I recently moved my residence and business to beautiful Bellingham, WA. Although it is a small town, approximately 100,000 residence in the general area, learning my way around can be time consuming. I decided to put my Palm and my Pocket PC into full use by taking full advantage of the contacts feature.

When I visit a new store downtown or in the Fairhaven district I add the store to my phone book. If I happened to have a nice conversation with the owner or employee I will add their name to the notes section. This has been a great help as on more than one occasion as I have asked for that person by name. For example at the print shop I know ask for a specific employee to do all my business cards and other stationary.

To remind me what the store looks like I will take a picture with my PDA and add it to the contact list. This might seem silly, but if you only visit the store occasionally having a reminder what it looks like is very helpful, especially in the downtown corridor.

Part of the fun of living someplace new is discovering short cuts. Whenever I find a new or interesting way to get to a store I will open the notes section and jot down the directions. This is also very helpful if I have not visited the store in a few weeks. It answers the questions, “hmm, do I take state street or 11th?”

I highly recommend all users when using the contacts list to take advantage of the note section and take a picture to remind you of the location.