Technology & Productivity - I WANT SANDY

I Want Sandy is a virtual personal assistant that’s integrated with your email so that keeping track of appointments and such is a slightly less stressful fact of every day life. Currently in private beta, I got a chance to take it for a spin this weekend.

This service works with text messages as well, so you can still keep track of your life and add things to your account while you’re on the go. I Want Sandy works by offering you your own email address. This is good because it means you can send something to your account from any email address, and it doesn’t need to come directly from your registered email address in order to add items. Likewise, CC’ing Sandy on an email sent to another person will also be integrated for your account.

There are a few things that you can ask Sandy to do, like remind you of a project that needs to be turned in next Friday, add items to your to-do list, or add things to your calendar. It will filter most of this information, which provides easy access via your I Want Sandy account. Anyone you send an email to with Sandy CC’ed will be added to your Friends list, and items for the current day will be displayed, along with all of your reminders, your to-do list, and your calendar. I Want Sandy can also be used to search your emails that it’s keeping track of–to this end, there’s also a tag cloud that shows on your account details.

As with similar services like IMified, there’s shorthand you can use for sending items to Sandy, as well as a help menu that can be accessed via email or text message. There doesn’t seem to be any integration with third-party tools, like your iCal. Several tools are moving towards an integrated option, and smartly, most are starting with email and text messaging options. Services like Ikordo work directly with email to schedule meetings for you and your colleagues, while Twine, which will be offering more options for integration with tools like I Want Sandy, can also read text of emailed items and filter it accordingly.

This service works well via email an could be a good way to keep those reminders and to do's in focus.

Productivity & Technology - Grand Central

I have been covering a number of internet tools for the small business. These tools can make you more productive, more responsive or better organized. Lord knows, I could you any and all of these.

Today's tool is GrandCentral.

GrandCentral - recently purchased by Google,
From their website: One Phone Number that rings ALL your phones. Never miss a call you want to take, and never take a call you want to miss. Have one number you keep for life. Choose which of your phones you want to ring, even by group or caller. Screen callers and ListenIn before accepting calls. Protect your privacy by blocking annoying or uninvited callers.
With this system you register an get a local phone number and that can then be used as your single point of phone contact. They currently support over two hundred area codes across the US. Once you have that number you can associate it with one or more personal phone numbers. Now you can change cell phone number, home numbers even business numbers without changing the GC number that everyone already knows for you. When they call, based on your directory the system will either take their message or transfer them to a specific number.

Now this is pretty cool. At this time I am using it for my answering machine and voicemail. Most of the time I don't have it transfer the call, I just drop it into voicemail. As soon as that happens, it sends me an SMS with the phone number. It also emails me with a link to the voice message. For home usage, it makes it easy to set up a phone number that you give to everyone. Then within the system, you forward that to both your home landline (if you still have one of those) and/or your mobile number. This way you NEVER miss a call. Once your directory is populated, you can use it to determine how to direct calls.


This one looks like a winner. It works flawlessly, the voice quality is great and it has a great user interface. I currently am using two different numbers, one for my business and one for our new home. Prior to moving in, we can give everyone our new phone number and I direct it to our current landline, Gizmo SIP number (upcoming blog) and cell phone. Once we move, we can redirect it to a new landline and never miss a beat.