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Our first excerpt, Chapter 7, from McGraw-Hill/Osborne's new book How to Do Everything with Your BlackBerry describes all the e-mail management functions available with Research In Motion's wireless handhelds. Our second excerpt, Chapter 8, focuses on the smartphone's address book.

The BlackBerry address book is just like an address book that you might keep at your desk—it is designed to hold all kinds of contact information about other people. Using the address book, you can easily recall e-mail addresses, phone numbers, pager numbers, and basic information about each person, and you can directly drop that information into e-mail.

Are you attending a conference and need to add some new contacts to your list? No problem: your BlackBerry is in your pocket. Are you on the road and need a phone number quickly? No problem: your BlackBerry is always with you. In this chapter, you’ll explore the BlackBerry address book and learn how to do everything with this very helpful piece of software.

Getting to Know Your Address Book

The address book is easily accessible from your Home screen. Depending on your model, it may look like a rolodex or, on older BlackBerry models, like an open book. Just use the trackwheel to scroll to the Address Book icon and then click it to access the address book.

Once you open the address book, you see a listing of the current addresses you have entered or that have been synchronized from your PIM desktop application (see Chapter 5). Contacts are listed by name in alphabetical order, as shown in Figure 8-1. If you have not added any contacts to the address book, you will see a No Addresses entry.

Figure 1: Address book

Every action you want to perform in the address book is handled by clicking the trackwheel to see the address book menu. I will describe all of the items listed in this menu, but let’s first take a look at Options. Options provides three settings you can use to determine how the address book behaves. The default settings are all that you probably need, but you may find changes to these settings helpful.

Click the trackwheel while you are in address book and click Options. You see Sort By, Confirm Address Delete, and Allow Duplicate Names settings, as shown in Figure 8-2.

Figure 2: Options

The Sort By setting allows you to change the manner in which addresses are listed when you first open the address book. You’ll notice that by default, addresses are sorted in alphabetical order based on first name. This may not be very practical to you, so you also have the option to list addresses by last name or by company. The option to list addresses by last name is self-explanatory. In the case of organization by company, the company name is listed first, followed by the actual contact’s name, as shown here:

Gadgets, Inc., Standton, Rusty
Gadgets, Inc., Wilkinson, Susan

This setup can be helpful if you are doing work for several different companies (or vice versa) and you want to see all of the contacts from one company in a block. Just use the trackwheel to scroll through the company names until you find the company you want, and then you can drill down to the actual addressee that you want.

Aside from the Sort By setting, you can also choose to confirm address deletions or allow duplicate names. By default, both of these settings are enabled. The Confirm Address Delete option, when enabled, gives you a message each time you choose to delete an address from the address book, as shown in Figure 8-3.

Tip: As with any address book, you’ll need to be on the lookout for duplicate entries, which are generally the result of changing e-mail addresses or employers. Duplicate addresses can cause a lot of confusion, so make sure you keep your addresses updated!

Figure 3: Confirm Delete message

As a general rule, you should leave the Confirm Address Delete option enabled. Sure, it means an additional scroll and click, but when managing a bunch of addresses, it is very easy to accidentally delete an address (such as when the taxi hits a bump and your fingers slip on the trackwheel). Without the confirm deletion message, you have no protection from accidental deletions, so I recommend that you leave this setting enabled.

Tip: If you accidentally delete an address, you must completely reenter it or synchronize with your desktop PIM application so the address can be rewritten. The BlackBerry does not provide you with an Undo feature.

The final option, Allow Duplicate Names, enables you to have multiple entries that contain the same first and last name. The only problem with this setting is that only the names are displayed, so if you have two Sue Wilkinson entries, they will look identical in the address list. The names are alphabetized based on e-mail address, but the listing does not show the e-mail address, so you just have to know which is which. This isn’t too difficult with only two names, but if you have more, it can get confusing because you must memorize the e-mail address of each duplicate name to know which one you want to use. One workaround is to list the Address Book contents by company so you can differentiate between the names by company (if they work for different companies). At any rate, you can consider this setting and determine if you want to use it or not. Changing any of these settings is easy—just follow the steps in “How to…Edit Address Book Options” to edit these entries.

How To…

Edit Address Book Options

To edit address book options, just follow these steps:

1. In the address book, click the trackwheel to see the menu and then click Options.

2. In the Sort By field, click the trackwheel to see the menu, click Change Option, and use the trackwheel to scroll through the provided options.

3. Roll the trackwheel to move to the Confirm Address Delete option or the Allow Duplicate Names option and use the menu or the SPACE or SYMBOL key to select the desired option.

4. Click the trackwheel and choose Save Options from the menu. Your options go into effect immediately, and you are returned to the address book screen.

End How To…

Creating Address Book Entries

Once the address book looks and acts the way you want, you can begin adding address entries. Address book entries are easy to add, and you have a number of field options so you can add as little or as much information about your addresses as you like. When you create a new address, you are given a list of items for which you can enter descriptions:

· Addressee’s first and last name

· E-mail address and PIN number

· Title

· Company

· Work, home, mobile, pager, and fax numbers

· Addresses (two lines provided)

· City, state/province, and ZIP/postal code

· Country

· Notes

Tip: Fields that require numbers, such as PIN, automatically allow you to press the number keys without using the ALT key. Phone number fields also support the – (minus sign), + (plus sign), ´ (multiplication sign), . (period), and , (comma) without holding down the ALT key.

To create an address, populate these fields as desired. You need to enter only one entry (such as a first or last name, or just an e-mail address), but typically you should enter at least the first and last name and an e-mail address for your contact. Of course, you can populate every field on every address if you like—the BlackBerry is flexible and the choice is completely yours.

Did You Know?

Using the Notes Field

The Notes field is an open-ended entry that allows you to include essentially any information that is helpful to you. For example, you might include information about the contact in this section such as, “works from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” or general information about who the person is, where you met, what business needs are important, and so on. The Notes field can contain static information that always stays in the address book entry, or it can hold temporary information. I use this field to keep track of new people I meet when I’m on the road. I put notations about each person in this field so I can keep up with who is whom and have a frame of reference for each person when I get home. The options are endless, so use this field to meet your needs.

End Did You Know?

One item that I would like to point out concerns e-mail addresses. You are allowed to enter up to three e-mail addresses per address entry. This feature is helpful for including contact information for individuals who have both corporate e-mail and personal e-mail addresses. By default, the address book entry area only gives you one e-mail address field. You can add up to two additional fields by clicking the trackwheel to see the address book menu, and then clicking Add E-mail. If you create an entry that has more than one e-mail address, you will be prompted to select the e-mail address you want to use when composing a message to that person. To create a new address, follow the steps in “How to…Create a New Address Book Entry.”

Note: If you try to exit the address you are entering without saving it, you’ll be prompted to save the entry. This feature prevents you from accidentally losing information you are currently working on.

Create a New Address Book Entry

To create a new address book entry, just follow these steps:

1. In the address book, click the trackwheel to bring up the address book menu and select New Address.

2. The New Address screen appears. Populate the fields, using the trackwheel to navigate and pressing the ENTER key to enter information after you’ve typed it. Remember, you only have to populate the fields that you need—you can skip around between fields as needed. If you need to enter more than one e-mail address, click the trackwheel to see the menu, and then click Add E-mail. A new e-mail field appears, and you can populate it with a second address. Repeat this process to add a third e-mail address if you like.

3. Use the Notes field to enter any information that is relevant. The BlackBerry gives you plenty of room to type information, so feel free to put in as much as is needed. Also, refer to “Using the Notes Field,” which follows shortly, for more information.

4. Once you’re done, click the trackwheel to see the address book menu and click Save Address.

End How To…

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About the Author
Curt Simmons is a technology author and trainer whose focus is Windows operating systems and Internet technologies. He has written almost fifty computing books on a variety of topics, from high-level networking titles to operating system guides. Curt is also the author of How to Do Everything with Windows XP and How to Do Everything with Photoshop Album, both published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne. Curt enjoys working with new operating systems and wireless gadgets, and when he is not training or writing books, he spends time with his wife and children.

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