Android Stuff

Google has recently updated its Maps App for Android to 4.1.0. Normally the update process in the market is straight forward, but some times it can get tricky, specially if you are using a custom ROM as most of the ROMs come with the Maps App pre-installed and that can make it difficult to update them.

When trying to update to the new version, if you get an error message like “Package file was not signed correctly.” or “Package was not signed correctly.”, then you need to uninstall the previous version of the App first and then install the new version. To uninstall the previous version, run this command from the computer:

adb uninstall com.google.android.apps.maps

After this install the new version from the Android Market.

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Update: many people have reported errors encountered with SMS Exporter and although I’d like to fix those problems, its very difficult for me since I do not have a Windows Mobile phone and the application is using a 3rd party library to export the messages. If you are getting errors, please try the other ways below.

SMS Exporter:

Looking at the number of hits on my site about moving SMS Messages from WinMo to Android, I decided to try writing a simple tool to export messages from WinMo phones.

Click here to download SMS Exporter. This is an experimental application and since I do not have a Windows Mobile phone I have not been able to test it properly. Any feedback about this app is highly appreciated.

Download the .CAB file from the link above and install it on your phone. Running it will present you with a simple form with an “Export” menu.It will export messages into a SMS.xml file which can be directly imported into any Android phone using the SMS Backup & Restore app.

SMS Exporter uses the Pocket PC and Smartphone 99% .NET MAPI library to read the messages.

If the SMS Exported does not work for you then you can always try the following options:

Mario at Homebrew has written an excellent article explaining how to Import/Export/Move/Transfer SMS Messages from Windows Mobile to your Android Phone using PIM Backup and my App SMS Backup & Restore.

Pie at PieMaster has written another article and his own tool for Exporting from Windows Mobile. Click here to have a look.

This process works WITHOUT needing root access on the Android phone. Check it out!

Change Log:
v0.5:

• Removed the BOM (Byte Order Mark) from the Xml.

v0.4:

• Added UTF-8 encoding of exported file.

v0.3:

• Fixed “Invalid type request”errors.

v0.2:

• Added logging.

v0.1:

• Initial Release

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Although the files created by SMS Backup & Restore and Call Logs Backup & Restore are XML files, they can be easily viewed in any Web browser (like Internet Explorer or Firefox) and can also be opened in MS Excel.

There are multiple ways to view the files:

• Use a Backup Reader
• Open it in a Web Browser
• Open it in MS Excel.

Use a Backup Reader (Only for SMS at this stage)

Matt at XtNetworks is working on a Java based Viewer for the backup files which is probably the easiest way to view the files on a computer. The program now works with displaying threaded conversations on
Windows, OSX, and Linux and it can also export messages to text files. More information is available at his site: http://devadvance.com/sms-backup-reader/

View the backup data using a Web Browser:

To be able to view  the files on a computer, the first thing to do is to make sure that the preferences for “Add XSL Tag” and “Add Readable Date” in the Preferences of the app are checked before taking a backup.

• Copy the backup file to a folder on the computer.
• For SMS Backup & Restore:
  • Copy the sms.xsl file to the same folder. (This file can be found in the same folder where the backup file was created by the app).
• For Call Logs Backup & Restore:
  • Download (right click on the link and select “Save Target As” or “Save Link As” or equivalent on your browser) Calls.xsl (for Call Logs Backup & Restore) file and store it in the same folder as the xml file.
• Open the xml file in the browser. The browser will now display it in a friendly HTML format.

Threaded view for SMS Messages:

BlueChip has put together a nice stylesheet to display the SMS Messages in a threaded view. Currently it only works on Opera and Mozilla Firefox.

• Make sure that the preferences for “Add XSL Tag” and “Add Readable Date” in the Preferences of the app are checked before taking a backup.
• Copy the backup file to a folder on the computer.
• Click here to download the ZIP file containing the scripts and style sheets required.
• Once downloaded, extract the files from the ZIP file into the same folder as the backup XML file.
• Open the XML file in the browser. The browser will now display it in a friendly HTML format with a threaded view.
• You can also change the style/theme by changing the option in the drop down.

View/Edit messages using MS Excel:

MS Excel can also be used to edit these files if you are not comfortable in editing them in a text editor. Here are the steps involved to do that:

• Open Excel and select File -> Open and then select XML Files (*.xml) in the file type dropdown.
  
• Press OK.
  
• Press OK.
  
• To view the date in a human understandable format, enter the following value in a new column and then copy it to all the rows:
  =([@date]/86400000)+25569
  
• Format the new column as a date/time.
  
• Done.
  

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Thilo-Alexander Ginkel at “cat /dev/braindump” has written an article describing a process to convert SMS messages from Nokia Phones to a format which can be used to transfer them to an Android Phone using my SMS Backup & Restore app.

Miha has written another tool to transfer SMS messages from Nokia Ovi to Android via SMS Backup & Restore.

Both theses process works WITHOUT needing root access on the Android phone.

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Jonas Bark has written a converter application so that the messages exported or transferred from FJ Software’s MyPhoneExplorer can be restored on an Android Phone using my SMS Backup & Restore app. This process works WITHOUT needing root access on the Android phone.

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