It must be a wondrous thing to be able to create your own software; to hear a need, and then be able to cobble together a down and dirty application that will meet it. That is definitely a talent that Paul O’Brien (of Modaco fame) possesses, and it is one of the many characteristics that makes him a mobility community leader.

His latest “fun little 15 minute project” is a contacts database de-duper for Pocket PC devices.

This is a very very very simple application for WM5+ PPC / SP (CF2.0) I rustled up in response to a need to remove duplicate contacts on a device.

It is an EXE only (copy to your device and run), which has a basic GUI which allows you to scan for duplicates, and then choose (after being told your duplicate count) whether to remove them. Contacts are compared based on ‘File As’, field, ‘Email’ field and ‘Home / Work / Mobile’ phone fields. If all those fields match, it’s deemed a duplicate.

The application scans my ~200 contacts in under 2 seconds

If Contacts duplicates have been a problem on your Windows Mobile device, then you should give DupeDeDupe a try. Be sure to back up first though,  just to be safe. I think we have all learned that you can’t ever be too careful.

Source: Modaco