topic Re: PV as address book in PCs & Accessories

PV as address book

Joshharle — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 23:30:10 GMT

Hi everyone,
I'm just putting the finishing touches to a program to convert your Outlook/Lotus Notes/ Whatever address book (anything that will export to vCards) into a bunch of Contact Card images for your Vaio Pocket.

Very useful! Just upload the created USER_XXX directory into Vaio and you have a portable address book. Also lets you assign an different image to each person.

Here is an example

(with the details hidden for my mates privacy

The image does not need to be resized by the Vaio, and so loads quickly and looks perfect on "Low Quality" picture viewing mode.

This is just version .0001 or whatever, so if people think they'll use it, I'm open to sugestions and will fix up format, etc.

Should be available some time tomorrow.
Thanks,
Josh

Re: PV as address book

@4967457401015621 — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 23:38:48 GMT

that's really cool! i was thinking earlier on of the differences between my ipod and vp (other than the obvious; one works and the other doens't ) and that was one of the few useful features of my ipod that the vaio doesn't! cheers dude!

Re: PV as address book

Joshharle — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 23:43:15 GMT

Hey no problem To be honest I am doing it as much for my benefit as anyone else's, but I'm happy it looks like it'll be appreciated

(It seemed silly that you can have 40gigs of data, but so little of it can be accessed while "on the move")...

Re: PV as address book

STORM — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 00:31:35 GMT

Joshharle,Good Work...

The forum needs guys like you,whith good ideas for the VP,because whith sony i think we have to whait a long time for something new...
So Keep the good work and bring us good news and new features for VP.

Cheers Joshharle

Re: PV as address book

diverse — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:21:28 GMT

sounds good, your poor mate looks a bit hung over!

Re: PV as address book

Elkingti — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:08:34 GMT

Clap clap clap to you Joshharle, you¿ve done more work than some people of Sony.
Shame on Sony.
Vaio Pocket rival of iPod ?? I don¿t think so. I have a Vaio Pocket 20 G but I¿m realist,
IPod has much to offer, much much more.

Re: PV as address book

@4967457401015621 — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:19:58 GMT

Vaio Pocket rival of iPod ?? I don¿t think so. I have a Vaio Pocket 20 G but I¿m realist,
IPod has much to offer, much much more.

as an ipod and vaio pocket owner i can say i'd rather have the vp. yes, the software's horrible, but it does at least work. i've had my ipod replaced twice in two years, and now it's on its way out again but the warranty's expired (none of these have been battery issues btw). the customer support is terrible, i've spent many hours just waiting to speak to them. sony can fix the problems with the vaio, i got mine far cheaper than i could get an equivalent ipod and it's built muc better. but none of this will give the vaio pocket the iconic appeal of the ipod, and the lack of advertising doesn't help. also, the interace of the vp, which now i find much quicker to use than that of the ipod, is not nearly as intuitive which will only put people off. which is a shame

Re: PV as address book

Joshharle — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:50:01 GMT

Okay gang,
just need to cycle home, test this thing out, and then it will be up.
I must warn everyone that it isn't the prettiest thing in the world :smileygrin:

It takes .vcf files as input (vCard files exported from just about everything), but also has a go at doing csv files (comma seperated value files...). You'll probably want to get your Outlook/Lotus notes/ Whatever addressbook up to date if decide you like this.

See you on the other side of a cold windy bike ride

Josh

Re: PV as address book

Joshharle — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 20:45:52 GMT

Okay guys,
It's online and available here ...
There is a readmefirst.html included with the zip, so I advise you do so

Have fun - any questions give us a shout.
Hurrah!
Josh

Re: PV as address book

@4967457401015621 — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 20:48:40 GMT

great, just downloading it now. cheers mate..

Re: PV as address book

Joshharle — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 21:34:08 GMT

get it all working okay? First impressions?

There is a sample .vcf file there to try it out with: Example.vcf

Josh

Re: PV as address book

STORM — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 22:06:28 GMT

Hi Joshharl looks good but what i have to do to transfer the contact to vaio,i make this question because when i save as the contact make a word document whith the contact i make....

Can you explain what i have to do...

Cheers

Re: PV as address book

@4967457401015621 — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 22:08:15 GMT

yeah, it's working now (had some trouble downloading java but sorted it). first impressions are great! i got them all onto my vaio fine, think one of my vcards must have been corrupted cos it wouldn't read it, but i think that's the vcard not your program. my vcards are a little messed up at the moment, so i'll sort them out. other than that though it's excellent, good timing as well cos my phone died a couple of days ago, so i lost my portable contacts store! overall and thanks again!

Re: PV as address book

@4967457401015621 — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 22:13:46 GMT

Hi Joshharl looks good but what i have to do to transfer the contact to vaio,i make this question because when i save as the contact make a word document whith the contact i make....

Can you explain what i have to do...

Cheers

first up storm word shouldn't be coming into it, you need to get them into vcard (*.vcf) format. programs like outlook and other contacts programs can export files in this format. then open up josh's program, point it at the directory with the vcard files in then load them into the program.
hope that helps
ben

Re: PV as address book

STORM — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 22:18:19 GMT

Ok,Bentate thanks for the help...

Now i have the .vcf file,but how i put them in Vaio?

Re: PV as address book

@4967457401015621 — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 22:39:31 GMT

try the readme! ok, put all your .vcf files into a folder. then run josh's program (extract all the files* then run runme.bat). when the program loads, click on source and select the folder with your vcf cards in (don't double click, because otherwise you can only select one file at a time), click ok then click load contacts. click ok at all the prompts. if you want to add images to the contact cards (to be displayed on the vaio) then now add them to the appropriate folders in the 'ContactImages' folder then go back to the program (don't close it between these stages) and click generate jpgs. this will create a folder (user_001 by default) with all your contact cards as images that the vaio can display. copy this folder into the VAIO_Photo folder on your vaio (through windows explorer or similar) and that should be it! disconnect the vaio and go to the picture viewer on the vp and browse your contacts.

*you need to extract all the files from the zip file that the program comes in. if you're running windows xp it will prompt you to extract the when you doubleclick the runme.bat file. for other os's you'll have to use a program such as winzip

Re: PV as address book

STORM — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 23:30:44 GMT

Don´t Work

I´m doing something Wrong?

1-Put the .vcf files in one Folder like (Contacts)
2-Open the runme.bat
3-Open source like storm.vcf
4-Message of the program"Unknown Source", Many times...

Re: PV as address book

@4967457401015621 — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 23:51:18 GMT

sounds about right.. hmm.. what did you create the vcf files in? do they open properly in another program (the one you created them in)? if yes you could try re extracting it, in case a file has been corrupted or overwritten somewhere down the line? i couldn't get an "unknown source" error when i tried. you probably want to select the contacts folder as your source though, rather than one file (e.g. storm.vcf). which was the last button you clicked before getting the "unknown source" error?

Re: PV as address book

Joshharle — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 00:20:51 GMT

Storm:
Hmm. Can't see where it would would be producing an "unknown source" message.

If you save this debug.bat file to the same place as runme.bat, and use it instead of runme, it will produce a debug log which you can send to me if you'd like. Will maybe give me an idea of what's going on.

Thanks, and sorry you're having difficulties!

Josh

Re: PV as address book

STORM — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 00:22:13 GMT

Same error...Unknown Source

I Think i need to Sleep!!!

I create the .vcf file in outlook whit the program Vcard...

Thanks For the Patience...