So I'm going to overhaul my contacts. What I've got now is this:
1. Some contacts on Gmail. Not much other than name and email. There are likely duplicates and "dead" entries, since Gmail stores everyone I've ever emailed.
2. Some contacts on Address Book. These are synced with iPhone. They have [occasionally] more information like birthdates, email addresses, etc. There is likely some, but not much, overlap with 1.
3. Facebook. This is where most of the information is "stored", and has email addresses/birthdays/AIM names, etc for a lot of people. Significant overlap with 2, but has many more people than what I use with Address Book/iPhone
4. A whole different set of contacts from a different (work) email address that I use for Thunderbird. This address book I never really use, since I just reply to other people's emails, and the people who email me at this address are very transient (i.e. I might email a group of people a lot of 4 months and then never hear from them again). Most of my person email is not done through this email address at all.
The hope:
1. Get all the information from Facebook to either Address Book or Gmail (this is likely going to be manual).
2. Then be able to sync a subset of that to my iPhone (i.e. there are a couple hundred people that I wouldn't mind being able to email -- perhaps by group -- and that I'd like to have their birthdays on file and whatever, but that I don't need to call frequently, and therefore don't need them cluttering up my phonebook on my iPhone.
3. Create a calendar (gCal?) for people's birthdays that doesn't clutter my main calendar
4. I'm going to switch email address -- for my personal use -- likely to another gmail account or my domain with google apps. I'd need to be able to import all these contacts to that new email address
So I think I figured out how to get Facebook "contacts" to Address Book, using MS Live as an intermediary. Not entirely sure. But this just has the names and not much other information. I don't mind going to each person's profile page and getting anything pertinent that I can, one by one, but I'd like to only do this once. So...
The questions:
1. Best way to "back up" contacts both from Address Book and from Gmail? I'd like to put contacts I don't think I'm going to use -- mostly from Gmail -- in to a bin that I can then delete later if it turns out I really don't need them.
2. Which platform to use as a base, Gmail or Address Book? I want it to be able to Sync both ways, but I only want to have to manually enter stuff in once. Does it matter? (Keep in mind item 2 above...a key thing would be having to sync only a subset of my overall contacts to my iPhone, but having them be available online)
3. Should I/can I/do I need to involve the Thunderbird information at all? Is there a way of getting Tbird to sync with either Address Book or Gmail (although not autosync, as item 4 above dictates, since I won't need the vast majority of those contacts).
5. Do things like Calendars have any bearing here? (i.e. can I automagically pull people's b-days from an entry in their contact listing and then have it appear on a calendar? I think there might be a Google doohickey for that, but will that sync nicely with my iPhone? Is this one of those things that's better done in Address Book first?)
6. Is there anything I'm missing?
My plan (so far):
1. Use gmail as a base.
2. Get as much [automated] information as I can from Facebook.
3. Manually enter in other information.
4. [Attempt] to Sync to Address Book
5. Create an Address Book "Group" for "synched" contacts that go to my iPhone
6. Sync to iPhone
8. Magically have birthdays appear someplace
9. ???
10. Profit?
Anyone have any ideas? I don't mind the grunt work -- actually, that's a lie, I mind the grunt work, but it seems unavoidable (thanks facebook!) -- but I would really like to only have to do it once.
Thanks for any insight!
1. Some contacts on Gmail. Not much other than name and email. There are likely duplicates and "dead" entries, since Gmail stores everyone I've ever emailed.
2. Some contacts on Address Book. These are synced with iPhone. They have [occasionally] more information like birthdates, email addresses, etc. There is likely some, but not much, overlap with 1.
3. Facebook. This is where most of the information is "stored", and has email addresses/birthdays/AIM names, etc for a lot of people. Significant overlap with 2, but has many more people than what I use with Address Book/iPhone
4. A whole different set of contacts from a different (work) email address that I use for Thunderbird. This address book I never really use, since I just reply to other people's emails, and the people who email me at this address are very transient (i.e. I might email a group of people a lot of 4 months and then never hear from them again). Most of my person email is not done through this email address at all.
The hope:
1. Get all the information from Facebook to either Address Book or Gmail (this is likely going to be manual).
2. Then be able to sync a subset of that to my iPhone (i.e. there are a couple hundred people that I wouldn't mind being able to email -- perhaps by group -- and that I'd like to have their birthdays on file and whatever, but that I don't need to call frequently, and therefore don't need them cluttering up my phonebook on my iPhone.
3. Create a calendar (gCal?) for people's birthdays that doesn't clutter my main calendar
4. I'm going to switch email address -- for my personal use -- likely to another gmail account or my domain with google apps. I'd need to be able to import all these contacts to that new email address
So I think I figured out how to get Facebook "contacts" to Address Book, using MS Live as an intermediary. Not entirely sure. But this just has the names and not much other information. I don't mind going to each person's profile page and getting anything pertinent that I can, one by one, but I'd like to only do this once. So...
The questions:
1. Best way to "back up" contacts both from Address Book and from Gmail? I'd like to put contacts I don't think I'm going to use -- mostly from Gmail -- in to a bin that I can then delete later if it turns out I really don't need them.
2. Which platform to use as a base, Gmail or Address Book? I want it to be able to Sync both ways, but I only want to have to manually enter stuff in once. Does it matter? (Keep in mind item 2 above...a key thing would be having to sync only a subset of my overall contacts to my iPhone, but having them be available online)
3. Should I/can I/do I need to involve the Thunderbird information at all? Is there a way of getting Tbird to sync with either Address Book or Gmail (although not autosync, as item 4 above dictates, since I won't need the vast majority of those contacts).
5. Do things like Calendars have any bearing here? (i.e. can I automagically pull people's b-days from an entry in their contact listing and then have it appear on a calendar? I think there might be a Google doohickey for that, but will that sync nicely with my iPhone? Is this one of those things that's better done in Address Book first?)
6. Is there anything I'm missing?
My plan (so far):
1. Use gmail as a base.
2. Get as much [automated] information as I can from Facebook.
3. Manually enter in other information.
4. [Attempt] to Sync to Address Book
5. Create an Address Book "Group" for "synched" contacts that go to my iPhone
6. Sync to iPhone
8. Magically have birthdays appear someplace
9. ???
10. Profit?
Anyone have any ideas? I don't mind the grunt work -- actually, that's a lie, I mind the grunt work, but it seems unavoidable (thanks facebook!) -- but I would really like to only have to do it once.
Thanks for any insight!
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