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Importing Palm Memos - surely this can be done??

J

Jakobedlam

Lurker
I've been largely pleased with the Droid after about 12 years using Palm devices. The exception is the inability to easily, quickly import the 550+ Memos I've authored over the years. Plenty of apps will import one huge memo, but none will import a csv file of ALL the memos. This includes OI Note.

Does anyone have any experience successfully importing such a large number of memos without having to extensively edit? Or ideally, edit at all?
 
Bill Wohler at https://www.newt.com/android/blog.html says:

"I'm using the Note Everything app to replace Palm's Memos. I found the easiest way to get my Palm memos into Note Everything was to use JPilot to export the memos in each category into a single text file in a directory named after the category. These directories were on the phone's SD card mounted via USB. I then duplicated this file which contained all of the memos into a file corresponding to each memo, using the memo's name as the filename with a .txt extension. I then edited each file to remove the content that didn't belong to that particular memo. I then unmounted the SD card and used Note Everything's Mass Import command to import each of the directories I created."

Sounds a bit tedious and error-prone, especially the part where he packed all the memos into one file, then duplicated that file once per memo, then edited every file to delete all but the one memo. Perhaps a little Perl script on your desktop would unpack the exported memos. Also, you don't need JPilot--Palm Desktop will do the export of either one memo or all.
 
That sort of repetitive editing is something that a script in Perl or another language could accomplish in an instant (once written). Indeed, perhaps someone can write one to run directly on the Android device so that you can just put the big file containing all your memos onto the SD card and let the script do the rest: Scripting Comes to Android - O'Reilly Radar. Looks like Perl is not supported yet, buy Python and other languages are.

If I already had an Android phone of my own to play with :( perhaps I would write it myself...
 
davethetog said:
The method described in the link is the way I've just transferred my notes from WinMobile Phatnotes application into Note Everything Pro...
Good luck, Dave B.
Click to expand...

How did you maintain categories?
This sounds rather time consuming, since I've got 4.66x the number of memos to wade through (although in light of the work necessary, some old memos may never make the transfer).

jeffdlb, how soon can you save me? :o
 
Jakobedlam said:
How did you maintain categories?
Click to expand...
I didn't, at least not in any 'automatic' way.

1. I exported the individual memos within a category in Phatnotes, as individual text files, into a folder on my laptop. Did some editing at this stage to remove superfluous Phatnote labels & descriptors from each note.

2. I then linked up the Hero to the laptop and copied over that folder on to the SD card in the Hero. Then dismounted the SD card so they would show up in the Win Explorer listing

3. I then created a folder in NE Pro with the same name as the category had been in Phatnotes.

4. I then, whilst in that new folder in NE Pro, used the 'mass import' feature to import the individual text files from the SD card into NE Pro.

5. Tadaaa! they all appeared instantaneously in the folder in NE Pro utilising the file name of each memo file as the note title.

So ...... a bit clumsy & 'mandraulic' but it worked and once I got into the swing if things it was fairly painless for 150 or so individual notes.

@jeffdlb ...... afraid I have no scripting or programming skills but it's the sort of neat utility that could benefit many in Android land ........ I could see potential for a WinMobile Escapee Toolkit covering a few of the more popular WinMobile - Android app transfers
 
Would it be any easier to import from Outlook? I never really used this program, other than to import my Memos to a Blackberry when I tried out this device about a year ago (and gave up on the horrible Storm interface after 3 weeks). But my memos are in Outlook, and perhaps there IS an easy way to transfer these?
 
Jakobedlam said:
minyangmao,

So all of your memos became contacts? Did you do anything with these, or just keep them where they are?
Click to expand...

Yeah they all became contacts... with the title |M| YOUR MEMO TITLE HERE |M| so it's easy to recognize; there were like 1000 memos so it's kinda a pain in the @$$, but you can make the contact list on the phone only list ones with phone numbers so it'll only show your phone numbers and not your memos; I guess I could migrate all of them somewhere but I'm too lazy =P ideally, I could switch them to google docs, but I guess I just don't use the old memos often enough to justify the time investment;

for my new memos, I'm using gDocs Notepad app.

Cheers!
 
ideally, I could switch them to google docs, but I guess I just don't use the old memos often enough to justify the time investment;
Click to expand...
for my new memos, I'm using gDocs Notepad app.
Click to expand...
I did the same companion link transfer, but since most of my notes are more than a few lines, accessing them and being able to SEE them in the contact format is impossible. ;={

A somewhat better work around, is using the gCal description field for the note. At least I can read and edit in a more reasonable manner on the droid. Just need to work out a scheme for titles and which dates. The search in calendar works ok. I did setup a separate calendar to just post the notes or else it gets confused !!

Mandatory to use Aurora for the find - and it makes the data available on the droid.

I used to be able to save all sorts of info in my palm memos, since it was under my control on my pc !! Miss that capability !@

Heck I used memos and the pda string search to find info about all sorts of things that I wanted to save and didn't need to organize under some kind of heirarchy.
 
katahdin said:
I did the same companion link transfer, but since most of my notes are more than a few lines, accessing them and being able to SEE them in the contact format is impossible. ;={

A somewhat better work around, is using the gCal description field for the note. At least I can read and edit in a more reasonable manner on the droid. Just need to work out a scheme for titles and which dates. The search in calendar works ok. I did setup a separate calendar to just post the notes or else it gets confused !!

Mandatory to use Aurora for the find - and it makes the data available on the droid.

I used to be able to save all sorts of info in my palm memos, since it was under my control on my pc !! Miss that capability !@

Heck I used memos and the pda string search to find info about all sorts of things that I wanted to save and didn't need to organize under some kind of heirarchy.
Click to expand...

Yeah I hear ya palm buddy...I miss typing in a word and finding memos from 5 years ago =)
 
I was just told on another forum here that the update to Note Everything has a Palm memo importer. I don't know any more details than that.
 
(G) said:
I was just told on another forum here that the update to Note Everything has a Palm memo importer. I don't know any more details than that.
Click to expand...

The developer of Note Everything has just added an automated import from palm memos !! I imported converted 400 + in seconds !! So fast I thought there may have been a problem - but worked perfectly !! He did this after a request for help.

BTW - what forum was that ? Thanks
 
(G) said:
As I said there, that one sentence sold me the phone.
Click to expand...

LOL - were talking back and forth to each other !! I was looking for threads that talked about this need and posting. It is part of the next update - which he puts out regularly !
 
Wow! I'm gonna start spreadin' this thread link around. I finally come across an old Palmy like myself,,, along with some folks that might not go back quite THAT far! I've got 960 Contacts, 10 years of Calendar I used very heavily and used as a diary, 200+/- memos in 8 categories, 91 overdue To-Dos,,,,,

I even got Graffiti back! I'm gonna get the paid version of "MobileWriter" now that my free trial pooped out. It's not yet quite as good as the Graffiti was on the Tungstens or Clie's, but I think the developer is committed to keeping improving and supporting it.

I Haven't been able to find the rev of NoteEverything with the Palm memo import available for download/install yet, but Marcus mentions it on his "softxperience" website.

We need to get our own "ex-Palmy's" forum, or if there is one, somebody drop us the link here. Here's another bunch of threads helpful for anybody like myself that's still got migration work to do.

http://androidforums.com/htc-hero/8802-migrating-palmos.html

PdbConverter - Index - shredzone.org

Palm contacts -> Google - Android Community Forums

Can I import my Palm Desktop Calendar to Google - Calendar Help
 
tranzz said:
We need to get our own "ex-Palmy's" forum, or if there is one, somebody drop us the link here.
Click to expand...
Seconded! I will try to contact one of the admins/moderators and see what can be done.
Edit: Rastaman (a moderator) says he does not have that kind of power; I've forwarded my query to Rob and Phases (admins).
 
tranzz said:
I even got Graffiti back! I'm gonna get the paid version of "MobileWriter" now that my free trial pooped out. It's not yet quite as good as the Graffiti
Click to expand...

Here's an interesting fact: on talking with the salesperson at Verizon, he said that in sales training for the Droid, they were taught that the hardest customers to sell were those using the Palm OS because, to quote, "they were used to using a very friendly operating system and used to doing things in a certain way."

There are absolutely no doubts in my mind that I will be buying the Droid within the next month; I just need to find out if there are any penalties for doing so with AT&T.

I wish with all my heart that someone develops a "Graffiti"-like app for the Droid. I've had "Mobile Write" for at least 2 years and that's the one thing I'll really miss when I move to the Droid.

tranzz said:
I Haven't been able to find the rev of NoteEverything with the Palm memo import available for download/install yet, but Marcus mentions it on his "softxperience" website.
Click to expand...

Google "Note Everything" and you'll find the developer's website, where you can download the program.
 
(G) said:
Here's an interesting fact: on talking with the salesperson at Verizon, he said that in sales training for the Droid, they were taught that the hardest customers to sell were those using the Palm OS because, to quote, "they were used to using a very friendly operating system and used to doing things in a certain way."
Click to expand...
I can imagine! :p

(G) said:
I wish with all my heart that someone develops a "Graffiti"-like app for the Droid. I've had "Mobile Write" for at least 2 years and that's the one thing I'll really miss when I move to the Droid.
Click to expand...
I've been looking at Mobile Write (because there's an Android version of it), and I must say ... I like TealScript so much better (disclaimer: I have no experience with MW on a Palm device, but I have been a paying TealScript customer for many years). The ability to design your own strokes is just awesome -- especially if you need characters like "
 
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