import/export

The semi-automatic way to manage multiple contact lists

Few business resources are as valuable as your list of contacts. It's no wonder companies such as Twitter and iPad app vendor Path are trying to get their hands on their customers' contacts--with or without their express permission.

Contacts are like rabbits: they tend to multiply whenever they get together.

In the past year my Gmail contact list has grown by 50 percent, not to mention the many updates and changes to existing entries. Contact-sync programs promise to keep the information in multiple address books up-to-date, but the programs I've tried create so many duplicate records they'… Read more

Free movie database app

Duck Software's Organizer series of personal database applications share a common core that is then optimized for a specific use, such as keeping track of your movie collection. That's the job of Film Tracker v5.0, a free movie database. It can help you keep track of your far-flung video collection with more than 19 customizable data fields. Like all such databases, you must enter the information bit by bit, but Film Tracker's efficient entry form makes that job easy, and it can also import and export data in CSV files.

Like its stablemates, Film Tracker shares … Read more

How to solve Facebook import and export freezes in iPhoto '11

Uploading photos from iPhoto to Facebook via iPhoto's built-in exporter has taken a turn for the worse for some users, not allowing uploading or downloading and often freezing while trying to connect.

Several users have voiced their displeasure with the situation in one of the Apple Support Discussion forum threads. User ajrossnz writes:

Since I upgraded from iPhoto '09 to '11 I have been unable to upload to facebook, a feature that worked great in '09. I have done all the things that were suggested through various googling such as removing my facebook account in preferences and removing albums, … Read more

Transferring MS Word AutoCorrect entries

Back in May 2008, I described a macro that made it easy to copy custom AutoCorrect entries from a version of Microsoft Word on one PC to a Word installation on another machine. Unfortunately, the macro, written by Microsoft MVP Dave Rado, is no longer available.

I take no pleasure in criticizing Microsoft's inability to meet the needs of its customers, but some of us have been using Word for close to 20 years. Shouldn't we be able to transfer our handcrafted AutoCorrect entries and other customizations between PCs without having to drag system files between folders that … Read more

Easy EXIF editing

Exchangeable Image File Format, or EXIF, is an image file specification that stores information about each image. This metadata, as it's commonly known, includes details about the camera's make and model, the artist's name and copyright, shooting information such as aperture, ISO, exposure, and much more. Although the camera generates much of this information automatically when the photo is taken, sometimes the information contained in the EXIF needs to be added to or edited. Exif Pilot is a simple program that allows users to do just that.

Exif Pilot's interface is plain, with a traditional three-pane … Read more

Add your Facebook friends to Outlook and Gmail--sort of

We can all be thankful Facebook doesn't let you export your friends' e-mail addresses and telephone numbers. The export prohibition doesn't extend to other information about your friends, however. A new free service puts this data in a .csv file you can import to your Outlook and Gmail contacts. Unfortunately, the results leave much to be desired.

Export Friends to .csv wasn't developed by Facebook, but rather by J?rn Arild Anden?s. You can choose to export up to 11 different categories of information about your friends, including Facebook ID, name (full, first, and last), profile … Read more

Amazon Web Services: 'Ship us your drives'

Amazon Web Services has unveiled a new service that lets users physically ship their data on drives, to be uploaded to the company's cloud-based S3 storage facilities.

AWS Import/Export, currently in beta, was announced on Thursday. In an Amazon Web Services (AWS) blog post, the team noted that "hard drives are getting bigger more rapidly than Internet connections are getting faster," and said a service such as Import/Export had been frequently requested by customers who wanted their data to be remotely hosted, but who had storage requirements at the terabyte and petabyte level.

"It … Read more

Combine your Firefox bookmarks and IE favorites

For most people, browsing is an either-or proposition: they use either Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Mozilla's Firefox. But I'm betting there's a bunch of people like me who find themselves spending time in both browsers, often simultaneously.

The problem is, my list of Firefox bookmarks bears no resemblance to my collection of IE favorites. It took all of about five minutes to solve this problem.

Move your IE favorites to Firefox Open Firefox 3 and click File > Import to start the Import Wizard. Choose Microsoft Internet Explorer and click Next. Uncheck all the options except … Read more

Merge your Outlook and Gmail contacts

I spend most of my workday Alt-Tabbing between my Gmail inbox and the Outlook account on my employer's Exchange Server. The problem is, when it comes to contacts, there isn't much overlap between the two: Only a handful of Gmail addresses are also in the Outlook contacts list, and vice-versa.

Rectifying the situation takes only a few minutes. Start by moving your Outlook contacts to Gmail. In Outlook 2003 and 2007, click File > Import and Export, select "Export to a file," click Next, choose either comma-separated value option, and click Next again. Browse to and … Read more

When in Rome, Prada is plentiful. Bringsome?

It's always those little things spotted in a foreign country that I wish I'd grabbed more of to bring back home, like $2 cartoon-print chopsticks from Tokyo, a $3 sack of paprika from Budapest, or $1 bottles of local lavender oil from Zagreb. I may not revisit those places, but I could ask for someone going there to snag some stuff for me. If you're my friend, however, that could interfere with your carefree vacation. Why not ask a stranger instead?

Bringsome is built just for that. Travelers on the site offer to bring back goodies from … Read more