by "Uncle" Frank Ousterhout
Dear Uncle Frank, I keep forgetting to make certain callbacks and I sometimes miss meetings in the office. Recently, I also forgot my wife's birthday. Can Eclipse help? From, Forgetful Fred Dear Fred, Eclipse has a wonderful and often little used tool within the message system. It is a delayed sending function. You have the ability to send yourself (or anyone else) a message to arrive at a future date and time (1.21 gigawatts not required.) When your customer or vendor says they will call you back at 2pm, send yourself a reminder at 2pm asking yourself, "did they call?" For a 10:00 meeting on Tuesday you can send yourself a message for 9:45 as a reminder. I have my wife's birthday, our anniversary, JK's birthday and other important dates arriving as delayed messages approximately one week before the event so I don't forget the cards or gifts. In Eterm, after you create the message, use ALT 'O' for a special screen. You set the date and time for the message to reappear! Hit 'Esc' and you are done. Unfortunately you cannot see or find the message until it is delivered but rest assured, it works. For Solar users when you are sending a message you will find 'Schedule Send' under the File menu. Add it to your custom toolbar for ease of use. This delayed send feature is also useful for incoming messages that need your action but not right now. Resend it to yourself with a delay for a later time and it will again show up to remind you. Finally, for my repetitive tasks (like remembering to water my office plants) I keep resending the same message reminder, just advancing the date each time I resend it. Regards, Uncle FrankIf you have a question for "Uncle Frank" please send it to Mary Barlow. Put Uncle Frank in the Subject Line. |