Use a Web-Based Mobile Portal

Some wireless operators' portal web sites support remote provisioning of contact data. You can simply load a web form in your desktop computer browser to fill out the contact details and then click the "send" button. The contact information is sent to your phone number via a special SMS message. You can review its contents in the message Inbox and then save it to the Contacts list on the device.

The benefit of the web-based approach is that it is platform independent and requires no configuration. You can use any computer browser to access the portal and send the SMS message to any phone. However, most web portals do not support thumbnail images in business cards. Also, depending on your service plan, the wireless operator might charge a small fee (e.g., 10 cents) for each SMS message received on your phone. So, use this option with caution if you need to send a lot of business cards.

How to Send Contacts as Files?

So far, I discussed Windows-, Mac OS X-, and Linux-specific solutions for sending business cards to a Nokia phone. A generic and platform-independent method is to directly transfer the datafiles that represent business cards.

The ISO defines a standard file format for representing business cards. On most computers, the file has a filename suffix of .vcf. Most address book applications on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X support importing and exporting contacts from and to .vcf files. In fact, the Nokia Contact Editor in the PC Suite saves and edits .vcf files in the phone browser's Contacts folder.

A Nokia mobile phone can open .vcf files in incoming messages (email, Bluetooth, or MMS) and save them to the Contacts list. It can also export any Contacts item to a .vcf file and send it to another device.

The thumbnail image, if there is any, can be included in the .vcf file. Please note that not all address book applications generate Nokia-compatible .vcf files with thumbnail images. So, if your phone complains about an "unsupported format" when trying to open an incoming .vcf file, you should consider transferring a text-only business card.

Using gnokii on Linux

gnokii is a cross-platform open source interface to Nokia devices. It runs a variety of hardware and operating system platforms, including Linux and BSD. gnokii features a sophisticated command-line interface for exchanging contacts, calendar items, and even SMS messages between a PC and a connected Nokia device. You can download the gnokii software and read its documentation at http://www.gnokii.org/.

A drawback of gnokii is that it does not integrate with the existing address book program on the host computer.

Several GUI wrapper programs have been developed to make gnokii's command-line interface user friendly. You can see their screenshots and find the download links at http://www.gnokii.org/screenshots.shtml.

How to Transfer Contact Using the Mac Address Book?

The Mac OS X default Address Book program is automatically Bluetooth aware. If Bluetooth hardware is installed on your Mac, a Bluetooth icon is visible in the OS X Address Book program's main window. You can click the Bluetooth icon to connect the Address Book application to your paired phone (specifically, the one you chose to use with the Address Book when you paired). If no phone is paired, you can select one of the Bluetooth phones in range. Such pairing allows the Mac computer to dial phone numbers, receive and redirect calls, and send and receive Short Message Service (SMS) messages via the phone.

To send a contact in the Address Book to a phone as a business card, first choose the contact, select the Card Send This Card menu item, and then choose the recipient device from the Bluetooth device list.

The Card Send This Card option is not available if Bluetooth hardware is not installed on the Mac.

On the phone, when you open the message, you'll see its contents. Choose Options Save business card to save it to the Contacts list. Please note that when you use Mac Bluetooth to send business cards, the thumbnail image and the Note field in the Mac Address Book are lost.

Using the Nokia PC Suite to Transfer Contact

The Nokia PC Suite includes a Contacts Editor program. The program's main window is a contact entry form. To create a new contact, just fill in the information in the blank fields. You can leave any of the fields blank. You can also add a thumbnail picture and notes to the contact).

After you are done, click the Save button and save the contact to the Contacts directory on a connected phone via the phone browser. You will be asked to synchronize the new contact with the phone.

The Nokia Contacts Editor program can also handle very complex business cards with multiple addresses for each contact. Click the Advanced button in the entry form to switch to that view. Again, you are free to leave any of the fields in the form blank.

Using the Nokia phone browser, you can double-click any contact item in the phone's Contacts directory to edit it and save it back to the phone.

Remote S60 is another Windows program that allows you to control a Series 60 phone directly from a PC over Bluetooth, IR, or data cables. You can use it to update your phone's Contacts list from a PC. But Remote S60 does much more than thatit lets you use your PC keyboard to take complete control over your Series 60 phone, and even displays a copy of the phone's screen on your PC. So, you can use it anytime you need a break from typing on the small keyboard. You can download and purchase the Remote S60 software from http://mobileways.de/M/1/3/0/.

Contact Transfer

The Contacts (a.k.a. Address Book or Phone Book) program is one of the earliest and most successful applications on Nokia phones. Managing contact phone numbers right on the phone is clearly a convenience most people appreciate. In early mobile phones, the on-device storage space was extremely limited. So, the "contacts" were limited to pairs of names and phone numbers. As mobile phone technology evolved, modern Nokia Series 40 and Series 60 smartphones offered a much more advanced address book. The following list is just a sample of notable features in these advanced address books:

You can store multiple phone numbers, email addresses, instant messaging IDs, and physical street addresses for each person.

Each contact entry can hold a picture (e.g., a head shot or an icon) of the person.

For each incoming call, the phone matches the caller ID with contacts in its Contacts list, and displays the caller's name and picture if a match is found.

Each contact entry in your phone's Contacts list is also known as an electronic business card, which now holds more information than a real paper business card. However, despite the evolution of the phone's Contacts list, the mobile keypad has changed little over the years. It is still slow and error prone in terms of text entryindeed, it is a major pain to enter all that text-based information into a contact on the phone.

Your desktop or notebook computer comes to the rescue here. You can create contacts on a PC using a full-size keyboard and then send them to your phone. Or, if you already have a contact on your phone, you can easily send it over to other people's devices and save them from having to type it in by hand. In this hack, you will learn all about business card exchange with Nokia phones. I do not discuss contacts synchronization in this hack. Synchronization is covered in several separate hacks later in this chapter.