This weekend, I went through the tedious process of consolidating my list of contacts into Outlook from my multiple email addresses.

SKYPE
Skype (can’t beat it in quality and price to call Europe and Asia) I first tried installing the Skype Outlook toolbar. I was dissapointed however by how clunky and useless it is, so I uninstalled it shortly afterwards.

On the positive side, I found out that if you want to use Skype with your outlook contacts there is a much simpler way that will show your outlook numbers on Skype:

Just follow the instructions in the image above or read more details here.

LINKEDIN
LinkedIn also has its own outlook toolbar, and it actually very powerful. These are the main features (my comments in italics):

The Dashboard helps you keep in touch with your most important contacts:
(if a contact has changed jobs, you will get an update… similar to Plaxo but less intrusive))
(looks at your email addresses which of them are signed up to LinkedIn)
’t exchanged email with recently and directing you to email that may require action (not very useful if you are a follower of “Getting Things Done“, but interesting nevertheless)

Anyway, I hope you find these tools as useful as I did to keep track of your contacts and ensure they are only one (cheap) call away.