Importing Your Contacts into a Google Nexus 7

Here's a simple, easy, three-step procedure for copying your email Contacts or Address Book to your new Google Nexus 7. I think it will work on other Android devices as well. You don't even need your Android device to do it. Just do it all on your computer.

Here are the steps:

1. When you first started up your Nexus 7, you were required to set up a Gmail account. If you didn't do it then, just do it now. It's not that hard. And you don't have to use it; you only need to have it. You can set it up from any computer, by pointing your browser to http://www.gmail.com.
2. Open your email program, or login to your browser-based email application. Go to Contacts or Address Book, and find a way to Export your contacts or address book as a CSV file. Most email programs can do this. (CSV stands for "Comma-separated values." If you open the file in Notepad to have a look at it, you will see that it's everything in your address book, separated by a bunch of commas.)
   (Note for those who care: You can also export your contacts or address book as a VCF file, but the beauty of my procedure is that you don't need to. A CSV file works just fine.)
   (Note for those who don't care: VCF stands for "Virtual Card File." I know; the "F" is redundant. Hey, I didn't invent it.)
3. Log into Gmail. Click on the "Gmail-downArrow" button and select "Contacts." In Contacts, click on the "More-downArrow" button, and choose "Import...". Click "Browse" to find and select the CSV file you just created in Step 2. Then click the "Import" button.

That's all there is to it: you create a Gmail account, you export a CSV file from your existing email program, and you import it into Gmail.

You don't need to use Gmail on your Nexus; you can keep using your regular account. All of those imported contacts are in the People app on your Nexus, and your email account automatically knows about all of them.

UPDATE, FRIDAY 9:30 A.M.:  This method doesn't import those collections of addresses known variously as Groups, Distribution Lists, and Mailing Lists. Neither CSV files nor VCF files were designed to hold lists like that. If any of my readers knows how to import Distribution Lists, please comment on this post and enlighten us. Until then, I guess you'll just have to recreate them manually.

UPDATE, ABOUT A YEAR LATER: As emil pointed out in his comment, you need to make sure that the Google account in your Nexus 7's Settings menu is the same one you use in Step 3 to import the contacts.

Three New Superpowers! Good or Bad? Please Comment.

My first entry at Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters talked about the conflict between my fascination for, and my rejection of, new technology. I'm often heard to exclaim, "I love living in this century!" There is a lot of exciting stuff going on, and I enjoy being both a spectator and a participant in the onrush of technology.

At this point in the 21st Century, technology has granted us three superpowers that didn't exist a short time ago. Many high school students can remember the days when they didn't have these superpowers. Let me list them for you.

The three superpowers in the early 21st Century are:
1. Infinite mobility.
2. Infinite access to information.
3. Infinite connectivity.

Infinite mobility means the ability to go anywhere in the world -- and even into orbit. If you have enough time (and money), you can travel anywhere you want. In the pages of Outside, National Geographic Explorer, Men's Journal and other magazines, you can read about fantastic voyages made, not by diplomats, politicians, soldiers or spies, but by ordinary people like you and me. You can watch TV stories about those voyages on the Travel, Discovery, and National Geographic channels.

Infinite mobility probably reached its peak in August 2001. It's still possible to travel anywhere; it's just more difficult now. Okay, North Korea is still next to impossible to visit. And some places are dangerous to travel to, but this superpower gives you the ability to travel there and get into trouble if you're stupid enough.

Infinite access to information means that nearly the entire assembled body of human knowledge is now at our fingertips. The popularization of the Internet, followed by the invention of the World Wide Web, and finally the introduction of search engines like Google and knowledge bases like Wikipedia, have done for modern man what Gutenberg's printing press did for mankind in 1440. For one thing, they have fundamentally changed the way I conduct both business and research. Even in closed societies like China and Iran, anybody with enough desire can get access to this universal fount of information. The One Laptop Per Child initiative is an effort to make this power not just infinite, but universal.

At first, we were worried that this infinite access to information would lead to infinite dissemination of falsehoods and lies. Granted, there's a lot of that out there, and there always will be, and now it's even more accessible than when its dissemination was confined to mimeographs and backwater printing houses. But the social experiment that is Wikipedia shows us that a public knowledge base can be self-correcting and self-policing, over time.

Some oppressive governments, pseudo-religious groups, and other entities that live on power and paranoia may try to squelch this infinite access to information, but they have not succeeded yet, and they will not succeed. The genie is out of the bottle.

Infinite connectivity: I'm certain there are still people on this planet without an email address. You're not one of them! Even more ubiquitous than an email address is a cellular phone. In some families, even children as young as 8 or 10 have a cellphone with all the, um, bells and whistles (sorry). In countries that cannot afford the infrastructure and costs associated with what we now call "land lines," it seems as if everyone has a cellular phone.

Last year, the new computer buzzword was cloud computing, and its herald was the netbook, a minimalist computer that keeps all of its programs and data in the "cloud" instead of on a local hard disk. The trend towards cloud computing continues this year.

Then there's the phenomenon known as social networking. One day social networking, though out of style, will define this decade the way shag carpet defined the 1970s and sideways ponytails defined the 1990s. Today, though, social networking provides an important service by allowing people to maintain and to renew social and family connections. Facebook was not the first social network, but it is currently the biggest fish in the pond. The pocket-sized social network known as Twitter was hot for a while in 2008-2010, but it seems to be fading fast, a flash in the fad pan. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

This infinite connectivity does have a dark side, though: people will always know where you are. Your cellular service provider can track your location, either through your phone's built-in GPS, or through triangulation of your phone's position relative to two or three nearby cellular towers. The GPS capability in the newest phones can be remotely activated without the user's knowledge. Radio navigation, or triangulation, has been used by sailors and aviators for 100 years.

Another facet of this dark side: in this digital age, the right software and the right Internet connections can allow anyone to track your every move in cyberspace. By assembling all of your comments on Facebook and on blogs, all of your private (or so you thought) emails, and all of your search patterns, they can write a story of your life so detailed, so graphic, and so honest that it will scare you. All of this increased connectivity means that if you're not careful, your words and your deeds, good or evil, can (and will) be shouted from the rooftops. In some ways, this infinite connectivity leads swiftly downhill to complete and total loss of privacy.

--

So I want to know: what do you think? Does your having these three superpowers make your life better, or worse? Alternatively, does humanity's possession of these three superpowers make the world better, or worse? Please tell me what you think, and why.

All comments on this blog are still subject to moderation. This is just to keep the kooks out. Most comments will be approved instantly, and the rest (as long as they don't sound like they're from kooks) will be approved within 24 hours. Please avoid foul language and personal attacks, and stick to the subject at hand.

Political extremism and lengthy partisan diatribes are frowned upon and may also be rejected by the moderator. (Whew! Have I become one of those "power and paranoia" entities? I hope not. I just want to encourage a civil and rational dialogue.)

E' il mio gioco; le regole, le faccio io.

Someone at Google Maps is pulling my leg

I recently went to maps.google.com, looking for directions from Denver International Airport to a location in Northglenn, a suburb on the north edge of Denver. Getting out of DIA is simple: follow Peña Boulevard to I-70.

Not according to Google Maps.

This first picture is the Big Picture of the route from DIA to Northglenn. I didn't know civilians could get into DIA from the north, and it never crossed my mind that DIA is surrounded by aviation-related businesses that do not use Peña Blvd for access. (You may need to click on the map to see the whole thing.)


The second picture is a satellite view of DIA and the starting point.



The third picture is a close-up of the starting point. That white building is not a tiny building. The taxiway leading into the building is wider than the largest passenger jet, and the parking lot north of the building is full of cars, too tiny to see at this resolution. But it's not the passenger terminal.



I didn't think it was this easy to drive onto the airport. I had assumed that, post-nine-eleven, major airports like this would be sewn up tighter than a wineskin. Maybe I should try to drive this route and see who I encounter.

Oh, there's an interesting note on the runway there: "Continental Airlines Flight 1404." No, Google Maps is not marking the current positions of flights on the runways. (I think there are other websites for that.) Continental 1404 had a little accident at DIA just before Christmas 2008. You can read about it on Wikipedia.

Is Dex Online Turning Into Crap?

(First of all, my apologies to those who are offended by my use of the word "crap." I figured it was better than some of the alternatives, and I used it deliberately because it comes closest to what I'm trying to say.)

Most of my American and Canadian readers will remember the Yellow Pages, the part of the phone book that came after the alphabetical listings in the (non-capitalized) white pages. The Yellow Pages were a listing, arranged alphabetically by category, of businesses and services. The Yellow Pages were a great source of income for the telephone company and, in later years, for the independent publishers of telephone directories.

(The term "Yellow Pages" should be capitalized and marked with an (R) symbol, because it is a registered trademark of somebody. Let's pretend it is, in this posting. There, that ought to keep the corporate lawyers off my back.)

In recent years, the Yellow Pages went online. Both the paper and electronic versions changed their names to "Dex." The electronic version was known as "Dex Online," and then as "Dex Knows."

For a long time, Dex Online / Dex Knows was really useful. But this morning I became concerned that "Dex Knows" is being replaced by "Dex Blows." Let me illustrate by example:

I needed to find an address for Frontline Medical Laboratory in our town. I went to Dex Knows and typed in "Frontline Medical." Dex couldn't find it, told me so, and suggested some alternative search terms. That's good programming. I would expect a human being to do the same thing for me.

So I tried "Frontline Lab" instead. This one got results, all right: five advertisements from companies with the word "frontline" or the word "lab" in either the name of the company, their one-line advertising text, or their website URL.

In fact, that's all the information that was given on each company: the name, the spiel, and the URL. That's not what I wanted. I go to Dex Online to look up the address and phone number of a business, not this other crap. In fact, if what I need is an address or phone number, all this other information is useless crap.

I must be fair, and not overreact here. This behavior may be a simple aberration.

I decided to test it further. I entered the name of my favorite local auto body shop, and Dex gave me a name, address, phone number and map. Then I entered "Auto Body and Paint," and Dex gave me a listing of body shops, with phone number and address.

I entered "Old Cars," and Dex gave me a listing of auto shops that work on "antique vehicles." (Yeah, I guess a '67 Mustang is an antique. I still miss that car.)

So far, so good.

There used to be a wholesale beef outlet around here, so I searched for it using the term "meatmasters." Whoops - Dex served up the lousy, useless advertising again. Then I broke the term into two words, "meat masters." That worked: Dex didn't find "Meat Masters," but it did offer me a selection of delis and wholesale outlets.

I decided to try "Frontline Medical" again. This time, it didn't give me the friendly "We can't find ..." screen. Instead, it gave me the useless crap. I got suspicious. It had worked before; why not now? I clicked the "Search" button several times, to see what would happen. Sometimes Dex would come back with the "We can't find ..." screen, but often it would come back with the advertising junk. Moreover, the advertising junk changed every time I clicked "Search."

So it's not an aberration. Dex is programmed to be helpful to the consumer some of the time, and to be helpful to the advertiser all of the time.

Now, I'm not naïve. Dex makes their money by selling advertising; that's how they can afford to offer this service for free to customers like me. I understand that. I have a high opinion of the programming that makes Dex work so well -- except for this crappy "default to advertising and URL" branch. I think it's a mistake, and it makes Dex much less useful to me.

In fact, I ended up finding the address and phone number for Frontline Medical Lab by leaving Dex and going to Google instead.