Former BB user (Pearl) needs some help.

ATLbellygirl

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Hello -

I recently upgraded to the Motorola Droid from my BB Pearl. Loved suretype on my Pearl and the compact size, but the constant memory issues were a hassle to deal w/. I wasn't sure about leaving the BB family but hadn't been too impressed w/ the Storm 2 or the Tour, so I thought I'd test out the Droid (it was either that or wait til next June, when the rumored Apple/VZW iphone might be coming out).

It's taken a lot of getting used to, having switched from a BB platform. But I still have some questions that I haven't been able to find good answers for so far online and was hoping that someone on the forum might be able to help?

1. I've been using my previous mobile phones (even pre-BB) as my alarm, so I was a little disappointed that a) the available tones for Droid alarms were all really ear-piercing b) that I couldn't choose one of the more pleasant-sounding "notification" tones as my alarm tone instead and c) that I couldn't use a downloaded ringtone (from phonezoo, which is the online service I'd been using for a while) as my alarm. Same goes for my Droid ringtones and notification tones. When I went to phonezoo to change my phone, the Motorola Droid showed up as an option, so I figured it meant it was compatible. When I sent previously saved ringtones to myself, they showed up as SMSs on my Droid, and I "downloaded" them, but I have no idea where they went. My guess is that they were downloaded to the SD card, but I haven't figured out how to access everything that's on the SD card. Is there a way to retrieve these phonezoo tones and then set it up to where I can choose them as my ringtone, notification tone, or alarm tone?

2. I read a post about how to save pictures that ppl send to me as emails or MMSs on the Droid (in BB-ville, there was a "save as" menu option, but nothing intuitive like this w/ the Droid). Someone posted a reply that said to just longpress the photo, and an option to store on the SD card would pop up. I tried it, but nothing happened ? Was I doing something wrong? I experimented w/ another emailed photo, and when I selected "download" and then went to my "gallery" icon, it showed up in the "all pictures" grouping. Is that all I need to do? And if that's where downloaded pics go, where do I go to find downloaded ringtones?

3. apps - I've noticed that many of the apps I've downloaded included the caution that by downloading these apps, "they" (the developer?) would get access to certain things. The ones that worried me were the ones where they could access more personal data - not just "my location" or internet access. Should I be worried about having downloaded these apps? Or are these ones still "safe"?

4. In BB-ville, there was an option to choose different profiles and even custom-create your own. Right now, if I bump up the notifications volume, I get notified every time I get emails, texts, etc. But I don't want to be alerted whenever I get an email - just texts. Is there a way to set this up on the Moto Droid? I used to have a "night time" profile where only phone calls and texts could come through, where only BB messages could come through, "alarm only" mode, etc. If this is possible, that would be great!

5. Did anyone else have issues when transferring all contacts from gmail? For a lot of the contacts that got migrated, they had 3 or 4 "sub" entries ("google contacts") for that one contact. VZW said I could just manage them all through gmail, but when I'd go view my contacts online, only the one entry would show up. And yet, on the Droid, a lot of my contacts that 3-4 "google contact" entries, which was v. confusing. I assumed that the first entry was the "main" one, so I started manually deleting what I thought were duplicate entries, only to find out that in some cases, the duplicate ones were the main ones, so I lost some contact info, etc. Does anyone know what is behind the multiple "google contact" entries on the Droid? For some of them, their email address would show up in the duplicate entries, where the first name would be part of their email add., and the "family name" field would have ".com". It was really strange. And if I tried to change the email type (work, home, other) in the main/first entry, it would still show up as not having been changed, so I'd have to go back and change it in the "duplicate" entries, and only then would the email type be updated.

6. I could have sworn I came across a menu option to keep my phone from locking every time it went to sleep or every time I forced it into sleep mode by pressing the button up top, but now I can't find it. I tried pressing the menu button in diff screens to see if it would show up, but so far, no luck. Does anyone know where this menu feature is?

7. Somewhat related to #6, is there a way to set the timeout screen to be longer only for phone calls? I want to conserve battery life, but every time I'm on the phone, the screen times out on me (and locks up), so when it comes time to end the call, I have to press the top button, unlock the phone, and then hit the red "'end" button, creating an awkward pause of silence on the line. And what ends up happening is that the person on the other end of the line ends up hanging up first.

Ok - I think that's it for now. Sorry for all of the questions. I think once I can figure out some of these questions, I'll feel happier w/ the Droid. Thanks! : )
 

BillTheCat

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Wow... very long and detailed post. KUDOS for the details, and welcome to the forums. I don't have answers to all of those, but I'll offer up these suggestions, listed by your question #'s..

1. If you make folders on the SD card called "ringtones," "alarms," and "notifications," the phone should recognize them. I actually figured this out by accident after downloading a very handy app called "Ringdroid," which lets you edit your music into ringtones. And if you think ever so slightly outside the box, slap your previous phone's ringtone sounds on your SD card, open them with Ringdroid & save without editing- it'll ask you if you want to save as ringtone, alarm tone, or notification. (Frankly, I think they should have simplified the process by lumping all available tones into one category, but we play the hand we're dealt, y'know?)

2. I haven't yet received a photo via MMS, cant help on that one.

3. This concerns me somewhat as well. The thing to consider is that all those BB apps (all 23 of them, lol) probably had similar abilities to access your info, but they didn't bother to warn you about it. I'm not losing sleep over them.

4. I am right there with you on this. If there is a native "alert profile" built into the Droid, I have not found it. I imagine there's an app for that, and if there isn't, there will be soon. I think we both need to search/Google for that. If I find something, I'll let you know.

5. I only transferred my contacts from my BB Storm to GMail a day before i got the Droid, since VZW's online contacts backup service never did come to BBville. And they synched back down to the Droid flawlessly, as far as I can tell. Google was even smart enough to recognize several duplicate contacts that were already in my Google contacts list and combined their details.

6. If you find this, please let me know. LOL

7. Your phone should NOT lock during a phone call. The proximity sensor should darken the screen while the phone is at your ear, but within a second or two of pulling the phone away, it should wake up & show you the "End Call" dialogue screen. Are you making your calls with the handset, or are we talking about BT headset calls? (I haven't used my BT headset yet)

I'm sure there will be other/better answer than I have provided, and some folks will know the answers I had nothing for. Hope this helped a little bit.
 
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ATLbellygirl

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Thanks, BTC : )

Re: the apps/security question, I noticed that one of the apps I wanted to DL today (I think it might have been the AP News app?) had a bunch of pre-installation warnings - that it would have access to: your location (fine GPS location), network communications (full internet access), storage (modify/delete SD card contents), phone calls (read phone state and identity), hardware controls (take pictures), and system tools (prevent phone from sleeping). I didn't mind some of them, but for the others - it made me wonder why that app would need access to storage - did I really want it to be able to modify/delete what's on my SD card? And why would I want it to have access to taking pictures? Was I interpreting the warnings correctly? I was reading the reviews for some other apps I was interested in, and I came across one review out of all of the app reviews I've been reading in the past week or so that actually made a reference to security. It was for the PicSay Photo app, and someone had posted a comment, warning others about installing it, how it inserted some kind of virus on their phone, etc. Didn't see any immediate comments to that post, and that app got really high ratings, so I was confused. Has anyone else come across any more info about these pre-installation warnings for apps and whether we need to be concerned about some apps that have access to more personal data or features/controls that don't seem to have anything to do w/ that particular app? Maybe I'm paranoid, but I figure there's got to be a reason for those warnings ? I mentioned this to a c/w today, and he didn't think the same warnings popped up on the iph or BB, but then I'm thinking all of their apps were maybe vetted before being made available for downloading ?
 
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