How to Migrate All Your Data to iCloud from Google with Minimal Fuss
I found the following Life Hacker tutorial beneficial to me as a Google user and hopefully it may benefit some of you as well.
Migrating Gmail Messages to iCloud Mail
You can start fresh with your new iCloud account, but maybe you want access to your email archives all in one place. In that case, you'll have to migrate your current Gmail inbox over. It isn't the quickest process, but we've found that plugging both accounts into an IMAP program—like Apple's Mail—makes it fairly straightforward. Just make sure you follow the instructions below to the letter. Read through them first, so you understand what you're doing, and then go through each step, one by one. If you make a mistake, you could severely confuse your iCloud inbox and have to start over. Here's what you'll want to do:
- First, set up both Gmail and iCloud in Mail.app. Setting up Gmail is easy, and creating a new iCloud email address is as simple as going into System Preferences > iCloud, signing in with your Apple ID, and creating a new Mail account. It should show up in Mail when you're done.
- Let Mail download all your messages. You'll see all your Gmail labels set up as folders. Note that iCloud doesn't use labels like Gmail does, so you'll need to go into Gmail and make sure all of your messages are assigned only one label—otherwise, you'll get duplicate messages in your iCloud account.
- When you're ready to migrate, head into Mail.app and click on Gmail's "Sent Messages" folder. Go to Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For > Sent. Repeat this process with the Deleted Messages folder as well.
- Now, you're ready to start moving messages over. Start with the inbox. Go to Gmail's inbox in Mail.app and select all the messages within. Right-click on them and hit Copy To > Inbox > iCloud. This should copy all those messages over to iCloud's inbox. Do not drag and drop the messages; that will remove them from Gmail, which we do not want yet.
- Repeat this process for each of your user-created folders—that is, all your Gmail "labels" except All Mail, Important, Starred, and Spam. Create a new folder on the iCloud account (by right-clicking on the iCloud inbox and hitting "New Mailbox), click on the corresponding folder from your Gmail account, select all the messages, and copy them to the new iCloud folder. Be sure to copy over all your sent messages, too, even though they're a Gmail-created folder! Note that if one of your folders is particularly big, you may run into some errors when copying messages. If you get an error, delete all the messages in the iCloud folder you're trying to fill and try the copy again. After another try or two, it should work.
- When you're done, you should have a good portion of your messages migrated to the iCloud account. The only messages missing will be the ones that didn't have a label, and weren't in your inbox or sent messages folder. To migrate these, we'll need to delete everything we've migrated so far, and move them from the "All Mail" folder into a new "Archive" folder in iCloud. So, go back to your Sent Messages, Inbox, and other user-created labels and delete all those messages—using the Mail.app interface—from your Gmail account.
- Lastly, copy everything from the All Mail folder in to iClouds Archive folder, as you did with the other folders. When you're done, your inbox should look just like it did in Gmail, and you're ready to start using iCloud Mail.
If you want to undelete those messages from your Gmail account just in case, you can head to the Gmail web interface, select all the messages in your Trash, and move them to your inbox. Then, re-archive them all in case you want to move back to Gmail later.
Migrate Google Calendar to iCal
Migrating your calendars is much easier than migrating your email. Open up Google Calendar, go to Settings > Calendars, and hit the "Export Calendars" link. This will download all your calendars in a ZIP file to your desktop. Extract the ZIP file somewhere, then open up iCal and go to File > Import. Choose one of your calendars in the folder you just unzipped, and assign it a new calendar in iCal. Repeat this for each of those calendars. As long as the Calendars box is checked in System Preferences > iCloud, all those calendars should sync right up to iCloud with no problem.
Migrate Google Contacts to iCloud Contacts
Migrating your contacts is extremely easy:
- First, go into System Preferences > iCloud and uncheck the contacts box (that's right).
- Open up Address Book and go to Preferences > Accounts. Check the "Synchronize with Google" box and enter your Google credentials when prompted.
- Head back into System Preferences > iCloud and recheck the Contacts box. It will ask you if you want to merge your computer's Contacts with your iCloud contacts; pick Merge. Then, it'll tell you that it's going to turn off Google sync, which is okay, so hit OK.
When it finishes, head to the iCloud web interface, you should see all your Google contacts there, imported and ready to go.
Migrate Your Google Docs to iWork
Google offers an easy way to download any documents you want to your desktop, after which you can just drag them into iCloud:
- Start by going to Google Docs' web interfaceand select the documents you want to transfer over. You can select all the documents in your account by clicking the check box at the top of the list.
- the "More" button that appears and choose "Download" from the list. Make sure you download the documents in Microsoft Office format.
- Unzip the resulting file anywhere on your computer, like the desktop.
- Open up the iCloud web interface and hit iWork. Drag all those files you extracted into the iWork interface. They should upload right then and there, and pretty soon you'll see them on all your iOS devices, ready for editing.
Apple – Introducing iOS 5
Apple has released their own new introductory video demonstrating the new features of iOS 5. Most of you will already know what to expect from iOS5, however, it's still worth a look to see these features in action!
iOS App Development
I have just begun learning how to develop Apple iOS Applications. iOS is a growing platform that has a massive customer base. At the moment, I am part of the free development program (XCode 4 available from the Mac App Store), but I will be soon becoming part of the iOS Developer programme.
I hope to release some new Applications in the future that will link to some of the new websites I have in mind. If you have any tips or links on how I (and other readers) can learn the language more easily, then please place them in the comments below or feel free to Tweet them to me.
I have created a simple guessing game that I hope to place on the App Store for FREE in the next few weeks. Here are some screenshots:
How iCloud works with a shared Apple ID
I was wondering the same thing until I came across a blog post from @BrianStucki (Owner of Macminicolo) over the weekend. For all those not aware how this works, this explains how you set it up (a tricky workaround to apple's setup process.).
You can find the original article here: http://blog.brianstucki.com/post/6357111001/sharedicloud
As I was watching the most recent Apple Keynote, it became clear that your Apple ID was going to become more and more important. Among it’s many uses, it’s used to interact with iCloud, to make purchases at the iTunes music and App Stores, and can even be used to log into a Mac with Screen Sharing if you don’t have a local account on the machine. As long as you have a secure password, it’s great to have everything so simplified with one login. However, there is one concern I had right away.
In our house we have 8 iOS devices. I have an iPhone and iPad and an iPod Touch. My wife has an iPhone and an iPad. My two sons have an iPod Touch each. And the family shares an Apple TV. Our family purchase a lot of apps, music and movies from Apple. To keep things simple and usable for everyone, we use one Apple ID to make purchase so that each of us can enjoy the media. My guess is that there are a lot of homes out there similar to ours.
This setup has worked great, but with the recent iCloud, I was worried that it wouldn’t be so simple anymore. I’ll want my own calendars, contacts, photo streams, etc. And so will my wife and sons. We can all setup our own Apple IDs, but it would mean we each would have to buy a copy of an app if we wanted the whole family to use it on their devices. Also, my wife and sons wouldn’t have access to past purchase. (Come on, you knew I’d be keeping the original Apple ID.)
I installed Lion on a partition of my iMac, and then iOS 5 on my iPod touch so I could find the best way for our family to implement. It turns out, there is a way.
At home with the NBN
We see it all too often...Stephen Conroy and NBN supporters coming out and telling us of all the possibilities that the NBN will give us. They also produce fancy flyers and video advertisements posted onto sites like YouTube to demonstrate what will apparently come about as a result of this project. The video below is a prime example of this government propaganda that is being circulated amongst the Australian Public.
There a number of fundamental flaws in this video that are explained below, but above all, the video focuses on software possibilities that the NBN could enable. Most of these technologies are not yet available to the Australian public for wide usage and often the bandwidth provided by the NBN is not required with current internet speeds being able to produce the same results.
The software demonstrations shown throughout the video are in no way factual. For example, we see a transparent projection of a screen shown in the 'office' room and many more that are similar. In the same clip, we see 3D Graphical models being manipulated via the movement of the user's hands. (See example below) These examples both look like something straight out of a hollywood blockbuster.
Google’s new +1 Button
Have you ever seen this icon around on the web?
Well that is Google's new sharing icon shown in Google search results and for webmasters to place on their sites (their equivalent of Facebook & Twitter's share buttons). When a user clicks, they publicly share the link on their profile for the particular page they clicked the button on. Google's description of their new feature is as follows:
The +1 button is shorthand for "this is pretty cool" or "you should check this out."
Click +1 to publicly give something your stamp of approval. Your +1's can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search.
Sometimes it’s easier to find exactly what you’re looking for when someone you know already found it. Get recommendations for the things that interest you, right when you want them, in your search results.
The next time you’re trying to remember that bed and breakfast your buddy was raving about, or find a great charity to support, a +1 could help you out. Just make sure you're signed in to your Google Account.
I look forward to using the button often (and I will soon have it available on my blog (as soon as AddThis makes it available). To find out more information, make sure you check the Google site:Â http://www.google.com/+1/button/ and watch the video Google put together on the new service below (that basically explains it in a nutshell).
NBN: $132m a year for 560 customers
Can you believe it? Well that's correct...The Daily Telegraph today reported that a massive $235,000 is being spent per customer by the Government every year on NBN Co.'s staff salaries alone!
The Article reported:
THE cost of salaries for employees of the controversial National Broadband Network has hit $132 million a year, despite the fledgling company servicing just 561 customers.
...the NBN has just 561 customers across the entire country, with revenue of only about $3 million.
Even this started to puzzle me: how do 561 customers supposedly make up a $3 million dollar revenue? If there are only 561 customers bringing in about $3m p.a, this means each customer pays on average $445 per month (and I don't see many customers signing up at that price!). Using internode as our example ISP, we know that plans for the NBN are available starting for a 100Mbps connection with a 15BG quota at $59.95, and ranging to $139.95 for a 200GB quota (I would be going for this plan with those speeds!). The revenue figures just don't seem to add up...
NBN Co has also stated that by the end of June the company is expected to have 1000 staff - almost two employees for every customer! Labor's management of this plan is ludicrous as they allow so many executives to run a company offering very high salaries to their employees with such a small customer base. A private sector company would never allow this to occur, and unfortunately, because the company is Government Sponsored with no risk of collapsing, the company can continue to operate at a huge loss. Opposition communications and broadband spokesman Malcolm Turnbull said "This is a start-up business, but unlike every other start-up business, there are no financial constraints at all". After a decade of the Taxpayer footing the bill, Labor's broadband plan hopes to bring in revenues of $5.8Billion.
Fact or Fiction: Do mobile phones cause cancer?
There is growing evidence that there is a link between frequent mobile phone usage and brain cancers/tumours. But is this research really correct? Well, just as new reports come out frequently to say that there is a linkage, so do those on the opposing side in disagreement. In fact, there is no solid evidence to prove this theory as yet unfortunately do to the short period of time we have had to research these devices and the linkage.
Dr Charles Teo says that a new report out on Wednesday suggests that the "potentially harmful effects of mobile phones should serve as a 'wake-up call' to users and the telecommunications industry". Many others agree prompting the World Health Organisation to release a report relating to the possibility of danger from the use of radio frequency electromagnetic fields. generated by these devices.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said heavy usage could lead to a possible increased risk of glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer.
The IARC had previously stated that there were no real health risks associated with long-term mobile phone use.
However, all though many agree that there is a linkage between Mobile Phones and cancer, just like any good theory, there is always an opponent.
Associate Professor Rodney Croft from the Australian Centre for Radiofrequency Bioeffects Research thinks further research will prove there is no need for alarm.
"There are clearly a lot of things that we normally consume in our daily lives that IARC has said, we really don't have enough evidence to be sure [if it causes cancer], but there is a possibility," Professor Croft said.
When asked if he thought mobile phones caused cancer, he said: "No, I don't.
"I really think there's been a lot of research out there, certainly in terms of the short-term exposure, [that suggests] there isn't a problem.
"The only thing that really remains is whether long-term exposure might be a problem because we haven't had the chance to look at people over an extended period.
However, as there is still a possibility of risk (no mater what side of the argument you are on), therefore it is worth taking note of ways to reduce your risk:
- Limit your cell phone use
- Use hands-free where possible
- Use a office/home phone where possible
- Use a 3G phone (new research claims that there is less risk from using these devices)
- Use texting (SMS/MMS) where possible
Let me know what side you're on. I'd be interested to hear where people stand on this issue.
Sources:
- http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/mobile-phone-cancer-report-a-wakeup-call-teo-20110601-1ffs6.html
- http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-cell-phones-can-cause-brain-cancer
- http://www.cancercouncil.com.au/editorial.asp?pageid=231
- http://www.balpreetkaur.com/3g-phones-less-harmful/
Conroy’s Digital Economy Con
Thought this article posted by Malcolm Turnbull on his personal website was worth sharing. Let me know what you think!
The plans for Australia’s digital economy as outlined by Senator Conroy today reveal the hollowness of the argument for an immensely expensive and excessively risky Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network.
The Coalition broadly supports the eight goals outlined by Senator Conroy today. But they could all be achieved by spending much less than $50 billion on a FTTH network.
A cursory look at each of the Government’s goals reveal the shortcomings and shallowness of Senator Conroy’s arguments for a new, anti-competitive, one-size-fits-all Government-owned fixed line monopoly.