can somebody tell me how to back up my contacts to gmail?

If you have a Gmail account it will auto back-up/sync your contacts as long as you haven't made any changes in your phone settings that won't allow it. To verify go to your Gmail email account and click contacts halfway down on the left hand side. Your phone contacts should all be there in the list. 

Hi there!  Its really nice to have the backup on your Gmail account.

From the phone go to Menu > Settings > Data Synchronization > Google

This is where all your background data and sync controls are for Google.  
Press Menu and you can choose to Sync Now.
(You do not have to connect the phone to computer, its over the air)

Make sure your Auto-Sync i checked if you want it to make sure to update whenever something changes, and turning off Background Data will turn off the syncing for all those choices there.

My suggestion:
>Sync Now> and wait a minute or two, then log in from your computer to your Gmail account to check your contacts list.  Everything should be right there.
I like to organize my groups, update contact info, make adjustments on my computer on Gmail, and then just do a manual update sync on my Eris, and viola!  Like butta!

Cheers!

Are you sure the Gmail account you are logging in to online, is the same Gmail account you setup your Eris with?
This is a long shot, but if you let a VZW rep setup your phone, this might be an issue.  You may have setup the phone under a different Gmail account.

dont be like me.  i like just assumed they were all there bcaus they were suppossed to be  big mistake. anyways in your cotacts save them as google not phone. i thought phone was for numbers and google for emails but when yu think about it... its more like where do you want to save it that should be the answer...if you're not confused... anywas sav ethm as googl instead of phone and you'll be good

I saved all of my contacts as "phone" so I use Lookout (from the market) which backs up contacts, pictures and call logs. It also checks for viruses, and can locate your phone if lost. It's free. Even if you have everything backed up   I suggest at least testing it.   

Ok I did what you described below and sure enough the bogus contact showed up on the phone. What I don't see is if I add a contact using the phone that it syncs to the gmail account.
I added several new contacts yesterday on the phone, but they did not sync to the gmail account so they are not backed up.

Mike

What about the question regarding conversion of phone contacts to google contacts? Somehow I have about 98 of my 500 contacts set as phone contacts, so they don't show up in my gmail. What's the best way to correct this, as I'd like to get all of my contacts backed up with gmail.