Tech tutorials, howtos and walkthroughs

By now folks you may have read my article How to make you own Micro-SIM or Nano-SIM Card and How to Access LIME or Digicel’s 4G Internet using an unlocked 4G LTE Modem Dongle, smartphone or Tablet and realized that being part of the “IN” Crowd with your Blackberry may not win you much admiration with the nascent and newly emergent uber-Geek “SMART” Crowd. Consisting of mostly IT peeps and “techies”, they’re not so popular at the workplace.

But they’re gear, smartphones and Tablets, are carrying the swing at the water cooler and in the lunch room right now as Millennials (ages 18 to 28) are leading the transition to Mobile Computing on smartphones and Tablets as noted in Apple iPhone boosts Jamaican smartphone usage as BB goes Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, something your Blackberry can’t do.

Additionally, Apple iPhone and Google Android phones can do a lot of stuff that your Blackberry can’t such as:

  • Additionally functionality enable by Apps
  • Streaming Video and music over Wi-Fi and 3G from LIME or Digicel
  • Surf the web on a Browser
  • Video Calling
  • IM (Instant Messaging) Platform support for WhatsApp that can communicate with any smartphone.

So now that you’ve decided that these added advantages are worth ditching your Blackberry and the “IN” crowd to join the “SMART” crowd, how do you get your stuff that on your Blackberry onto the Apple iPhone, Apple iPad or a Google Android smartphone or Tablet? Specifically the following:

  • Mail, Contacts, calendars, and data
  • Music, Videos and Photos

At this point, you know it’s a DIY that’s coming up next, right? Folks, assemble the following items to make the process that less time consuming and painless:

  • Notepad
  • Pen
  • iTunes
  • Blackberry Desktop
  • Google Sync Appfor Blackberry
  • Virus-free Laptop or PC for Windows users
  • Macbook or Apple Mac for iOS Users
  • Connecting Cables for your new Apple iPhone, Apple iPad or a Google Android smartphone or Tablet
  • Internet Access (5MBps or faster) on your PC or Mac
  • Wireless Internet Access on your Blackberry and Apple iPhone, Apple iPad or Google Android smartphone or Tablet
  • 1 TB External Hard-drive for backup purposes

As the process is somewhat complex, I’ll break down the transfer steps into sections according to what your transferring.

Mail, Contacts, Calendars and Data – Three Degrees of Separation

Your precious Mail, Contact, Calendar and Data stored on your Blackberry carries the highest priority in terms of Data Transfer. For this reason, it’s always good to do a periodic backup of all your Mail, Contact, Calendar and Data using Blackberry Desktop to sync and backup your Blackberry’s precious cargo to be stored offline on your External Hard-drive.

For your new Apple iPhone, your new best friend will be Apple iTunes and for your Google Android phone, it’ll be the Google Sync App. As these are two different smartphones OS, the procedure is slightly different for each.

The Steps using Blackberry Desktop to Sync and Transfer all your Mail, Contact, Calendar and Data to Apple iPhones and the Apple iPad is as follows:

  1. Install a fresh new copy of Blackberry Desktop for PC or Mac
  2. Once installed it should automatically Sync. If not, select the big green button that says “Sync”
  3. Blackberry Desktop will Synch everything from your Blackberry to your PC or Mac’s Desktop. Depending on how much Mail, Contact, Calendar and Data you have this’ll take awhile
  4. Select Options > Security > Security Wipe. You’ll be prompted to check the boxes to remove all of your data.
  5. Type “blackberry” and select “Wipe Data”.
  6. Connect your Apple iPhone via your connecting cable and iTunes will launch
  7. Select “Info” and Check the boxes “Sync Contacts” and “Sync Calendars”. Depending on how much Mail, Contact, Calendar and Data you have this’ll take awhile
  8. Blackberry Desktop will eventually indicate that the process has been completed.
  9. That’s it! Your Contacts have been transferred from your Blackberry to your Apple iPhone
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The Steps using Google Sync to Transfer all your Mail, Contact, Calendar and Data to your Apple iPhone or Apple iPad or Google Android smartphone or Tablet are as follows:

  1. Set up a Gmail Account on Google on your computer. You’ll need this for future Syncing
  2. Via your Blackberry’s browser visit m.google.com/sync on your Blackberry and download and install the free Google Sync App. You’ll also be told to download the Google Sync App for your PC or Mac.
  3. Launch the App and enter your username and password. Calendars and Contacts should now beset up to sync.
  4. Select “Sync Now”. Depending on how much Mail, Contact, Calendar and Data you have this’ll take a while. If you have a slow Internet Connection, check periodically to ensure your Mail, Contact, Calendar and Data are properly transferred from the Blackberry

At this point Apple and Android walk slightly different paths.

If you have an Apple iPhone or Apple iPad, the next steps are as follows:

  1. Select Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars on your iPhone, which should also be connected to the Internet Wirelessly,
  2. Select Add Account
  3. Select Microsoft Exchange
  4. Enter your full Gmail Account username, leaving the domain field blank. Enter your password and select Next.
  5. Type m.google.com in the “Server” field.
  6. Set “Sync” to Yes under “Contacts” and “Calendars”. Depending on how much Mail, Contact, Calendar and Data you have this’ll take a while. If you have a slow Internet Connection, check periodically to ensure your Mail, Contact, Calendar and Data are properly transferred to the Apple iPhone.
  7. Apple’s Mail application using Microsoft Exchange synching via Gmail will eventually indicate that the process has been completed.
  8. That’s it! Your Contacts have been transferred from your Blackberry to your Apple iPhone or Apple iPad

If you have Google Android smartphone or Tablet, the next steps are as follows:

  1. Click the Menu button on your home screen
  2. Select Settings. If you need to add a Gmail Account, tap Add Account button and enter the login and Password for your Gmail account used to sync your Mail, Contact, Calendar and Data
  3. Select Accounts & then Sync.
  4. Ensure Contacts is checked as a synced item.
  5. Google Android synching via Gmail will eventually indicate that the process has been completed.
  6. That’s it! Your Contacts have been transferred from your Blackberry to your Google Android smartphone or Tablet

Music and Videos – Idle moments in time going home

Your Music, Videos and Photos are an important reason why the Blackberry is so popular with the “IN” Crowd; it helps to pass time as you wait for the bus while heading to face the drudgery of work, waiting at the bus stop or nodding off on the bus while going home. So depending on how you use your Blackberry, these may be your real precious cargo.

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Apple iTunes for the Apple iPhone makes it easier to sync; just connect your Blackberry via the proprietary USB Cable and Drag-and-Drop your Music, Videos and Photos into your Apple iTunes library. Then Apple iTunes will organize everything for you for sync to your Apple iPhone or Apple iPad via its proprietary older 30-pin for the Apple iPhone 4S and the Apple iPad 3 or the newer 8-pin Lightening connector for the Apple iPhone 5 or Apple iPad 4.

SD (SanDisk) Card Readers on your Laptop or Mac makes it fairly easy to Transfer Music and Videos to the more open Google Android smartphones or Tablets. In some cases be as simple as moving your media to the SD Card and swapping the SD Card into your Google Android smartphone or Tablet so long as you can ensure that the SD Card is an acceptable size that’s accessible by your smartphone or Tablet.

If you’ve signed up to a Cloud-based Music Service such as Amazon Cloud Drive as described in Why Amazon Cloud Drive, the DropBox Clone, is Legal, Google Music or Spotify, it fairly easy.  Getting access to your videos and Music on your Apple iPhone, Apple iPad or Google Android smartphone or Tablet is as easy as downloading the App for the service and transferring your music to these services for playback over Wi-Fi or 3G Internet.

Be mindful, however, of the fact that these services work over the Cloud and can easily max out the measly Megabytes in your Digicel or LIME Data Plans as laid out in How to Access LIME or Digicel’s 4G Internet using an unlocked 4G LTE Modem Dongle, smartphone or Tablet.

Mac Users, a rather quarrelsome lot, may not like the PC-esque slant of my article, so I’ve cooked up something especially for them for transferring Photos to their new Apple iPhone:

  1. Connect your Blackberry to your Mac using special proprietary cables
  2. Open iPhoto. If iPhoto doesn’t recognize your Blackberry phone, Drag-and-Drop to your new Apple iPhone
  3. If it’s playing nice, your device should show up in the left navigation pane of iPhoto.
  4. Name your album and import the photos. You can also select the photos you wish to have on your new device.
  5. Open Apple iTunes and go to the Photos tab
  6. Select the photo albums to sync
  7. Click Sync and wait for iTunes
  8. That’s it! You’ll see your new Photos in your Photo App on your Apple iPhone or Apple iPad.

Folks, see how easy that was! And you didn’t have to take any Panadol so thumbs up to you! Go ahead; enjoy being part of the “SMART” Crowd!!

Meanwhile the RIM and the “IN” Crowd are plotting their revenge……more on this in another article….[suspenseful music playing]!

Here’s the Links:

Apple iTunes

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

Blackberry Desktop for Mac or PC

http://us.blackberry.com/software/desktop.html

Google Sync for Mobile and Desktop

http://www.google.com/sync/index.html

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