Here's what you can do
Send e-mail. Press and hold the side button you've associated with Vlingo, and say, "Send e-mail to Steve," then let go of the button. (If you have more than one Steve in your Address Book, clicking on the Steve Vlingo chose brings up the alternative Steves, which you can choose.) Move the cursor to the Subject line, press and hold the button again and say the subject. Repeat for the body of the message. Press the "Send" button when the e-mail is correct. This is the beginner way to send e-mail.
A more advanced way is to do it all in one recording. Simply preface Subject and e-mail body with the words "Subject" and "Message." Say this: "Send e-mail to Steve subject today's meeting message I want to meet you ten minutes before the meeting today to go over our proposal." When you see that the e-mail is correct, press "Send."
Reply to e-mail. With the e-mail open, simply press the menu key and choose "Reply with Jott" or "Reply All with Jott," then start talking. When you're done, send as usual. They'll get your reply, plus a link to the audio.
Send a text message. Sending a text message with Vlingo is just like sending e-mail, but without the Subject line. For example, if you press and hold the side button and say, "Send message to Janet message hey thanks for the card," the command "message" tells Vlingo to start the body of the text message. Press "Send."
Search the Internet. Just say whatever it is you're looking for. (You can precede your search with "web search," as in "web search Dallas Cowboys," but it's unnecessary.) Just press and hold the side button and say "Dallas Cowboys" and it will place that into a search window. Press "Search" to get the result. Other common searches might be for, say, weather, say "weather Los Angeles," and your browser will show weather information for that city.
Send a reminder to yourself. You're driving and you think of something you need to do. You can't write it down. Voice recognition is perfect for this. Vlingo has a nice "Note2Self" feature. Just say "note to self" and say what the note is. This note can show up as an e-mail, a text message, a Task or a Memo. You set the default in the Vlingo Options screen. You can change where it goes on the fly, however, in a drop down menu on the screen after you give the command. And you can even skip the step of the drop-down menu by changing the command. Say "new task remember Janet's birthday" or "new memo remember Janet's birthday" and the note will go to the respective application.
You can also use Jott. Press the speed dial number you've associated with Jott, and a recorded message will ask, "Who do you want to Jott?" say "myself," say your reminder and hang up. Jott will send it to the e-mail address you set it up with.
You can use any of these approaches for sending notes to yourself. But why not turn up the power and use an online to-do list? Jott offers its own separate "work" and "home" to-do lists. Just send Jotts to "work" or "home," and your reminder will go to the right list. Then, you can manage your to-do items from Jott's Web site.
Alternatively, Jott supports most of the major Web 2.0 to-do lists, including Remember the Milk, 30 Boxes, I Want Sandy, Vitalist, Toodledo, Nozbe, Keep Up, Mentat, SmartSheet, 43 Actions and Kwiry. By simply selecting the productivity service you want to use at the Jott Web site (you'll need an account first), Jott adds it to your contacts. To add a to-do item, just call Jott, say the name of the service, then speak your action item.
Open applications. Vlingo will open any of the following BlackBerry applications via voice command: Browser, MemoPad, E-mail, Messages, Task Manager, Voice Dial, Maps, Calendar and Address Book. To open these, simply say either "Open" or "Start," followed by the name of the program.
Add items to your calendar. Jott supports Google Calendar. On the Jott Web site, select Google Calendar as a contact. To add an item to your calendar, call Jott, say "Google Calendar" as the contact, and speak your appointment name, plus the day and time (Google Calendar can usually figure out casual speech -- for example, "dentist next Tuesday at one"). Jott will add this to your calendar. You can also use Google Sync for BlackBerry to synchronize these appointments back to your phone.
Blog. Jott supports both blogging and microblogging services, including Twitter, Jaiku, Blogger, Live Journal, TypePad and WordPress. Just call Jott, say the service. When Jott beeps, start talking. The first sentence or phrase will be the headline of your blog post. The rest will constitute the body. Jott will add a link to the audio, so your readers will be able to listen to your post as well.
Record business expenses. Jott supports an online service called Xpenser. Just select it in your Jott list. Jott will add it as a contact. Next time you have a business cost (say, a Grande Slurpaccino and a muffin), just speed dial Jott, choose "Xpenser" as the contact, and say your expense item.
Welcome to the wonderful world of voice recognition on a BlackBerrry. It's fast, easy and a whole lot of fun (in a Star Trek kind of way).
Mike Elgan writes about technology and global tech culture. Contact Mike at mike.elgan@elgan.com or his blog, The Raw Feed.