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Author Contact picture question
Parakoos
T68 gold
Joined: Apr 23, 2003
Posts: 37
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Posted: 2003-04-23 17:10
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This might have been addressed before but I couldn't find it.
So here it goes:

I've had some problems with my phone and will have it switched today. I removed all my pictures from my phone that I've taken, and some I've used for contact pictures. But then when I for fun checked my contacts, I see that the pictures there are still, well, there.

So my question is this.
What does the P800 do when you choose a picture for a contact?
I assume it takes a copy and store it somewhere, and if so, then does it rescale it and change the resolution to save memory? In other words, is there any point in rescaling and dropping the resolution of a picture that you plan to use as a contact picture or does the phone do it for you?

Cheers!
Parakoos
mbailey
P800
Joined: Apr 02, 2003
Posts: 105
From: Cheshunt, Herts, UK
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Posted: 2003-04-23 17:12
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I had the same problem when I moved a lot of pictures from my phone memory to the memory stick. Maybe it is cached somewhere? But the 'problem' was still there after I switched the phone off and on again... In the end I deleted the pictures associated with the phone entry and reattached the ones on the memory stick, just to make sure.

I even looked through all the folders with File Manager, just to make sure it had not duplicated the files, but it hadn't! A mystery!
d-_-b
M600 white
Joined: Nov 13, 2002
Posts: 214
From: Sydney, Australia
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Posted: 2003-04-23 17:39
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i dont think it is a bug .... cause when i moved all my contacts from my t68i to the p800 (using bluetooth) all the photos i had assigned to the fone contacts in my t68i moved into the p800 aswell ... so i think its a separet storge for the pictures .... prob in the phone memory in the contact partition !!!
kradcliffe
P910
Joined: Mar 10, 2003
Posts: 434
From: Aberdeen, Scotland
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Posted: 2003-04-23 17:52
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I'm pretty sure it re-scales them for contacts, and creates a copy seperate from the original picture.

I have deleted all the original photos taken with the camera, but they are still part of the contact.

If you look in storage manager in Control panel, the space taken up by contacts decreases slightly if you delete a contact photo. Looks like that is where they are stored ....

Keith
jbendaou
P910
Joined: Feb 11, 2003
Posts: 458
From: Washington, DC
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Posted: 2003-04-23 18:30
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It is not a bug...it is the way the P800 works with the contact list...i personally think it is a great feature...if u dont want the pics stored anywhere in ut p800....well just delete the pic from ur image folder, then move to the contact and delete the pic from there....this way it wont be stored anywhere...
having the pic of the contact stored elsewhere is actually a way to prevent from unwanted deletions...
************
The T68i God, P800 Dumper, T610 believer, the K700i lover, the P910 what, oh the K750i?
Parakoos
T68 gold
Joined: Apr 23, 2003
Posts: 37
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Posted: 2003-04-23 19:19
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Ok, I decided to answer my own question so I did a bit of research. I tried a series of actions and looked in the storage manager how the storage changed. What I found is really weired, read this!

This is what I did and how the storage changed.

When I started, this is what memory I had.
pictures: 260 Kb
Contacts: 62 kb
Free: 4,9 Mb

Moving over picture A to 'pictures'
Size of picture A: 686kb

Pictures: 944 kb
Contacts: 62 Kb
Free: 4,2 Mb

Adding picture A to a contact

Pictures: 944 Kb
Contacts: 74 Kb
Free: 4.2 Mb

Adding picture A to another contact

Pictures: 944 kb
Contacts: 85 kb
Free: 4.2 Mb

Removing picture from storage, not contact

Pictures: 260 kb
Contacts: 85 kb
Free: 4.9 Mb

Yes, the pictures were still there in the contacts space.
Ok, so by now we know that yes, the P800 does resize the pictures and store them in the partition for 'Contacts'. Great! But read on...
Removing picture A from both contacts.

Pictures: 260 kb
Contacts: 90 kb (!!!!!!)
Free: 4.9 Mb

Not only didn't it free up the memory that the contact pictures took up, it added 5kb!!!!
Restarting doesn't free up the memory.
Now adding the 'colloseum' picture that comes with the phone to one of the contacts that previously had a big picture attached to it.

Pictures: 260 kb
Contacts: 104 kb
Free: 4.9 Mb

Removing the colloseum picture from Contacts.

Pictures: 260 kb
Contacts: 108 kb
Free: 4.9 Mb

It did it again!
SE, this is sloppy.

Parakoos.
markdj
T68 gold
Joined: Mar 01, 2003
Posts: 18
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Posted: 2003-04-23 22:32
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So where are the photos stored? I looked and looked but could not find them. My problem is that when I try to transfer a contact via IR to a T39, the T39 reboots. I think the p800 is trying to send the photo as well but if I tranfer a contact without a photo it works. Therefore, I need to either upgrade the firmware of the T39m so that it doesn't reboot (is this a known bug) or backup the contact photo and delete it from the ontact then transfer the contact and restore the photo again. So...

where are the contact photos stored? how can I back them up? why does the bluetooth not work between the T39m and the p800 but the IR does work (though only on non-photo contacts)??

Help

MDJ
zol
P910
Joined: Sep 27, 2002
Posts: 291
From: this place
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Posted: 2003-04-23 22:47
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I think the pictures associated with contacts are stored in C:\System\Data\Contacts.cdb, that is the contact database file. They are transformed into the proper format, therefore the size is small. When you send the contact list to the PC, the pictures can be seen (encoded) in the .vcf file. When you delete pictures (or change/delete the contacts themselves), the size of the contact database does not follow the changes (can even grow), until it is compressed. Compression can be forced by adding an empty contact to an empty folder, or by using the Contacts Control program.
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