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Liquidity X · Jan 14, 2003, 11:00 PM

i thought it was suppose to be out? My contacts are all synced up, but in my addy book on .mac it still says coming soon. WTF?

Mr. Blur · Jan 14, 2003, 11:08 PM

my (somewhat obvious) guess is that they found a bug at the last minute and are working to get it fixed rather that putting it out anyway and having people scream at them for corrupting and/or losing all their addresses and contact info. hopefully soon....

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Jan 14, 2003, 11:14 PM

Do you REALLY need this ASAP?

Liquidity X · Jan 14, 2003, 11:44 PM

Yup, cause I spend alot of time at work, on pub machines in OS 9, and on PCs; starting back up next weeek acully, and i need my addy book so I can send emails while away form my home computer.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Jan 14, 2003, 11:45 PM

Originally posted by Liquidity X:
Yup, cause I spend alot of time at work, on pub machines in OS 9, and on PCs; starting back up next weeek acully, and i need my addy book so I can send emails while away form my home computer.

So what did you do before Apple teased you with this feature?

Liquidity X · Jan 14, 2003, 11:53 PM

well i didn't start there till 1/2 way threw the semester,and i would lug my g4 to the school even, if i had a long day of down time so I could work on **** i wanted to in maya or play games.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Jan 15, 2003, 12:02 AM

So you can't think of any other way of getting your address book to work

Liquidity X · Jan 15, 2003, 12:09 AM

nope, thats y i was pumped when i saw this. But I dontl go back to school till tues. so heres hopeing.

::maroma:: · Jan 15, 2003, 12:20 AM

Hmmmm...maybe this is why Apple didn't put a printing feature in Address Book? So we'd all have to get a .Mac account or an iPod in order to have our contacts with us.

Makes ya think...(sorta)

Liquidity X · Jan 15, 2003, 12:21 AM

wow, good point! never noticed that.

moki · Jan 15, 2003, 02:34 AM

Speaking of iSync, it'd be rather cool if it were extensible to the point where it could synch your iTunes music between a few machines (work/home computers in my case), with playlists, etc. I doubt it'll happen, with the RIAA and all, but I can dream...

I'd also like it to sync my bookmarks and Safari toolbars between two or more machines... it's a bit of a pain to get it all set up the way I want it, and keep them in synch as I make changes.

Yeah, it's similar to Microsoft's idea of having all of a user's settings and files on a central server, so no matter what machine they are on, it behaves like "their" computer, complete with settings and files available.

Still, security and privacy concerns aside, it would be rather useful for people like me who use a few machines on a daily basis.

moki · Jan 15, 2003, 02:35 AM

the Address Book not printing, I believe, is because they want it to simply be a hub in which you enter your contact information. They expect to have other programs utilize the information contained therein... a reasonable approach, I think, and a nice third party opportunity.

I've thought of reviving Easy Envelopes for OS X, with Address Book integration. Could be cool...

DaveGee · 06:46 AM

Originally posted by moki:
the Address Book not printing, I believe, is because they want it to simply be a hub in which you enter your contact information. They expect to have other programs utilize the information contained therein... a reasonable approach, I think, and a nice third party opportunity.

I've thought of reviving Easy Envelopes for OS X, with Address Book integration. Could be cool...

If you want a great idea, here's one...

Something that would be doable given the APIs that addressbook framework provides (adding app specific fields for one) would be an app that would allow me to have TWO 'single entries' for maried people and at the same time GROUP those 'two (or more) single entries' back into couples (or families) when it comes time to print envelopes for things like Christmas cards and phone listings.

I really like the idea of having people put in 'one person per entry' since I can then make use of all the person specific fields such as bday IM email work etc... but when it comes time to print stuff like invitations or christmas cards (or 'family specific' events) it makes things a bit harder.

I for one would pay for an app that made use of the Apple Addressbook DB and provided these functions... and while I've been thinking about trying my hand at doing it myself, I know me and I'll never get around to it.

I've given it a fair bit of thought and I think it could be as simple as adding just one additional 'app specific field' to the addressbook that I call FID 'family id' where everyone that I choose to 'group' into a single family would all have the same FID value.

You could even have it automated if you want where it could be done on the fly based on people with the same 'street+city+state+zip) but it wouldn't be as flexible... well since I don't wanna wramble on and on I'll stop here but this is something that I've tried to 'think out'.

Dave

edddeduck · Jan 15, 2003, 06:43 AM

Originally posted by moki:
I'd also like it to sync my bookmarks and Safari toolbars between two or more machines... it's a bit of a pain to get it all set up the way I want it, and keep them in synch as I make changes.

Yeah, it's similar to Microsoft's idea of having all of a user's settings and files on a central server, so no matter what machine they are on, it behaves like "their" computer, complete with settings and files available.

Still, security and privacy concerns aside, it would be rather useful for people like me who use a few machines on a daily basis.

I thought that as soon as I d/l'd Safari and logged a bug/feature request saying just want you said.

I have my iBook and my G4 and it's really annoying having 2 historys and two bookmarks.

Edwin

p.s. If you are feeling lucky want an arm wrestling rematch??

edddeduck · Jan 15, 2003, 06:47 AM

Originally posted by moki:
Speaking of iSync, it'd be rather cool if it were extensible to the point where it could synch your iTunes music between a few machines (work/home computers in my case), with playlists, etc. I doubt it'll happen, with the RIAA and all, but I can dream...

I just got my new iPod (20Gb) from my insurance so if you have less than 20Gb of music you can do what I do.

I put all my music on one machine (My G4) then any other mac I connect my iPod and play all the playlists etc on the iPod thru iTunes. It's not perfect but its the best you can do at the moment.

moki · Jan 15, 2003, 06:57 AM

Originally posted by edddeduck:
p.s. If you are feeling lucky want an arm wrestling rematch??

Any time... bring it on...

Diggory Laycock · Jan 15, 2003, 09:44 AM

If you *really* need your address book while away from your computer it would be pretty easy to write an Applescript or cocoa app that will take each person in your address book and squirt them into a file - which could also be formatted into HTML.

Then stick this file in an obscure directory of a webserver you have access to - bingo - web address book (*NB* this is insecure as bots and search engine spiders would read the file.)

if you are a .mac subscriber you could put the file in a password protected directory.

Or if you have your own apache server you could turn on authentication for that directory.

A more secure way of doing it would be to put the generated HTML file on to a USB keychain drive - then you have all your addresses with you at all times.

Of course you have to have a USB keychain drive first! (I have one and highly recommend them - 8MB and it was very cheap (�25 a year ago))

plus they work in any machine with USB.

Synotic · Jan 15, 2003, 02:28 PM

Originally posted by Diggory Laycock:
If you *really* need your address book while away from your computer it would be pretty easy to write an Applescript or cocoa app that will take each person in your address book and squirt them into a file - which could also be formatted into HTML.

Then stick this file in an obscure directory of a webserver you have access to - bingo - web address book (*NB* this is insecure as bots and search engine spiders would read the file.)

if you are a .mac subscriber you could put the file in a password protected directory.

Or if you have your own apache server you could turn on authentication for that directory.

A more secure way of doing it would be to put the generated HTML file on to a USB keychain drive - then you have all your addresses with you at all times.

Of course you have to have a USB keychain drive first! (I have one and highly recommend them - 8MB and it was very cheap (�25 a year ago))

plus they work in any machine with USB.

Don't bots/spiders need a link to said file to get at it if directory listing is off? I am not an expert in this but I don't see how they could find it... BTW that seems like a fun easy project to do if there's any interest

alex_kac · Jan 15, 2003, 09:30 PM

Originally posted by moki:
the Address Book not printing, I believe, is because they want it to simply be a hub in which you enter your contact information. They expect to have other programs utilize the information contained therein... a reasonable approach, I think, and a nice third party opportunity.

I've thought of reviving Easy Envelopes for OS X, with Address Book integration. Could be cool...

If it hooked up with Stamps.com or some such...now that would be neat

But even without that, I would love Easy Envelopes again.

Parky · Jan 16, 2003, 06:34 PM

This seems to be taking Apple a long time to sort out. It was promised for the 7th Jan, well over a week ago.

You would have thought it was finished software when they announced the date, but this looks bad.

Strange really !!

MickS · Jan 17, 2003, 03:59 AM

If they've found a problem I'd rather they make sure that they fix it *before* they release it to the general public. Imagine the complaints on these boards if it resulted in a loss of information?

GRAFF · Jan 17, 2003, 06:45 AM

For a while Apple had a link on the Mac.com page to another company with a solution to syncing address books. The link is no longer there. Did anyone try it?

Homer1946 · Jan 17, 2003, 03:51 PM

I think this would be cool. The need to print envelopes, and Address Book's inability to do that, is why I still need the Palm Desktop.

-R

Originally posted by moki:
the Address Book not printing, I believe, is because they want it to simply be a hub in which you enter your contact information. They expect to have other programs utilize the information contained therein... a reasonable approach, I think, and a nice third party opportunity.

I've thought of reviving Easy Envelopes for OS X, with Address Book integration. Could be cool...

besson3c · Jan 17, 2003, 04:16 PM

does anybody know of a product that does sort of what Moki describes:

- syncs bookmarks
- syncs other things (such as iTunes playlists)
- doesn't require a .Mac account (i.e. private WebDAV server)

This would be really cool. Apple's Backup utility sort of fits the bill (and doesn't require a .Mac account), but it doesn't really put things into place like I'm sure iSync does.

JayTay · Jan 18, 2003, 08:09 AM

Originally posted by Parky:
This seems to be taking Apple a long time to sort out. It was promised for the 7th Jan, well over a week ago.

You would have thought it was finished software when they announced the date, but this looks bad.

Strange really !!

It was actually available on the 7th however every time I tried it it kept failing. When I went back later that day they'd removed it again.