as dropbox, but I upload excel files saved inside AES encrypted zip archive.
Second, I need Doc and Excel since many of my work docs get shared with other people, and I like to be able to email them right away in a useful format.
Thanks ! I will keep reading up on the subject. My wife does have an Android phone but I don't have time to play with it at home.
Added: another thing that bugs me about Android, is that whomever steals your phone has full access to all of your Google services. The way it works on WM, they would only be able to see a few days' worth of emails (I do not save passwords to sensitive sites in browser cookies). The way Android phone is fully integrated into online Google, however, makes it a perfect key to all your Google data. I password protected her phone but I don't put too much trust into a 4-digit PIN.

[SugarSync] Backup files to the cloud!

Hi, friends!
I'd like to share with you a very nice way I discovered these days to have all my files backed up to the cloud: it's called SugarSync.
It looks like Dropbox, but in my opinion it's much better. In DP you have to put all your files in a folder, which should be syncronized to the cloud.
With SugarSync all you have to do is select the folders you want to sync and it's ok!
They have a Android app that gives you the option to back up your pictures in background also. In this android app, you should have access to all your computer's/MAC's files.
Take a look at these videos:
If you register, you get 5 gb for free https://www.sugarsync.com/
But if you register from this other link, you shoud get extra 500 mb! https://www.sugarsync.com/referral?rf=bc666tvfa7oyg
Happy new year to all!

Just a reminder: after complete the form, don't forget to install the program on your PC or Mac to be able to sync your data

Some people have asked me by PM if they have to remember to sync the files: the answer is NO! The program syncs all data automaticaly. Just after putting new files or modifying existing ones, they are uploaded to the cloud.

Great news from SugarSync guys: the new Android app now has the capability of automatically sync videos over WiFi networks. No more worries about forgetting to backup them.
http://www.sugarsync.com/blog/2012/01/04/new-android-app-reinvents-mobile-video-sync/

titanium backup has had such service since early last year, you can sync you backups directly to your dropbox
1 click backup to dropbox
1 click restore from dropbox

AllGamer said:
titanium backup has had such service since early last year, you can sync you backups directly to your dropbox
1 click backup to dropbox
1 click restore from dropbox
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't know about Titanium backup. But do they offer anything to sync files from PC or MAC to the gadgets?

Please us this thread for storage and referrals: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=840940