Category: Online contact manager
Name of tool: Web Address Book
Company name: Norada Inc.
Price: Free
URL: www.junglemate.com
Windows platforms supported: All
Quick description: Online contact manager that is secure and simple
Strom-meter:
**** = Very cool, very useful
Key features:
Upload contacts and files and view them in your Web browser
Create e-mail messages and text files via browser as well
Pros:
Supports a wide variety of PC file formats
Simple and fast to search through contacts
Cons:
No direct export of Outlook and Notes formats
Limited to 7M bytes of disk space for file storage
No direct support for PDAs
Description:
One of the most critical files that any office worker has to deal with is
their list of contacts. Some of us keep this in various PC programs, such as
ACT, Outlook, or Notes. Some of us synchronize it with our Palms or other
PDAs, so we have a portable version when we travel. But the method I use the
most often is to make a copy of my contacts and upload it to junglemate.com's Web site. This method gives me the critical information I need from any
Internet-connected computer.
It is fast. It is easy. It is secure. And it is completely free. All good
reasons to do it.
Even if you own a PDA, having a Web-based version of your contacts makes
sense. What happens if your PDA is lost or stolen? You need a quick means of
having a backup of this critical information, and what better way than to
have it live on someone else's Web server?
There are numerous Web sites that offer contact managers besides Junglemate.
Myphonebook.com, Scheduleonline.com, My.Palm.net, Magicaldesk.com,
My.Yahoo.com, and Visto.com all offer this feature, but each has its limitations. Most of these services only support a limited number of file
formats. Some offer two-way synchronization services with either your PC or
your PDA, but the synchs are needlessly complicated. In either case, I think
uploading your new information is probably a safer and simpler method
anyway.
Of the competition, the one service that comes closest to Junglemate's is
My.Palm's service. You don't have to be a Palm owner to take advantage of
this site; you can use its services with either a Palm or a Pocket PC, or without any PDA whatsoever and just upload your contact information directly from your desktop PC. You will need to first install the synchronization software on your desktop however, which makes it a bit more of a pain than Junglemate's service, which doesn't require any synch software at all.
I liked the search feature on Junglemate: it is easy and very fast. You can
customize the view you see in your browser, but for most of us the defaults
will be just fine.
My one major issue is that I needed to first convert my Outlook address book
into a comma-separate file before I could upload it to Junglemate's site.
Other products support the Outlook format directly, although like My.Palm,
you will need to first download their synchronization software tool to get
your Outlook data sent to their Web sites.
Beside comma-separated files, Junglemate also supports Microsoft Excel and
Access file formats, as well as Lotus Organizer and Netscape's LDIF address
book format.
Junglemate service does more than manage your contacts for you. It has
several other features: you can upload up to 7M bytes of files to a shared
storage area, you have your own e-mail account, you can bookmark and save
Web addresses to share them among several PCs, and you can create and save text
notes via your browser. All in all, this is a terrific service -- and
even worthwhile if it cost some cash. But given that it is free, it is really
a bargain. And you can't have too many backups for your critical contact
information, either.
Strom-meter key:
**** = Very cool, very useful
*** = Hey, not bad. One notch below very cool
** = A tad shaky to install and use but has some value.
* = Don't waste your time. Minimal real value.
Bio: David Strom is president of his own consulting firm in Port Washington, NY. He has tested hundreds of computer products over the past two decades working as a computer journalist, consultant and corporate IT manager.
Since 1995 he has written a weekly series of essays on Web technologies and
marketing called Web Informant. You can send him email at david@strom.com.
