Ricky Says

Just traded in your Blackberry for a shiny new iPhone? Wise choice.

Here's how to transfer contacts from your old Blackberry to your new iPhone, and without buying anything extra along the way (completely free solution).

We'll do this in two main steps:

1. Transfer contacts from the Blackberry address book to Outlook on your computer (or Windows Mail).

2. Sync your iPhone with your computer using iTunes, which will transfer the contacts from Outlook to your iPhone.

Make sure that both the Blackberry Desktop Manager and iTunes are installed on your system, and that your Blackberry is connected to your computer with a usb data cable.

Transfer contacts from a Blackberry to Outlook

Run the Blackberry Desktop Manager program and click "Synchronize" from the main menu screen. Select "Synchronization" below the Configuration menu option to get to the Synchronization Configuration screen.

There you'll click the "Synchronization" button to configure the synchronization settings.

(that was a mouthfull of synch-related words wasn't it? Hang in there)

You'll be asked to choose the device applications to synchronize. Choose "Address Book", and then choose "Outlook".

If you don't have Outlook on your system, then you can choose "Windows Mail" instead.

Next you'll configure how you want to sync your contacts, either bi-directionally or just from your blackberry to Outlook (which is the option I chose):

Click "Next" and then "Finish" to complete the synchronization settings. This will take you back to the synchronization screen.

I love all the free applications that you can download for the iPhone through the App Store, and was looking for something to let me use the iPhone as a storage drive - like what I can do with my iPod. In particular, I wanted to be able to copy pdf files from my PC to my iPhone, to read them later on the bus ride home from work.

After looking at a few different file browser applications (all of which actually used an online service to store and retrieve files from an iPhone) I discovered a free service called Box.net. It gives you a free 1 GB online file repository that you can upload files to from your PC or Mac.

With the Box.net service, you can store and access your files through your iphone and through any web browser, and without taking up any additional space on your iphone.

It's basically a secure online hard-drive. No need to carry a flash drive around any longer, and no need to sync your iPhone with your computer to view these files.

Do a search in the App Store for "box.net" and you can download the free iPhone application that let's you access your online files.

Once you download and install the box.net iPhone application, then you'll be able to log into your online Box account and view the files that are stored there:

I'm a big fan of free stuff, especially when it works as well as this service does! The 1 GB account is completely free, and you can upgrade to 5 gigs or more for a nominal monthly storage cost.

I recently went to Zurich for a week-long business trip (training developers on Jive Clearspace). I knew I'd need to use my iPhone for a variety of reasons, such as email, web access, chat, and google maps.

So like any responsible employee I went into the AT&T office and spoke directly with a rep about what international data plans I'd need to purchase, and how much it would cost me.

I bought a 100 MB data package for $129.99, and paid a $5 international plan that brought phone calls down to $.99 a minute (otherwise they'd cost me $1.29 a minute). I reset my iPhone usage before boarding the plane, and watched it like a hawk the whole time I was there.

Here's what it looked like as I stepped off the plane at the Chicago airport for my connecting flight, on October 25th:

Figured I couldn't have cut it any closer, but was only about 5 megs over the limit, give or take a few megs that might not have been reported by then (although it was a 10 hour flight, so it should have been pretty accurate by then).

That next day, AT&T calls me to let me know I had a bill of $2350 from my data usage! I calmly explained that I had purchased the data plan and after a little digging and keyboard clicking on their end they were able to find that I had indeed bought the plan and only owed for the 14 MB of overages and owed about $54 extra for those kilobytes.

I wasn't sure where they came up with 14 megs, but the $54 didn't sound to outrageous and so I let it go.

Fast forward a week to November 1st. I go online to check my bill and find that they've tacked on $460 of data roaming charges. They're calling them mobile-to-web "calls" and told me I must have been in an area where roaming charges applied.

The iPhone's built-in 2 megapixel auto-focusing camera makes it easy to snap decent quality photos, but the process for copying those photos to your computer using iTunes is clunky and a little different than you'd expect from most digital cameras.

Fortunately it's easy to just copy photos from your iPhone to your PC using Vista's built-in photo importer.

Here's how to copy pictures from your iPhone to Vista without using iTunes:

1. Plug in your iPhone to your computer using the usb data cable that comes with your iPhone. Windows Vista will detect your iPhone and ask you what actions you'd like to take:

2. Click "Import pictures" to start the import process.

3. Enter a keyword tag to let you easily find your pictures after they've been uploaded to your computer.

4. Click the "Import" button to start the import process. You can also choose to remove photos from your iPhone once they've been uploaded.

Once your photos have been copied over to your computer, Vista will open the Windows Photo Gallery that's included with Vista, and will show you the pictures you've just uploaded.

No syncing, no fuss, and no iTunes or extra software required. Just photos copied over to your PC like you'd expect.

The iPhone 3G will be my new travel companion when I leave for Zurich, Switzerland tomorrow morning (yep, I finally upgraded from my Blackberry Curve).

The iPhone has a lot to offer the international traveler, and here are 10 ways you can use the iPhone to help you on your next trip abroad (most are applicable even if you're just traveling to another state or province).

1. Mind the Time with a World Clock:

   Keeping track of the current time is the first thing I worry about when I travel across multiple time zones, and the iPhone lets you add a clock for every imaginable city in the world. I've added a clock for my destination city, my lay-over city, and my home city.

   
2. Pack for the Right Weather:

   You can add Yahoo! weather reports for any city, just by opening the Weather app and clicking the little "i" at the bottom right of the weather screen. You can store multiple weather reports and easily flip through them to see what the weather is like in other areas of the world.

   

   Looks like it's cold in Zurich in October, so I'll be sure to pack warm clothes for my trip.

3. Manage your Monday with Currency Convertors:

   Convertor Pro is a freebie that you can download from the App Store that lets you convert any currency to another. It's updated every hour with actual current rates too.

   

   You can also click the "i" in the upper right of the screen to view a graph of the currency conversion rate over the last 5 years - handy for evaluating global economic trends.

4. Learn the Lingo with Language Packs: