UPDATE for April 2nd-6th, 2008

Howdy, folks!

I must apologize for our being a little on the quiet side over the past couple of weeks. We've been heads-down, hard at work on finishing, testing, documenting, and otherwise readying some features you've been asking for and bug fixes you've been asking for no longer. (And, I must admit, we took a much needed day or two off to spend with our families over Spring Break.)

Here, then, are the latest feature additions, bug subtractions, usefulness multiplications -- and absolutely nothing in the way of long-division ;-).

Enjoy!

Rael

=====

NEW: Toggle individual occurrences of repeating to-dos

One of most popular feature requests was the ability to toggle individual occurrences of a repeating (weekly, daily, monthly, ...) to-do. And now you can do just that — both on the Web and by email, SMS/text, and Twitter.

* On the web: Simply click the checkbox to the left of any repeating to-do and it'll be marked as done, leaving the upcoming occurrences as-yet-undone.

* By email, SMS/text, or Twitter: Reply to Sandy with an update as usual:
> update [#number of the item to update] @done

Find out more about updating things: http://iwantsandy.com/help/guide#update

=====

NEW: Update individual or future occurrences of repeating appointments, reminders, or to-dos

To update only the current occurrence of any repeating item, just ask Sandy to update it as usual:

> update [#number of the item to update] [text, date, time, and/or tag to update]

For example, let's say your weekly staff meeting has moved to Tuesday at 2pm this week:

> update #1 Tuesday at 2pm

To update all future occurrences including the current one, just include the recurrence tag with which the item is already tagged in your update:

> update [#number of the item to update] [text, date, time, and/or tag to update] [recurrence tag]

For example, perhaps the weekly staff meeting has moved to Tuesday permanently:

> update #1 Tuesday at 2pm @weekly

(The @weekly tag tells Sandy to update all future occurrences rather than just the current one.)

Find out more about update and recurrence: http://iwantsandy.com/help/guide#upda...

=====

NEW: Let Sandy do the time-zone calculations for you

Have a conference call at 4pm Europe/London (aka GMT) time? Flying from San Francisco at 7am PDT (or is it PST?), connecting through New York at 2pm EDT, then on Sydney for a noon lunch (Australia/Sydney aka GMT+10) on Thursday (or is it Friday?)? Sunday morning call with your grandmother in Arizona -- they don't do daylight savings, do they? Eek!

Your head has better things to do than time-zone calculations!

Tack a time-zone on to anything you're asking Sandy to remind you about and she'll figure out just when that is in your local time-zone and remind you when the time comes.

For example:

> Remind me about the sales conference call at 4pm Europe/London
> Remember San Francisco to New York 5/1 7am PDT - 2pm EDT
> Remind me about lunch in Sydney on Thursday at noon Australia/Sydney

A shout out to Ilya and TRONash for pointing out that Sandy should indeed be able to do this! [http://gsfn.us/t/fv5]

More date and time examples: http://iwantsandy.com/help/guide#date...

Set your time zone: https://iwantsandy.com/settings/datetime

=====

TWEAKED: Dial "R" for "Remember"

A few of you noticed that the shortcut "r" was sometimes mistaken by Sandy to mean "remind" — even when you didn't specify a date or time - surprising you with a reminder the next morning.

Sandy will now assume that by "r" you mean "remember" and not set a reminder unless you specify a date or time.

Have Sandy remember so you don't have to: http://iwantsandy.com/help/guide#reme...

=====

FIXED: Re-using your email address (and Twitter username)

Some of you ran into trouble signing up again using an email address that had previously been associated with another account. Others had similar trouble associating a Twitter username with a new account that had formerly been associated with another account.

This'll trouble you no longer! We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate the time you took to troubleshoot the issue with us.

=====

IMPROVED: Recognizing contacts

(Or, rather, not recognizing non-contacts.) Sandy is continually learning to discern the difference between people's names, their company's name, job titles, and so forth. Not to mention all those tracking numbers, phone numbers, and lottery winning numbers ;-). While you probably don't give it more than a moment's thought (if that), it's all actually rather complicated stuff.

We've spent some more time with Sandy over the past couple of weeks in our continuing effort to help her discern David Wells Bank from Wells Fargo Bank, tracking number from telephone number. If you've managed (mistakenly of course) to stump Sandy with any of these in the past, you'll no doubt find her much improved.

=====

DOCUMENTED: Notes

We've added a Help page on having Sandy remember assorted notes for you.

Visit: http://iwantsandy.com/help/notes

=====

TWEAKED: Twitter confirmations

A simple matter of mistiming meant that some of you weren't receiving Sandy's confirmation tweet on setting up Twitter interaction. Sandy would attempt to twitter you but the whole "I follow you; you follow me" thing hadn't yet been negotiated and so she'd find that you weren't (yet) a friend.

Sandy now assumes that mistiming is to blame and gives it another few tries at regular intervals before giving up (and letting us know).

We've also added a message to Sandy's site that pops up with instructions if for some reason you've not yet followed Sandy.

Twitter to and receive reminder tweets from Sandy: http://iwantsandy.com/settings/twitter

=====

And more on the way...