Using PingMe with Dial2Do

2008-11-30 19:00:00 -0500

One of our new users who just came over from Sandy sent us a really in-depth how-to on using the Dial2Do service to call your reminders into PingMe. There are a couple of tricks to getting it going, and we haven’t actually had a chance to run through this, so caveat emptor, but it looks really cool and is apparently a very useful alternative to doing the same with Jott for our international users.

So, here’s how to do it according to Japanese translator Dougal Phillips. Thanks again, Dougal, for working this out and sending it in.

—

This is an explanation of how I use GoPingMe and Dial2Do to create reminders by speaking into my mobile phone here in Australia.

The reason I don’t use Jott is because it’s not available here in Australia. Dial2Do, however, offers a local number here (and in other countries as well) – very handy. After a bit of trial and error, I got it working so I thought I’d share what I did.

Set Up

• Sign up at http://www.dial2do.com/home
• Click on the green “Do More” tab at the top
• Click on the purple “Make your own command!” tab on the top right
• In the say field, type “Ping me” (or whatever you prefer)
• In the “Do what?” field, select “Record and email”. This will change the final field to “Email who?”
• In the “Email who?” field, put in your private GoPingMe address
• Click on the grey “add” button

Using Dial2Do & GoPingMe

• Ring the Dial2Do number
• The voice says, “What would you like to do?”
• You say, “Ping me”
• The voice says, “Ping me. Okay please record your message. [beep]”
• You record your message (see below)
• The voice says, “That’s done.”
• You hang up

The Sticky Bit

You need to say the word “space” after the initial time and again after the repeat/pester me etc instruction. For instancy, say you want to remind yourself to ring your dad in 10 minutes and to pester yourself every 10 minutes until you do. Say: “10 minutes space ring dad p colon 10 space”. Dial2Do will transcribe this as: “10 minutes ring dad P:10 .” (A fullstop is added, but not directly after the number.) You’ll then get the message “ring dad” to your GoPingMe email/mobile repeatedly every 10 minutes. Very nifty.

If you don’t say “space,” it won’t work!

If you don’t say space after the time and the repeat/pester instruction, Dial2Do inserts a fullstop as the very next character. GoPingMe doesn’t recognise the time or repeat/pester instruction if there’s an extra fullstop straight after, and so you get an error message.

E.g. In my first attempt, I said: “two minutes does this repeat reminder arrive p colon 7”. This was transcribed: “2 minutes. Does this repeat reminder arrive. P:7.” – notice the fullstop immediately after the “minutes” and “7”. I then got an “Need help? Sorry I couldn’t do this.” message from GoPingMe. So looks like you need the spaces.

Anyway, thought I’d say g’day as you’re my iwantsandy replacement now, and Lifehacker people, thought others might like to know since I want Sandy will soon be defunct, and Dial2Do people, thanks again for the cool app.

Cheers,
Dougal

blog comments powered by Disqus