Tag Archives: Xobni

Smarter Gmail contacts

smartrSmartr goes a long way towards tidying up the Google Contacts mess. it make it easier to manage contact information.

The free browser plug-in Inbox for Gmail sits in a pane to the right of your main mail display. When you open a message, Smartr mines your Google Contacts list and social media services to pull out more information about the sender.

You’ll get details of how often you’ve communicated with person, titles of recent messages and a list of common contacts if that’s appropriate. If they are active on Facebook or Twitter – and you know their account details – you’ll see their latest posts or updates.

If the contact has a picture on any of these services, you’ll that also. I find this useful when messages arrive from infrequent contacts, in general I have a better memory for faces than for names or job titles.

Useful search tool

Smartr also works as a way of finding contacts. There’s a search bar where you can type a name – usually the first few letters is enough – then get a list of that person’s email addresses.

As a journalist I find Smartr is particularly useful when a contact has changed jobs – you’ll get a reminder of where you dealt with them before.

The software is a re-incarnation of Xobni for Gmail. When I looked at a beta version of the software two years ago I was lukewarm – today Gmail and Google Contacts integration is better. Most of the time I can happily live with out it, but when I do need extra information about a contact, it is a powerful shortcut.

I use Smartr with the Facebook integration switched off. In practice I don’t find it helpful to know what a contact had for breakfast and it feels like prying seeing what they get up to in their spare time. There’s also an annoying permissions process with the Facebook connection. You may feel different about this.

Smartr is fast, free and takes almost no effort to set up. There’s an Android version as well which beefs up smartphone contacts.

Why now? Smartr isn’t new, so why am I writing about this now? Mainly because I found it especially useful while working on a big project over the past few days.

outlook 2010

Disappointing return of Microsoft Outlook

When I switched from Microsoft Outlook 2007 to Gmail there were two frustrations:

  • Mail and desktop search are not integrated.
  • Gmail contact management is nowhere near as good as Outlook’s.

Recently the first frustration boiled to the point where I decided to revisit Outlook, this time it was Outlook 2010.

While Outlook 2010 has its charms, the experience underlined the reason for my original switch. Webmail clients are more flexible.

Gmail remains the best webmail client. This is even more important now I move from desktop to laptop to smartphone to iPad. It no longer makes sense to have a client on a single device.

Windows 7 integrated search

My main reason for sticking with Outlook until mid-2009 despite the lure of webmail was Microsoft Windows 7′s integrated search.

Being able to use one central search tool to find documents on my desktop computer and in my main work email account seemed too important. It was the reason I wanted a fresh look at Outlook, would integrated search still fire my buttons?

In a word, the answer is a resounding ‘no’.

Multiple email accounts

I use multiple email accounts – some of my regular freelance journalism jobs come with their own mail addresses. These all route though a single Gmail account.

Instead of setting up one or more mail accounts on the desktop, I connected Outlook to my main Gmail account using IMAP. This approach worked far better than I remember from my earlier attempts to mix Gmail and Outlook – a big tick for Outlook 2010.

Integrated search results a mixed bag

Windows 7′s integrated search managed to pick up terms in Outlook 2010 as expected. At this stage the experiment was looking promising. However, for some reason, the same email message containing the search term would appear at least twice in search results. Sometimes more than twice.

This could prove annoying, especially where terms appear in multiple email threads. In many cases I found the returned results were too confusing. To solve this, I found myself moving away from the main desktop search tool and just searching the hard drive or specific folders for documents.

In other words, integrated email search no longer delivers on its promise. This is why I found returning to Outlook a disappointment.

Better contact management

If search was the only criteria, I could have happily removed Outlook 2010 from my desktop and walked away for good. That decision was made harder for me because Microsoft improved Outlook’s already good contact management. My favourite improvement is a tool that pulls in contact details from my Linkedin connections.

I’ve whinged in the past about the lack of decent alternatives to Outlook’s contact manager.   This is one application cloud providers and others have failed to deliver. I’ve yet to see anything that comes anywhere close to Outlook for contact management.

Outlook tasks still dodgy

During my brief flirtation with Outlook 2010 I found the Tasks feature appears broken or, if not broken, behaving oddly. I never added any items to the Tasks list, but every so often an email would be singled out and listed as a task, not once by multiple times. What’s that about?

Outlook remains a must-have application for many company computer users. Despite this, it feels out of date – the way Lotus Notes started feeling out of date as a collaboration tool about a decade ago. Although I will miss its wonderful contact management, I can’t see myself returning to the fold while I’m working in my business.

Xobni for Gmail review: lipstick on a pig

Nothing beats Gmail as an email reader. Even so, the application has a glaring weak spot: Google’s feeble contact manager.

Which explains why I was keen to review Xobni for Gmail. As it says on the Xobni website; “Stop wasting time manually managing contacts”.

Xobni for Gmail looks good and is clever. Sadly it does little to fix the contact manager.

At this stage Xobni for Gmail is lipstick on the Google Contacts pig.

Xobni for Gmail tested on Chrome

xobni for gmailI tested Xobni for Gmail on Google’s Chrome browser. There is a Firefox version, but not one for Internet Explorer. People wedded to Explorer are likely to be heavily in the Microsoft camp and will get more out of using Xobni with Outlook.

Xobni adds a side-panel to Gmail with information about email contacts allowing you to search for names. It provides immediate information about individuals with name, job and company details. In many cases there are also pictures and social network information.

Installing Xobni for Gmail

Installing takes a minute. After restarting Chrome and Gmail, Xobni takes over the right-most panel. The application asks you to grant access to your Gmail account. If you’re worried by the security implications of this, you’re not going to like Xobni – you can stop reading now.

It takes surprisingly long for Xobni to pull the information from Gmail – more than an hour in my case.

When you’re in the Gmail list view, Xobni displays a list of ‘trending contacts‘. It isn’t entirely clear what criteria are used to decide who and what is a trending contact. The fourth, fifth and seventh people on my trending contacts list are people who I’ve never communicated with, Xobni tells me they were copied-in on emails recently sent to me.

That may need tweaking. I’d like the list to show people I swap emails with.

Where Xobni is more useful

Xobni is more use when you open and read an email. It shows the information it can find about the person. There’s also a graph showing how often that person emailed you and a message like this:

XXXXXX has included you on 8 messages since May 2011, most likely via a distribution list. The first message was to XXXX on May 10, 2011, and was regarding ‘XXXXX’.

Other tabs take you to a list of the most recent emails from the person and as much social media information as Xobni can find – including the person’s latest tweet. It also shows mutual contacts – although I’m not sure how that might be useful. You can edit some of the information.

Sadly, Xobni for Gmail doesn’t link with Google Contacts. This is a major omission.

Beware of the Beta

Major omissions may be fixed. At the moment Xobni for Gmail is a beta version. I tested version 0.1. I didn’t run into any serious hiccups, but I’m not looking at the finished product here.

I’m also concerned about the privacy aspects of Xobni pulling information from Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and so on.

But is Xobni really useful?

Xobni for Gmail is, in effect, another way of displaying information from a number of online sources. Although it does a good job of pulling material from Gmail and offers a handy search tool, search is Google’s strength. The add-on barely adds any functionality.

Overall, Xobni is a nice-to-have, not a must-have. While the information it displays is sometimes useful, it is rarely essential. It does little to improve productivity.

Plaxo returns to address book roots

After flirting with social media Plaxo has gone back to its address book roots.

I looked at the latest free version of the software after general manager Preston Smalley left a message about the changes on my earlier post about Plaxo’s software.

Personal Assistant plays to Plaxo’s strengths

Plaxo was always good at syncing contact management applications. That’s been turned into a strength.

Plaxo Pulse, which fed social media information, has gone. Instead Plaxo has added Personal Assistant. The company says the software automatically searches the online world to help keep your address book up to date.

Free Plaxo Basic

The free software is called Plaxo Basic. Like many free online tools, the free version is a lure for a paid-for version.

Although I could use a decent online address book, I’m not biting.

At first sight Plaxo Basic appears to allow you to import contacts from ten online services plus Microsoft Outlook. There’s also a CSV (comma separated values) importer for taking data from other sources.

I tested the Gmail importer first. It took a few minutes to connect and directly import names and addresses. Not bad performance, but I worry there may be security implications handing over my Gmail account details to Plaxo.

Linkedin importer not the best

Plaxo’s Linkedin importer is less impressive. Click on the option and instead of a seamless, automatic import Plaxo offer a set of instructions.

They tell you how to download a CSV file of contact details from Linkedin to your computer, then upload the file to Plaxo. Not as smooth as I’d like, but it worked and took minutes.

After uploading my Linkedin contacts, a Plaxo message said I had 14 duplicates. It offered me the de-duper tool which allows you to merge contacts.

Contact merge not clear

I immediately ran into problems with contacts who had moved jobs. In some cases I would have preferred to select the newer of the duplicate entries and delete the other rather than merge entries. This may be possible, but it wasn’t obvious.

In the end I had to click the merge button to put all the data in one place, then go back and edit the entry. The process isn’t well designed and it isn’t entirely clear what is going on and what results you get from clicking various options. You may find this a useful approach. I don’t see much advantage in it.

Another problem: Plaxo merge can’t count. It told me I had 14 duplicates but only found four. Does that mean there are ten more duplicates hidden from sight? I don’t know.

Plaxo Basic just about worth the effort, maybe

Plaxo Basic is free. Basic is the right word.

It doesn’t come close to Microsoft Outlook 2010. You may find Plaxo Basic worth the effort, but Plaxo is not the not the uber-address book I’m looking for.

Plaxo offers two premium options, which may be more valuable to you.

Plaxo Personal Assistant – which is marketed with an image of a woman who looks like a grown-up version of the Daria cartoon character. Plaxo says it recognises outdated contact details and automatically updates. It also completes missing details and cleans out duplicates.

Going on my experience with Plaxo Basic, I doubt it delivers on its promises. US$80 a year is a lot of money for a tool which may or may not work. I suspect I wouldn’t use it in practice.

Plaxo Platinum Sync - automatically connects the address book to smartphones, although not yet Android phones , for US$60 a year.

Finally, I don’t trust a marketing department which represents US$59.99 as ‘less than $5 a month”. The sly dishonesty in this message makes me wonder what else is amiss in the Plaxo offering. The company had a dodgy reputation in the past – maybe Plaxo is still flaky?

Gist, Plaxo and Xobni fail to replace Outlook contacts

Gist, Plaxo and Xobni all aim to cut through the social media cloud and pull together a comprehensive digital address book.

Although each tool has its pluses, none has a magic formula making it the must-have contact manager organiser.

Gist filters your in-boxes putting incoming messages in a single place. Its strong point is sorting things in order of importance. It works with email, Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook. Gist doesn’t always get this right, but it’s an improvement on the usual overloaded in-box.

Gist is free at the time of writing.

Plaxo does a reasonable job of synching to contact management applications. It can also pull in some of your social networking messages.

Plaxo is free, but you need to buy the premium service to synch with Microsoft Outlook and mobile phones. My Plaxo account is full of duplicate entries – annoyingly you can only merge these if you pay for the premium version.

Xobni looks good, but it’s an Outlook add-on and doesn’t replace the contact manager. It provides better index cards and links entries so you can quickly find a contact’s colleagues.

Google’s contact management tool – part of Gmail – is second rate. It provides little information and adds no value.

Of the three tools looked at here, I recommend Gist as a way to cut through the noise. But for now, Outlook remains the smartest contact manager.

Rapportive boosts Gmail

Rapportive is a Gmail add-on. It shows information about the person who sent an email. Think of it as basic CRM (customer relationship management).

Rapportive’s data replaces Gmail’s right-hand advertising panel – which won’t endear Rapportive to Google.

There’s a similarity to Xobni, which works with Microsoft Outlook. But Rapportive is lighter. Xobni runs on your PC, while Rapportive lives in the cloud.

Rapportive pulls information from social media accounts linked to the person’s email. This means the results are variable. I’ve noticed plenty of information and even photographs for some of my contacts, but for many there is nothing.

I’ve written before about Xobni and about Gist, which is more complex.