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 What is your vCard showing today? Is all the information on your electronic business card still correct and current? After all, you don't want to send any outdated information to anyone else in the world, do you? Have a look at how you can benefit by adding your own personal vCard to all your e-mails and learn more about the details.
vCard - an important addressbook standard
vCard automates the exchange of personal information typically found
on a traditional business card. vCard is used in applications such as
Internet mail, voice mail, Web browsers, telephony applications, call
centers, video conferencing, PIMs (Personal Information Managers), PDAs
(Personal Data Assistants), pagers, fax, office equipment, and smart
cards. vCard information goes way beyond simple text, and includes
elements like pictures, company logos, live Web addresses, and so on.You can read more about vCards at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCardvCard Definitions
Beginning in December, 1996, the Internet Mail Consortium took on responsibility for the development and promotion of these vCard technology. This press release explains IMC's new stewardship. There are several versions of the vCard implementation. Currently version 3 is most often used and defined in two parts:
- RFC 2425, MIME Content-Type for Directory Information
- RFC 2426, vCard MIME Directory Profile
IMC hopes that all vCard developers take advantage of these new open standards and make their software compatible with both vCard v2.1 and vCard v3.0.
A special note on the SORT-STRING attribute
For people of the Netherlands, France, Spain and several other countries this part of the vCard specification the SORT-STRING attribute might be useful. In these countries the FullName (FN) and the last Name (N) are often garbled in vCards when the IT department has not been implementing the SORT-STRING in there coroporate directory as well. Have a look at this part of the RFC.
3.6.5 SORT-STRING Type Definition
Type purpose: To specify the family name or given name text to be used for national-language-specific sorting of the FN and N types.
Type value: A single text value.
Type special notes: The sort string is used to provide family name or given name text that is to be used in locale- or national-language-specific sorting of the formatted name and structured name types. Without this information, sorting algorithms could incorrectly sort this vCard within a sequence of sorted vCards. When this type is present in a vCard, then this family name or given name value is used for sorting the vCard.
Type examples: For the case of family name sorting, the following examples define common sort string usage with the FN and N types.
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FN:Rene van der Harten
N:van der Harten;Rene;J.;Sir;R.D.O.N.
SORT-STRING:Harten |
FN:Oscar del Pozo
N:del Pozo Triscon;Oscar
SORT-STRING:Pozo |
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FN:Robert Pau Shou Chang
N:Pau;Shou Chang;Robert
SORT-STRING:Pau |
FN:Chistine d'Aboville
N:d'Aboville;Christine
SORT-STRING:Aboville |
All in all, the Full Name (FN) and the last Name (N) should contain the name as would be shown on an paper business card as well, not "Name (N):Korte, de" and "Full Name (FN):Erno Korte, de" but "Name (N):de Korte" and "Full Name (FN):Erno de Korte".
vCard support in GroupWise
You can read more about the support for vCard in GroupWise in " The GroupWise Powerguide", where we spend several topics on this important feature. |
