kevin1's dashboard

Is it possible to update a list through Twitter?

Yes, although it's limited. Because Twitter writes things on one line, and because Sandy requires multiple list items to be on separate lines, it seems that you can only update one item at a time.

Assuming Sandy responded to a previous lookup with a list marked as #1
> d s u #1 * butter
> d s u #1 -* butter

One idea that has been suggested is to use the plus and minus signs to update several items on the same line.

> d s u #1 +eggs -bacon +yogurt

Is it possible to create a list on one line (via Twitter or Quicksilver, etc)?

Currently, no. Sandy requires each item of a list to be on a different line, and there isn't any way to get some programs (Twitter) to use multiple lines. There has been some discussion about ideas for making Sandy be able to recognize a list contained entirely in one line. But this hasn't been finalized.

One idea is to use multiple asterisks on the same line.
> remember groceries * eggs *milk *bread

Can I get the full list sent back via Twitter?

Currently, no. SMS messages have a character limit (something like 120 characters) The people at iwantsandy haven't come up with the best way to handle receiving lists. yet. This seems to apply to both items that are list, and the multiple items that are found with a general lookup.

Trying to lookup ingredients in a named "cookies".
http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...

Trying to lookup items by tag.
> d s l @work

How to create a list with a weekly reminder?

remind me about groceries Friday at 2pm @weekly
* eggs
* butter
* cheese

(From http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy... )

Basic information on how to use lists can be found here (http://iwantsandy.com/help/lists )

I started this discussion because there's been a lot of discussion about lists on GetSatisfaction, and that information hasn't been added to the manual. Also, the posts with the best information are a little hard to find. Let me know if this discussion is helpful to anyone

Yeah, I've noticed that. On the website, the Daily Digest only displays the name of the list. None of the items in the list are displayed.

The email version is different though. The Daily Digest email contains the name of the list and the entire contents of the list.

Well, I'm out of ideas. Have you tried emailing help@iwantsandy.com?

Oh, you want lists to have a URL field. Why?

Lists share a lot of similarities with Notes. They are displayed the way Notes should be. I mean, they have a separate "name" and a "detail" area. The details are displayed in a large text area that you can edit any way you want. Lists can have any kind of text as an element of the list. You can just add a URL as another item in the list. You can even add multiple URLs.

A couple of problems with forgetting about Google Calendar.

First, Sandy doesn't have a proper calendar view. It's very convenient to actually *see* what you have scheduled. Sandy provides a calendar feed for this very purpose.

Second, Sandy isn't able to subscribe to external calendars. Lots of things could be posted on the internet in the form of a calendar feed. Maybe your kid's soccer games or the next meeting of your chess club, etc. Right now, you have to have your Google Calendar (etc.) subscribe to other calendar feeds. This will at least reduce the number of places where your schedule is located. Sandy and Google Calendar.

It's obvious Sandy was intended to organize your life. To do that, she serves as a repository of most of your items. Not just scheduled items. She stores Appointments, Notes, Bookmarks, Contacts, and Lists, It seems odd that she can't subscribe to calendar feeds. If she could, then she would be able to schedule your life better.

Third, It just seems strange that we are encouraged to use a separate calendar application to see our scheduled items, yet we can't update those items from within the calendar application. (Then again, maybe we can, at least partially. Sandy does provide several links in every item so that you can click on it and it will take you to the appropriate item in iwantsandy.com)

I didn't fully understand your problem. Are you saying that you can't add a URL to an existing note? That doesn't make sense. Notes have a URL field. So do Appointments and Bookmarks. You can edit what's in the text box. Or, are you saying that you want to create a note, but you can't because Sandy creates a bookmark instead? Or did you mean something else?

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.

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.)

Austin's description was very informative. The file was 0 bytes, or maybe a single space character. Also, he switched from a password protected feed to a private feed. That might be important.

So, it looks like the calendar feed isn't working. Not the items *in* the feed, but the feed itself. The server isn't retuning anything at all. The thing is, most people's calendar feeds are working correctly. So, a server error isn't likely. Whatever the root problem is, it's only affecting about two accounts.

I'm guessing here, but the problem could be 1) user error, 2) a problem with that particular feed ID or URL, 3) a problem with your account. 4) something else. It's possible that something caused your private URL to change or reset or become invalid, etc. In Austin's case, something might have caused his password protected feed to not authenticate, resulting in the server returning 0 bytes. (Austin, did you change your password or email account recently? Edit any other settings? When you saved the settings, it might have caused things to need to be authenticated again, and then for some reason, it couldn't authenticate.)

The first thing to do is to cancel all subscriptions and start everything all over again. Have Sandy set up a new private URL for you. I suggest that both of you (Austin, Kb) change your private address again. Yes, one more time. And this time be *extremely* meticulous and thorough.

1) Remove all Sandy calendar feeds from Outlook and/or iCal and from anywhere else. (i.e. unsubscribe) Then close the application completely. Open the application again and make sure that the subscription is gone. Close it again.
2) Reset the Sandy private calendar feed. (Go to http://iwantsandy.com/settings#calend... , click on "No", click on "Save", then log out of Sandy. You might even want to close your browser here, just to be sure. Then log in again and make sure that Sandy has the private calendar feed turned off.
2b) Create a new calendar feed. Log back into Sandy, then go to the settings page and click on "Yes", then "Save". Don't make any other changes to any settings. Make sure that the link is different from the previous one. (that the series of random letters are different.) Right click on the "subscribe" link and copy the link URL to your clipboard. Log out of Sandy and possibly close your browser. Log in again. Check to make sure that the private URL is "On" and is the same as the one that's in your clipboard.
3) Open up your calendar application and add a new subscription. Paste the URL from your clipboard into the application. Some applications might need you to change the "webcal://" to "http://". See if everything works. You might want to close your application and start it again. Make sure that the subscription URL is the same as the one in your clipboard.

I think Austin is referring to this thread, http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy... – kevin1, on July 09, 2008 20:42

I'll do what I can to help out. I don't know everything, but I thought a number of things in your description was odd. So I have more questions.

Kb, it doesn't help to copy what Austin wrote. It just makes it more confusing.. Can you provide some specific detail about the problem you're experiencing? I know that you don't use iCal, and I doubt that the URL error code is the same as Austin's. "my%40domain.com@iwantsandy.com/list.ics"

The "http://my%40domain.com@iwantsandy.com/list.ics " error message looks odd. Can you provide some more detail on that? Did both of you actually receive the string "my%40domain.com", or did you edit that string (I understand if you don't want to post your username and password, but is that what it was?) I thought you were using the private feed. The error message looks like you're NOT using the private calendar feed, but are instead using the password-protected feed. I expect the private feed to contain a string of random characters. Something like "iwantsandy.com/sjhd8g0983ilkdjfoierndljk/list.ics".

When you tried to download the list.ics file, I think that the file was sent to a calendar program to be opened. iCal or Microsoft Outlook. Don't do this. Save the file to disk and open it with a text editor. What happened is that the calendar program tried to parse the file, and found an error. Unfortunately, the iCal error message doesn't tell me what was actually in the file that was downloaded. It would be better to save the *.ics file to disk and open it with a text editor. What is in the file? Is it an actual *.ics file with an internal mistake, (making the file invalid) or did the server have an error and refused to give you an *.ics file at all. Maybe it gave you a server error, that was saved with the extension *.ics . What did the error say?