Ricky Says

Question: I have some pictures I took with my Blackberry Curve that I'd like to copy over to my computer. How do I do this?

Answer: With Blackberry phones you have a few choices for copying photos to your computer, or for copying them from your computer to your Blackberry. These instructions also work for copying music files and videos.

1. Transfer via email. This is the easiest way, and doesn't cost any money because data transfer is included in the Blackberry service. With the picture open on your Blackberry (Media -- Pictures -- My Pictures -- and then find your picture), press the menu button and select "Send As Email" (you have to scroll down a ways on the menu to find this option).

The email will show up on your computer with a file attachment containing your picture in jpg format, which is compatible with any photo imaging programs and will even open in Microsoft Paint (although I recommend a program like Paint.NET which is free and awesome).

The only drawback with the email approach is that you can only send one picture at a time, which gets a little tedious if you have several pictures you'd like to copy to your computer. In that case I recommend the USB data cable approach described below.

2. Transfer using bluetooth.

Open the Media application on your Blackberry to view your pictures, and open the picture that you want to transfer. Press the menu button and select "Send Using Bluetooth" (you'll have to scroll down the menu towards the bottom to see this option).

You have to have Bluetooth enabled on your BB, otherwise you'll see a warning message:

Question: How can I transfer my itunes songs and videos into my Blackberry 8330 curve?

Answer: Blackberry curves let you play mp3 music just like an iPod, and you can transfer songs and videos from iTunes to your Blackberry using an SD Micro memory card and a USB card reader.

Here's the general approach for transferring music files from your computer to a Blackberry:

1. Plug an SD Micro memory card into your computer using a USB card reader.

2. Copy music from your computer onto the SD Micro card.

3. Plug the SD Micro card into your Blackberry (behind the battery) and it will automatically recognized the music files.

Blackberry Curves come with 64 megs of built-in memory, which is barely enough for even a single music album. Fortunately, the Curve also has a memory expansion slot that allows up to 4 gigabytes of SD flash memory - the same amount of storage as an iPod nano.

You can get a 2 GB 3-in-1 microSD/miniSD/SD Kit from Wireless Emporium (shown below), which is enough for about 1,000 songs.

Combine it with a USB card reader (also available for a few bucks at Wireless Emporium), and you'll be able to plug it directly into your computer or laptop and transfer songs or videos to it from iTunes.

The memory expansion slot is located behind the battery, so you'll need to turn off your Blackberry and remove the battery to get to it. The memory expansion slot takes SD Micro flash disks, which are about 1 cm in size.

Question: I have a bunch of music in iTunes on my old computer. How do I transfer my iTunes library to my new computer?

Answer: There are two ways to do this: 1) by manually copying your iTunes music files to an external hard drive and then manually copy them to your new computer, and 2) using a program like iPod 2 iTunes or MediaPilot that let you copy music from your iPod directly to another computer.

I'll cover the manual route first, which is a little harder and requires that you have an external hard drive, and then I'll show you the easy way using just your existing iPod and an inexpensive copy of iPod 2 iTunes.

Manually copy your iTunes library to another computer using a external hard drive

Plug in your external hard drive to your computer. Open Windows Explorer and go to your iTunes music folder. On Vista it's C:\Users\your.username\Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music. On Windows XP it's under Documents and Settings.

Copy the iTunes Music folder to your external hard drive, and then plug the hard drive into the other computer.

Make sure iTunes is installed on the other computer, and just copy the contents of the iTunes Music folder from your external hard drive to the new computer (in the same location as the old computer). iTunes will recognize the files the next time you run it, and you'll be good to go.

Automatically copy your iTunes library to another computer with third-party software

A much easier option if you have all the music on your iPod is to use a third-party program that will copy music from your iPod to your computer (basically using your iPod as an external hard drive).

There are a couple of programs that you can use to upload music from your iPod to any computer running iTunes.

MediaPilot:

Question: My iPod has totally stopped working. It won't charge when plugged into the computer and won't turn on at all. Could it be a battery issue? As far as iTunes goes, how can I transfer my entire library over from our old computer to our new computer? I've tried copying and pasting and I installed the iTunes from the disk but my library is still empty? Thanks - Jean

Answer: Jean, you're not alone with the whole iPod freezing situation. I just bought my wife an iPod nano for Valentine's Day, and two days later it completely froze up. The kids had been playing with it, and I think they just got a little crazy with all the buttons.

Resetting a Frozen iPod

The trick for resetting a frozen iPod is to press the Menu and center button at the same time and hold them for about 6 seconds. You should see the Apple icon and your iPod should restart. Give that a try and let me know if it does the trick. If it doesn't work, then I recommend taking your iPod into an Apple store where they can check if the battery is fried.

Copying Music from an Old Computer to a New Computer

By far the most frequently asked question I receive at RickySays.com is "How do I transfer a photo from my computer to my cell phone? (or vice versa)"

Cell phone manufacturers don't ship software with their phones that would do this for free, because they'd rather make money on transfer fees. Windows doesn't provide any help either.

For example, I bought a Motorola Razr v3 phone and it only came with a user's manual and a charger; there was no software for transferring any files to my computer, and nothing built into Windows XP or Vista that would recognize my phone.

Fortunately there are a few ways to transfer photos or ring tones from your PC to your cell phone (or from your cell phone to your PC):

1. Email
2. Bluetooth
3. USB Data Cable

I'll discuss each of these approaches in this article.

Email

You can send your phone an email with the photo or ring tone as a file attachment. For AT&T/Cingular customers the email address is your_number@cingularme.com. For example, if your cell phone number is 691-548-1294 then you'd send an email to 6915481294@cingularme.com and it would arrive as a text message on your cell phone.

Once you receive the text message on your cell phone, you can view the photo or ring tone and save it as your wallpaper or in your phone's audio library. On the Motorola Razr, when you view the picture you can select the "Set as Wallpaper" menu option.

The downside to this approach is that it costs money to read text messages - as much as a penny a kilobyte. This might not sound like much, but when you consider that most pictures are about 75kb that adds up to about 75 cents for each photo that you send.

Of course cell phone companies want you to transfer photos from your cell phone using email, because that way they can charge your for the data transfer.