Jott+IWantSandy goes Pay-Only

I thought I would use Jott more than I have... turns out that Twitter (and to a lesser extend rushmsg which I've just started testing yesterday) are a much more natural way for me to work with Sandy...

Their free plan (Ad supported) still allows sending tweats via twitter so I'll probably keep it around but I haven't decided if I will upgrade Jott...($3.95/month) as though not much I'm not sure that I will use it even enough to warrant this. - I'm more likely to go to recording app and do the transcription myself when at a location more suitable for typing.

I'm wondering if Reqall will work with Sandy? I was trying to analyze it but it sounds like the contact must agree to share. Dial2Do should work but I like all the additional things Reqall can do--almost like a verbal Evernote.

All I really do with Jott is call Sandy anyhow! Mom with three kids (Rael's wife should be able to relate)--you NEVER have hands free to text when you have little ones. A Bluetooth phone, Jott, and Sandy are lifesavers, but Jott is the one that connected them in the middle for me.

Agreed. I didn't find Jott's other services as useful as Sandy's; and only used it to talk to Sandy, and the occasional twitter. I also really like the reQall functions, but the tollfree number makes it less attractive. I have unlimited calling from my cell to select numbers, but tollfree are not eligible! So it is likely going to be Dial2Do.

Jott's new app for Outlook looks promising.

But the thing is, I really don't want any of these. I like how Sandy works, I just want voice transcription, and more Stikkit functions in Sandy.

Actually, I was using Jott long before Sandy... but I've found the combination indispensable. I too, have had trouble with getting the hang of twittering to Sandy. The ease of Jotting to her (thumbs-free: important while driving!) makes Jott a keeper for me.

Has anyone tried this: Set up a ReQall account for Sandy (using your IWantSandy e-mail address) then "invite" yourself to Share. When you call ReQall share with Sandy and turn on the e-mail notifications in Sandy's ReQall account. Theoretically, those should get sent to your IWantSandy e-mail. I did a test and haven't gotten a response. Anyone else???

This is so funny. I was trying Nancy's solution just about the time Nancy posted! I did exactly what you did, Nancy.

So far, nothing, because even though my account shows both a real-life contact that joined this morning and my Sandy accounts, when I call the reQall number it tells me I have no contacts. I had to put in a different phone number for Sandy, too. I'm very curious as to what happens, and I'm about to ask on reQall's Get Satisfaction forum how long it takes their system to recognize contacts when added.

I get it to share. I just don't get the e-mail sent to Sandy

Did you accept invitations to share, or just to set up an account? These are two separate steps, I found out.

Both. But Sandy never got the e-mail notification.

Nancy, did you go into Sandy reQall account settings and set Notify to email? It doesn't default to this. I would have thought it did, but it didn't. I'm testing it now.

Rael, I'm currently still running into the same problem Nancy is. I posted my supposed solution above. I've waited close to half an hour and while it's posted on Sandy's reQall account, I haven't yet gotten a notification. I've sent myself a couple of reminders and it's not putting any weirdness that I can see in the email.

I picked reQall over Dial2Do because of some additional functionality that it has over Dial2Do. Could you possibly talk with them and see if you can get this to work? You have a good record of being responsive to your users.

Ok, another test: instead of using my phone I added a Shared item on Sandy's reQall website. I did get the reminder via email, but from reQall, not Sandy.

Here's the thing: the item had quotes around what I said. Rael, is that why Sandy isn't getting the messages sent through reQall?

I can't get it to send to Sandy, either, even though I've set it to send e-mail of shared reminders.
I'm wondering if you have to somehow specify the ReQall address to let Sandy allow it in (like you do with your default e-mail address)

I'm trying to figure out that one myself, now. I'm trying to add it as a friend.

When you get a reminder from ReQall, what address does it come from. And if you put that in Sandy's settings in the "I will also accept mail from" box, will it allow it??

I added reQall as a friend. I had tried adding reqall@reqall.com as a secondary email address, but someone has already added it, meaning a total of one (1) person in the world can use reQall with Sandy using this workaround. Also means I'd better remove it as a friend, too, less wires get crossed somewhere and I start getting cc's.

So until Rael and Sunil get together and fix roadblocks standing in the way on both ends, looks like there's no way to do this. Rael and the people behind Jott figured it out, so there must be a way.

Bummer.

Oops, "lest" wires get crossed.

Yes, bummer. And now I learn that I can't remove Reqall as a friend, either.

Guess I'll have to use Dial2Do until such a time as Reqall and Sandy can work together. I was trying to eliminate having yet another service in my GTD mix. If Sandy could take voice input, she'd be all I need (other than my calender and task list).

I found a workaround that is ok for me and wanted to share it in case it helped anyone else.

1. To Jott to Sandy (for free) I set up the workaround seen here (http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...) using Gmail

2. I used the name "assistant" for my Gmail account for Jott because it had too much trouble understanding "G-mail"

3. I added the email address for sending things to my evernote account to Jott (under the name Evernote) - This worked better for me than Requall or Dial2do

3. I use my iPhone apps for Jott & Evernote to manage these

Got it!

Set up Twitterfeed to process the ReQall Feed.

Choose the option to prefix each feed with "d s " (without quotes but with the trailing space)

I use Windows mobile and have unlimited data, so can use the reqall app to create items with my voice but without a phone call, and after they are transcribed, 30 mins later Sandy gets the update.

Faster and cheaper (no minutes used) than Jott.... even free Jott.

Rage, outline for me then: you call reQall, and choose to...what? Add? Share? Sorry, but reQall seems so cryptic sometimes. Your solution *appears* to make sense, but I'm having trouble with the implementation

I set this up just the other day to test it out.

1) create a ReQall.com account.
Connect your phone to it. (Settings -> Phone access)
Store the ReQall phone number in your phone's address book.

Copy the RSS feed address by going to Settings -> Feeds
http://www.reqall.com/user/feeds/rss/...

2) create a Twitterfeed.com account.
This means that you need an OpenID account.
(Try myOpenID.com if you don't have one.)

3) create a new twitter feed.
Enter the Twitter account username and password.
Paste in the ReQall RSS feed address.
Update frequency: every 30 minutes.
Prefix each tweet with: "d s ". (That's: D space S space)
(Make sure to include the ending space.)

4) call ReQall and "Add" a new item (press 1).
Every half hour, Twitterfeed will pull a new version of the RSS feed from ReQall, check to see if anything is new, and then publish the new items to Twitter. Twitter will send a direct message to Sandy (because of the "d s " prefix).
So Sandy will receive a new Tweet from Twitter with your instructions.

Remember that because this workaround goes through Twitter, you're limited to 140 characters.

This hack is necessary because
1) ReQall doesn't have a "link" to Sandy like Jott does. It's not as easy to send Sandy a voice transcription of what you said.

2) TwitterFeed only feeds Twitter. (and laconica). It can't feed your Sandy account directly. You also can't set up Sandy to subscribe to the ReQall rss feed.

3) ReQall can send you new transcriptions by email. If it was easy for Sandy to accept emails, we could use this method and bypass Twitter.

It is possible to set up ReQall to send email to your email account ever time a new transcription is made. You could set up a filter in your mailbox to forward mail from ReQall to Sandy. However, you'd still have to tell Sandy to accept email from the ReQall email address. (The "From:" field remains set to reqall.com). As a result, it means that using ReQall email notification requires you to use the ReQall address as your second Sandy email address.

4) ReQall can send you new transcriptions by IM. If Sandy understood IM, you could have ReQall IM Sandy and skip the whole Twitter thing.

Or you could just cough up the 13 cents a day to pay for Jott. I find that to be the easiest solution.

That "13 cents a day to pay for Jott" is a sunk cost whether you use Jott each of those days or not. And it totals up to almost $50 a year. Plus, that only gets you 15 second Jotts. I find that if I try to get what I want to get to Sandy into a 15 second Jott, the transcription is unreadable, senseless. And if you want to have 30 seconds per Jott message, which you will most likely need in order to spell out the words that Jott chokes on, you'll be paying about $150 per year!

Nah - not me!

I like jott, it works

I would gladly pay for Sandy if I could trust it to work everyday, I don't care about paying as long as I get my reminders on time which is not happening and tech support which is not happening either