Defining good Contacts application

2009-07-17T22:16:00+02:00

What defines good Contacts application? Some will say that it depends on device which runs it, but I think that it is not true.

I am using Nokia E66 phone. It is running Symbian S60 3rd Edition FP1 (what ever it means). As a phone it has phone book called “Contacts”. Simple application which allows to have unlimited amount of entries with quite big set of possible fields. But phone also has GPS unit and is able to connect to Internet via WiFi, Bluetooth and GSM. Why I mention it? Because default address book ignore those elements…

So what should good Contacts application do? Except standard fields like phone numbers, SIP “numbers”, email addresses, web addresses, home/work addresses, birthdays, anniversaries, pictures, notes… I think that things like GPS coordinates for each address would be nice — add “Drive/Walk to” functionality and you get phone which can really be named “Navigator” (IIRC there was PalmOS powered PDA with that function).

Next thing which would be nice (especially with flat rate for GPRS) would be integration of IM communicator. Why I have to launch separate application to check who from my friends is available on Jabber, Skype, ICQ, GaduGadu, AIM, MSN etc. Why not have device auto login into those networks to check who from entries in address book is available to chat/talk with. And then let me choose do I want to make GSM call or Skype, SIP or other VoIP call. This will also remove situation which is present in most multi-protocol communicators: few entries for one person just because it use 7 accounts on 5 protocols. And let integrate all chats in one application with SMS/MMS stuff — this is done on Palm Pre according to their promotion videos.

And all those things should sync with external servers of course. So if I have Facebook account then let it fetch my connections from there and merge into address book — this is done on Palm Pre already. But let it be also second way (if user choose to) — so phone will check who from my contacts have a Facebook account and send join request.

Next thing: groups… Symbian has groups support and this is working, user can even define conferences numbers for groups and few other things. Next step should be linking contacts — you know: wife, kids, secretary, co-worker who do your job when you are on vacations… PalmOS Agendus had something like that, Symbian has only imitation (it is possible to enter person name but thats all).

Will there be such application? Maybe one day…

Instant messaging^W^WGaduGadu crap

2006-07-11T11:15:00+02:00

Many people use IM (Instant Messaging) each day. There are many protocols available: AIM, GaduGadu, GroupWise, ICQ, IRC, Jabber, Meanwhile, MSN, WinPopup, Yahoo and probably some other…

I use IRC since my usage of Internet began, then ICQ started to be popular (and my Amiga was connected to academic network via Ethernet), about year later people started switching to GaduGadu and some time later I started using Jabber. Today I use IRC each day (you can catch me on freenode and IRCnet), two Jabber accounts, one ICQ and two GaduGadu (one for private contacts, one for coworkers). My favorite method of IM contact is Jabber, then ICQ (I do not count IRC here as it is not so one-to-one chat). I dislike GaduGadu for its lack of normal features, ignoring privacy and such stuff.

For example — today I added contact of coworker to be able to send some infos to her instead of writing it in email or on sheet of paper. As usual she had to ask someone which number she has (GG use numbers like ICQ does — not names like Jabber or IRC). So I added her just to notice that she has a status ‘not available’. In this shit called GG it does not have to mean that you are not available — it can be that user defined status as ‘hidden’. In ICQ or Jabber this stuff is handled by authorization — if I want someone to be able to see my status I can authorize contact. When I told her that I do not IM with ‘not available’ people she replied ‘Why? I prefer this way and will not change it — you can send me emails.’

Other GaguGagu crap is called ‘conferencies’ which are just few people chat not chatroom/channels. Anyone can start conference with other people — but all people got request ‘do you want to enter conference with NUM1, NUM2, NUM3, NUM4. NUM5’ — lack of any method to block of showing own number to people which I would like to avoid (if NUM3 does not want NUM5 knowing his number he cannot hide after such conference request).

Marcin Juszkiewicz - icq

Defining good Contacts application

Instant messaging^W^WGaduGadu crap