Link vcards

Different browsers and various settings on the server may cause the link to be interpreted in specific ways.

The setup of the hosting server on mediatemple should be set to handle the vcf or vcard type with an entry in .htaccess like "AddType text/x-vcard .vcf" on a single line.

My Vcard

Best case, the browser dumps the data straight into your preferred contact manager.

Worst case, text appears in a browser window that must be saved or go through copy and paste into a text editor, saved as whatever.vcf. Then insert the contents of this file into the pim or contact manager app using whatever is most convenient, often just a double click on the vcf file displays a prompt about inserting the contents into the pim or address book.

Most importantly, speed, accuracy, and general usability is enhanced.

The steps, in OS X.

1. Address Book->Card->Go to my card.

2. Drag the listed name, from the list of names, out of address book, and drop it on the textedit icon.

3. This opens a textual representation of the vcard (vcf) format with a file name the same as the address book name but ending in .vcf

4. The next step is to get this file somewhere web accessible so that it may be linked using standard href style formatting -- a href="http://domainname.com/subfolder/Doug%20Brethower.vcf" Doug Brethower /a

5. The final step is pasting the link text into the html for the page.

The vcard concept is easily extended to aid site visitors interested in consuming the best of a local community. See pommecountry.com homepage "vcard format" link for an example of a multi-resource vcard download.