Safe Memos from the Car
While driving, I often find myself needing to write down a reminder to myself, or some notes from a conversation I have just had. I used to use a voice recorder for this function, but:
- This created yet another message store for me to remember to check.
- This created an additional task of transcribing my verbal note into written form.
Still, those drawbacks were better than the alternatives of:
- Waiting to find a safe place to pull over to the write the note down.
- Dangerously scribing a note down while driving.
- Attempting to remember to write it down when I next stopped.
I am delighted to say that I have found a great solution to this need! I set up a speed dial on my mobile phone to leave myself a voice mail at YouMail (free) that is transcribed into text (free for automated; high quality human transcriptions as low as $3.99/mo) and emailed to me. This is awesome because I get the message in text form delivered into my email inbox. The number I have in my speed dial is *67 <my ten digit mobile number> Pause 1. The pre-pended *67 blocks my Caller ID, so YouMail doesn’t think it’s me calling to pick up my messages, and the appended 1 skips the Outgoing Message.
Full Disclosure: I am a YouMail Investor and Board member.
August 30, 2009 Update:
You can trial (no CC entry required) the high quality premium transcriptions from your YouMail account. It completely changed the way I think about voicemail: http://bit.ly/4Dx2i