This weekend I added two online applications to my favorites list:

1. Jott – An application that converts your voice into emails, text messages, reminders, lists and appointments.
2. Sandy - A personal organization tool designed for email, but works equally well with Jott.

Jott is a free online speech-to-text application meant to convert phone calls to emails, or other forms of digital text. I started actually using Jott this weekend, and, well frankly, I am once again, floored by the advancement of online applications. Granted, Jott isn’t anything new, but I never tried it, and I am simply amazed. The speech recognition is really quite intuitive, and extremely accurate, but my biggest appreciation comes in it’s accessibility with other online applications such as Google Calendar, Sandy, Twitter, etc.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

• Call from a quiet place (I had the radio on in my car, and Jott was missing some words)
• Speak a little slower (you can still speak normally, just slow it down and use good diction)

Sandy is an application that apparently has gone completely under my radar. It’s a very intuitive app, presenting itself in a very personal way. In fact, I’ve yet to find anything directly pertaining to Sandy that isn’t written in the first person. The natural shorthand really reminds me of why I was attracted to 30boxes and Google Calendar from the get go. But the added elements of tagging notes with @todo or creating repetitive events with @monthly or @weekly is a nice touch. But my real attraction is in it’s (her) ability to play well with applications like twitter, ical feeds, and Jott.

For continuity, here are some example uses.

Setting up reminders and calendar events:

• Remind me to call Mom on her Birthday on November 19th @yearly @birthday
• Remind me to order contacts tomorrow at 2pm
• Remember my Doctors appointment in Chesterfield next Tuesday at 3pm

Remembering things that aren’t really related to events:

• Remember that there are some really cool things at jbuc.com
• Remember John Doe jdoe@gmail.com 444-546-7896
• Remember that John Doe’s cell phone number is 555-555-4567
• Remind me that John Doe’s birthday is Tomorrow @yearly @birthday

I know it’s probably redundancy (recommending Sandy when Jott is already supposed to manage reminders, lists, etc) but the added functionality of emailing todo items or some of the more in-depth elements of the sandy application, have led me to using Jott and Sandy together.

Check out Jott and Sandy.