PDA Program Beefs Up Address Books
Chapura's KeyContacts aims to get Palm, Outlook into sync.Harry McCracken, PCWorld.com
NEW YORK--Nearly 6 million busy people sync their Palm OS-based PDAs with Microsoft Outlook. Chapura proposes to simplify their lives with KeyContacts, a replacement for the Palm OS Address Book that adds Outlook-compatible features.
Demonstrated here at PC Expo/TechXNY this week, the $25 application went on sale on Tuesday at Chapura's site and at the sites of Palm software resellers PalmGear and Handango.
Syncing information between Palm OS handhelds and Outlook has long been possible via Chapura's PocketMirror software (bundled with personal digital assistants from Palm, Handspring, HandEra, and others), as well as from competitors such as PumaTech's IntelliSync. What sets KeyContacts apart is the way it captures Outlook information that normally gets lost in the translation to Palm's address book.
For instance, KeyContacts supports Outlook's folders, so if you've sorted your Outlook contacts into folders for Colleagues, Customers, and Competitors, they stay organized in exactly the same way on your handheld. The program also supports the Palm OS's similar-but-rudimentary Categories filing system--but KeyContacts provides 254 category choices and lets you file a contact in multiple categories if you wish.
Enhanced Options
KeyContacts also adds more than 40 fields that the Palm OS Address Book lacks to each contact's record. Among the additions: a contact's title, middle name, pager number, birthday, and anniversary, and up to three e-mail addresses and five mailing addresses. According to Chapura, KeyContacts even supports some Outlook features that Microsoft's own Pocket Outlook for Pocket PC handhelds doesn't, such as the capability to specify one address out of several as a contact's mailing address.
Despite the extra features, KeyContacts keeps things simple. It closely mimics the streamlined look and feel of the standard Palm OS Address Book, and you can remap your handheld's Address Book button so you can always access KeyContacts by pressing a single key.
KeyContacts won't be a must for everyone who relies on both a Palm handheld and Outlook. Casual users who don't push Outlook's contact list to its limits will likely be satisfied with a bundled program such as PocketMirror or IntelliSync. And the program doesn't do anything to make the Outlook and Palm OS calendars play nicely together. But Chapura chief operating officer Keith Ellenberg says that creating an Outlook-savvy calendar app for Palm handhelds is on the company's to-do list.