Why Having A Separate Address Book Is A Good Idea Many people keep their contacts in the address book that's supplied with Microsoft 's Outlook Express. Why? Because it's free, it's simple and it's fully integrated with your emails. But the downside to this is that Outlook Express isn't the most secure application. There are many viruses, worms and trojans that specifically target Outlook address books and use them to propagate over the Net. And Outlook can corrupt its own files for all sorts of reasons too. If you're a light address book user, then a crisis of this sort might be little more than an occasional nuisance you're prepared to live with. Your address book gets compromised or corrupted? Fine! The solution is to simply burn a bit of your time reinstalling a clean copy and then repunching all your contacts. But if you're a heavy address book user with hundreds (or even thousands) of contacts, then a crisis of this sort can be an absolute disaster. The solution in such a case (or the way to prevent it, if it hasn't happened to you yet) is to simply ditch Outlook's address book altogether and use a secure 3rd party address book instead. Which is exactly what many people who have lots of contacts and very little free time to burn now do.

Other Address Book Resources An explanation of Address Books ...and how they differ from Personal Information Managers (PIMs) Download.Com's Address Book/PIM List Softpedia's List of Diaries, Organisers and Calendars

Address Books

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Background: An address book is a simple software application that electronically mimics a real-world address book, allowing you to keep track of your contacts and/or customers quickly and easily.

Address books vary in the amount of details they allow you to keep about individual entries and the spread of functions they offer (there are no hard and fast rules in this area). So they range from very simple applications up to something just a bit short of a full-blown contact management system (like ACT! or GoldMine, which are used by many professional sales-based organisations).

For most people, though, a simple address book will fill most of their everyday contact needs. A good address book will let you look up someone's phone number or email address quickly, and also send out mass emails to selected sub-groups (or even your entire address list) if you need to.

Even better - unlike the address book provided with Microsoft's email software - a separate address book gives you some measure of control over your data file. It also gives you the security of knowing that if things go pear-shaped on you computer, you have a good chance of retaining all your hard-entered data.

There are literally dozens and dozens of address book applications out there.

But here are half a dozen that merit serious consideration if you need a stable, robust and fully-featured address book that costs precisely zero:

RGS-CardMaster

RGS-Advance's RGS-CardMaster is one of the easiest address manager/phonebooks available. The software allows you to keep track of all your contacts, their addresses, phone and fax numbers, emails and random information (there's a separate "info" field for each record) . You can also attach a photo to each record if you wish, as well as define (or redefine) individual data fields. And you can quickly sort the database using a wide variety of criteria or do a mail-merge from RGS-Cardmaster into Microsoft Word if you need to do a physical mail-out (you can also export your data to Microsoft Excel, dBase or as an ASCII text file if you want to do other things with it). The software also comes with an in-built currency calculator and calendar, and you can password-protect your data file if you wish. RGS-Cardmaster also has in-built MS PhoneDialler support and is email and web-enabled, allowing you to email and/or visit web sites directly out of the database too. Yet surprisingly - for such a fully-featured program - RGS-Cardmaster is very easy to learn and you can be up and productive with it pretty quickly. RGS-Cardmaster runs on all versions of Windows (from Win95 through to Vista) and is available as both a freeware version or - for a small fee - a Pro edition with a some nice additional features. Get RGS-Cardmaster.

ContactKeeper

ContactKeeper is a completely free personal information manager with an integrated birthday reminder which keeps you informed about upcoming birthdays. This is a deliberately simple program which only has a few fields for each contact - but you can store an unlimited number of phone numbers and e-mail addresses for each person or company, and extra information that falls outside the standard fields can be put into free form note field. ContactKeeper is ideal if you're looking for a very simple address book with an almost-zero learning curve. And the program's ability to let you generate a birthday calender based on the birthdates of the people in the database is fairly unique (and really quite cute - well, we think so anyway). This is a Windows program that runs on all versions from Windows95 to XP and you can export the program's data file to a HTML page or as an ASCII text file at any time. In addition, ContactKeeper is available in a whopping 42 languages. Get ContactKeeper.

Address Office

Centromedia's Address Office is a full-blown contact manager for SOHO operators that provides most (but not all) the features of RGS-CardMaster (above). It allows you to quickly and easily manage addresses, phone numbers, URLs, AIM, ICQ and email addresses and quickly locate whatever you're looking for. The program is very simple to use and lets you protect your data with a password. It's also integrated with the Internet, allowing you to connect to web pages and send email using your favorite email and browser software. Address Office also helps you dial phone numbers by reading them out aloud (through a speaker) or through your modem. In addition, it has a useful calendar that appears in a small separate window; and it can export and import addresses for all the principal email clients, word processors and Microsoft Excel. What's particularly cool about Address Office, though, is that it's a multi-platform program that runs on Windows (all versions from Win95 to XP) and on Macs (OS 8.1 to 10.2). It's available in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian versions and has a print/email mailing list manager built in too. Get Address Office.

Custom Address Book

If you want the flexibility of being able to define your own address book fields (anything from a few through to all of them), then Custom Address Book may be exactly the program you're looking for. This lightweight but surprisingly powerful software provides more flexibility than any other address book, along with a range of useful data export (XML, HTML, CSV and TXT) and import (CSV) capabilities; password protection; data compression and data encryption; support for Asian languages and non-Western fonts; and an extensive range of in-built printing functions with print preview (this software will even print address labels if you want). Custom Address Book can also be minimised to your computer's tray (very handy if you're going to be zipping in and out of it all day) and can handle multiple data files (again, very handy if you want to split social contacts from work ones). Custom Address Book runs on Windows (Win98 to Vista) and is small enough to put on a USB drive to move from your PC to your portable and back again whenever you need to. It's available in both freeware and shareware versions, and a full licence is just US$22. Get Custom Address Book.

Open Contacts

Fonlow's Open Contacts is a freeware address book that combines many of the features of the others we've listed here along with its own unique twist: the integration of Google's popular Google Maps. Open Contacts comes with pre-defined address book fields but allows you to add an unlimited number of additional fields grouped by section (which you can use to manage relationships between individuals, organizations and departments). The software also allows you to search on any data field - including birthdays - and to interact with other Windows communication programs (eg: telephony, Skype, email or web/file browsing etc). Open Contacts also has comprehensive import facilities, allowing you to import existing address book data from from MS Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Netscape/Mozilla Thunderbird, XML (xCard), CSV, LDIF, Vista and vCard and to export it in indented text, CSV, Excel, vCard, XML (xCard), HTML, hCard and XFN formats. Two of its most unique features, though, are that it has in-built LAN support (so several users on a network could use it as a pooled address book) and an integrated mapping service using Google Maps. In addition, the software is small enough to be easily portable on USB drives. Open Contacts is distributed as freeware and runs on all versions of Windows from Win2000 to Vista. Get Open Contacts.

Kurlo

Finally, Retied Software's Kurlo is an address book that combines some of the more appealing features of the other address books we list here in new ways (so if none of them quite meet your needs yet, read on...). The program is small and highly portable (ie you can move it from your desktop hard drive to a USB, then to your mobile computer and later back again) but it also has a multi-user capability (ie it can be used as a centralised contact manager on a LAN). Kurlo allows you to operate multiple address books; to keep track of birthdays, anniversaries and other significant events; and to create user-defined address lists you can print out to labels or envelopes. You can also create user-defined email lists; add in custom fields, photos and maps (from Mapquest or Yahoo! Maps); and import and export data in a variety of formats. Kurlo is also Net-enabled so you can visit web sites or send emails directly from the program. Uniquely, though, you can also create emails in Kurlo and then pass them to your default email application for processing; and also schedule an email message to be sent at some later time. Kurlo runs on all versions of Windows (from Win95 to XP) with Java Runtime 1.4 and it's freeware. Get Kurlo.