Database Users

Facebook -> Outlook -> Mobilephone

Hi
I wrote a little app called Fonebook which syncs your facebook friends photos into your outlook contacts - when you then sync with your phone you get the profile image.
Im looking at adding a few more features and possibly creating a "Pro" version to try and recoup the cost of the library Im having to use so I can get full sized images into outlook (the outlook api sucks!)
Im not sure which windows phone allow the caller id to be full screen (I know mine doesnt!) - if you know of anywhere I might be able to get a list of smartphones/pda's which support this could you point me in that direction please!
If you have any ideas for this type of application, or have any suggestions when it comes to creating a "pro" version of something as oppose to relying on donations could you please fill in this short survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=xOAJWNgBXsnGAopW7zqDNQ_3d_3d
Thanks for reading this (the current version of the app is here in case you are curious: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2442338999
Thanks
Ross

you might wanna take a look at s2u2 it's a iphone slider app which gives us wm touch screen users full screen caller id if there was a way for your app to resize the facebook pictures to the size of the screen wqvga, qvga, vga, wvga

you may also want to look at skybook. I think it has a similar feature where it takes the profile picture from facebook and adds it to your contacts picture. I tried it once with skybook and it worked fairly well until I received errors with logging in, so I uninstalled it.
using the new facebook app from winmo 6.5 and don't have any issue logging in, only problem is that I can't update the photos like in skybook.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
good luck

I would also be interested in some way to sync the contact details from Facebook to WM.
people tend to keep facebook up to date with phone numbers email addresses etc, and it would be handy to have this information downloaded automatically.
EDIT: I see you have covered the fact that Facebook block this option on the page above, but I still think its a worthy idea and have joined the petition!

Fosimo was the only thing that I could get to work for syncing facebook data. My only complaint was that it added everyone's birthdays to my calendar...

I like the idea behind this, however, I do not use outlook on my home pc.
Does this work without hooking your phone to your PC? I ask because I rarely ever sync my phone with my home PC, I do sync to my work PC but I don't sync the email, and it's a work pc, so no facebook there....
I know that new SPB mobile shell program does this but I really don't see a point in installing that and keeping it around just to sync outlook pictures. I prefer to use my touchflo that came installed on my phone. I just picked up a Fuze, my old phone was an 8525 and SPB was the best solution for it...
Is there a standalone program that would do the same thing?

You really should put a mirror of that file somewhere else, man. SkyDrive is being broken. I was searching for an app like that, saw Fonebook and OutSync. i don't care which one I get, i just want a link. Hors Skydrive, please.

well to be honest fonebook is the best app i saw so far for syncing facebook contact pics with outlook contacts.
i liked the feature to be able to choose manually which facebook contact corresponds to an outlook contact. (a missing feature to many other apps)
the only problem it has is that at the moment almost everyone use high resolution screen mobile phones with vga and wvga and the pics that sync with your app are very small and blurry when viewed in full screen incoming call apps like s2u2 that most people use. so a great addition to your app would be to add an option to download the contact pics to a chosen resolution that corresponds to vga/wvga/qvga/wqvga and to save the cashe somewhere in the pc even.
please keep this project up and running and update it asap

Got a Topaz, and have TF3D (the touchy interface from HTC), set that up to sync image to facebook.
So My images go Facebook -> phone -> outlook
instead of Facebook -> outlook -> phone
Works for me.
Personally, I don't think there's much money to be made on this (a pro version) when newer phones have this built in, and there's already other good free apps out there, unless you can add some seriously impressive functions, and even then, the free competitors would soon add those same features.
- Anthony

Hope can syncs the high resolution pics in next version.
And is it cannot syncs the birthday if the user didn't type the birthday year?

My first thoughts on the Hero

Okay, my first thoughts on the Hero.
Good
------
Hardware is lovely. The unit feels just right in the hand, and graphite colour is great.
Screen is very sharp and has excellent colour.
Sense UI is a huge improvement over stock Android is virtually every way.
HTC E-Mail client is great compared to standard cupcake version.
Browser is very fast, and text wrapping is very effective.
Phone is now unlocked and running on Vodafone (thanks to the folks at unlock-now.com). It detects this, and offers to update all my settings accordingly. Nice.
Bad
----
HTC Smart Dialer doesn't correctly display contacts that only have a company name in them. The numbers show up but with 'unknown' next to them. They display properly in the 'People' application, so it's definitely a HTC bug (I seem to remember the same problem with early versions of this dialer on WM).
GMail client won't let me set a 'reply-to' field. I use GMail for all my e-mail, but use a forwarding service (pobox.com) so want to set my reply to field accordingly. I can get the functionality by using the HTC e-mail client, but then I lose HTML mail capability.
GMail and HTC Mail don't integrate in the mail widget. You can only see accounts configured using HTC Mail.
Flash in browser is very hit and miss. Some simply stuff works, but not much.
Standard calendar application is rubbish. The iPhone is way better here. I guess I'll be looking for a third party alternative.
I'll post more as I discover it.
Bagpuss.

Cool, thanks for the quick update.
When you say the standard calendar is rubbish, can you elaberate more on this? I use the calendar quite a bit and was hoping there would be a widget to show tasks/appointments on my home screen.
Any chance of a video going round the calendar or a good detailed explanation of it?

Sorry to ask again, but the reviews say that the phone WILL sync directly with Outlook (not just exchange) and I have ordered one on that understanding. Could you confirm this for me, please? Ta...

bigbamboo5 said:
Sorry to ask again, but the reviews say that the phone WILL sync directly with Outlook (not just exchange) and I have ordered one on that understanding. Could you confirm this for me, please? Ta...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, don't know about this as I don't use Windows or Outlook.
From what I understand, you can sync with Outlook, but you need to use the HTC Sync software. The only problem is that HTC haven't yet made the Hero version available for download. If you go to their support site, they don't have a section for the Hero yet. I'm guessing this will change once the phone is officially released SIM free.
Bagpuss.

nicelad_uk said:
Cool, thanks for the quick update.
When you say the standard calendar is rubbish, can you elaberate more on this? I use the calendar quite a bit and was hoping there would be a widget to show tasks/appointments on my home screen.
Any chance of a video going round the calendar or a good detailed explanation of it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The main problem is that you can't get a month view, and be able to move across days to see what they actually contain. On my E71, you see the month calendar on the left, and a small pane on the right which changes to show the events for each day. On the iPhone, you get something similar, but see the details at the bottom of the screen. On the Hero, you get a full screen month display, but have to click on individual days to see the detail. Not a big thing for some, but it's a change to what I like.
You can go to what they call 'Agenda' view which gives you a long list of all upcoming appointments, but you can't get a week view. There is a day view, however.
There is a calendar widget, and it does show today and tomorrow details, but it's very small.
Hope that helps,
Bagpuss.

"Phone is now unlocked and running on Vodafone (thanks to the folks at unlock-now.com). It detects this, and offers to update all my settings accordingly. Nice."
Hi I´m newby spanish user.
I just bougth an HTC Hero with orange and I will like to use the phone with movistart => I need to free the phone. Is it the same as unlock the phone? Is a good method unlock using emai? Did you do it at "http://hero.unlock-now.com/sim-unlock-HTC-Hero/"?
A lot of thanks, sorry for my bad english.
Best regards,
zeed82

Any Speed Issues noticed? Can You give us a brief Comparison to fE iphone 3G, 3GS or maybe TouchHD/Blackstone?

Thanks for the quick little review!
Just a quick couple of questions:
- Im not believing the battery life some have stated as the phone seems to be fully working round the clock
- Can the handset be rotated the other landscape way? So that the trackball is on the left side?

zeed82 said:
"Phone is now unlocked and running on Vodafone (thanks to the folks at unlock-now.com). It detects this, and offers to update all my settings accordingly. Nice."
Hi I´m newby spanish user.
I just bougth an HTC Hero with orange and I will like to use the phone with movistart => I need to free the phone. Is it the same as unlock the phone? Is a good method unlock using emai? Did you do it at "http://hero.unlock-now.com/sim-unlock-HTC-Hero/"?
A lot of thanks, sorry for my bad english.
Best regards,
zeed82
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly were I got it unlocked. They were incredibly fast. I had my unlock code within about 10 minutes of ordering.
Simply insert your foreign SIM, it will prompt you for the unlock code. Enter the code from unlock-now.com, and it all works.
Bagpuss.

sphinxy said:
Thanks for the quick little review!
Just a quick couple of questions:
- Im not believing the battery life some have stated as the phone seems to be fully working round the clock
- Can the handset be rotated the other landscape way? So that the trackball is on the left side?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure on the battery life at the moment, as I've not had it long enough to tell.
Sadly, you can't rotate it so the trackball is on the left. It's only a software thing, though, so HTC might implement it in future.
Bagpuss.

Hi Bagpuss,
I have a question. I have two different gmail addresses that I normally use. Is it possible to have the two accounts setup in the phone? Basically I want to know how it handles two e-mail accounts and two google calendar accounts.
Thanks mate.

bigbamboo5 said:
Sorry to ask again, but the reviews say that the phone WILL sync directly with Outlook (not just exchange) and I have ordered one on that understanding. Could you confirm this for me, please? Ta...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes the sync software for the orange phone is on the micro sd card provided you plug it in go to mass storage mode and then run the .exe I have syncned all my contacts and calendar , unfortunatly you cannot sync any other outlook items this way currently

Bagpuss said:
GMail client won't let me set a 'reply-to' field.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you set up the reply to address on the Gmail website.
It's in Settings > accounts, and it sends as whatever you have the default email address set to in the 'send mail as' section.
stilghar said:
Is it possible to have the two accounts setup in the phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, you can not be signed in to two Gmail accounts at once. you can set up a second Gmail account in the mail application to access your mail from the second account, but i don't know any way to access calendars from a second account unless you can share calendars between accounts. maybe that will work?

How is the screen outdoors?

rhedgehog said:
No, you can not be signed in to two Gmail accounts at once. you can set up a second Gmail account in the mail application to access your mail from the second account, but i don't know any way to access calendars from a second account unless you can share calendars between accounts. maybe that will work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I think that will do. I can sign in with one of the Gmail accounts and set the other one in the mail application. Regarding the calendars I just noticed that all my google calendars are only in one of the accounts. So I will sign in on the phone with that one and use the other only in the mail application.
The only problem will be moving all my contacts from one account to the other...

Boesman1 said:
Any Speed Issues noticed? Can You give us a brief Comparison to fE iphone 3G, 3GS or maybe TouchHD/Blackstone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just got mine as well,
I noticed that there was considerable amount of lag for the first hour of using it, but now all the lag is gone and its working amazingly well.
HTC have taken a lot of the ideas from this site and implemented it in the sense ui, Customising the phone is fun and really easy, the only thing I'm unhappy with is being unable to get my Hotmail, and I don't really want it forwarded to my gmail.

xdaman85 said:
the only thing I'm unhappy with is being unable to get my Hotmail, and I don't really want it forwarded to my gmail.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct me if wrong, but you can always create a new dummy gmail account, forward your mail to that, and set in the gmail website that your 'identity mail address' (from address AND reply-to) is your hotmail address.
that way other people will not notice you use gmail to retrieve it (unless they look in the headers). Thing is you can't manage your hotmail account that way (delete / move / mark as read your mail)

dipje said:
Correct me if wrong, but you can always create a new dummy gmail account, forward your mail to that, and set in the gmail website that your 'identity mail address' (from address AND reply-to) is your hotmail address.
that way other people will not notice you use gmail to retrieve it (unless they look in the headers). Thing is you can't manage your hotmail account that way (delete / move / mark as read your mail)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funnily I got hotmail working through the standard email app, it doesn't push the email but you can set the frequency at which it syncs, so it's good enough.
Also while using the hero i'v noticed that some times the phone doesn't respond after unlocking and it takes a couple of seconds to respond to your touch.

got mine this morning
only just got home to play with it.....
must say it really "feels"like a nice phone....time to play now

hi all to the lucky owners
reading mobile-review and engadget review they say about slowness and sluggyness and lag and devilsh ****ness
is it becouse they have some prototipe sample or do you confirm all this lag and slowness ?
thanks guys

facebook does not update photo for myself

Hi guys,
Sorry if this question was asked before, I did try using search but nothing came up.
Anywayz, I have my facebook account linked to my HD2. Everytime when i update fb information, all my friends photos are updated except for myself. Which means my photo is still the default htc one. Anyone help on how to change my own photo is greatly appreciated.
Cheers

Are you looking at a contact you have named as yourself or the contact card ME that appears at the top of all people?
If you are looking at ME. Open the contact and click on the photo in the top right. You will see a list of options that tells Manila where to get the picture from.
HTH

Neville.Holland said:
Are you looking at a contact you have named as yourself or the contact card ME that appears at the top of all people?
If you are looking at ME. Open the contact and click on the photo in the top right. You will see a list of options that tells Manila where to get the picture from.
HTH
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
omg spot on!
thank you very much, cant believe i never saw that

Does this work on all contacts, or just the ME one as I am having issues with some of my contacts getting any photo from facebook, let alone changing to the latest?

J7ody said:
Does this work on all contacts, or just the ME one as I am having issues with some of my contacts getting any photo from facebook, let alone changing to the latest?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it does!

In that case.... I have a problem.... repeated tapping of the contact image on any other person (well tried 5 so far, some with images some with none) and nadda

Mine does not update photo's or status' unless I click Update manually, even though it's set to auto update every two hours, I think the FB app is crap TBH

Facebook contact as display pictures ??

Hi,
I finally got some of my friends phone contact to sync with facebook. I can see a little small picture of them in contact, but I don't seem to get the picture to display when I make a phone call. Am I missing something or can you make their facebook picture as dialing display picture by clicking on something ?
Thanks.

Mine does it, I log into facebook through my contacts and it puts all my facebook contact friends pic as the contact pic in my phone.
1) Hit people tab
2) all people
3) 3rd icon should be facebook (updates and events)
4) know tap on Me/ My Updates
Thats how I do it and it works flawlessly. GL.

It should do that automatically. Have you tried with more than one person? I'm having a similar problem, but only with one contact. Works fine for the most part.
When you go to edit contact info, press their picture in the top right and you should have the option to set as facebook picture.

maybe its a manila 2.5 issue. I will try the same thing with a 2.1 manila rom and see if it will sync properly with the display picture when dialing.

Mine is also doing the same thing. It displays the picture under favorite people and in the contact list, but when making or receiving a call it does not display the picture. Im running ark666's rom

I have the same problem with Leo rom running sense 2.5/maxmanilla

I thought I was doing something wrong. I am running art666 Rhodium AF as well.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=552821
I will report this on his thread and attach this link to the post as well. Thanks everyone.

it works fine for me, but i have a problem, that whenever a contact changes his picture the picture isn't changed on my phone....i can't find anything to update the pictures.....i tried also to remove the pic and then to add the facebook link again, but i always get the old picture...
i forgot to write that i use the original HTC WM6.5 rom

for the most part the pairing to facebook pics work fine for me, however i've found that some of my facebook friends aren't available when i search for them to link to their contact info. there are about 30 friends on my facebook that for some reason aren't available to link. i'm using the tilt 2, stock ROM. any ideas?

I also have this problem
I found out that the dialer instead of using the picture from facebook, it uses the picture that is on the winmo default contacts...
Does anyone knows a fix to display only the facebook picture instead the one that's on the winmo contacts??

well i had this trouble but i updated my rom and backed-up my contact using pimpackup. it backups the contact and sets the current (facebook) picture as outlook picture. then you reinstall the backup file which will delele all your pim and install your contact with their default pictures as outlook thus end any dialer problems you're having. you should call and see their the picture you had

Hmm, I always use PIMBackup to backup and restore the contacts, and always have the default pictures from the outlook. But what I want is that facebook pictures become the default ones...

Which program are you guys using to sync your contacts with FB?

seanvree said:
Which program are you guys using to sync your contacts with FB?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is built in to HTC sense. If you go to all people and then slide over to updates and events then log into your FB account

Ohh, I have the TP2. . . can I download a program that will do this?

seanvree said:
Ohh, I have the TP2. . . can I download a program that will do this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it is built into the TP2, if you are using the touch flo ui. Slide over to the people tab and select all people and then slide over to udates and events and log in

zelendel said:
it is built into the TP2, if you are using the touch flo ui. Slide over to the people tab and select all people and then slide over to udates and events and log in
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, but I'm not using Touch Flo, so I"m looking for an App.

seanvree said:
Yeah, but I'm not using Touch Flo, so I"m looking for an App.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could try this, remember to read the whole thing first

I don't have an issue with the pictures, but stuff like birth dates. For some reason, when I sync contacts with FB, I get their birthdates and with a FB logo next to it. All well and good, except the birthdates won't pop up on my calendar, making it practically useless.
Now, if I type in their birth date manually it automatically updates the calendar.
Anyone know how to fix this?

mhurg said:
I don't have an issue with the pictures, but stuff like birth dates. For some reason, when I sync contacts with FB, I get their birthdates and with a FB logo next to it. All well and good, except the birthdates won't pop up on my calendar, making it practically useless.
Now, if I type in their birth date manually it automatically updates the calendar.
Anyone know how to fix this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have a look here. It is what I use

Stop Facebook auto photo saved in HTC Sense 2.5

Reason: (if you really want to know)
I really like the facebook and sense's people integrated feature. It helps me update birthday, phones, and my friends recent news. However, I do have most of my friend's photo on my outlook. I really don't need to save 200 extra pictures in my windows' drive. Beside, sometime my friend's profile picture are kind of random.
Help needed:
Any one know how to stop the photo update from facebook to the people contacts? A reg. tweak or something? Or just a want to select multiple contacts to use outlook picture? In sense 2.1, after the facebook linked your friends, a window pop up and you can uncheck the saved photo box, then facebook would not overide the saved picture you have. But this feature seem to be missing on 2.5.

facebook picture
you can override the facebook picture in sense 2.5 edit the contact then click the picture and choose, facebook, or outlook contact.

Thanks but I have more than 160 friends
Thanks for you suggestion, but you know I have more than 160 friends to update. And if I have to do that every time I upgrade a room. I am doom.

please someone help
Double this request! I was about to open a thread in despair...
I have 20 FB-connected contacts. Not a big deal one would say - change them manually. But if one takes into account that i flash almost every other day (yes i like to play with builds and upgrades) and everytime i have to go through this 20 pics... Ahhhh!!!
Getting mad everytime this stupid manila feature replaces neatly prepared and assigned photos of outllook by it's tiny meaningless photos (in some cases just mess-up madness!)
Please, please help us to stop facebook messing up with contacts