Computer Tips From A Computer Guy

CC:Betty – Sandy personal email assistant reborn

Posted: 22 May 2009 03:32 AM PDT

Everyone remembers Sandy right? I wrote about Sandy Personal Email assistant almost two years ago, before it decided to shut its doors. Sandy was useful for managing daily tasks, appointments, and various reminders.

It was a nifty little way to remember things like grocery lists, people's names, etc. If you liked Sandy, you'll be happy to know that Betty has now replaced her! Yes, there's a new girl in town and she's got a crazy hairdo.

Yes, CC:Betty looks like your Aunt, but she is still pretty useful! Betty works a bit differently than Sandy. With Betty, all you have to do is CC btty@ccbetty.com on any of your emails and Betty will organize the messages, attachments, and replies for you!

Basically, from what I can tell, it seems Betty is good for any kind of long email thread you might have going on. For example, you're planning a trip with some friends and you want to keep track of everyone's ideas, links, attachments, etc in once place.

Betty will create a "mailspace" for your email thread and can handle all the file types you see above, including images, videos, audio, and YouTube links. You get 1 GB of free space, which is quite a bit since most attachments are small anyway.

Here are some of the major features of Betty:

Easily view threaded discussions among many people including replies, etc
Attached photos will automatically be put into a photo album with thumbnails and slideshows
Any address listed in a email will automatically generate a map
Any links to audio or video will be playable from within the mailspace
All documents and files will be organized in one place and viewable or downloadable

You mailspace is neatly organized and lets you see everything using tabs:

What I like about Betty is that it's very simple to use and doesn't require all kinds of downloads or complicated setups. Just carbon copy the above mentioned address and everything is handled for you.

If you are a student in college, this can be really useful for group projects or research projects. Even if the workplace, it's a useful collaboration tool that is super quick to setup.

Remember that only people included in your sent email will be able to view the mailspace, it's not some kind of publicly accessible content. Also, everyone will get an email from Betty telling them where the URL of the mailspace.

Overall, it's a cool service and a great rebound woman for those who lost Sandy. The cool thing is that you can stop using it at anytime, just don't CC Betty! Enjoy!