Review: iwantsandy.com - Your Very Own Personal Assistant

I find myself constantly trying to find the best way to keep track of this I need to do and appointments I may have, flight times, etc. I have an iPhone and have tried things like Ta-Da form 37Signals, and also the iPhone friendly Google Calendar. But none of those quite seemed to fit the bill.

I also have tried the famous analogue PDA pocket moleskin, but while staright forward, I never seem to follow up and it has not quite worked out either.

Enter iwantsandy.com. I think I was tipped off to this by an rss feed item, but the source escapes me. In any case, I went over to see what it was all about and decided to give it a try in my never ending search. Let me say, it is way cool. Very simple and very powerful.
So here is the deal. It is billed as your very own Personal Assistant named Sandy. You interact with Sandy via email, just as if you were emailing an assistant. When you sign up, you get a unique email address to iwantsandy that you send your emails to. I simply added this to the address book on my iPhone and that was it.  Sandy will also interact directly with you through Twitter.
Let me go over some examples. Let say I want to add a todo item, it is as simple as this:
send and email to sandy that says “Remind me to pick up my dry cleaning tomorrow @todo”

It is as easy as that. There are keywords Sandy keys off of. I always start mine with “Remind Me”. She is also very date aware and will schedule the todo item for tomorrow, and notes the proper date. She will also know things like: “Next Monday” as well as actual dates you give her. Now the @todo at then end is how you tell Sandy exactly what it is. There are special tags that are reserves, like @todo, @done, @lookup, @archive. Check out the online guide for more info.

So not only can Sandy remember todo items, but also appointments. Simply shoot her an email about a meeting and it gets logged.

Now here it the great features. SAndy reminds you about your todo’s and appointments. Each day you will receive and email from her in the morning with your daily digest. On it are your appointments for the day and any todo’s you have not completed. Here is one of mine:

Bonjour, Jimmy!

Here’s what you have going on today:

Friday, 11/30/2007
————————————————-

Nothing’s scheduled for today…perhaps you’ve got time to tackle a project that’s simmering on the back burner?

To-dos
————————————————-

#1 Fri, 11/23/2007 Print Paperwork
- email reminder at 7:00am
- tagged with @todo
- http://iwantsandy.com/286454

#2 Fri, 11/23/2007 7:00am Get the Prius serviced
- email reminder at 7:00am
- tagged with @todo
- http://iwantsandy.com/286456

Have a great day!

Sandy

It is really nice to get this first thing in the AM and see what you have or need to do. There are ways to update items as donas well. For example, if I finished #1 above, I can simply send Sandy and email and say:
“Update #1 @done” and Sandy takes it off your todo list.

Now I know this is getting a bit long, but there is one feature that blew me away, Working with Firends. I cannot do all of this justice. Here is a clip form the online guide:

Staying organized with friends, family, and coworkers is effortless when I work with them, too.

• send shared reminders (the movie premiere Friday night)
• add stuff to each other’s calendars (the dentist appointment)
• share a to-do list (get those to-dos done together)

…and so much more. No more fussing with different organizing systems and calendar applications — just bring me into the conversation and I’ll take care of the rest.

Introducing me

The easiest way to introduce me to your friends is to Cc: me on email to someone else, like this:

To: Jim <jim@example.com>
From: Marla <marla@example.com>
Cc: Sandy <yoursandy@username.iwantsandy.com>
Subject: Our coffee date

We're on for our coffee date tomorrow afternoon!

Sandy, remind us about Coffee at Frank's Diner tomorrow at 3pm.

Take care,
Marla

(When you Cc: me on a message, put “Sandy,” before the keyword you want me to pay attention to.)

When you bring me into the conversation, I will automatically introduce myself — if I’ve not already done so — to the other recipients (anyone else in the To: or Cc: fields). I’ll also share any details you’ve asked me to take note of; more on this in a moment.

Obviously there is a ton of features. I know as our DC Tech community grows we all have needs for little reminders and a little help from our very own personal assistant. So dont hesitate to stop by and get you very own assistant and see how much they can help.

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Tags: iwantsandy, technology, DC, DC Tech, Washington DC, east coast bloging

CoWorking DC Style

I happened to catch a twitter this evening from Peter Corbett of iStrategyLabs about CoWorking in the DC area.  He linked to a wiki that is up now to gain some support for the movement.  So far they have three venues:

1.  Affinity Lab

2.  Old Takoma CoWorking

3.  SuiteSpace

I think this is a really positive sign for the DC area with respect to the dvelopment of the tech community.  I have defeintely seen a progressaion as this has worked from silicon valley to the northwest, boston and NY, and now here. 

This in combination with the Startup Weekend hosted here recently and what I consider a budding tech community will hopefully result in some really dynamic changes to the DC tech scene. 

So if you need a place to work, check out one of the sites listed above and please let us know how it goes and also of any others that are out there.

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Tags: technology, eastcoastblogging, east coast, dc, washingtondc, coworking, iStrategyLabs

Web Content Generation Gap

The other evening I was preparing for a business trip. As I usually do I head over to Itunes and see if anything catches my attention that I want to watch or listen to while on the plane. I went into the video section and saw a couple I thought I may enjoy. The first was by the gang over at nextNYers who produces a series of short videos all about the up and coming startups out of the New York area. I subscribed to this one and moved on to find some more. The next one I came across was Media Conversations. It had a good review, so I threw it on the iPhone as well.

So I was on the plane and had finished a movie and decided to check out the video podcasts I had downloaded. I watched the nextNYers one first. They featured Blip.tv. It was really good. The production quality was great and I really enjoyed watching and learning about some cool companies. It was obviously geared towards a younger web 2.0 crowd and it hit its mark. Take a look for yourself. You do not need to watch the entire clip, its about 4 minutes, but you will get the idea.

After I checked out the nextNYers, i scrolled over to watch the Media Conversations. From the title, “User Generated Content”, I thought I was in for a little more of the same as the nextNYers. I was wrong. While I am sure that the content was good, I couldn’t get past the visual of it all. Take a look and see what I mean.

Honestly, I kind of laughed out loud on the plane. My seat neighbor, gave me quite the look. I love the gentleman asking the questions, his thick glasses, buttoned up shirt, and english accent. Right away, he jumps into acronyms. UGC … User Generated Content. Its classic. Give it a minute and look at the expression on his face when his one guest talks about “SPLOGS”, spam blogs.

So let this be a lesson to all of you. Know when to get out ….. or you may be starting to use some odd acronyms as well.

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Tags: video, technology, east coast, WashingtonDC, DC

YouTube Creates It’s Own Invalid File Format …

Last night after a raucos night out on the town here in Omaha, NE (if you still think I am serious  .. not really) I sat in my hotel room to do some blog post planning and such.  One post, which will be forthcoming, involved a bit of video.  I didnt have the need for the entire video clip and wanted to just cut out a piece of it.  I uploaded the entire video to YouTube and form there I was excited to try out the YouTube Remixer.  It is powerd by Adobe Premiere Express and on the surface looks really cool.

You basically have your current videos in a pane to the right and are able to drag what you want to use into the workspace and it imports it.  From there you are able to do some minor editing, add captions, borders, and even transitions.  Like I said, I only wanted a small clip of the video.  I dragged it in and set the markers to the length I wanted and hit the little scissors button and presto, I had a second clip created.  I highlighted the clip and hit publish.

A message popped up stating I had suceesfully published the clip, but it was processing and would take a minute before I would see it in My Video’s.

Cool.  I was doing some other stuff and went to check back to see if it was finished.  It was finished, yet Failed … Thats odd I wondered, I wonder what the problem was.  As I looked a little futher, I saw the the reason for failure was an invalid file format. 

Is it just me or does this seem a bit odd to everyone else as well.  I used a current YouTube clip and then used a YouTube offered tool, and then YouTube gave me the option to publish the clip.  How on earth could they create a file format that they then consider to be invalid ?
Just a bit of an anamoly form my otherwise normal life, thats all.  See you soon.

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Tags: youtube, video, adobe, east coast, blogging, technology

Web Content Generation Gap

The other evening I was preparing for a business trip. As I usually do I head over to Itunes and see if anything catches my attention that I want to watch or listen to while on the plane. I went into the video section and saw a couple I thought I may enjoy. The first was by the gang over at nextNYers who produces a series of short videos all about the up and coming startups out of the New York area. I subscribed to this one and moved on to find some more. The next one I came across was Media Conversations. It had a good review, so I threw it on the iPhone as well.

So I was on the plane and had finished a movie and decided to check out the video podcasts I had downloaded. I watched the nextNYers one first. They featured Blip.tv. It was really good. The production quality was great and I really enjoyed watching and learning about some cool companies. It was obviously geared towards a younger web 2.0 crowd and it hit its mark. Take a look for yourself. You do not need to watch the entire clip, its about 4 minutes, but you will get the idea.

After I checked out the nextNYers, i scrolled over to watch the Media Conversations. From the title, “User Generated Content”, I thought I was in for a little more of the same as the nextNYers. I was wrong. While I am sure that the content was good, I couldn’t get past the visual of it all. Take a look and see what I mean.

Honestly, I kind of laughed out loud on the plane. My seat neighbor, gave me quite the look. I love the gentleman asking the questions, his thick glasses, buttoned up shirt, and english accent. Right away, he jumps into acronyms. UGC … User Generated Content. Its classic. Give it a minute and look at the expression on his face when his one guest talks about “SPLOGS”, spam blogs.

So let this be a lesson to all of you. Know when to get out ….. or you may be starting to use some odd acronyms as well.

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Tags: video, technology, east coast, WashingtonDC, DC

TechConnect Business Summit 2008

TechConnect Business Summit 2008 To Attract Leading Technology Developers, Users, and Investors From Around the World

Taking place in Boston from 3-5 June 2008 at the Hynes Convention Center. 

TechConnect has created a one of a kind community for innovators to demonstrate their early stage developments in various technology categories and connect them with investors and enterprises looking to bring these ideas to market. The annual TechConnect Summit represents the world’s largest peer-vetted deal flow for technology partnering, investing and licensing.

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Tags: TechConnect, Boston, East Coast Blogging, technology

Finding the Right Team For a One Person Startup

I was online this evening when I saw a twitter from Ann Bernard at WhyGoSolo announcing her usual Sunday post titled Finding your Start-up Development Team.  This was a very timely topic for me.  Ann is one of the founders of WhyGoSolo and as the title of her post states, she talks about finding that “right” team.  She does a gerat job of trying to provide a little insight into the efforts to achieve their goals.

Why this is appealing to me is how it directly opposes my personal experiences.  Not in the fact that I don’t agree, rather I am a one person startup if you will.  I have no team so to speak.  So I wanted to take a little time to reflect on my expience in being a one person company looking to build a viable web service with the hopes of competing on a global scale. 

From shortly after I came up with the idea for my web service, I knew my limitations and had made the decision right then and there that I would need help in the development of the service.  Now I wasn’t sure if it would be help in the form of a partner or not I just knew I would need help.  I spent may hours sketching out designs and notes, as detailed as I could be.  I had a distinct vision and knew exactly what I wanted it to be.  At the point I felt like I had a failrly complete design and plan I went looking for my help.

I started on sites like programmermmeetsdesigner and some others as well.  I posted as much as I could and waited for some responses.  To be honest, I got very few.  It was on these sites I think I was looking for an equity type partner, but found none.  At this point I went over and opened a project on Elance.  I got several bids, ranging wildly in pricing.  Anywhere from $30K to $1500 … I reviewed all of the companies and their work and feedback from other projects. 

It took me a while, but I finally made a decision.  I didn’t take the lowest bidder, but it was a lower one.  It had to be, I was in this alone.  I have paid for everything so far out of my own pocket.  To be honest I am happy about this.  I have no one to answer to and I am insuring my vision will be implemented as I see fit. 

It took little while, but I worked closely with the developers and recently got the “alpha” version on my site online.  Is it perfect ?  No.  Am I happy ?  Absolutely.  If nothing else, I have learned a lot.  And most of all, I can say I did it.  I tried.  I took the risk and I put my own money where my ideas were. 

My lessons have been many as well.  There are a lot of similarities between Ann’s story and mine.  We both had to build a team to make our products come to life, we just went about it differently.  Hers is a local, or somewhat local, and I like to call mine “The Flat World Team” in reference to Thomas Friedman’s great book.  My developers reside on the other side of the world, yet by utilizing the technology available to me, I am able to interact with them as if they were in an office down the street.

I have a second phase in development now and am anxious to finally launch a site in the very near future.  I hope you will all stay with me along for the ride. 

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Tags: technolog, startup, WashingtonDC, DC

More DC Tech Meetups

Today was a bit of a slow news day, so this evening I decided to stop by Meetup.com to see if there was anything new going on in the area. I have been getting most of my event news from Facebook, DC Tech Events, and more recently The DC Technology Network . I have been a member Meetup.com, but never really found that meetup group that quite fit the bill, at least that I came upon.

But tonight I was really pleasantly surprised to find a couple of really good ones that I wanted to pass along to my fellow DC techies.

The first one is DC New Media Technology - Web 2.0 & Video 2.0 - DC, VA & MD .

Meet others interested in Web 2.0, Video 2.0, and Social Networking. Gather to discuss new media - webcasting, internet video & video blogging, social media platforms (Ning, Facebook, etc.), digital content, startups, funding & pitching, new products & cool ideas & websites. Open to anyone interested in learning & sharing more about web technology!

Meetup events are in DC, and around the Metro area (Maryland and Virginia) as membership and locations permit. Open to suggestions on locations, or volunteer hosts.

One good possibility is a meetup in Rockville, MD, via access to a photo & video studio in Rockville that can hold a small group of people easily (with possible webcast). For those interested in making video, we’d be able to make and edit video.

I am totally excited by this one and joined right away. They do have an event coming up on November 29th (Add to Your Google Calendar) located at the Science Club (DC) 1136 19th Street NW Washington , DC 20036, 202:775-0747 (Here is a map). The next event is on December 19th at 7:00PM, same location. I am RSVP’d to attend this one and would love to meet up with some of you there.

The other one I came across was NetSquared DC .

Social changemakers and technological forerunners come together at Net Tuesday events to mix, swap stories and ideas, build new relationships, and reinforce the online NetSquared

(http://www.netsqu… ) community.

Their next event is January 15th, more details will be forthcoming.

The other one that is a more well established group that I have belonged to, but have not had the pleasure of attending an event, is the Washington Bloggers Meetup.

A group of DC-area based blog writers, readers, and retired bloggers of all stripes.

I noticed a lot of cross polination between this group and the DC New Media one listed above. They have a meetup scheduled on December 19th, 2007 at 7:00PM (Add to Your Google Calendar) located at Regional Food and Drink, 810 7th St. NW, Washington , DC 20001(Another Map)

I am looking to cover most of these events and would love to see some of you out there.

TechCrunch Spotlights Local Startup Mixx

I was so very happy to get up this am and check through my feeds this morning and came across this TechCrunch post titled Digg Refugees May Be Heading To Mixx. I thought for a second and then it hit me. MIxx is a local DC group from what I remember. I had juts seen a post in the DC Technology Network about how Mixx had just launched back in Oct, just last month.
Anyway, I was very happy to see a local group do good, and even more happy to see it coming form Michael Arrington.
The story basically revolves around the fact that there is some major Digg users have left Digg and headed over to Mixx. Some are also writing about their choice and have posted some blog entries.
Personally, I cannot get into Digg. I was happy at first, but then it seem to get a little too big too fast and the head got a little too big. The audience over there is downright vindictive sometimes. I had posted some items and basically got jumped on by others for what was supposed to be a bit of tongue and cheek. They seem to know everything, what I couldn’t figure out is if they knew so damned much, why were they sitting at home hours on end getting their Digg rating higher and higher …..
In any case, it is sooooooo great to see this kind of publicity for one of our local companies done good. Congrats Mixx gang, keep up the good work and good luck in moving forward.

Tags: mixx, techcrunc, “DC Technology Network, Washington, DC, DC, technology

Growing DC Tech Scene

Well it seems as if we may have hit a Tipping Point as Malcolm Gladwell might say, or I have finally come out of my slumber.

I started this blog some time ago to try to shed some light on the community that was forming here on the east coast. Unfortunately, I got very busy at work and was unable to keep the inertia going. So recently I have been trying to get back into the swing of things. One reason is my desire to continue to look at the growing community and the other, a bit more selfish, is the fact that I have been working on my very own self funded startup and have been trying to get some low level network building started.

I must say, I have honestly been bowled over by the flourishing of the community that is taking place right here in DC. My eyes began to open while wading around Facebook and coming across the likes of Ann Bernard, Nick Oneill, JD Kathura,, and Peter Corbett just to name a few. Then today I seemed to stumble on a treasure trove of stuff. I know I am probably late to this party, but I was just so excited I wanted to take a minute and give some credit to some where credit is due. I have to say I have been totally impressed by what I have come to find.

Justin Thorp has done a great job on The DC Technology Network, a great Ning network that is bringing together a load a local resources. I was totally excited to see everything going on there. Great Forums and great people making everything run along. I also saw a ton of people who I have seen and met on Facebook, etc. Some great groups inside the network have been created and it looks like a great resource and meeting place for the DC tech community which I hope to become a larger part of.

As I was perusing around the members of the DC Technology Network, I started checking out some of the members and heading over to their blogs/webpages and I found some great ones. It was all very random, and one thing would lead me to another and soon enough I found an entire folder (DC Tech) filled with great content from terrific content providers here in the area.

One I was really impressed with due to her great writing and insights, and being very diverse was Leslie Bradshaw . She has everything from a great post on Oregon Pinot Noir wines, which was great, to her in depth coverage of “Citizen 2.0: Radically Rethinking Democracy in the Digital Age, hosted recently at The Willard. She also has a great write up on the DC Startup Weekend. I look forward to reading more of her work.

Another great resource I found was dc tech beat, founded by Greg Gershman. It is as it’s names implies and look into the local dc area tech scene.

At dc tech beat we’ll be covering companies, developers, applications, events: anything to do with the web and the DC area, which includes Maryland and Virginia. If you’re here, we want to write about you. So if you’ve got something you think we should know about, please let us know.

So if you have any news or want to be covered, let them know.

One of the things I was also trying to do was pull the events of the east coast into google cals and present them in a combined fashion to the audience. Well a year ago it was not that easy, but it looks as if no there is a solution for the DC area. DC Tech Events is a great weekly guide to the technology happenings in the DC area. Just head over, subscribe to the page and never miss another event ! And I suppose if you have an event you want advertised, that would also be the place to go.

Ross Karchner has a great blog, rossnotes, about technology and culture around the DC area, alon with a long blog roll of cool area blogs he keeps up with. Stop by and give him a read.

Refresh DC is another cool “new” (new to me) place I found.

Refresh is a community of web designers, developers, and other new media professionals working together to refresh the creative, technical, and professional aspects of their trades in the Washington, DC, area.

Our goal is simple: bring together the best and brightest new media professionals in the DC metro area so that we may learn from one another. Our industry is too rich for any one person to “know it all.” That’s where we come in.

They have a great forum with lots of great topics and information.

I am currently reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point”. He writes that in many things it takes only a small number of people or impetus for small things to become big and effect big changes. I think as I look around I am beginning to see those few people who have begun change. I hope that we have hit that crucial point and the inertia will lead us to create a great community here in the are. One day I hope to read about artcices about how the east coast has overtaken Silicon Valley

blogging, DC, DC TEchnology, East Coast Blogging, technology, The Social Times, Web2.0, WhyGoSolo

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