A: An openID is a unique URL that belongs only to you. You can use your openID to easily login to hundreds of openID-enabled websites without needing to create a new username or password for each site. And your openID can be used as an easy way to share your contact information with the world. Using the AKA service, your openID (for example http://openID.alwaysknownas.com/frosty) provides a link to your public contact information and allows others to request more information from you.

A: Your AKA is a unique ID, name, or phrase you choose for yourself which links to your personal contact information. You can customize your AKA to reflect your personality or interests. Your AKA also becomes part of your openID, so if you choose "frosty" as your AKA, then your openID will be http://openID.alwaysknownas.com/frosty.

After choosing your AKA, you enter and organize your current contact information at AlwaysKnownAs.com. As long as one of your contacts knows your AKA, they can always find you online at AlwaysKnownAs.com, even if you've moved or changed jobs. You can share your AKA or openID with anyone you want to stay in touch with, in person, by e-mail, or on your business card. If you keep your contact information current at AlwaysKnownAs.com, people will always know how to find you.

And if your friends have downloaded the AKA Connect software, they can add you to their address book by simply entering your AKA or your openID. After that, your contact information will be automatically updated for them if it ever changes.

A: There isn't a real need to maintain more than one AKA or openID, since you can organize your contact information using multiple cards for home, work, hobbies, etc. But, yes, one individual can hold up to three different AKA accounts if they choose. Each account needs to be set up separately. We've allowed this option because some people choose to have one AKA for their work identity and another for their personal identity.

A: As your important contacts, both personal and business, change locations or jobs, staying connected and up-to-date can be challenging. Simply put, at AlwaysKnownAs.com, you can stay connected with friends and colleagues and they can stay connected with you. Plus our focus on privacy guarantees that your information is safe.

AKA Connect, which is available for MS Outlook, Blackberry and Mac OSX address books, checks for new or changed information for your AKA contacts at AlwaysKnownAs.com, and automatically updates your address book when something changes.

AKA members have complete control over what specific information they are willing to share with any requesting party.

A: It's easy:

• Choose an AKA that expresses who you are and is easy to spell and remember.
• Short AKAs or AKAs that are easy to guess (e.g. "john") may result in strangers looking up your contact information. Keep this in mind while choosing your AKA.
• You can use any combination of letters or numbers (also + . - _). No other characters are allowed.

A: You can enter and organize all of your personal and business contact information at AlwaysKnownAs.com. Each AKA user is allowed to create a unique "card" for each person or website they want to share their information with. These cards may reflect multiple "personas" (i.e. different aspects of your interests, hobbies or group affiliations). For example, you may have a personal card for friends, a business card for colleagues and a card you use for website accounts that contains both billing and shipping addresses.

A: You can create a unique card for any individual or website with which you want to share your contact information. So you can set up an unlimited number of unique cards if you choose.

A: When you keep your information current at AlwaysKnownAs.com, anyone knowing your AKA will have the ability to contact you and to receive your current contact information. Also, any of your contacts who use AKA Connect will be automatically updated with your new information. If you allow your contact information to become out-of-date, important friends or colleagues may lose track of you.

A: If you forget your password, click here. You will be sent an e-mail at your primary address. The e-mail will include a link back to the AlwaysKnownAs.com website where you will be asked to answer your challenge question. If you successfully answer the question, your password will be displayed for you.

A: Login, navigate to your master profile page, and edit the information that has changed.

A: Members have their choice of 2 methods for announcing their AKA and inviting their friends to use AKA themselves. Either option will allow you to send a personalized e-mail telling them your AKA and explaining how to access your information. They will also be sent a link which will allow them to join AKA and be automatically connected to you.

• Log in and use our online invitation tool
• or, use the invitation tool included with AKA Connect for Outlook.

A: Simply log in, click Profile, click Edit Profile, and use the link at the bottom of that page to terminate your membership. All your personal information will be deleted automatically from the AKA web site. (Note: terminating your membership does not remove your information from other peoples' address books. People who have used AKA Connect to collect your information will continue to have your last known contact information available to them. However no further updates will be provided.)

A: To turn off the e-mail alerts, log in and click on Profile to adjust your account settings.

A: When you view information in your contacts list, you will see an icon for designating each contact as either synced or not-synced . Synced users will be automatically updated in your AKA Connect software whenever any of their information changes. Non-synced users will not be updated.

A: We do not allow you to change your AKA. You can set up a second AKA membership account if you need to change your AKA for any reason.

A: You need to be 18 years old or older.

A: AlwaysKnownAs.com is available worldwide.

A: AKA Connect is a family of downloadable software applications which allow your address book to be automatically updated when any of your contacts changes their information at AlwaysKnownAs.com. AKA Connect is currently available for Microsoft Outlook and Blackberry and will soon be available for the Mac OS 10 Address Book application, which will allow you to sync current information with Apple Mail, iChat, and other applications that utilize the Mac OS Address Book. AKA Connect provides the following features:

• You can easily add new contacts to your address book by simply entering their AKA or their openID. All other contact information will be automatically filled-in for you.
• When one of your contacts changes their contact information at AlwaysKnownAs.com, your address book will automatically be updated with their current information.
• Quickly announce your AKA and/or openID by selecting contacts from your address book and sending them an announcement e-mail which provides your AKA information and instructions on how to retrieve your contact information.

A: AKA Connect is currently available for Microsoft Outlook and Blackberry and will soon be available for the Mac OS 10 Address Book application, which will allow you to sync current information with Apple Mail, iChat, and other applications that utilize the Mac OS Address Book. A future version is planned for Thunderbird.

A: Absolutely not! Only the AKA Connect application is installed and our comprehensive Privacy Policy applies to AKA Connect as well as the AlwaysKnownAs.com website. The only information sent from your computer or handheld device to the AKA server, are the AKAs you have manually entered (along with your AKA login information.) All transmissions are carried out over secure communications.

A: AlwaysKnownAs.com allows you to choose which information on a particular card is visible and which is hidden.

Visible information is made available to anyone entering your AKA at AlwaysKnownAs.com, whether they actually know you or not.

Hidden information is kept private until you give specific permission to show it to a particular user.

A: Remember, anyone who knows your AKA can look up your visible information, even if they guess your AKA. However, you ALWAYS have control over who can access your hidden information (because they have to request permission from you to see it).

We recommend that you only make limited information visible. For instance, your name and address are available from the phone directory (whitepages, dexonline.com, etc.). We recommend that you keep your phone number, mobile phone number, e-mail address (and other information you want to protect) hidden.

A: AlwaysKnownAs.com allows members to choose which information on a particular card is visible and which is hidden.

Visible information is made available to anyone looking up an AKA at AlwaysKnownAs.com, whether they actually know the person or not. Hidden information is kept private until the AKA member gives specific permission to show it to you. The "request any hidden information" link sends a request to the AKA holder who can then decide what other information to share with you (if any). These requests are sent by email, or are accessible as messages within in the AKA site when the member next logs-in.

A: No.

A: There are two scenarios:

1. A guest who knows your AKA asks for hidden information from you (they ask you to reveal some of your hidden information).

   In the case where a guest requests hidden information from you, you will receive an e-mail (and/or a message within the site) from the requester letting you know about the request and providing a link to the website. To respond, just login, go to your Requests page and find their pending request. Since they are not a member, you can either choose to e-mail them your additional contact information or you can choose to "ignore" the request if you don't wish to share hidden information with them. Be careful to make sure that the requestor is actually somebody you know.

2. An AKA member who knows your AKA asks for hidden information from you (they ask you to reveal some of your hidden information).

   In the case where another member requests hidden information from you, you will receive an e-mail (and/or a message within the site) from the requester letting you know about the request and providing a link to the website. To respond, just login, go to your Requests page and find their pending request. Since they are a member of AKA, you can customize the visibility of your information for them, or you can choose to ignore the request. If you reveal hidden information to them, they will receive an e-mail letting them know you have done so. If you choose to ignore their request, they will not receive an e-mail. To customize the visibility of the information they see, simply choose the information from your master profile that you wish to share and hit save.

A: To turn off the e-mail alerts, log in and click on Profile to adjust your account settings. If you choose to turn off the e-mail alerts, be sure to check your messages frequently at AlwaysKnownAs.com to make sure you are aware of any information requests.

A: If you choose to reveal hidden information to them, they will receive an e-mail letting them know you have done so. If you choose to ignore their request, they will not receive an e-mail.

A: You can block another AKA user from accessing any of your information by looking them up by AKA (or finding them on your contacts list) and clicking the block action link or icon. They will no longer be able to look up any of your information (visible or hidden).

A: Simply log in, click Profile, click Edit Profile, and use the link at the bottom of that page to terminate your membership. All your personal information will be deleted automatically from the AKA web site. (Note: terminating your membership does not remove your information from other peoples' address books. People who have used AKA Connect to collect your information will continue to have your last known contact information available to them. However no further updates will be provided.)

A: AKA Connect for Blackberry is a small piece of software that runs on your Blackberry, to:

• Allow you to add a contact\'s information to your address book by simply entering their AKA or OpenID
• Automatically update your address book, when a contact changes their information on the AKA web site
• Control how often your blackberry will check the AKA server for updates

A: We store a contact's AKA in one of your available user defined fields (if none are available, AKA Connect will not operate.) Each time AKA Connect connects to the server, it searches your address book for contacts with AKA's in the allocated user defined field, sending those AKA's to the server to check for updates. When you want to add a new contact to your address book using AKA, the software sends just that AKA to the server, collecting any available associated information, and creating a new contact record in your address book.

A: Use your Blackberry web browser to visit www.AKAconnect/bb. Your Blackberry will locate the AKA software and prompt you to confirm download. (simple, no?)

A: To uninstall AKA Connect from your Blackberry:

1. Scroll to and choose the desktop Options icon
2. Choose Applications
3. Click the trackwheel for Options and choose Modules
4. Scroll to AKA, click the trackwheel to get the Delete option

A: To add a contact to your address book:

1. Scroll to and choose the AKA icon on your desktop (you may be prompted to add your AKA and password, if you have not already done so - this information is required for AKA to connect securely to the AKA server.)
2. Click the trackwheel for options and choose Add Contact via AKA
3. Enter the contact's AKA or OpenID and click the trackwheel to enter
4. The options menu will appear, choose Add.
5. Your Blackberry will connect to the AKA server and download available contact information for the AKA entered

A: AKA Connect sends the same information to the AKA server as you would enter if you visited the site yourself - nothing more. Information is sent via secure communications, and includes:

• Your AKA and password
• Any AKA's or AKA's and Keys that exist in your address book, or that you have entered using the feature to Add Contact via AKA
• Nothing more

A: Not yet - but this feature is under development. Once complete, you will be able to transfer all contact information from the AKA server, to any handled device and address book supported by AKA - as listed on the AKA connect portion of the web site.

A: AKA Connect will never delete or clear contact information for contacts that have no associated AKA (contact's where no AKA is stored in a user defined field.) For contacts where an AKA is present, but which have never been updated by the AKA server, AKA Connect will carefully compare existing information in your address book, with incoming information from the AKA server (the very first time.) If the person's name, address, or company differ from the information on the AKA server, AKA Connect will leave the existing information intact, and create a new entry with the AKA information, transferring the AKA to the new record. If the name, address and company are not present, or identical to the incoming information, AKA Connect will use the existing contact record, and complete it with all available data from the AKA server. Once a contact record has been linked with the AKA server, and as long as the AKA is present in the user defined (AKA) field, the AKA server will overwrite information in the contact record (but will leave any information in place for which it has no incoming data.) You can always ask AKA Connect to stop updating a particular record, by using the AKA menu to Detach the AKA from the record.

A: Every time one of your contact\'s changes their information on the AKA web site, the date and time of the change are recorded. The next time your Blackberry connects to the AKA site, it checks to see if any contacts have made changes since its last connection, if so, it will collect all available information for that contact, and update your address book.

A: Since AKA Connect only deals with contact records where an AKA is present, you can prevent AKA Connect from updating a contact, by simply removing the AKA from the record (AKA's are stored in one of your User defined fields.) Tip: if you don't want to delete the AKA text, you could copy it to another field in your contact record, where it won't be found by AKA Connect (it's very polite that way.)

A: To change your connection options:

1. Scroll to and choose the AKA Icon on your desktop (you may be prompted to add your AKA and password, if you have not already done so - this information is required for AKA to connect securely to the AKA server.)
2. Click the trackwheel for options and choose User Settings
3. Scroll to and click the trackwheel on Connect
4. Choose Change Options and select the one that best meets your needs.

A: When you Attach an AKA to an existing contact, you can either save it (for update on the next connection) or choose to Update and Connect now, in which case AKA Connect will connect to the AKA server and download available information for the AKA entered.

AKA Connect will carefully compare any existing information in your address book, with incoming information from the AKA server (the very first time.) If the person's name, address, or company differ from the information on the AKA server, AKA Connect will leave the existing information intact, and create a new entry with the AKA information, transferring the AKA to the new record. If the name, address and company are not present, or identical to the incoming information, AKA Connect will use the existing contact record, and complete it with all available data from the AKA server. Once a contact record has been linked with the AKA server, and as long as the AKA is present in the contact record, the AKA server will overwrite information in the contact record with information from the AKA server (but will leave any information in place for which it has no incoming data.) You can always ask AKA Connect to stop updating a particular record, by imply removing the AKA from that contact record.

A: Once AKA Connect is linked to a contact, it assumes that you want the latest information from the AKA server -information that the contact in question has provided. So once a contact in your address book has been linked by AKA Connect, information in the address book will be overwritten by incoming information from the AKA server, when available (but no information will be cleared unnecessarily.) For example, if the first name in the existing record is "Bob", and the AKA server has "Robert", the name will be changed to "Robert". However, if the fax number in the existing record is present, but the AKA server does not have a fax number, the fax number will be left intact. Likewise for all other fields, where possible.

A: It is possible to use other update programs with AKA but we strongly recommend using AKA exclusively. All contact records under the control of another program, which are NOT also under the control of AKA (i.e. do not have an AKA entered), will be updated according to the rules of the other software. Records update by AKA, but not the other program, will be updated according to the rules of AKA. Records under the influence of both programs will likely be updated by whichever linking software links last, but we cannot fully predict the behavior or problems resulting from this situation. And once again, we strongly recommend against it.

A: A contact deleted from your address book, will no longer be updated by AKA Connect (because AKA connect only updates contact information where an AKA is present in the device record.) In the near future, the AKA web site will allow your to 'send' contact information from the server, to your device.

A: Two likely reasons:

Reason #1:Your Blackberry or Blackberry system is not compatible with AKA Connect, which requires version 4.0.2 or better

Solution: upgrade to the latest version if you\'re below 4.0.2

Reason #2: You do not have any unused user defined fields available for AKA

Solution: AKA requires that at least one of your four user defined fields are named as original (e.g. user1, user2, user3, user4) AND that no contact in your address book has data in the available field. Check to ensure that these criteria can be met.

A: Two likely reasons:

Reason #1: Your AKA and or password are not entered (properly) in the user settings.

Solutions: go to User Settings in AKA Connect and make sure your AKA and password are entered correctly - you may want to re-enter your password, just to be sure, while ensuring not to use uppercase (unless your original password was in upper-case.) If you're unsure of your password, try logging in to the AKA site.

Reason #2: There is no available connection to the internet, or the AKA site is unavailable

Solution: use another application on your device to check that you have access to the internet (if you're reading this on the AKA site, hold down the Shift key and Reload this page, to be sure you're viewing it with a live connection (and not simply on your local machine.)

A: Two likely reasons:

Reason #1: Even though AKA connect appears to connect to the server it may be failing because: a) wrong user settings; b) no internet connection; c) you're using an outdated version of AKA Connect; d) the AKA in question is not spelled correctly.

Solution: use the AKA Connect menu to Update Now! And pay close attention to the process to ensure that the connection was successful; or if the connection looks good, then go to settings, and set the switch to "Get all AKA data from server, even if up to date." Try again.

Reason #2: The latest data is already in your device.

Solution: visit the AKA web site and compare the data in your address book to the data on the live site.