Comments on: I need a simple contact manager

By: John Buchnessq

John Buchnessq — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 03:44:56 +0000

I agree, there must be some developer who understands that that a contact manager should act like a media player. Separates the work from personal life, auto fills in contact information from the web, allows contacts that are NOT on the social bandwagon, reminds you to reach out to old contacts, is able to automatically group contacts, etc. If only …

By: Janine

Janine — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 08:50:50 +0000

I use Handy Address Book

By: F.S. Quill

F.S. Quill — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:46:27 +0000

1 word: Kurlo

By: M. Graves

M. Graves — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 20:39:35 +0000

I second the suggestion of using Highrise from 37signals. I’ve just started converting over my contacts using the free version and find it easy to use. Highrise imports a fair number of file formats which is making the task easier. You can Upload a vCard file, Import from Outlook, Import from ACT!, Import from CSV file and Import from Basecamp. It’s in the cloud so you get to it with any web access. Hope this helps.

By: David Churbuck

David Churbuck — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:49:50 +0000

Zero. Free. It should be ad supported.

By: Vasantha

Vasantha — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:47:08 +0000

What is your budget???

By: Myles

Myles — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:47:42 +0000

Dave,
have you tried Highrise from 37signals? Its pretty cool because it will allow you to assign emails to the contacts so when you call them you can pull up your latest notes, email etc and its web based so you can access it from anywhere.

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:44:06 +0000

Wow – all of these replies (including mine) just reinforce your argument for a simple contact manager in the cloud that can import/export to any crazy individual set up people may have.

By: William

William — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:50:28 +0000

David, Was heartened to read this blog entry, if only to see I’m not alone. Have hundreds of cards. Need to access many of them. Social networking is useless for people in many countries. Have tried some of the same tools that you have, including having english-speaking assistants mangle spanish surnames entering them by hand into Notes. The “synch” with the BBerry doubled the number of contacts on each device, and the search functions are worthless. Am back to carrying around binders with cards in them. Sigh.

By: Chris Grayson

Chris Grayson — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:00:35 +0000

People that are important in my life bubble up to the top (or out to all my networks).

I have Apple AddressBook on my desktop machine, my laptop and my iPhone. Then I have an Apple MobileMe account that keeps all three of these synced with one another so they all have the same information, no matter which one I enter it on (There is a field for everything and custom fields out the wazoo). It also includes a field for AIM IM and syncs the AIM/iChat buddy list to my AddressBook as well.

Then I have Facebook and LinkedIn and the iPhone apps for both. So anyone I connect with online through either one, I also have their contacts in my phone. If I use one of the apps to call or email someone who is not otherwise in my regular AddressBook, with one click I can add that person to my iPhone AddressBook (which, as stated, then also propagates them out to both of my computers through MobileMe).

For people I’m in contact with most often, I have 3 phone numbers, an IM, home and work addresses and Facebook & LinkedIn connections.

Other people I’m connected to in one or more places depending on the breadth of the relationship and which platforms they are active.

There is also an application called AddressBookSync, that syncs the profile pictures across all my AddressBooks to their Facebook photo (provided they are in both) including my iPhone and iChat IM buddy list, so I have the same image for them everywhere (except LinkedIn where they may use a different photo).

I’m also very OCD about my mailbox. So much so that Sachendra Yadav wrote an article about my email organization habits:

http://sachendra.wordpress.com/2008/03/30/how-to-handle-email-overload/

Ha, ha!