Support
If you experience problems using Open Contacts or if you have a question
regarding its use, you may send Email to Fonlow IT at the following E-mail
address:
Please write your
questions, comments, requests, and suggestions in details. For example, you
may make
the subject look like "Open Contacts v5.1.1.566 Questions" and describe
in details. Please use any of the following subject lines:
-
Open Contacts v5.xx Bugs (Replace
5.xx with exact version found in the About box)
-
Open Contacts v5.xx Questions
-
Open Contacts v5.xx Requesting Features
-
Open Contacts v5.xx Suggestions
-
Open Contacts v5.xx Misc
Email:
Email without dedicated subject will be filtered out as spam.
Before sending questions, you may try to find the
answers in the
user manual, or search the
blog of
Open Contacts. In addition, you may subscribe to the blog
or the newsgroup via feed or Email in order to automatically get updated
information of Open Contacts. In addition, you are welcome to share experiences with
others in the newsgroup.
Q&A
Q: I'm German and as you know, we use "umlaute" in our
language (ü,ä,ö). Entering the data everything seems to be ok, but if I'd like
to use the quickview, then I just see strange characters instead of the umlaute.
A: This is something related to the encoding of Internet Explorer. Right
click on the data area of the Quick View window. Please right click on the
Quick View, and from the popup menu, select encoding Unicode
(UTF-8), you will see things all right. Generally you just need to do this
once.
Q: May I store both the Open Contracts program and the
address book file in a USB memory drive and run the program on the USB memory
drive directly?
A: Yes, you can. And do remember to make
backup of your address book file regularly. Please refer to
the installation manual.
Q: May I share the database file
with staffs in the same office?
A: Yes, you can. However, you need
to install the database file on a machine where
an instance of Firebird database server is running. For more details, please
read the data sharing guide.
Q: We would like to install Open Contacts application
in order to use it in the office. Could you, please, let me know how many
contacts (records) we can add to be sure the application is still working
properly?
A: We had built a
database with 30,000 contacts, each of which has
many data fields, and the size of the database was
around 260 MB. The whole program still performed
well. As the program will use a real database server in LAN, so you won't
need to worry about heavy speed lost as you could suffer with a file base
database.
Q: How can I backup the address book file
A: The address book file is "default.gdb" in the
"Data" folder of the program folder by default. Run the
Backup
command from the Tools menu, you will be prompted with a Save dialog to define
a backup file to save. Generally, you should keep the backup of your address
book on a external storage such as CD-R, potable harddrive or another
computer.
To restore, run the Restore command. You will use the
saved backup file to replace current address book file.
Alternatively, you may simply make a copy of "default.gdb"
after closing Open Contacts.
Q: I would normally store all my data files in "My
Documents", so I can easily backup the whole folder. I see Open Contacts always
load the address book file "default.gdb" in the Data folder under the program
folder. For some reason, I don't want to install Open Contacts under "My
Documents", can you provide a solution?
A: When you look at the program folder, you will find
a file named "main.ini". Open it with Notepad, you will see an item "Database=default.gdb".
After you change it into "Database=c:\My
Documents\Somewhere\default.gdb" and re-launch
the program, the program will locate the file under "c:\My
Documents\Somewhere\".
Alternatively, you may go to the
Options window to change the location of the database file.
Q: We would like to install Open Contacts application
in order to use it in the office. Could you, please, let me know how many
contacts (records) we can add to be sure the application is still working
properly?
A: We had built a
database with 30,000 contacts, each of which has
many data fields, and the size of the database was
around 260 MB. The whole program still performed
well. As the program will use a real database server in LAN, so you won't
need to worry about heavy speed lost as you could suffer with a file base
database.
Q: I see you provide support for
Skype, can you provide support for MSN as well? So I will be able to select a
Email address and launch a message window.
A: With Windows Messenger 4.7 and
lower, Microsoft provided API for other Windows programs to interact.
However, with higher versions of Windows Messenger and all version of MSN
Messenger, Microsoft did not provide such API. Eventually, the way of
interacting with MSN Messenger was blocked.
Q: I want to attach photo to some of
my friends, can you support this feature?
A: This feature is there. Just
simply add an Image field, and paste the file path of the photo. When you
highlight the field and click the button, the default image viewer will be
launch to view the photo.
Q: Is your program U3 compliant?
A: We consider U3 is a very good
platform/interface of managing portable applications and even some
non-portable applications. Open Contacts was designed to be portable.
There's nothing can stop you from running Open Contacts from U3 Smart Drive.
In addition, there is an alternative
solution more flexible with TrueCrypt.
Q: Isn't it good to provide a
predefined field Gender with lookup values Male and Female?
A: If gender is a factor of
managing your contacts, it might be more handy and flexible to defined a
category called Male and another called Female. Of course you can
defined a predefined field Gender, however, it will be very much up to you
to use M or Male or F or Female as values, as long as you keep consistent
practices. Obviously, if you sometimes use M and the other time use Male,
you will give yourself troubles.
Q: I tried to import contacts from
MS Outlook but I had to launch Outlook first. And on my home computer, I don't
have to, Open Contacts may just talk to Outlook directly. Why?
A: Sometimes
MS Outlook can not be launched
by Open Contacts, it will be likely the following key
of MS Outlook got corrupted by some
anti-virus software HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\InprocServer32.
Making this key be empty again may solve the problem. If you don't know how
to edit Windows' registry, please ask your local IT supports.
Q: I would like to store my
passwords in Open Contact. Can you provide encryption to the database for
security?
A: Though OC provides flexible containers for
storing all sorts of text info, it does not make sense to store highly
sensitive info such as login info, banking details etc. If you want a
software application to managing such info, you have better to find a
password manager and there are a lot in the market. Many of them are free.
Please also read the Security chapter of the user manual.
Q: Can the program run on Linux?
A: Apparently yes. Some users had managed to do so.
Please refer to this guide. No warranty as usual.
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