Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

hanguolaohu

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 5, 2007
139
1
I receive hundreds of business cards and I would like to retain the information digitally, but would not like to input them all in my Address Book as I don't want to have thousands of entries. This could get especially tiresome while scrolling through my iPhone contacts database, you know? Do people keep multiple Address Books, like for either work or personal? I can't imagine CEO's like Steve Jobs keeps the info of tens of thousands of people they meet all in one Address Book.

I bought a Penpower Card Scanner which has it's own database for business cards which I haven't played with yet. I was planning to keep a database there and the cards that turn out to be useful I would export into Address Book. Let me know if anyone has any insights into this matter. A Google search surprisingly bred few results.

Thanks,
Alexander
 

dubhe

macrumors 65816
May 1, 2007
1,304
10
Norwich, UK
No insights but a great idea.
The only option with apple's Address Book would be to create groups and only sync your iPhone/Touch with certain ones.
 

MarkMS

macrumors 6502a
Aug 30, 2006
992
0
I just use the grouping feature. I have one for family, friends, colleagues, professors, and etc. Currently I have about 635 contacts and it's not much of a pain to find the people I need to contact on my BlackBerry Bold. I don't know how it is with the iPhone, but I wouldn't think it would be any different.
 

dubhe

macrumors 65816
May 1, 2007
1,304
10
Norwich, UK
I just use the grouping feature. I have one for family, friends, colleagues, professors, and etc. Currently I have about 635 contacts and it's not much of a pain to find the people I need to contact on my BlackBerry Bold. I don't know how it is with the iPhone, but I wouldn't think it would be any different.

How do you sync with your BB? I used the Mark/Space sync programme for a bit but it kept on corrupting/deleting some of my contacts. I now export my address book to XP running in VMFusion and sync my BB with that.
 

MarkMS

macrumors 6502a
Aug 30, 2006
992
0
I use Missing Sync for BlackBerry from Mark/Space. Never had a problem with the contacts becoming corrupt. Before I found Missing Sync, I used to do it your way. Now I'm just waiting for a Mac-specific program from RIM.
 

dubhe

macrumors 65816
May 1, 2007
1,304
10
Norwich, UK
A lot of my contacts would loose all of their details, just leaving the name and sometimes new contacts (to my BB) would be deleted rather than copied?!

It might be my BB (8310) or the fact that my contacts have been around quite a bit (Nokia to Sony Ericsson to BlackBerry) and have lost some of the tags that the sync programme uses.

Anyway, I now use my iPod Touch as my address book, synced to my Mac using groups as described above. If there isn't a better BB solution by the time the next iPhone comes out I may go that way...
 

hanguolaohu

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 5, 2007
139
1
Seems like Bento and Contactizer Pro automatically link with Apple's address book. Daylite seems to offer features of flexible syncing which sounds great. I'm also considering using Direct Mail's database or my Penpower card scanner's database.

I guess I could split everything into 2 main groups: Personal or Work. And then have subgroups from there. Still my iPhone searches under "All" would take forever if I scroll with my finger
 

csa9

macrumors newbie
Feb 28, 2008
15
0
if it gets unbearable just create a new username and use it for your buis. contacts or maybe the smart groups could help?
 

hanguolaohu

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 5, 2007
139
1
that's a good idea. I could keep a login ID for that purpose. Although this really seems unnecessary and someone should create a simple solution for this.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.