ACT! 2000 for Windows For Dummies

A friend of salespeople and customer service representatives everywhere, ACT! 2000 does a great job of managing lots of names and their associated bits of contact information. ACT! 2000 for Windows for Dummies realizes that most people don't want to spend their days running ACT!--they just want to know that Ruth Ann Krinklemeyer needs a follow-up call (at this number right here) on the 23rd. Because of this, the book jumps right to the simplest ways of getting contact information into an ACT! database and then getting it back out on demand. Later chapters deal with advanced database queries and Internet integration, but author Jeffrey J. Mayer has organized the first part of this book with the knowledge that most readers will spend a lot of time there.

ACT! 2000 for Windows for Dummies employs the vintage Dummies writing and organizational style, complete with explicit how-to procedures and more than a few dopey jokes. You probably know from other books whether you like the approach. Generally, it works well as straight documentation of the program's features (especially the relatively basic ones) and holds up reasonably well when you want to do something that falls outside the realm of the normal. This book gives you the grounding you need to get practically all ACT! 2000 jobs done. Ms. Krinklemeyer will get her call. --David Wall

Topics covered: Entering contacts; extracting information; defining custom fields; using list views; performing advanced queries; using the calendar and task list features; and using ACT! as an e-mail, fax, and letter-writing platform.