Android Contacts - importing them from iCloud (iphone -> android transition 2)

Common preamble: I'm looking to break my Apple iDevice addiction so I can get off the expensive hardware treadmill. So I'm transitioning to Android. I have a MacBookPro running 10.8.x as my main device. I'm currently on an iPhone 3GS after I sadly lost a pristine iPhone 5 in the woods, and my wonderful mother donated her used Samsung Galaxy S3 when she upgraded, so here we go.

Once I figured out the most basic thing outlined in the first android transition post, namely how to make it so I plug the phone in and it doesn't suck, then how to transfer files, I'm ready to get my data on there. Let's start with contacts

I'm going to assume you have about 4 different google apps accounts set up, because you're a smooth operator too, so you're fine with google storing your contacts. But right now they're all in icloud, because when you have a mac and an iphone, that's just what you do, right?

What you need to do is figure out a way to get the Contacts app on your mac to have a connection to both your google contacts storage area, and the icloud.

That's not an obvious thing to do, but you can add a "CardDAV" provider to Contacts, pointing at your google account following these instructions here: http://android.appstorm.net/how-to/synchronization/keep-android-and-ios-in-sync-part1-data-email-contacts-and-calendar/

Then by selecting all the cards in your "All iCloud" area and dropping them on to the "All Google" area, you'll force Contacts to essentially freak out, work super hard, but transmit them all to google successfully whereupon they will slowly trickle over on to your android phone in a background sync.

This worked with me with 960 cards (each one of them a dear friend).

Anyone know any better ways, or does this work for ya'll too?

Android File Transfer Fun (iphone -> android transition 1)

Common preamble: I'm looking to break my Apple iDevice addiction so I can get off the expensive hardware treadmill. So I'm transitioning to Android. I have a MacBookPro running 10.8.x as my main device. I'm currently on an iPhone 3GS after I sadly lost a pristine iPhone 5 in the woods, and my wonderful mother donated her used Samsung Galaxy S3 when she upgraded, so here we go.

First issue: Connecting the phone to your computer sucks out of the box.

Android File Transfer is all sorts of bouncing in the doc and annoying. The phone itself is pretty adamant that you need to download some sort of "Kies" syncing program.

For both of these, my take is, don't do it.

Android File Transfer is pretty annoying but useful in a pinch. So you can use it when needed but have it STFU when not needed by following these lovely instructions from Nicole Reid - https://cooltrainer.org/2012/12/21/taming-android-file-transfer-on-mac-os-x/

Kies appears to just all around suck and I should have known that because it was what the manufacturer wants you to use, and those always suck don't they? Uninstalling it is a pain apparently but the internet comes to the rescue again. I used the instructions for the Terminal at the bottom of the page, just like you will, naturally.

AirDroid seems to be a reasonable app going forward (and also satisfies the "Find My iPhone" use case) but what other things do you guys use for Android file transfer / backup to get your files on and off the machine?

And is there anything like CameraSync from iOS-land exist for Android so my priceless data (photos, videos) are backed up reliably by default, but not just too google?

Tomato on a WRT54G limited to 25 or so Mbps with QoS - use a faster router for higher speeds

This is a very specific post, if you couldn't already tell by the title - just a tidbit for anyone else curious and trying to make all the junk surrounding them in the world work for them instead of frustrate them.

If you have an internet connection of 25Mbps or less down, and you are using the wonderful tomato firmware on the works-pretty-good linksys/cisco WRT54G, you've been having a great time, things work wonderfully and they will continue to work wonderfully.

However, if you like me use Comcast high-speed internet and your area gets the infrastructure upgrade from DOCSIS 2 to DOCSIS 3 you'll find that you have 50Mbps of bandwidth available, and you might opt for that plan.

At that point you'll realize that tomato running QoS on a WRT54G can't keep up with more than 25Mbps so you won't get all the speed you want.

Never fear though, the works-pretty-well and slightly-newer WRT310N can handle it, and the almost-as-pretty but just-as-functional DD-WRT firmware does the job nicely if you follow the instructions well.

And just for another random tidbit from my life of trying to make things work today, if for any reason you attempt to use a Thule Rapid rail / aero cross bar with their Prologue bike rack, you'll need four more grade 8 1/4" washers per bike rack to get the bolts secure on the aero bar, but the instructions aren't aware of that and they don't give you the extra washers. Great rack, bad instructions, bad testing, Thule. Shame!

Cheers

Open links from external applications in a new window in Google Chrome on Mac OS X

I love tabbed browsing. I switched to Firefox way back in the day partially because Firefox allowed tabbed browsing. I recently switched to Google Chrome, which also has tabbed browsing.

I also love virtual desktops. I switched to Linux on the desktop way back in the day partially because it supported virtual desktops. I currently use Mac OS X which has "Spaces", so I continue to have virtual desktops.

However, when you combine the two, you potentially have a problem. If you have a web browser open, but it is not on your current virtual desktop, and you click on a link in a different application (a newsreader, perhaps), do you want that external link to open in a new tab in an existing browser window on a different space, or do you want it to open a new browser window on your current space, and open the link in a new tab on that new window?

Turns out lots of people prefer the second option - they want a new window on their current space with the link opened in it. Now, adults may disagree, and Firefox as well as Safari have a preference setting which allows you to change the behavior to either of those options. Everyone's happy.

Except Google Chrome users. Chrome always opens external links in the most recently used browser window, where ever it is.

This causes some people to be upset, example: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=1eb2eb870ba29e97&hl=en


I was also upset. I am a programmer though, and I can make the computer do what I want normally. So I made it do what I want.

1) Download this AppleScript bundle, and unpack it in ~/Library/Scripts/
2) Double-click it (to register it with Launch Services)
3) Open Safari and go to the General tab in the Preferences, and set your app as the default browser.
4) Share and enjoy

A fair bit of credit for making this work goes to Pepjin de Vos - http://pepijndevos.nl/2010/05/open-external-links-in-running-browser/ - I repurposed his idea/script to implement my workaround here.

GTD - automating addition of new email info to an existing Toodledo

This will probably be the last post about migrating from Things to toodledo, as I've got all my most frequently-used workflows automated at this point

The last thing I needed to do after migrating all my data and automating task intake from Mail was automating the addition of new information from Mail to an existing Toodledo task.

The specific use case is that I've already got a task tracked in Toodledo and there is email traffic concerning it - some with important information I'd like to easily reference - but the task isn't done yet. How do you make that information easily referenced? The most useful way in my opinion is to save a link to that message along with some metadata about it, in the note of the Toodledo task.

To do that quickly, I wrote a little Applescript that fishes out the date, the sender, and the message id, and puts that information on the clipboard with the message id embedded in a clickable link. Now you just have to go to the task in toodledo and hit the paste key, and you're all set.

As with my new task creation script, I use Mail Act-On to bind execution of this script to a hot-key and simultaneously chuck the message into an archiving folder - keeping me from mousing as much and keeping my inbox clean.

Here's the script - Copy Message Link.scpt - hopefully you find it useful

Cheers!
-Mike

GTD - intake automation with Toodledo and Mail.app

I'm still in the process of converting my task workflows from Things to Toodledo, for reasons mentioned previously

One of the most important things for me is to have an automated workflow for task intake from email people send me to my task management application.

For Mail.app (my email application) I use Mail Act-On so that I can have a keyboard shortcut run an Applescript. For Toodledo I use Applescript to create a new email message to my Toodledo email address for new task creation, and I prepulate the email with the original subject, and an email body that contains information about who the email was from, when it turned up, and then a URL that will open the email in Mail.app if clicked.

I leave the message open so I can edit the Subject line (adding toodledo email syntax about when it is due and what folder to put it in etc) then I send it away and move the message out of my Mail.app inbox into a "to-process" folder where things are archived

The end result is a new toodledo task with a note that contains a link that will open the message. Fabulous.

Here's the script

GTD - migrating from Things to Toodledo - exporting Things data

I'm migrating from Things to Toodledo for task-tracking, in order to satisfy a couple of new (to me) use cases that I can't handle with Things, but that it appears Toodledo will allow me to handle.

I have more than 3500 completed tasks in Things though, and I treasure my ability to search through the completed tasks to turn up info used for new tasks. It isn't acceptable to me to lose that data in the transition, but I don't want to have multiple task apps, so I want to migrate all of my data from Things to Toodledo.

Things supports certain things Toodledo doesn't, so the first thing you have to do is alter your Things data so it's in a style Toodledo can accept, and that may be imported well.

First thing is that Toodledo doesn't really support Projects. It supports "Goals" but to tell you the truth, migrating that data isn't easy, and I didn't attempt it. I simply made my Projects into Areas on Things, and moved the tasks in Things to those Contexts.

Toodledo also doesn't support delegation the same way Things does. In order to migrate your delegates, the best way I could think of to map it was to have a "Delegated" Context, and then take the Things delegate's name and tag the thing with it. That way you can search for specific delegates on Toodledo post-migration, and you'll know something is delegated, at least.

On Toodledo, you'll need to create Folders for each Area from Things, along with the "Logged" and "Delegated" contexts.

The second thing is that Toodledo doesn't allow you to import completed tasks. This is troublesome for me because I want that history. I settled on putting all my completed tasks in a "Logged" context so at least I could get them in Toodledo, then mark them all completed later.

Finally, Things URL format in notes needs massaging in order to generate clickable links on the toodledo site, and I implemented some logic to do so.

That's about it - if you run this Applescript from within Things, once for the "Next", "Someday" and "Logbook" lists, uploading to the toodledo site each time, you'll have all your data in there.

Then you just need to mark the things in the "Logged" Context as completed, and you've finished your migration. I used TaskSurfer to do that since the interface was so fast for completion-marking.

Cheers