Recently created discussions in I want Sandy

Howdy!

We've been working on a plethora of things in the background over the past few weeks — tweaks, bug fixes, optimizations, and new features — and today's update begins to surface some of this work and marks the beginning of our return to more frequent updates.

In this update:

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NEW: Let Sandy know (even more) precisely when to remind you

By far your #1 most requested feature has been the ability to tell Sandy precisely when you'd like her to send you a reminder. And we're pleased as punch to announce that Sandy's come up with a simple and flexible way to do just that...

Introducing a brand new special tag:

@reminder

And here's how it works...

Just ask Sandy to remember or remind you about something as usual:

> Remember [thing to remember]

or

> Remind me about [thing to remind you about] [date and/or time that thing is happening]

Left to her own devices, Sandy will remind you 15 minutes prior (or whatever your default reminder offset).

But add a @reminder tag, followed by exactly when you'd like to be reminded, like so:

> Remind me about [thing to remind you about] [date and time that thing is happening] @reminder [when to remind you]

and Sandy will schedule that event in your calendar at the date and time you specified (as usual). But she'll set a reminder for precisely when you asked her to.

Here are a few examples to get you into the swing of it:

* Have a meeting at 4pm tomorrow for which you could use a couple of hours of prep?

> Remember my marketing meeting at 4pm tomorrow @reminder at 2pm tomorrow.

* Want to be sure to stop by the store on the way home?

> Remind me to stop by the store at 6pm @reminder 30 minutes before.

* Need to pick out a birthday card for a friend before you see them on Monday?

> Remind me to pick up a card for Susan's birthday on Monday @reminder tomorrow afternoon @birthday.

(Proviso: We wanted to get this functionality to you as soon as possible and so there are likely some corner cases we've not yet discovered ourselves. Please do report any oddities you stumble across by following up to this topic thread.)

Find out more about special tags: http://iwantsandy.com/help/guide#spec...

Change your default reminder offset: http://iwantsandy.com/settings/datetime

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TWEAKED: "Remember" and "Remind" not required in "New message" form

A few of you pointed out that you didn't see why it was strictly necessary to say "remember" or "remind" in the "New message" form on the web site. So we thought we'd give it a whirl — and like it quite a bit!

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IMPROVED: #tags aka hashtags

For the twitterers among you, you'll be please to know that Sandy now looks out for hash-tags (ex. #birthday) in addition to @-styled tags (ex. @birthday) in your emails, direct messages, and everywhere else. This should help with any cognitive dissonance you may have been experiencing using @ for tags (rather than replies) on Twitter in particular.

For more on Twitter-style hash-tags, visit: http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Hashtags

Not already twittering to Sandy from your mobile phone by SMS or via your favorite Twitter application? Find out more about Sandy's twittering ways and get set up to tweet at: http://iwantsandy.com/settings/twitter

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IMPROVED: No # or @ tag symbols needed in iwantsandy.com forms

You no longer need to fiddle about with @ (or even # — see "IMPROVED: #tags aka hashtags" above) symbols in the "Tags" field of the web-based edit form. Whether you list your tags as "@one @two", "#three #four", or "five six", or "@one #three five", Sandy will know just what you mean.

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ADDED: "Created at" date and time for each item

Some of you requested some way of knowing when Sandy first jotted down something you sent in. If you click on any item's name in any list on Sandy's web site, you'll find a new "Created: ..." amongst the details in the pop-up window.

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IMPROVED: Timeliness

Sandy's been starting in on reminders and Daily Digests a little earlier which, combined with some optimizations we've introduced to how those messages go out to your inbox, Twitter account, mobile phone, etc, means you should be seeing on-time (if not a minute or two early) reminders across the board.

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FIXED: Minor nits

* "Snooze until..." Fixed a bug where Sandy was renaming an appointment to "until" when snoozed with "snooze until ..." Good catch, Joachim, Nepper, and Kevin1 [http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...]!

* Oops! Fixed an "Oops" error on Sandy's web site for our UK clients clicking on some dates in the calendar selector. (A shout-out to Kevin1 for spotting the issue!)

* Sandy now understands "November the 7th" (note the "the") in addition to the usual permutations.

* The @birthday and @anniversary tags now show as expected.

* Many of you found the SnapShots (those web site preview pop-ups) irritating, so we took them out.

* Fixed "lookup @next" so that it doesn't become "lookup @" (and doesn't return anything tagged with any tag).

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IMPROVED: Twitter and Jott confirmations

Sandy's Twitter and Jott responses now correctly read "I got #1..." (instead of "#1 I got...").

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DOCUMENTED: Frequently asked questions

We've started in (finally!) on a Frequently asked questions page at http://wantsandy.com/help/faq

It's short but will be growing. If you have any suggestions for or pointers to questions that really should be in the list, please post a follow-up to the Get Satisfaction thread on the topic at: http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...

Enjoy!

Rael

P.s. We thrive on your feedback! Be sure to let us know what you think, what you liked (or didn't), and if we missed anything (or made anything worse).

Howdy,

Twitter is down for maintenance for a bit this evening and so Sandy is unable to send out reminder tweets or pick up direct messages sent to her.

She'll pick up where she left off just as soon as Twitter is back on its feet.

You'll find more about the outage at: http://status.twitter.com/post/426751...

Hope you're having a good evening and a great week!

Rael

Howdy, folks!

I just added a new page to Sandy's online help system to provide pointers to the answers to frequently asked questions.

You'll find it here: http://iwantsandy.com/help/faq

It's a short list for the moment (Outlook and Sandy's iCalendar feed; Resetting your password), but you have to start somewhere :-).

Please do comment if you have any pointers you found particularly helpful here on Get Satisfaction or elsewhere and I'll add them to the FAQ toot sweet!

—Rael

Sandy keeps emailing me the same message, "I got your email but couldn't find anything you asked me to do. Let's see if we can quickly remedy that:"

I've deleted the appointment and replied to the service asking it to forget it. Still no luck.

This is a collection of tips, tricks and ideas on how lists can be used in iwantsandy.

And how are y'all?

Is there anything I can do to assist in development of Sandy? I'ld like to see stuff like Package Tracking (probably via http://www.simpletracking.com/ or http://track2rss.sourceforge.net/ ), flight tracking, and more and I'm willing to pitch in. Is there any way?

Howdy,

Sandy's sluggishness over the past few hours has been due — it turns out — to an attempted spam attack. Sandy's mail servers and spam filters are working beautifully (protecting you and your account), but are moving a little more slowly under the incredible load.

This means you're likely to be experiencing responses from Sandy that are on the sluggish side (no more than just a few minutes). This applies to any email you're sending to Sandy; twittering, jotting, and using Sandy's web site to talk to her is working just fine.

We've made some adjustments to Sandy's spam filters to match the particular attempts being made to get email through to her and that's having a good effect (in terms of server load and thus Sandy's speed of response).

I'll post shortly with an update.

Best,

Rael

I don't know how to use Sandy anymore. What are your use with Sandy? Usually i just drop my Events in iCal, sync to my iPod Touch, Mobile phone.. So i can edit both way.

Sandy is useful if i am writing email to others, and i want Sandy to remind them.. i put her on C.C.

Beside that, i don't know how to use Sandy now.. i think i may got to retrench her haha.

Moses

Howdy!

I wanted to provide a quick status update on Sandy's Twittering abilities following yesterday's Twitter congestion [http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...] due in no small part to WWDC [http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/] and the sheer number of people following the "Stevenote" [http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net...].

The Twitter status blog reports that the "API request limit has been restored to 20 per hour." Sandy talks to Twitter as much as she's allowed — which means she'll be picking up your tweets every 3 minutes or so given the current rate limit.

If you happen to notice any Twitter updates before we do, please do share the latest here with your fellow Sandy clients!

Best,

Rael

Howdy, Folks!

It seems that Twitter's API interface (the means by which Sandy talks to Twitter) has been intermittently shaky last night and this morning.

If you're missing a reminder or two via Twitter, while there's not much we can do to help Twitter out, just know that Sandy's sending your reminders as expected and retrying when they don't go through.

-R

I think pretty far..,

Guys and gals, this (iwantSandy.com) is a fantastic idea for an online service, let me start by saying that. I've signed up and I have to admit, it's pretty cool what you have done so far.

I know this is only the tip of the iceberg, as the system evolves with time it will get better and better. The purpose of this discussion is to encourage other users to lay out their ideas about what this service may look like in a couple of years if taken to the next level.

To start, here are a few of my thoughts, as they seem like the logical evolution path for such web app:

1) As customer base grows, more money is injected in the infrastructure to make the pages load fast.

2) As mobile phones get more and more integrated with the cloud, so will this service. Eventually, this service should be able to synch with your mobile phone's speech recognition system, so that you can talk to Sandy and tell her your to do's instead of typing. (forget about typing..)

3) As other electronics get online and part of the cloud, Sandy, should follow as well, so as to truly become an online assistant wherever you go. (car GPS, mobile phone, any pc on the web, etc)

4) As your electronics become "smarter" you will be able to do more with sandy, more than just recording or retrieving data.. you should be able to send commands or request actions to be done (i.e: simple ones, check email, what's my calendar look like today, clear my day's appointments, send email to ..person... telling them.. , blog this, read me top news, check my site stats, report on home security system,etc)..

anyways, .. this was a quick brain dump of what might happen if this thing gets loose and wild..

share your thoughts..

p.s: I think this type of post should be done for every prod out there, so that people can get not only feedback about how the app or service is working, but feedback on how it will look like in the future.. remember collective feedback/decisions are usually smarter or more accurate that those of a single entity

G

I frequently have a deadline or appointment coming up that I need to ensure I don't forget with a tickler. So for instance, say that I want to make sure I renew my Drivers license by 6/13. But I am only out of the office Tuesday morning, and no other time until then, therefore I try telling Sandy:

remind tues 9am Renew Drivers license by 6/13

Instead of telling me "Renew Drivers License by 6/13" on Tues 9AM, she strings together these two apparent dates illogically:

Fri, 6/13 9:00am - Wed, 6/3/2009 9:00am Renew Drivers

This doesn't make sense! I want Sandy to remind me on Tues, then I can snooze it for 24 hours or so if I can't go get my driver's license renewed.

How do I make Sandy understand me??

Thanks!

if i get sent a reminder that I can't address right when I see receive it and I want to be reminded again later (e.g. in like 30 minutes)...how do I ask sandy to please "remind me again in 30 minutes."

I'm German, my english is not very good, hope you understand me:
Which word MUST I use, that Sandy understand me? Example:
Remember me to ...
or
Remember me
or just
Remember
?
Is there a list, so I can be sure, that Sandy understand me?

Thanks!

Howdy,

Just one of the various tweaks and twiddles I've been working on is today's fix for the Sandy jotters [http://iwantsandy.com/help/jott] among you.

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TWEAKED: Support for jotting multi-word special tags

Jott [http://iwantsandy.com/help/jott] to Sandy? If so, you've no doubt run into an issue jotting Sandy multi-word (or multi-word-sounding) tags like @todo, @noreminder, and @noreply. "Remind me to change the oil in the car tag with to-do" turned what should have been @todo into @to @do. "Remember to consider that offer on Monday @noreminder" ended up being tagged as @no @reminder.

We worked with Sandy over the weekend to recognize and re-assemble those multi-word tags for you on the fly. Now whenever you jott "...tag with to-do," @todo is what you'll get. And the same goes for: "no reminder," "no reply," etc.

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NEW: Turn Sandy's email replies to your jotts on or off

Prefer Sandy not email a reply to each and every one of your jotts? No problem! Turn Sandy's email replies to your jotts on or off at http://iwantsandy.com/settings/jott#r... .

Please note that we've asked Sandy _not_ to email a reply by default to avoid any unnecessary email cluttering your inbox. Feel free, however, to go ahead and turn email replies back on if you prefer.

Remember too that you can explicitly ask Sandy not to reply — on a jott by jott basis — by saying "tag with no-reply." And if you have Sandy's jott email replies turned off but would like an email reply to one jott in particular, just say "tag with reply."

To get Jott and Sandy talking, visit: http://iwantsandy.com/settings/jott

Learn more about Jotting with Sandy at: http://iwantsandy.com/help/jott

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Enjoy!

Rael

P.s. We thrive on your feedback! Be sure to let us know what you think, what you liked (or didn't), and if we missed anything (or made anything worse).

If Sady's going to be my virtual assistant, I figure she should know what's on my work and personal calendars too. Right now I can't get Sandy to subscribe to my Google Calendar or Apple iCalendar, and that's frustrating. Imagine an assistant that didn't know what appointments you had for the day!

This would be a useful feature, though -- then she could include all my appointments in her daily agenda emails, not just the ones I've sent to her. And she could watch out for conflicts or help me when I'm overbooking a day.

Howdy,

Today's update brings some further user-interface improvements in preparation for the fun(ctional) overhaul we have in the works.

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TWEAKED: Inline action links

The action links we introduced last week brought those actions you perform several times a day — editing, deleting (forgetting), and archiving — inline (rather than having to click once just to get to them, and again to take action). Some of you — and, admittedly, me too — pointed out that these links took up too much room, enlarging the footprint of individual items a wee bit too much. So we've tweaked them still further, moving them over to the right and iconizing them so that they're within easy reach yet as unobtrusive as possible.

Thanks Jaclyn, Trevor, Waffles, and the rest of you [http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...] for making your feelings known!

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TWEAKED: Show/hide past events and done to-dos

You'll notice new "Show/hide past" and "Show/hide done [to-dos]" links at the top of any page you're likely to need them.

For example:

* Select "Your stuff > Appointments" from Sandy's menu-bar for all upcoming appointments; now click the "Show past" link and the list will also include past appointments.

* Select "Your stuff > To-dos" for your current to-do list; then click "Show done" to include done to-dos, "Show past" to include all not-yet-done and done to-dos past, present, and upcoming.

A shout out to Kate, Kevin1, and others [http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...] for pointing out the inconsistencies!

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IMPROVED: Empty results suggestions

We added suggestions for where you might find what you're looking for when your search resulted in, well..., no results.

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FIXED: Archives

You should find all you expect to when clicking the "archive" tag in the right-hand sidebar while looking at any view of your your stuff, appointments, to-dos, etc.

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DOCUMENTED: Mobile reminder instructions for T-Mobile UK customers

Having trouble setting up mobile reminders for your T-Mobile UK mobile? Check out the updated instructions and help documentation at: http://iwantsandy.com/help/mobile

Enjoy!

Rael

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P.s. We thrive on your feedback! Be sure to let us know what you think, what you liked (or didn't), and if we missed anything (or made anything worse).

I'm thinking about having two Sandy accounts - one for home/personal and one for work.

Yeah, I know I can tag things @home and @work (or something similar), but the issue is that I want email reminders related to work stuff to go to my work address and reminders related to my home stuff to my personal address, and I do not believe there is anyway to do that with a single Sandy account. Likewise I want a work and personal digest.

And yeah, it will be a pain to move all my stuff to the new account...

And yeah again, I know David Allen says this distinction between home and work is blurred, but I'm not there yet :-) I fight hard to keep these things separate.

Anyway, before I take the plunge, anyone else wrestled with this?

I just figured out that Sandy has different behavior for "Remind me..." and "Remember...."

For "Remind me" she will *always* assign the item to a time, taking a guess if one isn't obvious. For example, "Remind me to testing @home @todo", results in:

<quote>
#1 Sat, 5/10 5:00am Testing

* email reminder at 5:00am
* tagged with home and todo

I didn't see a date or time for this reminder, so I scheduled it for 11pm.
</quote>

But, "Remember testing @todo", just results in the todo item without a time, unless you explicitly put a time in the message, e.g. "Remember test today at 7pm @todo"

This wasn't at all obvious to me from the documentation (though I admit I'm lousy at reading documentation), so I thought I'd share.

BTW, I find the "Remember..." semantics to be much more intuitive and will start using remember exclusively.

BTW^2, "R" is apparently short for "Remember" and not "Remind".