When viewing my address book the names appear with the surname first. this has caused problems when serching for the contact useing the first name.

can anyone tell me how to change this?

Click the icon beside "Columns." Then create a new view that uses firstname and surname separately instead of the default, which uses "full name." Then you can sort by surname by clicking the "last name" column, or by first name by clicking on that column.

In the Address Book pane, the columns that are displayed and their order are user defined.

At the top there should be a drop down box with "Columns :" to the left. I suspect that what you're seeing is the "*Default Address Book View". To the right of that is a button with the picture of a little grid on it - if you leave your mouse on it it will display "Column Setup". Click on it, select "Add" and you can define your own view (ex - "Colinu's Favourite View". They can be defined as private or public - I think from your post you need to create one that is public.

Combine this with GoBlue's suggestion and you should be able to get anything you need.

- R.