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Chapter 6: Being Big Brother (plan)

I haven’t been writing about Emacs lately. Here’s my outline so that you can help keep me honest. =) My next chapter is about the Big Brother Database (BBDB) and contact management in Emacs, which is one of the things that made people laugh when I showed my Emacs configuration at DemoCamp in Toronto. Anyway, here’s what I’m planning to write about:

Chapter 6: Being Big Brother (30 pages)

  • Why use Emacs to manage your contacts?
    What is BBDB?
  • Project xxx: Set up BBDB
    Project xxx: Import contacts: CSV, card
    Project xxx: Create a record
    Project xxx: Search records
  • Mail
    Project xxx: Integrate BBDB with Mail
    Project xxx: Notice e-mail changes
    Project xxx: Filter mail according to record
    Project xxx: Categorize contacts with mail aliases
    Project xxx: Personalize greetings
    Project xxx: Personalize signatures
    Project xxx: Mail merge
    Project xxx: Track last contact
  • Filtering records
    Project xxx: Show a phone list
    Project xxx: Show an address list
    Project xxx: Show no contact since
    Project xxx: Show tag queries
    Project xxx: Remember birthdays
  • More data
    Project xxx: Snarf records
    Project xxx: Add pictures
    Project xxx: Export contacts
    Project xxx: Synchronize contacts
    Project xxx: Synchronize with LinkedIn
Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/4760
  • http://sachachua.com Sacha Chua

    … and if I can get comment subscription to work again, then that would be awesome!

  • Mike

    Wonderful! I was wondering about doing contact management in Emacs – et voila!

    • http://sachachua.com Sacha Chua

      Yes, it’s another of the crazy things I love about Emacs… =)

  • Gour

    Hi Sacha!

    With my wife who is doing homeopathy (I’m doing counselling), we plan to open a small ‘clinic’.

    What do you think if Emacs+org-mode+BBDB are capable enough to plan all the appointments, track patient’s records (when/what/… data about counselling session), do queries etc. ?

    Any idea how to keep patient’s pics in the database + other data like credit-card info etc. ?

    Sincerely,
    Gour

    p.s. I already use Emacs for many things (email with local dovecot, syncing between laptop & desktop – all with Gnus, ERC, muse/markdown authoring, auctex – for ConTeXt etc.) but I wonder whether my wife can customize to Emacs for ‘office-work’ ;)

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