Dawn

Sure enough, your own brain can store a large amount of data, but you can’t really access it in the way you do on a computer, even if data represents simple contact information. Using applications like Dawn is especially helpful in large businesses where contacts need to be quickly found, because they can easily be stored in an organized database.

Once the application gets installed, launching it brings up a big empty database. However, the simplicity in design, and the organized structure lets you accommodate in a jiffy. A side panel is there so you can easily navigate through your database content, while items are shown in the rest of the space, along with several details.

In case you already have all contact information stored in a different kind of database, there’s a chance you can load it here. Supported file formats let you add TXT, HTM, LDIF, PML, PMR, CSV, ABX, NV, MAB, BAB, and VCF. On the other hand, you can start of from scratch directly with a vCard, or filling in requirement fields.

Dawn only lets you store contacts. Whenever you add a new entry from scratch, a new window pops up with several tabs so you can easily write down general info like name and address, as well as home and business info. There’s also a summary tab to get an organized view.

Unfortunately, the amount and type of data you can add feels a little shallow, with no options for picture, or at least a representative icon, or label to easily differentiate according to specific criteria. There’s a built-in wizard to help you grab data from external sources, but once it lands on the application, it’s still displayed in the default, poor way.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that Dawn comes with good intentions, and if you’re not looking to create a complex database of contacts, it might just be what you need, especially because of the neat file support. However, it lacks specific feature depth to make it feel personal, and you might get stuck in a large database.