Dave Ross's dashboard

"indifferent I’m Secretly wondering if Sandy is selling my secrets to the highest bidder " from Dave Ross...
steveL7874's reply: No, She probably a Language Teacher @ Princeton.
Oh, Thanks for the prompt reply to my Question. yous guys...... >Who "funds" Sandy.
A better way to put the question into context is: "How does it actually work ?". {Sandy}. I would guess computers> take their coffee a little stronger than you.
Seems a little confusing, I don't know. <>Stikkit must be a pretty BIG outfit.
Enough. I'm going to shut-up. I just learned somethin'. Thanks again!!!

Sandy is run by Values of n, the startup behind Stikkit. Actually, my understanding is that IWantSandy is just an email front-end to Stikkit.

Two years ago, Stikkit had a round of funding from First Round Captial and Sherpalo Ventures (source: http://pulse2.com/2006/12/19/more-inv...). They have a small staff, and share office space with another startup, so their overhead is low.

If I had to guess, I'd say they're still burning through that first round of funding while they grow Stikkit into a time management platform which apps like Sandy can be built around.

OK, that is almost there. I have to start with "remember". Yes, in the docs, but I didn't get it. Bad me, but it would be great if the failure response to Jott from Sandy said something to the effect of "I didn't understand that. Make sure to start your Jotts to Sandy with 'Remember'". For more info, see <help>" Something like that would have saved me a lot of time, the nuances are tough to get for ADD programmer types like me...

Now, for the final problem. This last attempt came through as "tag with to do", which got tagged in Sandy with "to" and "do". There should be some intelligent filtering to turn "tag with todo", "tag with to-do" or "tag with to do" into the "todo" tag in Sandy.

thanks for all the help,
-- Chad</help>

I tested again, to see if I can get the "-" in the todo but the closest i could come was " tag with to do" which Sandy correctly tagged as @todo – Bricoleur, on August 03, 2008 05:10

When using Jott you always have to start with the "Remember"...

so it would be "remember clean yard tag with to-do"

if you haven't put the "remember" first, Sandy doesn't find anything in the communication

With that said the additon of the "-" in the todo is likely problematic as it might be recognized as your own (new) tag rather than the reserved system tag. - I haven't encountered this myself.

OK, I realized I was Jotting "myself" instead of "sandy". Now, "remember" messages are getting through.

However, there is still a problem with TODOs. Here are the Jotts I sent to Sandy:

Testing 1 2 3, tag with to-do.
Clean yard, tag with To-Do.

And here is the error Jott got back from Sandy for both of these:

I got your jott but couldn't find anything you asked me to do.

This seems like a bug, this is exactly as described here: http://iwantsandy.com/help/jott

Are the dashes causing problems?

I'm not sure how to debug it. There doesn't seem to be a good way to do that. My suggestion is to remove everything and start over again. Delete the "Sandy" link in Jott, save your changes, and log out. (Even though it's probably not necessary, I would also change the Jott Interaction setting in Sandy back to "No", click on "Save", and log out.). Then do the entire set up procedure again. Start by adding a Sandy link to Jott. It should redirect you to log into Sandy and there you can turn on the "Jott interaction" setting.

I think you must be right, the Jott messages are not getting through to Sandy. I think I have everything configured as you described:

* In Sandy, Jott Link "On"
* In Jott, "Sandy" link is added, and has "Send SMS Response" checked (although I do have "Confirmation Text Message" unchecked in http://jott.com/settings_phone.aspx)
* In Jott, email confirmations are turned on, and the are getting through to my email address
* I can see the Jotts on the Jott website (and this is where I have been pasting the exact transcribed Jott text from).
* However, nothing from Jott ever shows up in Sandy.

What else can I try to debug this?

Chad,

It seems to me that none of your Jotts are getting to Sandy. You've been waiting since yesterday for something, but nothing happened? For your information, unless Sandy is experiencing a problem, Sandy should receive and process the communication fairly quickly. (From Jott or email or Twitter). Probably within 15 minutes. Either Sandy will create a new item or she will encounter an error and send you an email (Assuming you have that option turned on.)

Did Sandy create a new item, and what tags did she apply? Where did you cut and paste your examples from? (See below) Did you get these examples from a Jott confirmation email? (That could mean that Sandy never received any message.) Even if Sandy makes a mistake, she most likely will misunderstand "tag with to do" to be @to and @do. And of course, she will add it to the list page.

Check out the list page (http://iwantsandy.com/list ) to see all new items recently added to Sandy. The list page is sorted with the most recently edited items on top, so any new items should appear at the top. For every new item you try to enter, either a new item should show up on the list page or you should receive an email from Sandy saying that she received your communication, but didn't understand it.

Did Sandy receive the communication from Jott at all? Did she create a new item and tag it with both "to" and "do"? (or maybe with the tag "to-do"?) Again, go to the list page (http://iwantsandy.com/list ) and click on the item (if it exits) and then select "edit". Look at what's in the text box labeled "tags:".

There's a couple of ways you can get confirmation about what Sandy received and what she understood. 1) The list page. (http://iwantsandy.com/list ) find the item and click on it. Selecting "more context" will show you the original message Sandy received. 2) The recent email page. (http://iwantsandy.com/email ) lists the latest communications between you and Sandy. 3) The Jott link can send an SMS message to your phone containing the response from the application (i.e. Sandy). If you have that turned on. (look at http://jott.com/myjottlinks.aspx and click "Edit" on your Sandy link. Make sure "Send SMS Response" is checked.) 4) Sandy can send you a confirmation email (and/or SMS) when she receives a communication. if you have that turned on. (http://iwantsandy.com/settings/email ) 5) Jott can send you a confirmation email. If you have that turned on. (http://jott.com/settings_email.aspx Make sure "Confirmation emails" is checked.)

OK, still nothing this morning from the following two Jotts yesterday:

"Remember sample, tag with to-do."
"Remind me example. Tag with to do."

In Sandy's config, "Jott interaction" is set to "Yes". Is there anything else I need to do, any possible misconfiguration on my part?

REmind Me is a shortcut for creating appointments,it will forcibly assign a reminder time whether you specify one or not.

Remember is more used for notes, bookmarks, contacts, etc. Stuff without a reminder.

No, nothing in my list. Did your Jott item look exactly like this:

"Remember test tag with Todo."

...with "remember", and a trailing period, and a capital Todo?

Trying it again now. BTW, what's the different between prefixing with "remember" and "remind me"?

Hi Chad!

I just gave that very thing a shot and it worked like a charm: I ended up with a new to-do called "test" (tagged with "todo").

Do you not see yours listed when you go to http://iwantsandy.com/list ?

Rael

Chad, we're "double-dash twins!" – Rael Dornfest, on July 09, 2008 19:16

Hi Rael,

Thanks for the personal response. We met at RailsConf - we look alike (http://www.flickr.com/photos/27218486...). And it is REALLY creepy that you put two dashes in front of your name as your sig, which I've done forever as well. Anyway...

Unfortunately, this still didn't work. Here is the message I got to come through on Jott yesterday:

"Remember test tag with Todo."

As of this morning, Sandy still says "I don't see anything tagged with @todo."

Let me know what else to try...

-- Chad

Here's the Jott confirmation from yesterday. The tags actually came through as @do @to. Might that have something to do with it? Jott to Sandy (Sandy): Remember to add audio to the SVN presentation. Tag with To Do. I got: Add audio to the SVN presentation. @do @to – Dave Ross, on July 09, 2008 14:38

Howdy, folks!

Actually Sandy has learned to compensate for the "tag with todo" becoming "tag with to do" (i.e. @to @do) and puts them back together again making @todo.

Is this not working as it should for you? If so, please do try a simple example like "remind me to brush my teeth in 5 minutes tag with to do" and post here what Sandy gleaned from your attempt. That'll help me track down any potential issue if there is one.

--Rael

This seems like it is something that Sandy should account for. @to @do should automatically add or get changed to @todo – thewoolleyman, on July 08, 2008 22:42