LG Ally :: Backing Up Contacts With Pics / Messages?

Well this weekend I took the plunge after months of reading (trying to get smarter) & rooted my Ally with Universal Androot 1.6.2, (worked flawlessly), then installed ClockworkMod w/Rom Manager v2.5.0.4 (had some issues at 1st) Had the damnedest time Rebooting into Recovery, even manually(send/menu/end). The app acted like it was doing what I told it to till it got to rebooting. the triangle with the android would pop up for about 1 second then it was blank followed quickly by the LG logo where it would bootup like nothing had been done. I got this same result when "Reboot into Recovery","Install ROM from SD Card","Fix permissions","Backup current ROM". But being the bullheaded soul that I am I just keep pushing & occasionally things would happen. I finally got to do a Nandroid Backup. Then I got brave and flashed my 1st ROM, Raptor v0.1. Again with the persistence & slowly success. However things seemed slow. So I got brave once more and flashed the Velocity 0.2-aloha. I will go back to Raptor to try it out but for now Velocity is doing better for me. Both of these flashed using "Install ROM from SD Card" option with zipfiles. Now things started working better Having less problems with CWM, however the "Download ROM" still doesn't seem to work, (error occurred while processing the ROM list). If you're still with me, just tried to answer anticipated questions from all of you, I'll get to my questions; 1. Is there a way to backup my text messages & complete contacts info including pics that I've added to each contact, so that I can transfer these things when I tryout a new ROM? 2. Any suggestions on a good Apps2SD app?. Any info on RageXicity screenshot on the Raptor release thread about what clock app that is, what dock that is, & where did that wallpaper come from??? I liked the layout but don't know where to get it.