Virtual Assistant, life is good.

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I'm a bit of a Web 2.0 connoisseur when the app is free. I came across 2 different ones that are really helpful tools by themselves. Put them together and they are amazingly helpful. The first app is Jott which is a voice to text transcription service that will convert your voice to text and send it to SMS or email addresses. Jott also has a Blackberry plugin that will allow you to respond to email/SMS via voice. Very helpful if you don't want to type and drive. The other app Sandy is a virtual email/reminder assistant. You can change her to him with a male name if you don't want your wife getting upset about this "Sandy" you communicate with all the time. ;) Basically you can send Sandy emails and ask her to remind you of tasks, events, notes/data, etc. She will send you iCal or ics depending on your preference and she will also send you a daily digest that can help you plan out your day. You can tag items such as @blog_entry and later query her with @blog_entry and she will tell you everything you asked her to remember with that tag. You can CC her on email and in the body put something like "Sandy, remind me to send out the proposal for Acme, Inc. this Friday 10 AM." and she will remind you via SMS, email, or both depending on your preference.

By connecting Sandy and Jott you can now call her (via Jott) and get all the above features. I have been using both services for a few months and have found them to be very helpful. The other day I was driving home and remembered I needed to get a note out in the morning for a project I'm working on so I called Sandy (via Jott) and asker her to remind me. To totally forgot until Sandy SMSed me a reminder--pretty cool. Tip: if you want to tag an item via Jott to Sandy say, "tag with projectX." You can multi-tag items too with @projectX @todo @critical. If you were tagging via Jott say, "tag with projectX and todo and critical."

Initially there is a little back an forth with Sandy until you get the lingo down but it is really simple once you get the hang of it and there are many short-cuts/dictation to speed thumb typing along. Don't fret, she lets you know if she didn't understand what you wanted her to do. I'm still exploring all of her capabilities and I'm finding new and exciting features or a way to use them in a relevant way every day.

Questions and comments welcomed.
Tim Symchych