One of the roughest transitions for me on my new Mac has been going from Outlook to Address Book. For anyone who is serious about networking, Outlook though ugly, is extremely effective. Address Book on the other hand does not have nearly the same level of functionality.
Porting Contacts from Outlook to Mac:
There are numerous way to do this, but if you are willing to spend $10, the easiest way is with a small app called 02M (‘Outlook2Mac’).
Once ported you will what I mean when I state the interface is unintuitive for a pro Outlook User. To make the entry interface a little more friendly I installed AdressBookQuickEntry, pictured above.
My Complaints:
What I don’t like about Address Book is that by default there is no job title, birthday or website field. Come on, for serious networking these should be there. I’d also like to see more integration with iCal for setting up meetings, etc as well as better ability to categorize and add notes specific to relationship context.
Plugins:
Since I am a Plaxo user, I did install the Plaxo plugin, allowing me to see if a user uses Plaxo as well as their info. Another cool plugin is for an integration with Google Maps, so that by clicking on an address a web page will open showing the location visually. If you want some additional plugins you can check out this list.
Finally here is a list of 12 tricks and hacks you may enjoy to more fully optimize Address Book’s functionality.
What else do you recommend?
