Bluetooth phone book transfer using a laptop

Re: Bluetooth phone book transfer - laptop

Wes,

I don't use the Business Card Exchange to transfer phone entries, b/c that's limited to one by one transfer. I use that to pair, since the pairing is much more straight-forward than using the wizard. No going back a dialogue box and whatnot; you just detect the Prius handsfree and install it.

The Start Using Bluetooth is only on a fresh install. I listed it to clear any confusion by people who have just installed the WIDCOMM software and right-click the BT tray icon and don't see Quick Connect.

I guess from my instructions, I did indicate that it was the initial setup and how to go about transferring entries later. I'll update my post.

I'm just going through all this in my typically thorough fashion. My setup is now pretty satisfactory. I just wanted to post what I've found to be the the quickest most straightforward laptop Bluetooth transfer method from my hours of experimentation so others hopefully won't go through the same frustration I did.

Since I don't use BT for anything other than handsfree and phone transfer, the vulnerabilities don't really bother me. It sounds like a bit of mucking around is required to get the DBT-120 to work, so I'm gonna pass on that for the time being. Maybe I'll mess with them when I get the TrueMobile 350 BT adapter which installs internally on my Dell laptop. Thanks for the link to the new drivers.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jayfinke\";p=\"104267)</div>

Jay,

Had to do it the same way. Took a long time. I wish there was a way to get the entire phonebook into the Bluetooth from the V600 but I couldn't figure out a way.

Mike :x

 

Re: Bluetooth phone book transfer

If it's possible to change the title of this, I think "laptop" should be somewhere in the title so that it stands out when people search for it.

 

Has anyone done a laptop transfer from a Dell with the built in Dell Bluetooth software? I didn't get to spend a lot of time with it. I was able to see the car in the search / browse of devices. Tried the quick connect, didn't find anything to connect to when doing the Business Card Exchange.

I'll mess with it more later, just wondering if anyone has been down this road....

Ken

 

OK, I worked on this a little last night. Got the Laptop thing to work somewhat. After reading things closer I finally grasped the concept that your phone (my Blackberry) must be paired and connected with the car, then you bring your laptop on line, start the transfer from the Prius but instead of sending from my phone I send from the laptop. Trick the Prius...

I need to mess with my laptop, I'm not able to do the bulk send from within Outlook, the Bluetooth menu is there but the sub-menu is not so it isn't working.

So I was able to transfer one at a time, which is a pain in itself. But for some reason I was also losing my BT connection with the phone after a single transfer. Had to turn the car off, then back on to reset. Pain.

I'll mess with that more and see if I can get some instructions together.

Another option I came up with though is to just use another phone. My wife has a BT phone (RAZR) that does support transfers. Could just borrow one from someone as well. Just swap SIM cards in the phones to move your addressbook over, then do the transfer.

Ken

 

Here's my two bits (well, maybe a few more than two...) -
I need to delete the HANDSFREE definition from my laptop and re-pair the Prius to the Laptop every transfer, but once it's paired, I can re-initiate the transfer if I just wait for the phone to reconnect after each attempt -- about 10 seconds.

I have a Motorola e815, which doesn't do the whole-phonebook transfer. therefore, I wrote a program in VBA for Microsoft Access that will work with an exported contact list from Microsoft Outlook to create a multi-entry .VCF file, allowing the contact list to be loaded all at once. The ground rules are:
1. The User1 field in the Outlook database is used to indicate which Outlook entries to include in the converted VCF file. You can either add it to the Phone List View by clicking "Customize Current View" in the Contacts screen, or you can add it to the data table in the export.
2. The export .MDB file is created in the Contacts section of Outlook by using File/Import and Export to export to a file, and selecting Microsoft Access as the destination. The default file name of Outlook.MDB should be used, and my program expects it to be stored in the C:\ folder.
3. The program is in Converter.MDB, which will usually cause Access to ask if you really want to load this file due to the dangers of virus infection. If you choose "No", you're on your own.
4. Selecting Tools/Macro/Run Macro/DumpVCF will run the program to create file Contacts.VCF in the C:\ folder. All non-numeric characters are stripped from phone numbers, and only entries with a value in the USER1 field are included in the output file. There are some decisions embodied in the program; e.g., it uses business phone first, home phone second, and mobile phone third as the riority to convert phone numbers. VBA aficionados can customize to their hearts' content.
5. I delete the phone from the PC device list, turn on the PRIUS, select ADD PHONE on the PRIUS setup screen, and then have the laptop scan for devices. The protocol doesn't complete for me, so once the laptop has submitted the 1212 key for pairing, I have to cancel the PRIUS side to continue.
6. After waiting 10 seconds for my phone to re-bond with the PRIUS, I can then start the phone book transfer. Right-clicking on the Contacts.VCF file brings up a context menu that provides "Send To.../Bluetooth Device", which does just fine. Any problem that occurs with the transfer is probably due to unusual characters in the phone number or name, and you can edit the .VCF file to see which might be the case.

Hapy Transferring!

 

Here's my two bits (well, maybe a few more than two...) -
I need to delete the HANDSFREE definition from my laptop and re-pair the Prius to the Laptop every transfer, but once it's paired, I can re-initiate the transfer if I just wait for the phone to reconnect after each attempt -- about 10 seconds.

I have a Motorola e815, which doesn't do the whole-phonebook transfer. therefore, I wrote a program in VBA for Microsoft Access that will work with an exported contact list from Microsoft Outlook to create a multi-entry .VCF file, allowing the contact list to be loaded all at once. The ground rules are:
1. The User1 field in the Outlook database is used to indicate which Outlook entries to include in the converted VCF file. You can either add it to the Phone List View by clicking "Customize Current View" in the Contacts screen, or you can add it to the data table in the export.
2. The export .MDB file is created in the Contacts section of Outlook by using File/Import and Export to export to a file, and selecting Microsoft Access as the destination. The default file name of Outlook.MDB should be used, and my program expects it to be stored in the C:\ folder.
3. The program is in Converter.MDB, which will usually cause Access to ask if you really want to load this file due to the dangers of virus infection. If you choose "No", you're on your own.
4. Selecting Tools/Macro/Run Macro/DumpVCF will run the program to create file Contacts.VCF in the C:\ folder. All non-numeric characters are stripped from phone numbers, and only entries with a value in the USER1 field are included in the output file. There are some decisions embodied in the program; e.g., it uses business phone first, home phone second, and mobile phone third as the riority to convert phone numbers. VBA aficionados can customize to their hearts' content.
5. I delete the phone from the PC device list, turn on the PRIUS, select ADD PHONE on the PRIUS setup screen, and then have the laptop scan for devices. The protocol doesn't complete for me, so once the laptop has submitted the 1212 key for pairing, I have to cancel the PRIUS side to continue.
6. After waiting 10 seconds for my phone to re-bond with the PRIUS, I can then start the phone book transfer. Right-clicking on the Contacts.VCF file brings up a context menu that provides "Send To.../Bluetooth Device", which does just fine. Any problem that occurs with the transfer is probably due to unusual characters in the phone number or name, and you can edit the .VCF file to see which might be the case.

Hapy Transferring!

PS - Okay, so the Board won't upload .MDB files. Here's the zipped version.

 

Boy thanks for doing this. I'll give it a try this weekend, I hope this works for me as well.

You mention the User1 field is used to indicate which entries are included. What do you put in that field, what is the syntax? What I was thinking was that you would put a 1 or something in there indicating to include it in the export?

Would be good if the other user fields could be used to put the "short name" and phone number format for the Prius. For example, I may have an entry in Outlook called Doe, John. But then in User2 I specify John-W which is what would be exported for the display name on the Prius. This way I could have one record in Outlook for the different formating.

Not sure if that makes sense or not.....

 

I get an error message on running the macro:

Microsoft Access can't find the name 'DumpContacts' you entered in the expression

Am I doing something foolish? :blink:

 

I must be foolish too. I got the same error. Any ideas?

 

Thanks to kpauley for cluning me in that people were having trouble running the macro. Microsoft has done some anal things to avoid criticism since virus creators have used Access to propagate their wares, and this may be the problem. If you open the Access databse and then hold down the ALT key and press the F11 key, the programming interface will appear. Place the cursor anywhere on or after the line saying "Sub DumpContents" and press the F5 key, and that will run the program. The file Contacts.VCF should be in your C:\ folder afterwards. If not, feel free to contact me -- it may take a phone call to get to the bottom of it, but I'll help all I can. Thanks!

 

Place the cursor anywhere on or after the line saying "Sub DumpContents" and press the F5 key, and that will run the program.


That text doesn't show up in the code at least on my machine

The file Contacts.VCF should be in your C:\ folder afterwards. If not, feel free to contact me -- it may take a phone call to get to the bottom of it, but I'll help all I can. Thanks!

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I'm not seeing that in the code either, Maybe the complete code was not uploaded?

Can you upload a copy of the VCF file as well that would show the file layout? Some may have a small list of addresses and could just edit that file directly?

Ken

 

OK, I got this working, I now have a phone book!

I didn't use the Access converter, but that helped provide me with the format that was needed. Here's what you need to do. Create a .VCF file with all of your phone book entries The format of the file should be:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:Name1
FN:Name1
TEL;HOME;VOICE:12223334444
REV:20051030T035915Z
END:VCARD

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:Name2
FN:Name2
TEL;HOME;VOICE:12223334444
REV:20051030T035915Z
END:VCARD

And so on... Each name field can only be 9 characters long.

Once I had this file, I was able to do the transfer the way described in the previous laptop transfer method. I start the transfer from the Prius, when I hit that the Cancel button on the Prius display would not be functional for about 5 seconds, I would then lose my bluetooth connection on my phone, and the cancel light would activate. I would then right click on the Bluetooth icon, choose Quick Connect and then Business Card Exchange. Then double-click on Hands Free and I would be able to choose what to transfer. In the dialog that pops up I can choose the Select A Business Card from File, point to your VCF file and you can start your transfer.

Ken

 

I tried your fix and it partially worked. It did create a Contacts.vcf but in the My Documents folder and only one record (Contact) was created. Getting Close!

 

Me, too! All contacts transferred at once with a file although the last entry didn't so I repeated it once and now all are present. Seeing the code for the vcf file structure did the trick. Thanks all for your help although I'd love to get the VB macro working since editing the list manually was a bit of a pain..

[ quote=kpauley,Oct 30 2005, 12:09 AM]
OK, I got this working, I now have a phone book!

I didn't use the Access converter, but that helped provide me with the format that was needed. Here's what you need to do. Create a .VCF file with all of your phone book entries The format of the file should be:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:Name1
FN:Name1
TEL;HOME;VOICE:12223334444
REV:20051030T035915Z
END:VCARD

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:Name2
FN:Name2
TEL;HOME;VOICE:12223334444
REV:20051030T035915Z
END:VCARD

And so on... Each name field can only be 9 characters long.

Once I had this file, I was able to do the transfer the way described in the previous laptop transfer method. I start the transfer from the Prius, when I hit that the Cancel button on the Prius display would not be functional for about 5 seconds, I would then lose my bluetooth connection on my phone, and the cancel light would activate. I would then right click on the Bluetooth icon, choose Quick Connect and then Business Card Exchange. Then double-click on Hands Free and I would be able to choose what to transfer. In the dialog that pops up I can choose the Select A Business Card from File, point to your VCF file and you can start your transfer.

Ken

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This post inspired me to try to transfer a .vcf file directly from my Treo 650 to the Prius phone book (ordinarily you can only transfer one number at a time from the Treo).

I was able to do this by exporting my contacts to a vcard file using the Mac OS X Address Book application (set the vcard format to 2.1 in preferences; the 3.0 format didn't work well for me when I tried it) and sending the vcard file to the Treo. From there you can use Documents to Go to send the vcard file to the Prius (send the file via bluetooth in Docs to Go to the "Handsfree" device after you've pressed "transfer" on the Prius MFD). The only wrinkle in the process is that you have to rename the vcard file to get the Documents to Go app to recognize the file. I renamed it to vcards.vcf.doc before copying the file to the Treo, causing Docs to Go to treat the file as an MS Word file.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Prius seems to accept only the last phone number entry per contact. On my first attempt this caused the Prius to import a lot of fax numbers (the last number listed in most of the vcard records). You can fix this by poring through your vcard file and deleting the phone numbers you do not want to import. Alternatively, you could copy the vcard records, using different phone numbers for each copy. The Prius will import duplicate names.

Step-by-step

1) make a vcard file in Address Book (or Outlook or whatever);

2) use a text editor to edit out the phone numbers you do not want to send to the Prius; you can also create duplicate vcard records if you want to import more than one phone number for a contact;

3) rename your vcards file, adding the ".doc" extension;

4) copy the vcard file to the Docs to Go directory on your Treo (you can use Docs to Go to do this or you can use a Bluetooth file transfer utility, such as Apple's "Bluetooth File Exchange.app");

5) initiate a phone book transfer from the Prius (under "Settings:Transfer");

6) press "add" or "replace";

5) using the Docs to Go app on your Treo "send" the vcard file via Bluetooth to the Prius ("Handsfree device")

All records will be transferred. Now you have to reset your one-touch keys.

 

Good info. However, it is only necessary for certain wireless providers. The Sprint Treo 650 can transfer the entire phonebook directly (provided it meets the Prius single number per name & no ()- format constraints).

 

Microsoft has put numerous virus protection measures into effect, which stand in the way of allowing VBA macros to load and run. I develop for a living, and don't remember all the disabling I did to keep those features out of my way. If you open Converter.MDB you should see the Database window; if you then press ALT-F11, you should see the Visual Basic code window shouwing "Sub DumpContacts()". Any dialogs along the way that ask if you want to load macros should be answered positively. If that doesn't work, use Internet Explorer to temporarily (I repeat, TEMPORARILY) set your security level to minimal, so that programs can be executed. If you don't see the VBA code, send me an email with what dialog boxes etc. you did see, so that I can help navigate through them. Press on, it's worth having an easily repeatable phonebook download.

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Thank you! This approach was a BIG improvement over the 1-at-a-time approach I had been able to work out before.