Names ‘n’ Stuff Review
August 8th, 2008
Names ‘n’ Stuff - Address Book software - $24.95
http://www.namesnstuff.com
Reviewed by Mark Stetsin In the early nineties, address book applications, being useful and necessary, were all over the place, sold for upwards of $50 and were adequate for what was needed before the Internet took off. Back then everyone had one these applications and easily kept the single phone numbers of friends, family and business for simple and convenient retrieval. Internet access was dial-up, hardly anyone had a cell phone, no one had heard of an iPod and the address book applications were pretty much electronic copies that resembled the paper and pencil address books of the ’60s and ’70s.
Nowadays however, everyone has multiple phone numbers, ten times more friends and acquaintances through broad-band Internet connections, personal web sites, sociable contact sites like Face Book, and more, and all need a place to conveniently keep all the names, addresses, phone numbers, important dates and appointments and somewhere to write notes explaining to themselves what all these important associations are all about . . . whew!
Names ‘n’ Stuff is an inexpensive and highly efficient software application that fits the bill effectively. Names can be organized into an unlimited number of Categories for easy management and any name can belong to as many Categories as you like. Each name can have all necessary address information, unlimited phone numbers and unlimited notes to provide all the additional information you might want to keep track of. Record your dating history with that important someone or keep business meeting records, special events, additional information such as children’s names and birthdays or names of business associates.
Every name in your phone book represents an important relationship, each with special information that you don’t want to forget.
Names ‘n’ Stuff can help you organize and store all this important information in various ways. For example, a few weeks ago my wife told me our son needed the addresses and phone numbers of immediate family members for an event he was planning. Even though she has a copy of Names ‘n’ Stuff on her computer, of course it was my job to come up with the list. But, with Names ‘n’ Stuff it was easy.
Naturally, all of the needed names were in my master Names ‘n’ Stuff database of over two-hundred fifty names, and were even narrowed down into a separate Category called “Friends and Family” that contained about thirty names. But I only needed eight of those thirty names, and didn’t want to include all of them in the list. So, I opened the “Friends and Family” Category, tagged the required eight names, copied the tagged names to a “Temp” Category with a couple of clicks, then printed a report for the Temp Category. Voila, a mail-able list containing the printed names and addresses our son required. The whole thing took less than two minutes.
Names ‘n’ Stuff also keeps track of important dates and appointments and pops up a list of pending events when the application starts. The “Pending Dates” pop-up Window can be set to pop-up every so many minutes or not at all after the initial pop-up at program start up. Events can be set to show in the pending list anywhere from one to thirty days in advance of the coming event.
Events can be every so many days, a certain day of every month, every third Wednesday, once a year, like birthdays, or for single appointment dates. This is really handy because it’s so easy to forget these things. I have my Names ‘n’ Stuff app set to open when my computer starts in the morning, so the first thing I see is my appointment schedule.
Everything you can do with individual names you can also do with Companies. You can even keep a list of company or department employees and their telephone extensions using the unlimited phones feature for any given Company listing.
Another convenient feature is the “Phones Only” list. This list will display only names and phone numbers. These can be professionals, stores, companies or individuals where you don’t really need address information, just a phone number listing. However, this list can also display all the names and phone numbers from your master list, without the address information, for when you want to quickly look up a phone number. The list can be sorted by name or number for easy look up.
There is also a call tracking feature for organizing telephone communication dates, numbers and making notes regarding conversations. This is very useful for serial calls to remind you during a current call of what was said and who said it on previous calls.
But, that’s not all. There is also included a built in zip code database integrated with native functionality that contains over thiry-thousand city zip codes. And in addition to that, there is also an integrated 110th Congress, House of Representatives database to help you keep in touch with your Representatives.
All in all, this is a very nice little program for keeping very important information in the niche category of names, addresses and phone numbers. It is an especially good value for including some sophisticated functionality at a very nominal price. Highly recommended.
Names ‘n’ Stuff - Address Book software - $24.95
