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FollowUp: A Lightweight Email Reminder Service

Simon Mackie — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:00:01 +0000

Do you sometimes forget to follow up on important emails, or struggle with adding follow-up reminders to your calendar? FollowUp is a useful, free and easy-to-use service that you can use to automatically send yourself a reminder to follow up.

Once you’ve registered with the service and set your time zone, you simply forward your email to a specially formatted @followup.cc email to specify when the reminder will be sent (at a specific time or on a certain day). For example, to set a reminder three days from now you would add the email address 3d@followup.cc to the email, or to set a reminder for for 4 p.m, you add the email address 4pm@followup.cc. There’s a full explanation of the reminder syntax here (note that adding the followup.cc email address to the “To:” or “Cc:” fields means that everyone who receives the email will also get the reminder — if you add it to the “Bcc:” field, only you’ll get the reminder).

Reminder emails quote the original email, and include a box telling you when the reminded was created. They also contain “snooze” links, which let you quickly re-set the reminder for some time in the future.

Helpfully, you can get a calendar view of all upcoming reminders at the Followup.cc site; clicking on a reminder allows you to edit or delete it:

A settings page is also available at the website, where you can get links for adding reminders to your RSS reader or calendar, and also get a bookmarklet that allows you to set follow-up reminders on web pages.

Need some tips on how to construct that follow-up email? Check out Dave Clarke’s excellent recent article, “The Art of the Follow-up.”

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Email: The Reports of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated

(Via Download Squad)

When the Latest Isn't the Greatest

Charles Hamilton — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:00:35 +0000

Are you the kind of person who has to have the latest versions of hardware and software? Do you stand in line to buy a new gadget as soon as it’s released? If so, don’t bother to read on; for the rest of us, it’s worth considering if and when to move to a new version.

I generally wait to see how a new product is received before upgrading. I’ve been holding off on moving to Mac OS X 10.6.4, for example, because it’s reported to break some software that I depend on. But for some reason, I decided to upgrade to iOS 4, the latest version of the operating system for my iPod touch, the first day it was available. Unfortunately for those of us who use Exchange to sync our mail, calendars, and contacts with Google Apps, the upgrade required the re-syncing of this data, which in turn slowed Google’s servers to a crawl. It took almost 24 hours before I again had a usable device.

During that time, I got to thinking about the questions I should have asked myself before starting the update. Here’s what I came up with; please add your thoughts in the comments.

Do you need the new features of the update? If it fixes security issues, then probably yes. If not, then you should consider whether the update will actually improve your workflow. For example, one of iOS4′s new features is the ability to create “folders,” or groups of applications, on the home screen. Is this important to you, even given its limitations? Another feature is multitasking, which has gotten mixed reviews, at best.
What will the update cost? Of course, some new hardware and software isn’t free, but even if the manufacturer isn’t charging, what is the value of the time and effort it will take you to move to the new version? I suspect that evaluations of this question are why many companies are still using Windows XP and IE 6.
Are there technical issues in the new version that may cause problems? This is where blogs and discussion forums can be lifesavers. If I had waited only a couple of hours before starting my iOS 4 upgrade, I would have found several posts and threads describing the exact issues I encountered, and would have known to wait until they were resolved.
What are the consequences if something goes wrong? How easily can I revert to a previous version? Can I afford down time? Luckily, I wasn’t going anywhere the other day, but if I had been, it would have been very inconvenient not to have access to my email, calendars, and (especially) to my contacts.

How do you decide when to upgrade?

Image by Flickr user .schill, licensed under CC

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Report: The Real-Time Enterprise

Verizon MiFi 3G Router Goes on Sale Sunday

Simon Mackie — Fri, 15 May 2009 23:00:32 +0000

Verizon will start selling the MiFi 2200, a nifty, credit card-sized 3G router this Sunday, May 17th. It’s definitely worth checking out, especially if you use more than one device on the go.

The MiFi is a pocketable, battery-powered combined 3G modem and Wi-Fi router that effectively provides a hotspot that you can take with you anywhere. James Kendrick over at our sister site jkOnTheRun has had a pre-release version of the device for review and says that it’s “mobile broadband done right.” Once the device has been activated, hit the power button and — in a matter of seconds — your laptop, phone and any other devices (up to five at any one time) are connected to the Verizon Mobile Broadband network via Wi-Fi, without needing to install drivers.

Although the device goes on sale on Sunday from Verizon stores, if you ask nicely you might be able to get your hands on one now. The MiFi costs $99.99 (after a $50 rebate) and is available with a choice of two subscriptions:

$39.99 month for 250 MB and 10 cents per MB overage
$59.99 month for 5 GB and 5 cents per MB overage

Alternatively, you can buy the MiFi with no contract for an upfront cost of $269.99, with “day passes” available for $15.

The MiFi is a branded version of the Novatel MiFi. Other carriers (like Sprint) will be offering their own versions, too.

Will you be picking up a MiFi?

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Is Integrated Wireless Broadband the Best Choice for You?

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:23:41 +0000

If you’re not familiar with “netbooks”, you’re missing out on a potentially great little web-working tool. And I do mean little as these are small, fully-functional notebooks that are easy to use on the go. They tend to offer long battery life as well, due to low-voltage processors and small, LED backlit displays.

There’s a new functional trend emerging with these portable productivity tools now that Asus is starting to offer integrated wireless broadband in the product line.

But that begs a question about wireless connectivity: do you go with integrated or opt for a plug-in solution?

The answer is a personal choice of course, but there’s a key factor involved: do you plan to web work on a single device or will you be using several? If you’re going to work mainly using just one device, an integrated solution ought to work just fine. There’s a wireless radio inside the device, similar to a WiFi or Bluetooth card, and you can seamlessly connect to the web anywhere your provider offers coverage. It’s as simple as using WiFi to connect to a hotspot: it just works.

Using more than one device though? Here’s where it gets sketchy because that wireless broadband card in your notebook only offers fast Internet service to that notebook. There are software solutions to share that connection by essentially creating a WiFi hotspot, but that means you have to have the computer with you. At that point you might as well use that one in lieu of any other that doesn’t have wireless broadband, right?

Multiple device owners are better served with a card or dongle that offers the same 3G capability. You can find them available in a number of form factors: PC Card, ExpressCard and USB.

I opted for this small USB device shown which works with every one of my PCs and Macs. This allows me to be connected to the Internet wherever I am and with whatever device I have with me.

Remember, these wireless 3G plans can set you back around $60 a month: why limit the plan to just a single device if you have many that can use it?

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Need Mobile Data on a Budget? Check Out Cricket

Jason Harris — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:56:22 +0000

Cricket Wireless is a low-cost provider of cell phone services that is known for having a cheap price for unlimited minutes. The trade-off is you only get specific areas that the cell phone will work in. Currently Cricket offers service in Nashville, Spokane, Santa Fe, Portland, Oregon, and the Central Valley of California.

If you’re lucky enough to live in one of these areas and you want to get a high-speed EVDO modem, you can get the service for a minimal $35/month. A comparable service plan on Verizon/Sprint is $60/month.

This is a great deal for tight-pocketed web workers who need on-the-go access to the Internet.

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Mobile Broadband Competition is Good News for Web Workers

Jason Harris — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:00:20 +0000

Last week, AT&T Mobility announced a major expansion of their 3G broadband mobile network (as covered by Om). In summary, they are planning on expanding their 3G network to 80 new cities, are going to a technology called HSUPA this year, and are looking at Long-Term Evolution (LTE) in long term planning for their wireless network.To sort out all this alphabet soup, lets take it one point at a time…

3G network expansion. AT&T currently offers HSDPA (their current 3G Network technology) to a limited area of the United States. As of this announcement, they’ll be drastically expanding this to 80 new cities, bringing the total to around 360 metropolitan areas.
High Speed Uplink Package Access (HSUPA) adoption. This will be the United States’ first network of this type and will allow super-fast upload (ranging from 600 and 1,400Kbps) and download (ranging from 500 and 800 Kpbs ) speeds. In a few words, AT&T is upgrading 3G network speeds for those of you fortunate enough to be within AT&T’s 3G footprint. This will be welcome news for those who use cellular network cards in their laptops for mobile broadband Internet access. The speeds AT&T is rolling out are faster than EV-DO, which is currently offered in the US by Verizon Wireless and Sprint, in most cases.
Long-Term Evolution (LTE) on the horizon. LTE is going to be the next thing in wireless broadband for GSM networks. Verizon Wireless is also looking at LTE for their 4G wireless broadband, so AT&T jumping on the LTE bandwagon is of no surprise. Lets just hope the US LTE networks are standardized with the European networks so if you travel abroad, you can take your handset and have high speed data access where ever you go.

All this means AT&T will have a far-reaching high speed wireless network footprint. Mobile access to the Internet is a great concept, but at this point in time, mobile data users are being forced to pay too much for these data plans. We’re happy AT&T and other mobile carriers have been investing loads of money in building out their ultra-fast wireless data networks.The fact is, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and AT&T competing is welcome news for web workers. This cut-throat competition will ultimately drive down costs as high speed networks spread to more geographic areas.To many, current broadband pricing is simply out of reach. Having monthly data access cost more than DSL or cable modem seems ludicrous.Additionally, we would also hope increased competition would encourage Verizon Wireless to take off their 5GB cap on monthly bandwidth.

(Image credit: smith on Flickr)

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