Contact details

[elvum]

Hello,

Something that's been bothering me for a while (but particularly around Christmas) is that I don't have a sensible way to store contact details for people. I had an address book at one point, but it got out of date, then it started running out of space in popular sections, and now I think I've lost it. I've also used a variety of personal organiser/PDA/smartphone things over the years, but the data has survived about as well as the devices that stored it, since the manufacturers of such things seem to assume that you use Windows and only want to sync with Outlook. (And in the case of the Psion 3c, that you wanted to pay extra for a serial cable for it.) So, given that this is the 21st century and I have a phone with an "uncapped" data plan, some kind of web-based system seems like the way forward. Except I don't know of any existing ones, either web services or software I could install on my web server.

So, I turn to you, oh livejournal friends list. How do you store people's contact details - especially physical addresses? How should I do it?

Comments

[gaspodog.livejournal.com]

Post? What is this 'physical address' of which you speak? :)

[elvum.livejournal.com]

You think all those bills find their way to the pile in your block's entrance hallway by homing instinct? :-)

[gaspodog.livejournal.com]

Obviously they're carried. I wonder what the airspeed velocity of an unladen postman is?

[rplackett.livejournal.com]

well, you find his acceleration due to falling freely under gravity (g=9.81ish) and then retard it proportional to his velocity squared with a factor for his aerodynamics. - This of course means hes in freefall and probably not very a very happy postie.

# postman pat is a red and blue splat..

[bob]

Use your phone as the main repository and sync it elsewhere.
i have been using http://soocial.com/
admittedly ive not entered all the data because that would be tedious.

The other obvious solution is a mail folder :)

[easterbunny.livejournal.com]

Since I keep a paper diary, I get one with an address section and use that for physical addresses. I copy all of the addresses over from my old diary to the new one on the plane / train / tram ride to wherever we end up for New Year's Eve.

Cons:

1. It's a pain in the ass.

Pros:

1. Each year I can review the addresses I keep - full addresses for family / farflung friends, phone details for doctor / cat minder / hair salon (the really important stuff); unlike my old paper address book, I don't have half of it filled up by people I went to summer camp with 15 years ago.
2. If I know someone has moved recently, I can verify their address with a minimal trawl through email. Also a bonus over my old address book since I don't have 12 crossed out or scrubbed out addresses for the same person
3. I always have my paper diary with me, so I can address postcards / Christmas cards / thank you notes on a train.

I could use a mobile phone for the above functionality, but I hate my phone and rarely know where it is or if it's charged. The paper diary works for me.

[johnckirk.livejournal.com]

I started out with a physical address book, which I probably still have somewhere, but I haven't looked at it in years. My phone is always complaining about running low on space, so I wouldn't want to store addresses in there.

My solution is to use Outlook; they're stored in Exchange, so I can view them through Outlook Web Access. Probably not much good for you, but if the open source advocates are to be believed then there must be a superior product freely available :)

[susannahf.livejournal.com]

I use a paper system I'm afraid. It's by no means infallible, but it seem to work for me...

[shuripentu.livejournal.com]

I use BirthdayAlarm to remind me of birthdays. When I noticed it had a notes section available for each person, I started using that for addresses.

[michaelp-j (from livejournal.com)]

My ISP's Horde webmail app can store postal addresses in its contacts section.