Ricky Says

Question: How do I transfer photos from my new LG Shine CU720 to my PC?

Answer: The user's guide for the Shine is really vague on how to do this. From page 85 is says: "You can transfer files from a compatible PC to the memory in your phone using the Mass Storage option. When you connect the phone to a PC using the USB cable, this will be displayed as a removable disk through Windows Explorer."

Not much help at all, and they fail to mention that you have to buy and insert a memory card into your phone before mass storage is even an option!

This article will explain in more detail how to transfer photos from your LG Shine to your PC computer.

What you'll need:

• MicroSD memory card (you can get one from Wireless Emporium for about $20)
• USB Data Cable (any standard usb cable will work)

Once you have the memory card and usb cable, here are the instructions you'll need to follow:

1. Insert the memory card into your phone.
2. Go to Settings, Connection, USB Connection Mode, and select Mass Storage.
3. Connect the phone to the computer with the data cable and your computer should recognize and install a driver.
4. Once the driver is installed, you can view the phone just as you would a removable hard drive. Simply drag and drop any mp3s or photos directly from the phone to your computer (or vice versa).

Question: I need to move some pictures from my phone to my PC. I have a usb cable, but I can't see the screen on my phone. AT&T sent me a new phone but need pictures off the old phone. Can you help me with this?

Answer: You can still transfer pictures from your cell phone to your computer if the screen is broken, by using your usb data cable and driver software to handle the transfer (which doesn't rely on your phone menus or screen).

The usb cable will connect your phone to your PC, and the driver software will show you a list of all the files on your phone. That includes photos, ring tones, contacts, and videos (if your phone plays videos).

Here's what you'll need to do:

1. Turn your cell phone on and connect it to your computer using the usb data cable.

Any data cable that fits the standard usb port on your phone and your computer will work, so there's no need to go buy an expensive cable. It will also charge your phone while it's connected.

2. Start up the driver software that came with the USB cable, which will find your phone and search through the files that are loaded on it.

If no software came with your USB data cable, then you'll need to purchase that separately, since Windows needs the right drivers in order to recognize your phone.

A couple programs I've tried and recommend are DataPilot and also the Ringtone Media program from Avanquest (handles picture transfers and ringtone creation/transfer).

Question: I just lost my ipod that had a ton of songs on it. So now I have to buy those songs all over again and load them on my new ipod! Is there a way for me to backup these songs I'm buying, so that if my ipod goes belly up again then I won't lose my music investment?

Answer: Wow, sorry to hear that you lost all those tunes - that can be really expensive!

iTunes does have a built-in backup feature, but it requires you to use a recordable CD for each album. You can access this feature by selecting the songs you want to back up, and then selecting the "File" - "Back Up To Disc" menu in iTunes.

That'll convert your mp3 songs to audio format that you can play from a CD or DVD player, but you'll burn through a LOT of discs for several gigs of music files that live on most ipods.

A more ideal solution would be to back up all of your ipod music to a single location on your computer, and preferably an external hard drive.

MediaPilot has a slick backup feature that lets you backup all of your ipod music to a single location on your hard drive. No recordable CDs or DVDs are needed with this approach either.

Here's how it works.

1. Plug your ipod into your computer using the regular data cable, which should start itunes.

2. Download a copy of MediaPilot, install it and run it on your system.
3. Select the Tools - iPod File Backup menu.

4. Choose a backup folder location and identify how you'd like the backup folders to be organized.

Question: I recently bought a new iPhone 3G and want to copy all my contacts from my old phone to the new phone. I have quite a few and don't want to have to type them each into the iPhone as it would take forever. Is there a faster way to do this?

Answer: Yes, there's a much faster way to do this by using your iPhone's ability to sync with your Outlook contacts. If you can download your old phone's contacts into Outlook, Outlook Express, or Windows Mail for Vista users, then you'll be able to sync them to your new iPhone using iTunes.

Here's what you'll need:

1. iTunes loaded on your computer (free from Apple).
2. USB data cable to connect your old phone to your computer.
3. Software to transfer contacts from your old phone to Outlook or Outlook Express, which iTunes can then import into your iPhone.

Here's how to do it:

1. Connect your old phone to your computer with a USB data cable.

2. Copy your old phone's contacts to your computer using DataPilot, which works with all major phone types (download here and install on your computer).

DataPilot copies your contacts from your old phone into Outlook, Outlook Express, or Windows Mail if you're using Vista. Then iTunes can import these contacts into your iPhone

3. Run DataPilot and click the Read All button to load all of your phone's contacts.

4. Open Microsoft Outlook and create a new My iPhone folder in your Contacts. This will also work in Outlook Express.

Question: My wife and I are pay-as-you-go T-Mobile customers who have just found that the Razr V3 phones give us most of what we're looking for; however in trying to "rescue" some photos off our old phones to bring some shots we valued over to the new ones, I was told that we couldn't email the photos from our computer back to our new phones without signing up for some other service that our pay-as-you-go accounts didn't at this point provide.

Can you explain to me what they're talking about? (PS. I was able to save our old phone photos by putting our sim cards back into our old phones-one at a time-and sending the photos to each other's new phones, then swapping them with each other's new phones).

Answer: The service they're referring to is probably a data plan, which is what I also am required to have in order to email pictures with my AT&T plan. Transferring photos can be expensive though, with rates often running at 10 cents per kb of file size (meaning that even a small 100kb picture would cost you a dollar each time you transfer it).

An easier and free (well, free aside from the software) way to transfer pictures between a Razr phone and your computer is to use Motorola's PhoneTools software to transfer them using a USB data cable.