VisionBeta » Web Applications

Reviews of Free Jott Alternatives

Ross Beyeler — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:32:13 +0000

I was recently heartbroken to hear that Jott would end it’s free services come February 2nd. I’ve been a big users of Jott ever since it first launched – probably recording an average of 10-15 notes per week. In the end, I probably will end up subscribing to the premium service, but for all those who have become too spoiled in their expectation of free web applications, I did a little research into your alternative mobile voice to text services:

Dial2Do
Dial2Do seems to offer more than just voice to text translation by performing tasks such as ’send email’, ‘check calendar’, ‘post to Twitter’ and many more. I know Jott allowed you to post to some of your other web accounts such as Twitter, but I always used it for simple note taking on the go. Dial2Do is free throughout their BETA (let’s see if they end up like Jott).

SpinVox
SpinVox offers many of the same function as Dial2Do (i.e. blogging, texting, memos, etc) but has more of an international focus. I am very suspicious of their pricing. I can’t seem to find anything more than ’start a free trial’ on their website. It probably means that you will get caught up paying for this after 30 days. I will share my results if I end up registering with them.

ReQall
ReQall is another voice to text service that also expands beyond just your mobile phone. You can use it from an IM account, web browser or SMS as well. One benefit ReQall has it that you can record and listen to a shopping list on the go (or any other form of a to-do list).

Drop.io
Drop.io allows provides you with a unique number for each account. You can then call and leave voice mail to this number with up to 100mb of storage. Although this doesn’t provide direct voice to text translation, the practically limitless storage space is a plus.

TwitterFone
If where your notes are captured is not a big concern and your a fan of Twitter, you could easily use TwitterFone to ping your Twitter account while on the move. If you are also concerned more with mobile note taking in general and not on voice mail to text translation, then you can always message Twitter directly and check your feed later.

I don’t want to be just another customer willing to switch as soon as a service I find valuable decides to charge me on what they provide. However, for those interested in free Jott alternatives, the above list should cover your options. I’ll let you know if I cave and switch providers.

Stumbling Across the Web: 08.01.07

Ross Beyeler — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 23:24:58 +0000

As I have become a newly addicted StumbleUpon user (don’t ask why it took me so long), I have decided to post, hopefully daily, recaps of cool sites that I come across. I will try to keep the labels to business, web and personal development – but no complaints if I find that I need others:

Personal Development

NLP and Persuasion site

Business

Ten Types of Innovation

Web

The Thirty Day Challenge and Google Groups

Ross Beyeler — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 15:56:54 +0000

Today kicked off the start of the Thirty Day Challenge. I’m sure you are wondering what challenge would take thirty days and why I would be interested in joining it. Basically, the goal of the 30DC is to earn $10.00 online within thirty days without investing any money in the process. At first, I had the same reaction – $10? Are you kidding me? However, the goal is not to become rich in thirty days but rather to realize that it is possible to make money online even if you know little to nothing about the internet. Well, hopefully I am a bit above the little to nothing category, but I thought this would be a great way to hear of some additional traffic building techniques as well as potential monetization tactics that could help improve my own online ventures. It is also important to note that $10 is a very reasonable amount someone could expect to earn after thirty days. If they picked something like $500, then people would assume they were kidding and never even attempt to follow the challenge process. The 30DC is all about motivating those who have tried and failed or never tried out of fear of failure.

Another cool component to the 30DC is the focus on teams and team collaboration. The idea is still to work independently by working on your own product that will earn you $10 in the thirty days. However, they encourage you to form a team that you can collaborate and communicate with regarding your questions, concerns, successes, resources, etc.

For those interested in joining the challenge, entry is still open (although today, August 1st, was officially kickoff). Sign up for the forums and you can start participating as a member right away. After you setup your account, be sure to check out their pre-season recap post to get up-to-date on all their 30DC tips.

A few friends of mine and I have all formed a 30DC team and will be using Google Groups to organize our communications. This was actually and surprisingly the first time I have every used Google Groups and must say that I am impressed. The idea is to create a public or private web space where you can do the following:

Create forum-like discussion topics
Create individual pages
Communicate via private messages and email with your group
Share up to 100mb of files between your group

I set up our group in 20 minutes and had no problems getting used to the navigation of the site. My only criticism is the way forum topics are organized. As soon as you create a new title for your thread, it creates an entirely separate topic, which gets messy. I was hoping to create 5-7 general topics (SEO, monetization, etc) that we could all post questions/comments in. Looks like I will just have to get used to it, but at least all posts are search-friendly via the Google search engine – so finding past threads shouldn’t be difficult.

Hope to see you in the challenge!!

WeFi: Locating Wifi or Locating YOU

Ross Beyeler — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:53:34 +0000

WeFi is a nifty little freeware app that, once installed on your computer, locates and maps out wireless signals. The data is sent back to the WeFi system and shared across its network with other users who are signed up. This is sure to be helpful when you are out of the office (or like me – have no office) and need to find a quick Wi-Fi spot. I doubt how much of a following the social network side of the application will generate, but it has its merits. The only real qualm is the fact that WeFi is literally tracking everywhere your computer goes and therefore tracking everywhere you go . . .

Daytipper: Mouth Ulcers, Vaseline and Soapy Water

Ross Beyeler — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 16:29:12 +0000

The internet is great at delivering the skimmed down, all-you-need-to-know, top 10 lists with the promise of making your life easy. I know I’m liable for clicking on every Top 20 Web 2.0 Companies, Top 5 Ways to Make Money and 15 Best Startup Tips in my feed – so when I came across Daytipper, I got pretty excited.

Basically, Daytipper is a website that allows users to submit tips (who even have the chance to get paid for each submission) that are then reviewed by their staff, posted on Daytipper and voted on by the community. The site has tips in all sorts of areas including education, money, technology and travel. Here are some of the more interesting tips that I saw featured:

How using soapy water can help when moving furniture
How to use charcoal to absorb refrigerator odors
How to save a wet cell phone
How to relieve mouth ulcer pain
How Vaseline can be used as a eye makeup remover

They currently only have a few pages worth of content, but if their submissions pick up, I’m sure you will find plenty of great tips that can help your business, hobbies and personal life. My only qualm with the site is the lack of additional information on each tip. They only feature the ‘how to’ for each piece of advice without additional links to visit. None-the-less, the site has some interesting advice that is worth checking out.

Virtual Voice Mail and Consolidated Phone Numbers with GrandCentral

Ross Beyeler — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 23:58:23 +0000

I recently came across a great resource for those who want to consolidate their phone numbers or access their voice mail from a computer. GrandCentral offers its users a single free phone number that forwards calls to the user’s cell, home and work number. All phones ring simultaneously so you can be reached no matter where you are. What I like most about the service is how easy it is to setup a greeting and the ability to access your voice mail from the GrandCentral interface online. There are quite a few other features including call screening, spam/telemarketer blocking, listening in to voice mails and much more. I still have to figure out how the company makes money, as all these features are free.

I’m going to give the service a trial over the next few weeks and will let you know how it turns out. The one issue I see is that the features such as digital voice mail only work if the GrandCentral issued number is called, not your direct existing cell number. I guess this would require you to issue out this new number to all of your existing contacts. None-the-less, I think it has real potential.

iGoogle: Google is Taking Over the World

Ross Beyeler — Tue, 01 May 2007 15:44:15 +0000

I like Google.

Analytics, Adsense and Search always keep me happy. However, I have yet to become a true convert and fully begin my gLife for the following reasons:

2) Wordpress. (sorry blogger)

3) I still love using Outlook – the folders, categories and mail exchange that syncs with my school address just make life so much easier

4) I find it to be a pain in the ass to switch back and forth between the various Google Apps

However, I’m getting worried. I have sworn by Netvibes for the past 6 months of my life. Now comes iGoogle, Google’s response to Ajax customized homepages. I just started fooling around with it today and have to admit, it has potential.

I still think that Netvibes is easier to use. The RSS feeds take two seconds to add in Netvibes, where iGoogle has a wide variety of gadgets (their version of widgets) to use in sorting your RSS feeds. I know Google Reader is supposed to be a pretty convenient way of organizing your feeds, but again, I am not a full convert yet.

Netvibes will continue to greet me each time I log onto firefox. Google – your getting there, but not yet.

Netvibes: RSS and Goal Management

Ross Beyeler — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 00:10:59 +0000

For the past few months I have been using www.netvibes.com as my homepage. It is a simple way to manage your RSS feeds in addition to having numerous modules that allow you to create task lists, notes, weather trackers, etc. With the internet being the information overload that it is, neglecting to use RSS feeds to filter your favorite blogs/media sites, is like using excite.com as your search engine.

Really Simple Syndication offers instant updates of the newest posts and articles from your favorite sites. RSS really cuts down on the time I normally spend surfing around. Netvibes also features a summary of each post – this really helps in choosing which posts to actually read.

When managing my goals, I use a task list with the specific goal as the title and the action items as each ‘to-do’. I find it makes things easier since the layout allows you to see all of your goals and action items, rather than having them all spread out.