Dave Ross's dashboard

Dave Ross replied on November 22, 2009 00:29 to the update "A fork in the road (An important announcement about I want Sandy)" in I want Sandy:

I've been using reQall since Sandy closed up shop. I can't say it's the best solution for everyone, but it's working out pretty well for me. Their Blackberry app makes things even better.

Dave Ross started following the problem "2.0 upgrade issue" in ExpanDrive.

Dave Ross replied on February 26, 2009 23:03 to the problem "Could not generate license?" in ExpanDrive:

I sent an email to the address in my original post this morning and got everything straightened up within an hour.

Dave Ross reported a problem in ExpanDrive on February 26, 2009 02:58:

Could not generate license?

I can't download a license file. I just get a text file that says "Could not generate license, sorry! Please email info@magnetk.com".

Dave Ross replied on December 20, 2008 16:35 to the idea "Deploy Sandy on a Personal Server" in I want Sandy:

This is something the sandysback project is interested in implementing. Of course, we have a long way to go before we get there. You can join the discussion at http://groups.google.com/group/sandys... or follow "mysandy" on Twitter.

A comment on the update "A fork in the road (An important announcement about I want Sandy)" in I want Sandy:

It's refreshing to see so many people this passionate about a piece of software. I wish I had the opportunity to make such an impact at my day job.

A lot of you have suggested that Twitter could just leave Sandy running on a server somewhere. Sadly, it's not that easy. I'm sure many of you are coming to the Get Satisfaction site for the first time this week, so you've missed the almost daily complaints about late reminders. Rael has been working hard in his "free time" to deal with Sandy's scaling issues, but she's still been having problems in the morning.

I don't know much about Sandy's internals (ewww) other than that they're written in Ruby. It's likely that Sandy needs a complete re-architecture before she's able to handle her current user base plus any growth.

I'm sure Twitter worried about Rael spending too much time with Sandy's issues instead of theirs, as well as taking time out of his workday to host a town hall. Is it fair to us, Sandy's users, for them to ask him to shut Sandy down so abruptly? No. But, I don't think it's fair to expect Twitter to take on a new employee and let him run a company out of his cubicle, either.

I'd like to see a Sandy clone emerge, and I'd love to help develop one. The coding is the easy part, though. There's a lot involved in running a popular web service, and it's more than one man can handle. – Dave Ross, on November 27, 2008 16:44

A comment on the question "What is an alternate service to I Want Sandy?" in I want Sandy:

I agree about BackPack. My wife & I use it for a shared grocery list and to track Christmas presents we buy. Other than that, it doesn't fit my needs very well. – Dave Ross, on November 25, 2008 15:46

Dave Ross replied on November 25, 2008 13:11 to the question "What is an alternate service to I Want Sandy?" in I want Sandy:

A commenter on the Values of n blog recommended Deadline, another free to-do list that integrates with email and IM (SMS might be coming soon).

Dave Ross replied on November 25, 2008 05:36 to the question "What is an alternate service to I Want Sandy?" in I want Sandy:

Vitalist looks good, too. But, it's really geared for a GTD workflow. I think the deal breaker for me is that it doesn't let you specify a due date when you email something to it. It takes the email subject as the task name and the email body as notes, and just dumps the whole mess in your Vitalist inbox, where you can enter further details once you sign in to the site.

Dave Ross replied on November 25, 2008 04:52 to the question "What is an alternate service to I Want Sandy?" in I want Sandy:

Remember the Milk will send & receive emails. It also has a Twitter interface, as well as AIM, ICQ, and other instant messaging platforms. In many ways, it's superior to Sandy.

But it's not as friendly. I tried Remember the Milk before I found Sandy, and I found it too easy to ignore. For some reason, I didn't want to disappoint Sandy when a reminder came in. Call me a sentimental old geek who's read way too many cyberpunk stories involving software agents.

Here's a sample email I sent to RTM:

Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:14:51 -0600
From: "Dave Ross" <dave@XXXXXX.com>
To: "Remember the Milk" <XXXXXX@rmilk.com>
Subject: Try out RTM again

Due: 11/25 midnight
priority: 1

Dave Ross replied on November 25, 2008 00:52 to the update "A fork in the road (An important announcement about I want Sandy)" in I want Sandy:

Rael, it's been fun being an unofficial member of the Sandy team. I'm going to miss our weekly town halls as much as I'll miss Sandy herself.

Best of luck to you & the rest of the team at your new gigs!

Dave Ross replied on November 20, 2008 02:12 to the question "How to send an email to Sandy from my cell phone?" in I want Sandy:

You'll have to set up your phone's email address as your secondary email address on Sandy's "account" page (https://www.iwantsandy.com/settings).

Alternately, if you have a text message plan, you can send Sandy text messages through Twitter. See https://www.iwantsandy.com/help/Twitter and http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...

Dave Ross replied on November 20, 2008 02:08 to the question "Texting appointments directly" in I want Sandy:

Sandy can only send text messages to you right now, but you can send her messages through Twitter.

Just sign up for a free account at twitter.com, and add your cell phone as a "device" (http://twitter.com/devices). Then go into Sandy's setup and tell her about your Twitter account (https://www.iwantsandy.com/settings/t...). Once you've done that, you can text your Twitter messages ("tweets") to 40404. For example:

d s r product demo at 3pm

"d" is the Twitter shortcut for a "direct message", which sends a message right to Sandy instead of posting it on your Twitter feed.

"s" is Sandy's Twitter name.

"r" is Sandy's shortcut for "remind me", it sets up an appointment.

For more information, see Sandy's Twitter help page at http://iwantsandy.com/help/twitter

Happy Twittering!

Dave Ross replied on November 18, 2008 04:05 to the idea "Email font is illegible." in I want Sandy:

It's Comic Sans, which is not the most readable font. But, it keeps things fun & lighthearted.

When you're on the iwantsandy.com site, you can click a link in the footer to get rid of the Comic Sans, but that doesn't affect Sandy's emails.

I'll have Sandy make a note reminding me to bring it up at the next Town Hall.

Dave Ross replied on November 18, 2008 04:00 to the question "can i TEXT a reminder TO sandy?" in I want Sandy:

Sandy can only send text messages to you right now, but you can send her messages through Twitter.

Just sign up for a free account at twitter.com, and add your cell phone as a "device" (http://twitter.com/devices). Then go into Sandy's setup and tell her about your Twitter account (https://www.iwantsandy.com/settings/t...). Once you've done that, you can text your Twitter messages ("tweets") to 40404. For example:

d s r product demo at 3pm

"d" is the Twitter shortcut for a "direct message", which sends a message right to Sandy instead of posting it on your Twitter feed.

"s" is Sandy's Twitter name.

"r" is Sandy's shortcut for "remind me", it sets up an appointment.

For more information, see Sandy's Twitter help page at http://iwantsandy.com/help/twitter

Happy Twittering!

Dave Ross replied on November 08, 2008 21:52 to the question "Sandy video tutorials out there?" in I want Sandy:

No, but that's a great idea!

Dave Ross replied on October 31, 2008 11:53 to the problem "Problems with I want Sandy" in I want Sandy:

The "Forget your password?" link is at the bottom of the log in form, under the "Sign up for free" option.

For convenience, here's a link directly to the password reset page: http://iwantsandy.com/forgot_password

Dave Ross replied on October 28, 2008 01:56 to the question "Repeating on specific days per week... easiest way?" in I want Sandy:

You should be able to tell Sandy how to schedule the event this week, then add @weekly.

For example:

Remind me to test this feature 10/27-10/30 @weekly

That'll set up a task for Monday-Thursday this week, with weekly reminders

Dave Ross set one of Dave Ross' replies as an official response to "Remind me command" in I want Sandy

Dave Ross replied on October 27, 2008 11:42 to the question "Remind me command" in I want Sandy:

Sandy looks at both the subject line an body of your emails, so you can use whichever is easier for you.

If you log into Sandy and go to http://iwantsandy.com/settings , She'll tell you the special email address you should use to reach her, and you can change it if you need to.