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Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine Vol 02 Issue 02
------- Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine -------
Vol 2, Issue 2
First off, I want to thank everyone who contacted me to wish me
good health. I am feeling much better and it only took me about
a week to dig out from under everything that piled up over the
three days that I wasn't in front of the computer.
With all of the stuff I did have to get done, I was trying to be
as efficient as possible with my work time. I know, even without
being sick, this is a goal that many of us have. Being more
efficient during working hours means we are better able to relax
during our downtime. To that end, I decided to try out a new
tool this week to make those little pieces of time a little more
productive. The system is called "Jott" and it might be
something for you to check out.
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In This Issue...
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1. Article: Jott This Down
2. Blog Posts
3. Shameless Self-Promotion
4. The Fine Print
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1. Article: Jott This Down
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So, you're waiting in a coffee shop for your next appointment and
you suddenly remember an email you wanted to send to a
colleague. Unfortunately, you don't have your computer with you
and you never shelled out the extra cash for one of those "smart"
phones (or you just find typing on those little keyboards to be a
bit tedious). Oh well, you'll probably remember to do it later,
right?
Right.
What if you had a tool that allowed you to send out
communications like this using your cell phone? Wouldn't that be
cool?
Someone else thought so, too. They came up with Jott.
Jott (www.jott.com) is a (currently) free service which lets you
send email and instant messages to other people using only your
voice. The basic idea is you call Jott's 1-866 number, tell
Jott who you want to contact, speak for up to 30 seconds, and
then hang up. In a few minutes, a transcribed version of the
message is sent to your recipients.
As I mentioned, other than your cell minutes and any SMS charges
for you or your recipients, there are no fees for this service.
I haven't had a chance to play with it too much yet, but I can
already see a number of applications. How about hands-free
texting when you are driving? Recording a few points from the
meeting you were just in before hopping into the next one? How
about adding things to your "to do" list?
That last one is a seriously cool feature. The Jott designers
have set up a number of links to many popular online services,
including several blogs, calendars, and task lists. I've already
set up connections to Google Calendar and "Remember The Milk", my
online "to do" list.
The transcription (apparently a combination of machine and human
processing) is pretty accurate. In my various tests, I only
found one misspelling (they spelled my daughter's name as "Kaley"
instead of "Kaylie"). They did indicate that they weren't sure
on it. You can also supposedly spell out a word or name that
they might mess up.
Now, Jott *is* still in beta, so you may run into a problem or
two along the way. For the price, though, it's definitely a cool
and potentially useful tool to help you make use of the little
bits of time in between.
Copyright 2008, Greg Peters
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2. Blog Posts
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Links to posts on the "Clearing Up the Confusion" Blog from the
last year:
Friday, January 25, 2008 -- Talkin' Trackbacks, Part 1: What and Why
http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2008/01/talkin-trackbacks-part-1-what-and-why.html
"One of the exciting aspects of blogging is the ability to
interact with your readers. There's something about the rich
interplay of ideas and opinions which really fuels the creative
process -- even when they tell you that you're being stupid..."
Sunday, December 23, 2007 -- Remember The Milk Add-On
http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2007/12/remember-milk-add-on.html
"Today I found out about a nifty new add-on for RTM if you are
also a Gmail user and your browser is Firefox..."
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3. Shameless Self-Promotion
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The "Clearing Up the Confusion" E-Zine is a production of Greg
Peters, owner, chief cook, and bottlewasher of Cyber Data
Solutions. CDS has been helping website designers develop better
web presence for their clients for more than a decade. Visit us
on the Web at www.cyberdatasolns.com to see how we can help your
webmaster.
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4. The Fine Print
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