UPDATE for July 16th-23rd, 2008

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:

=====

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

=====

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!

====

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

====

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.

====

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.

====

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.

====

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).

====

IMPROVED: Twitter and Jott confirmations

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

====

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).