PDA Women / Supercharge Your Address Book
by Mike Rohde
Ask the average Palm handheld user which application they use most often, I'd suspect 9 out of 10 would mention the humble address book. Because of the address book's everyday usefulness, many users may not realize how much of a 'killer app' this little application really is.
In this month's feature article, I'll show you how to supercharge your own address book by exploring its many standard features, providing information about third party address book replacements and investigating data entry techniques.
**The Power of the Address Book** -- The real power of the Palm address book is the ability to retrieve or enter vital contact information virtually anywhere. I can't count the number of times in which my address book has provided critical information on the go, just when needed. I've used it to quickly find a telephone number to make a call on my mobile phone, to locate a destination with directions in a note field of an address entry or to immediately enter contact information of a friend or colleague I've had a chance meeting with.
The address book is essentially a simple multi-field database, which has been optimized for storing contact information. But beyond its field capabilities, the address book has a few other often unused features which can make it even more powerful and useful.
**Use Those Categories** -- One of the coolest features of the address book are categories, which allow the division of a contacts into specialized groupings as opposed to leaving contacts in a single, unwieldy list. Open the address book application and notice that the upper right corner of the screen has an inverted pyramid with some text to the right; this indicates the current category. If you've not yet altered the categories, you will find 'All, Business, Personal, Quicklist, Unfiled and Edit Categories...' as choices in this list.
Don't limit yourself to these 5 basic categories -- add your own! To add categories, select the triangle (or text) and then choose 'Edit Categories...' to bring up the category editing dialog box. Here you may add, edit, rename or delete categories to your heart's content, though the total number of categories is limited to 15. A simple way to make use of the address book's power is to create several distinct categories and organize all of your addresses around them.
For instance, I have separate categories for Friends, Family, International Friends, Business contacts, Company contacts, Quicklist, Lodging, Restaurants, Theaters, Macintosh, Palm, Music and Travel. By separating contacts into categories I've found I can more quickly locate the contact I want, without resorting to a search.
**Beam Me Up Scotty!** -- Having your contact list divided into categories has an added bonus; you can beam whole categories of contacts to other Palm devices! To beam an entire category, select the category you wish to beam and then select the menu bar and the menu item 'Record'. Now notice that the first menu item is 'Beam Category'. This might be especially useful for sending entire vendor, client or co-worker listings to your work colleagues, or for sharing important categories with your spouse or significant other.
In case you're wondering, Individual contacts can also be beamed if you'd rather not share an entire category. To do this, select a contact to beam and look under the 'Record' menu item for 'Beam Address' menu item. This function is probably more likely to be used than the beam category function, made obvious by the graffiti shortcut of command-B assigned to it.
To perform the command function in graffiti, tap the graffiti text area in the lower left corner and stroke up to the upper right; you should see a black bar appear above the graffiti area displaying the words 'Command:' inside. Now write a graffiti 'B' and your address will begin beaming!
**Create Your Business Card** -- Another feature that the address book provides is the ability to have a virtual 'business card' defined for yourself. To take advantage of this feature, first create a contact entry with your name, address, phone and any other important information you'd likely want on a business card. Now, while your own business card entry is active, select the menu bar and menu 'Record' and look at the bottom of the menu items for 'Select Business Card' and select it. A dialog will appear asking if you really want to use this contact as your business card. Select the 'Yes' button if so, and you'll be returned to your contact.
You should now see a small icon at the top left of the screen in the menu area, which looks like a rolodex card; this indicates you have made this contact into your default business card. When you encounter another Palm handheld user who wants your contact information, simply beam your business card from anywhere in the address book application. An easier way to beam your business card is to open the address book, then press and hold the address book hard button for 2 seconds; your business card will begin beaming.
**Make Use of the Standard Fields** -- Another way to supercharge your address book is to make good use of the standard fields in each contact entry. Stock fields include: Last and First Name, Title, Company, 4 Phone/Mobile/Pager or Fax fields, an Email field, Address, City, State, Zip Code and Country. The phone fields in particular can be especially handy, as they can provide a variety of primary, secondary, mobile, pager and fax numbers in one location. Good use of your stock fields can help provide important information when you need it most; on the road.
**Make Use of the Custom Fields** -- In addition to the standard fields mentioned above, the address book also offers 4 'custom' fields which may be renamed. To edit the custom fields, select the menu bar and the menu item 'Options', then look for the menu item named 'Rename Custom Fields' and select it. A dialog screen will appear with four editable fields; now enter your field name between 10 and 13 characters here (depending upon the letters you choose).
I use these four custom fields in my contacts: Website, Other Email, Birthday and Comments. For my purposes, these four fields work best; your own uses will dictate what to rename your own custom fields.
** Attach Notes for Even More Information Power** -- One of the features which I find most useful is the note feature present on each contact. To add a note, first locate a contact which you'd like to add a note to and select it. When the contact opens, click the 'Edit' button to open the contact editing screen. Next, click the 'Note' button and a memo pad-like field will appear, allowing you to enter your text.
How can you tell which contacts have notes attached? After you've added a note to your contact, click the 'Done' button on the note editing field, then click 'Done' on the contact editing field. This will return you to the contact listing of the address book, where you will see a small note icon to the right of the contact to which you've just added a note. If you click the note icon with your stylus, the note will open directly for viewing or editing.
**Suggestions for Using Notes** -- I often use the note feature to compile detailed information which won't fit into any other address book field. For my business contacts I'll normally add directions to a company, write notes about phone conversations or dated lists of items ordered from a firm.
In my personal contacts I often include directions to a friend's house, notes on interests, taste in music, food or clothing sizes for later shopping trips. Sometimes I'll enter gift ideas into a note as they strike me. On later shopping trips I can quickly refresh my memory by referring to these useful notes.
For my restaurant contacts, I usually enter the establishment's hours, my favorite dishes and directions for future visits. Recently I've setup a category for Lodging, with Bed & Breakfasts and hotels that my wife and I like, along with notes about the location, check-in and check-out times, amenities and prices, to make future reservations a snap.
**Address Book Replacements** -- And if the built-in address book doesn't seem powerful enough, you might want to investigate the variety of address book replacements created by third party shareware authors.
All of the shareware applications listed below are designed specifically to _replace_ your stock address book, while not modifying the basic datebook database structure. Each Application has its own specific features, though all have quick access A-Z selectors and feature some type of sorting functionality.
* Address+ -- This application has the handy ability to move large groups of contacts between categories, which could be especially useful if you have just created many new categories and don't want to move your contacts one at a time. I also liked the Address+ A-Z selector the best; it seemed easiest to tap since the letters are relatively large compared to the other applications. It's also only $8, which is by far the least expensive address book replacement.
http://www.jacksonville.net/~ptaylor/
* SuperNames -- This $20 shareware offering provides linking with datebook, to do and memopad items as well as other contacts in the address book, which separates it from the rest of the pack. In order to offer this functionality, SuperNames adds a bit of cryptic code in the note area of linked contacts (which cannot be altered without damaging the link). It also features user-definable tabs that can appear above or below the contact list, great for frequently used categories.
http://www.standalone.com/palmos/super_names/
* TealPhone -- The main screen of TealPhone makes a radical departure from the standard address book user-interface; the A-Z selector is placed vertically along the left edge of the screen, the contact telephone number is at the top of the screen in large, readable numbers, and the contact list fills in the remaining screen space. The informational display area at the top of the screen can switch between phone, email and address information display by clicking on small icons of a phone, computer or house. TealPhone is $18.
http://www.tealpoint.com/softphon.htm
* AddressPro -- This application provides sorting selectors at the top of the contact list with a huge selection of criteria using various combinations of company name, last name, first name, title, phone. AddressPro also offers customizable sort fields via a checkbox activated by the 'Other...' selector in the sorting list. Priced at $20, this app would work well for someone who needs to re-sort their contacts often.
http://www.geocities.com/sjzingers/addresspro.html
* AddressBookR -- Brought to you by the same folks who created CityTime, AddressR provides the capability for adding additional information to each contact by making use of its note area. When this feature is used, a diamond selector appears in the contact in the full screen view, providing access to the note area. AddressBookR is $15.
http://www.codecity.com.au/abrtour.html
* PopUpNames -- This $13 hack activated application takes a very different approach, providing a pop-up window activated by pressing the address hard button on your Palm handheld. The application's pop-up window appears over any other application so that once your contact has been found, you can copy the complete text of the contact into the clipboard or close the window and return to the underlying program. PopUpNames also makes extensive use of a tabbed interface to display names, which offers quick access to all information. Hackmaster ($5) is required to run this application.
http://www.benc.hr/popnames.htm
Hackmaster
http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?prodID=226
**Launching a Replacement Address Book with the Address Button** -- If you decide to use one of these feature-added address book replacements you can easily have it launch by pressing the address book 'hard button' on your Palm handheld. AddressBookR has a checkbox preference to make it launch via the hard button and PopUpNames primarily operates via hard button. Address+, AddressPro, SuperNames and TealPhone can also be directed to launch via hard button by changing the button preferences in your Palm.
To make this change, find the 'Prefs' application on your Palm device and click it. When it opens, use the selector in the top righthand corner of the screen to select the item 'Buttons' at the top of the list. Now you should see icons for all of the hard buttons on your device, with selectors next to them. Look for the icon which represents the phone and click the selector to its right (labeled 'Address'). Clicking this selector will provide a list of applications currently on your handheld. Now select the replacement application you'd like to launch via the address book 'hard button' and you're all set!
**How to Best Enter Contact Data** -- One problem with moving from a paper to Palm address book is the entry of contacts. For this task, I suggest entering the bulk of your contacts with your desktop application, since you can make use of faster keyboarding skills on your computer.
Once your main contacts are entered, you can add additional contacts via the computer desktop application, or directly into your Palm handheld. I try to immediately enter contact information while I'm meeting with someone to prevent myself from forgetting to enter it at a later time.
**What if I Want to Tune Up Existing Contact Data?** -- If some of the ideas listed above intrigue you, but you don't want to invest a large amount of time making the changes to your contact list all at once, just modify contacts as you use them. If you bring up a contact to make a call, make an effort during the call to get any information you might be missing; following the call take a moment to update the contact.
You may also make use of downtime (train rides, waiting rooms, etc.) to edit your contact information. Making the updates in small chunks seems to work best for me since it's never a huge task to complete; rather it becomes many smaller, easier tasks.
**Conclusion** -- Whether you decide to use the built-in address book or a feature-added replacement, I encourage you to take a little extra time to supercharge it. Most importantly, be creative! Each person uses a Palm handheld for different reasons, so feel free to experiment with ideas to make the address book really work for your needs.
Originally appeared in Palm Tipsheet 8, July 2000.