How to launch: ============== 1) Build it: (you need ant tools) ant jar 2) Go to dist folder and create "data": cd dist mkdir data 3) Launch it $ java -jar Addressbook.jar 4) The GUI can also be launched: $ java -jar Addressbook.jar -gui If you got an exception, maybe you bumbed into a stub method (unfinished). To reduce possibilities of crashes try the usual approach: $ java -ea -jar Addressbook.jar -gui Please report any errors back to me. And yes, not all is finished. :) The file config.properties will be created on first run for you. After that you can customize it. Supported database backends are: base64csv - The default backend, BASE64-encoded CSV strings mysql - The unfinished MySQL backend Good luck!