contacts

Manage calls on your Mac

Dialectic is a scriptable dialing utility for telephone power users that can save you time making and managing calls, whether via a landline, Bluetooth-enabled cell phone, or VoIP. Dialectic integrates with Address Book and other similar apps, including Microsoft Entourage and Now Contact, as well as Marketcircle Daylite, FileMaker Pro, launcher apps like LaunchBar and Quicksilver, and many others. Thanks to recent updates, Dialectic also supports Exchange, CardDAV, and LDAP accounts configured in Address Book.

This high-powered utility gives you system-wide dialing using contextual menus (and system-wide "speed dial"), voice-activated dialing, and auto-redial and incoming call detection, even … Read more

Apple changes a name that could change repair policies

Apple has changed the name of one of the key components used to determine whether or not damage was caused by liquid submersion. Though the change is subtle, now the Liquid Contact Indicator, it could signal a change in Apple's repair policies.

Formally the Liquid Submersion Indicator, a sensor that is meant to determine if the device (now on iPhones, iPods, and iPads) has been immersed in liquid, has been the subject of many consumer complaints saying the indicator was not accurate in particular climates.

When I worked in Apple Retail, as part of the original iPhone launch, we … Read more

Apple, Apple, Apple!

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded: Apple's music event to stream live Television show rentals from Apple Netflix on Apple TV New webOS 2.0 for HP's Palm Microsoft set to release updated Xbox 360 controller Sneak peek at the T-Mobile G2 phone

Duly noted

It's not always easy to keep ideas organized, especially when you're working on a big project. TreeNotes is a simple but effective way to organize notes in a tree hierarchy. We think this intuitive program could be useful for a wide range of people including students, creative writers, project managers, and many more.

The program's interface is basic and easy to navigate, with large buttons representing the program's major features. A toolbar across the top is similar to that found in many word-processing programs. Down the left side of the interface the tree hierarchy is displayed, … Read more

Google revamps contact management in Gmail

Google on Tuesday announced that it is giving the contact management tool found inside Gmail an "overhaul."

The enhanced version of Gmail's contact manager, which Google says is already in the process of going out to users, brings with it a number of small tweaks, the biggest one being automatic saving. So, if you're making changes to a contact, you can be halfway through making edits or additions and if you close the page, or move onto something else, those changes get saved without any user input required.

Also included now are Gmail's standard keyboard … Read more

Chatting gets savvier

This week in The Download Dispatch, instant messaging gets upgraded. On Monday, the refurbished Trillian 5 beta for Windows was released to the masses. The all-in-one chat client (download) received a sleek interface makeover, adding LinkedIn and Foursquare social-networking services to its portfolio of social sites. In addition, this build makes entering, exiting, and registering the program a smoother process. Because this is not the final release, the application is not completely user-friendly; pinned functions and lengthy installation are just a couple of hiccups that we hope get sorted out in the next release. Digsby (download) also received an update. … Read more

Thunderbird gets web-savvy with Contacts

One of the best features in the Thunderbird remix called Postbox was the deep and fluid integration of social networking contacts into the desktop e-mail client. Thunderbird itself has begun to get a taste of that power with Thunderbird Contacts, a version of Mozilla Contacts, a Firefox add-on that made the browser more socially aware.

Thunderbird Contacts is so new that Mozilla is still switching between that name and "Contacts for Thunderbird" in its blog post announcing the add-on. Whatever it's called, it pulls your cloud-stored contact info from numerous sites into Thunderbird, and then merges the … Read more

Outlook in sync

Microsoft's Outlook is the world's favorite e-mail client, used by giant corporations and Net-surfing grannies alike. Many users have more than one PC, and it's not uncommon to have several under your control: work, home, laptop, etc. Whether you're a busy executive or just someone who checks their e-mail on more than one machine, one of your biggest challenges is keeping everything together, up to date, and backed up. CodeTwo's Public Folders is a powerful application that's up to the task. It's an Outlook extension that lets users securely share Outlook documents over … Read more

Instant info

Ever see an address online, in an e-mail, or in some other document that you'd like to quickly add to your address book? ContactCopy lets you do just that, without the tedious process of copying, opening another application, pasting, and formatting. This handy little utility makes the process of capturing contact information almost effortless.

The program's interface is small and unobtrusive; it can be minimized to the system tray as an icon, or users can keep a small toolbar floating on their screen. Using the program is incredibly easy; simply highlight the information you want to grab, click &… Read more