Embedding photos in contacts?

[Jason Dunn]

With my original Pocket PC 2000 device, I tried synching contacts that had images embedded in the Outlook notes field. It seemed like a neat feature - having a photo of the person you were going to meet, etc. Yet when I did a sync, none of the photos would come across. I assumed that this meant Contacts on the Pocket PC didn't support rich data, because you can't see HTML content in the notes field as well.<br /><br />I was checking the Pocket PC newsgroup tonight, and Beverly Howard made an interesting post claiming that it was possible to get images in the notes field. Curious, I began some experimentation of my own. The results? I was able to get an image 100 x 100 into the contact, but the results were not pretty (well, my beautiful wife is pretty, but the way my Pocket PC is displaying her is not):<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/image-embed.gif" /><br /><br />That was the result of a direct clipboard copy/paste of a 16-bit colour JPEG image. I thought if I did a manual dithering down to 8-bit colour it might look better, but the resulting pasted image didn't appear at all. If you try to attach a photo to the contact, that won't work either.<br /><br />What gives? It seems like there's SOME functionality here, but not enough to be truly useful. Are these hooks Microsoft will enhance in the future, or an attempt at something that didn't work very well?

[JohnnyFlash]

Hehe... don't mean to be churlish, but my Series5 was doing this back in.... when was the Series5 released, I can't remember it was that long ago.

[marlof]

You have some guts, telling people the results with that picture were not pretty.... :wink:

[MikeB]

Would that be a photo of Mrs. Dunn?? Uh-oh. Sleeping in the doghouse is probably even colder in Canada... :o

Mike B.

[RLBogue]

I couldn't help but bust out laughing. Maybe Ashley won't be reading the site ;)

On a more serious note ... Outlook as always been very stupid about storing images. Why can't you store an image in a FIELD in Outlook? You can jam it into the notes field -- however, MS has still never implemented an Image field in the contact record. Something that people have been screaming about since the first edition of Outlook.

Rob

[ctitanic]

I hate to say that but Palm has this feature implemented since OS 3.5 :(
Also the calendar of Palms devices is more complete. In my opinion, those are points where MS has to push a little more.

[spg]

I hate to say that but Palm has this feature implemented since OS 3.5 :(
Also the calendar of Palms devices is more complete. In my opinion, those are points where MS has to push a little more.


I agree with you there. Handspring has improved on just the basic Palm calendar as well. They have packaged advanced date book with all of their handhelds.


On a more serious note ... Outlook as always been very stupid about storing images. Why can't you store an image in a FIELD in Outlook? You can jam it into the notes field -- however, MS has still never implemented an Image field in the contact record. Something that people have been screaming about since the first edition of Outlook.


I agree there as well. I have always been frustrated at Outlook for that very reason.

~Spencer

[Jason Dunn]

You have some guts, telling people the results with that picture were not pretty.... :wink:


You know, last night when I was writing it, I purposefully didn't put anything about the subject of the photo in there just because I wanted to AVOID this discussion. I forgot that some of you know what Ashley looks like. :roll:

The original post has been edited to cover my ass. :lol:

[marlof]

You mean you thought about it, and still wrote what you did? Speak about gutsy! :twisted:

[JonnoB]

I think Jason is making the highest compliment when he uses a picture of his newlywed wife as the subject. Except for my wife, none of my family are in my contacts, maybe there is a reason to have contact records for the rest of the clan.

You can always include a shortcut to a picture in memory.

[kettle]

My CLIE does this but I think it's a waste of memory and space.

[entropy1980]

I think this will only become an important feature when 2 things happen....
1. We see some integration with phones ( way cool method of call ID!)
2. And more important some sort of camera built in to the PPC, which would make it universally available to all that want to use it.....although i think it is stupid they can't just allow you to do it in notes it couldn't be that hard.....

[ctitanic]

My CLIE does this but I think it's a waste of memory and space.


I was not thinking about to have one picture in each contact! But to have some is a nice feature, to have the possibility even if you don't use will be nice. Don't you think?

Palm also had one contact configured as your business card, and a hard key configured to beam your business card. It's a fact that people remember more the way you look than your name so if you are beaming your business card with your picture... will be easier for them to recall you. Don't you think?

[ScottG]

My CLIE does this but I think it's a waste of memory and space.


Better than being able to put in a picture would be to put in a map to the person's address (from MapQuest, for example), so you could refer to it without being connected to the Internet. I tried this once and couldn't get the map picture, which I'd put in the notes box of my desktop Outlook contact, to sync with my Pocket PC.

[ctitanic]

My CLIE does this but I think it's a waste of memory and space.


Better than being able to put in a picture would be to put in a map to the person's address (from MapQuest, for example), so you could refer to it without being connected to the Internet. I tried this once and couldn't get the map picture, which I'd put in the notes box of my desktop Outlook contact, to sync with my Pocket PC.


See. Another great idea.

[Taipaq]

In IA Album (www.iastyle.com), simply File > Copy the image you are viewing to clipboard then paste it to any application which accept image Paste. The true-color image will be copied to clipboard according to the copy size setting you set in Tools > Options command, Misc tab, within IA Album.

Pocket Word or Notes can take clipboard of larger images. But Pocket Contact's Notes field can only store smaller size 24-bit image.

I use this feature to paste small size (75 x 100) head photo to the Contacts' Notes field in conjuction with hp Pocket Camera running with IA Album.

The image can be synced back to Outlook in PC successfully. However, if you touched the image in the PC and sync it back to device, the image quality is bad and size can go wrong. So simply copy the image to the Pocket Contacts and leave it untouched there, it will be just all right to keep the copied picture useful.

[alex_kac]

The PocketPC Notes supports everything that Pocket Word does - including rich graphics, colors, etc... Its just that its not very well documented (actually not at all).

[GadgetGuy]

If you just happened to have a digital photo of someone, wouldn't you already know them pretty well?

[st63z]

Wow, Seinfeld was right, the universe really is in balance. Just as Rob (CmdrTaco) proposes to his fiancee on /., Jason unwittingly insults his newlywed wife's photo. One man's getting all the sweet lovin' while another bunks in the doghouse... :wink:


P.S. I didn't know that was Mrs. Dunn's photo, I'd thought it was just a pic of this Beverly Howard person...

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

Is it possible that pictures would need to be further dithered to 4-bit color?

As for maps being stored, I've never stored a map, but I've always made a habit of writing directions to people's houses in my contacts notes field (even before I ever bought my first PDA).

It's saved me a lot of time over the years when I have to visit someone (or somplace) I haven't seen in a while.

Ekkie

[Jason Dunn]

One man's getting all the sweet lovin' while another bunks in the doghouse...


Thankfully, my loving wife is more in tune with my brain than you guys are. :wink:

[spg]

If you just happened to have a digital photo of someone, wouldn't you already know them pretty well?


I have a digital photo of Bill Gates, but he doesn't even know who I am! :roll:

Ok so that was a really bad joke, but hey, at least I was trying! :D

[QYV]

IIRC, Beverly Howard is actually a man.

[marlof]

Beverly Howard for sure is a man. He has some cool things on his website on the HP Jornada 54* series: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/bevhoward/bhhpj.htm .

[JohnnyFlash]

http://nokia.com/phones/9210/pics/9210_apps_contacts_main.jpg

I did put the picture in as a loaded link but I was afraid that doing so would break some rules or other so, if you want to see sommat cool, click the link instead.

[Kenny]

I use Pocket Assistant to replace the system contacts viewer.

http://www.pocketgear.com/product_images/7/773/PocketAssistant.gif

I use this software add my friends' photo to my contacts database.

http://www.pocketgear.com/software_detail.asp?id=1819
:D

[ollie]

This thread does show how limited the native PPC OS can be. I love my iPAQ, but indeed there are things from the days of the Series 5 which I still miss. You could insert sketches and images on any field in its limited Data application ... No use reminiscing though ... In many respects the Pocket PC is so much better ...

[Will T Smith]

:idea:

I too have been frustrated by this.

Optimally, one should be able to assign a photo within desktop outlook and then have ActiveSync "translate" it down to PDA size. (Same goes for MP3's, but this is a different topic).

True, one typically doesn't take photos as part of an introduction. However, sometimes one must learn a LOT of names at once. Additionally, such a photo card would be useful when doing 3rd party referralls. i.e. I want to tell you about xxx person.

I'm sure parents out their would love to swap photo-contacts with one another for their kids, etc... It's a lot easier than photo paper.

Just a thought.

[OlManRivah]

It doesn't look too bad to me. I mean, golly gee, it is just a note not a photo album.

Maybe some more tweaking will come up with a good combo and you can post the results. 8)

[MartinG]

The results? I was able to get an image 100 x 100 into the contact, but the results were not pretty (well, my beautiful wife is pretty, but the way my Pocket PC is displaying her is not):

That was the result of a direct clipboard copy/paste of a 16-bit colour JPEG image. I thought if I did a manual dithering down to 8-bit colour it might look better, but the resulting pasted image didn't appear at all. If you try to attach a photo to the contact, that won't work either.


Jason,
Try dithering down to 8-bit colour (or maybe less) and then save the dithered picture back into 16-bit format before you do the copy/paste. I haven't tried it but this is what I used to have to do when using images on Psions in the past...

Cheers,
Martin 8O

[Gerard]

I don't often use this, as it really slows down my frequent database backups, but the odd time I add a black and white photo to a contact's Notes field. I have used the ancient M$ H/PC PlusPack version of M$ Paint. Called Pocket Paint, it has the basic familiar PC paint features, dumbed down a little bit. But it is easy to use this program to copy bitmaps to the clipboard and then paste them into anywhere that'll take them. I use PQView first lately to drop the things to greyscale, then do the copying in PP. PQView's supposed to copy to the clipboard, and indeed an old MIPS beta did, but it can not do this any longer. Larry says he'll fix it.
Anyway, here's my partner in crime, playing an old-time tune from North Carolina, a music dear to her heart. I've used a b&w GIF version of a BMP screenshot, to preserve the quality of the inserted photo:
http://www.luthier.ca/other/forum/shiho.gif

[Brad Adrian]

If you're more interested in simply viewing a photo than you are in synching it with your desktop, you can create a directory on your Pocket PC to keep JPGs and then, in the notes field, simply enter the URL for the desired photo.

Tapping on the URL opens the JPG in PIE for viewing.

[Gerard]

Sure, something like this works if you still have PIE set up as your default image viewer:
file://\My%20Documents\Photographs\Contacts\Shiho.gif
But as soo as you associate image files with a viewing program, you are at the mercy of the developer as to whether or not the image will actually open.
I'm using PQView now, and a tapped absolute URL like above opens the program, but then up pops an error: "Shiho.gif General I/O Error"
If I plug the same URL into the PIE address bar and tap Go, it opens in a second. So the above advice only works in devices still in factory fresh condition, or perhaps some other image viewing programs will work, just not Pocket Quick View. What about command line options? Well, I rather doubt one could input such a thing into PIE. but if you don't run a taskbar replacement, you could try the tap&hold on the clock... but that's a lot of work. Basically it is fastest to have the picture right there in Contacts.
Oh, there was an earlier question about contact's addresses being matched to a photo of a map. Why not just grab Tapani J. Otala's MapHelp? Works quite well.
http://www.tjotala.com/software/wince/maphelp/default.htm