Syncing Nokia phone on Mac -- impossible?

My old Nokia 6200 doesn't have Bluetooth. I have a USB data cable (C-42) and
now am searching for an application that will drag the (many) contacts off
the phone and save them on my Mac.

I'm having no luck. iSync won't do it, BitPim won't, and Nokia's PC Suite (a
PC app) won't install under Win 2000 (VMWare installation).

I'm running out of ideas. Is the only solution to take it all to a PC and
install PC Suite there?

Anybody been here before me?

Stef

At 21 Apr 2008 13:54:12 -0700 Stephanie wrote:
> My old Nokia 6200 doesn't have Bluetooth. I have a USB data cable (C-42)
and
> now am searching for an application that will drag the (many) contacts
off
> the phone and save them on my Mac.
>
> I'm having no luck. iSync won't do it, BitPim won't, and Nokia's PC Suite
(a
> PC app) won't install under Win 2000 (VMWare installation).
>
> I'm running out of ideas. Is the only solution to take it all to a PC and
> install PC Suite there?


What isn't working? Are the contacts refusing to copy, or does the Win VM
simply not "see" the phone?

Do Windows VMs on Macs support USB?

I guess the question is how do want to use the contacts? In Windows apps
or Mac apps? If the latter, can't you use a Mac based solution like Nova's
iSync plug-ins? If the former, how about a server-based over-the-air
solution like SyncML/Funambol?

In article <0001HW.C4324D0400441A92B01AD9AF@news.sf.sbcglobal .net>,
Stephanie <nada@notavail.net> wrote:

> My old Nokia 6200 doesn't have Bluetooth. I have a USB data cable (C-42) and
> now am searching for an application that will drag the (many) contacts off
> the phone and save them on my Mac.
>
> I'm having no luck. iSync won't do it,

Unfortunately no: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/isync/
Also a quick search for plugins for iSync on google did not turn up
anything useful.

> BitPim won't, and Nokia's PC Suite (a
> PC app) won't install under Win 2000 (VMWare installation).
>
> I'm running out of ideas. Is the only solution to take it all to a PC and
> install PC Suite there?

Does the PC Suite pull off contacts? I could not find that on Nokia's
site.
If so, most likely taking it to a PC (or using a Mac with Parallels and
Windows XP for example - I use that to sync my TomTom GPS Navigator via
USB and it works) is the easiest solution, because then you can export
the file from whatever PC application to .vcf Files which can be read by
Address Book.

You could also use your Intel Mac with Boot Camp
(http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html)
to boot your Mac with Windows XP, and then install Nokia's PC Suite.

Alternative ways are:
Sync it to a newer phone using Infrared, then sync the newer phone via
Bluetooth (see http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/isync/ for
compatible phones).
Or store contacts on the SIM card (possibly only parts of it, using Menu
commands to transfer contacts from the internal phone memory to the SIM
card), and use the SIM card in another, compatible phone to transfer
from there to Address book.

Some more ideas:
http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/...454_7-30536080.
html?messageID=2505214

Just occured to me:
I have an old Mac Application that might work (it does run under 10.5
and on an Intel Mac), as it is about the same age as your 6200, ie 2002:
http://www.idexpress.fi/en/gsm/simexpress.html
Test it (free demo only does 25 entries), if it works it's just USD 19 -
it might do the trick! Come to think of it this is probably the solution
you are looking for, because it uses serial communication either via USB
or Infrared.
I had used it successfully before the days of Bluetooth.
It also had saved the day when my phone took a plunge in the pool - the
phone was gone but not my data.
It will not iSync, but will get your data into tab delimited text file
so you can clean it up and import to Address book.

If it does not work, I'd e-mail the developer, it could be easy to
implement.

(You do remember to have a copy of the Mac's Address Book data on you
phone only once you transferred to a new phone - and do yourself a
favour and get one with Bluetooth, it so much easier.)

Hope that gets you started.

Marc

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Thanks for the many creative suggestions.

> http://www.idexpress.fi/en/gsm/simexpress.html

Tried it. No joy. When attempting to connect to the phone (which is connected
via a USB cable) the options shown are:

- Bluetooth-PDA-Sync
- Bluetooth-Modem

(Now that I recall, several of the apps that said they would work showed
similar ignorance of USB connectivity.)

My phone has no Bluetooth; I turned off Bluetooth on the computer in hopes
that it would be forced to attempt USB communication. No joy.

Barring any of the other-phone-as-interim-backup-device ideas, I think my
only option is to utilize a spare SIM card and simply back up the phone book
to that. That gives me the security of having a 2nd copy of the phone list; a
means to simply plug this into a new phone without need of another device;
and -- hopefully -- one of those USB - SIM reader dongles might give me a
means to get it into my computer.

If it weren't for the great sound of the speaker phone mode in this phone I
would have replaced it with something more modern.

Thanks again to all who attempted to solve my problem.

Steph

In article <0001HW.C434262F002F509CB01AD9AF@news.sf.sbcglobal .net>,
Stephanie <nada@notavail.net> wrote:

> > http://www.idexpress.fi/en/gsm/simexpress.html
> Tried it. No joy. When attempting to connect to the phone (which is connected
> via a USB cable) the options shown are:
>
> - Bluetooth-PDA-Sync
> - Bluetooth-Modem

Try e-mailing the developer before resorting to other solutions.

HTH

Marc

--
remove bye and from mercial to get valid e-mail
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