Thinking of a special way to surprise your Valentine? Scheduled text messages is a simple, personal (and wallet-friendly) way to let your loved one know that you care. Send him or her notes throughout the day, and make it a Valentine’s Day they’ll never forget.

Cronote is a website that lets you to schedule text messages to be delivered at a specified time in the future. There are 3 easy steps:

1. Select the recipient. (Enter your Valentine’s cell phone number or email address.)
2. Write your message. (Suggestions: “Your smile makes my heart melt!” or “Can’t wait to see you tonight!”)
3. Set the delivery time. (February 14, at various times throughout the day.)

If you’re feeling extra creative, you can integrate Cronote into a Valentine’s Day scavenger hunt. Hide gifts for your loved one. Then, schedule text messages to arrive at special moments throughout the day, telling him/her where to look. Watch as your Valentine lights up in surprise and delight each time a new message comes to their phone. He/She may look even more surprised if you are sitting right there and are no where near your phone!

Since Cronote messages are scheduled in advance, this will take some of the stress out of the day. Your Valentine will also feel special knowing that you planned ahead for this memorable day.

The Cronote Reminders website is free for sign-up. The first 10 reminders are completely free. If you need more, you can upgrade your account to “Pro” using our month-to-month subscription plan.

Enjoy your Valentine’s Day! Please feel free to share any stories on how Cronote made your holiday even more special.

Ever wish there was an easy way to send your students a text message reminder about their homework? Don’t want to give out your number to students? Did you know that Cronote was made by a former high school chemistry teacher? Cronote supports improving education by helping students remember their assignments. This post will walk you through the steps to setup a text message reminder system for your students.

1. First, sign up for a free account at www.cronote.com. Tip: Be sure to check your spam folder if you can’t find our confirmation email in your inbox.

2. Sign into Cronote.

3. Add each student as a contact. Tip: If you want to send text message reminders to your students for free, try using email-to-SMS gateways: http://blog.cronote.com/2011/10/22/sms-gateways/

4. Click on the “Groups” tab.

5. Create a group for each of your class periods.

6. Schedule homework reminders by filling out the Cronote form on the left side of the page, and select the group(s) as recipients.

Cronote will automatically send the reminder at the designated time to every member of the group. You can add or remove students from each group at any time. Reminders are sent using Cronote’s phone number so there is no need to give out your phone number to students.

Aaron

Do you need a simple way to send reminders about your business? Cronote can be used as an email and SMS mailing list to increase customer retention. Simply sign up for a Cronote account on our website and add each customer as a contact in your account. You can create a group of customer contacts to send reminders to multiple recipients at a single time. Please note that Cronote has a no-spam policy, therefore you must ask each customer to opt-in to receive reminders.

Aaron

Do you need to send appointment reminders to your patients? Did you know that Cronote was made by a medical student and a public health student? This post explains how easy it is to use Cronote to send appointment reminders to your patients. There are are just five steps:

1. Sign up for a free Cronote account on our website: www.cronote.com

2. Confirm your account by checking your email for a confirmation link (note you may have to check your Spam folder).

3. Sign into our website.

4. Add each of your patients to our system. Note that all transmissions to and from our website are secured using 128-bit encryption. Hint: You can use the Import Contacts –> CSV feature to add multiple patients at once.

5. Schedule a reminder to a patient simply by clicking on their name and filling out the reminder form on the left side of the screen.

The reminder will automatically be sent at the time you specify.

Aaron

Do you need to send reminders to many employees at a future time? This post describes how to use the Cronote website to schedule reminders to a group of employees.

Here are the steps:

1. Simply sign up for a free Cronote account on our website: www.cronote.com

2. Confirm your account by checking your email for a confirmation link (note you may have to check your Spam folder).

3. Sign into our website.

4. Add each of your contacts. Hint: You can use the Import Contacts –> CSV feature to add multiple contacts at once.

5. Once all your contacts have been imported, click on the “Groups” tab and create a group containing the contacts you want to remind.

6. Schedule a reminder to be sent to this group.

Cronote will send the reminder to all of the contacts in that group at the time you specify. You can add / remove contacts from this group as often as you like and Cronote will automatically update the reminder recipients.

Aaron

Are you traveling with your family to an amusement park? Need a good way to remind everyone where to meetup? Some Theme Parks are simply enormous (ahem Disneyland and Disneyworld)! This post describes how Cronote Reminders can be used to setup a meeting time for your family.

Cronote is unique in that it can automatically send SMS reminders at a specific time. It can even send scheduled SMS reminders to groups of contacts. To schedule a meetup time at a theme park simply:

1. Create a free account at the Cronote website: http://www.cronote.com

2. Sign in and import contact information for your family members.

3. Use our Group builder to create a Group. That way, you can send messages to the Group, rather than selecting multiple individuals over and over again.

4. When you get to the theme park and are ready to setup a meeting time, open up our website on your smart phone, and schedule a reminder to be sent to this Group.

The text messages will automatically go out to everyone in the group at the time you specify. That way everybody receives a meetup reminder at the appropriate time.

Aaron

Cronote reminders can be used toward Heat Illness Prevention.

According to the California Code of Regulations, when the temperature meets or exceeds 95 degrees Fahrenheit, employers must remind their employees throughout the workshift to drink plenty of water. The excerpt from Title 8, section 3395 Heat Illness Prevention is as follows:

(e) High-heat procedures. The employer shall implement high-heat procedures when the temperature equals or exceeds 95 degrees Fahrenheit. These procedures shall include the following to the extent practicable:

(1) Ensuring that effective communication by voice, observation, or electronic means is maintained so that employees at the work site can contact a supervisor when necessary. An electronic device, such as a cell phone or text messaging device, may be used for this purpose only if reception in the area is reliable.

(2) Observing employees for alertness and signs or symptoms of heat illness.

(3) Reminding employees throughout the work shift to drink plenty of water.

(4) Close supervision of a new employee by a supervisor or designee for the first 14 days of the employee’s employment by the employer, unless the employee indicates at the time of hire that he or she has been doing similar outdoor work for at least 10 of the past 30 days for 4 or more hours per day.

Source: http://www.dir.ca.gov/Title8/3395.html

The Cronote platform provides a cost-effective mechanism for scheduling text message reminders for large groups. The reminders can contain any message, in any language (i.e. “Remember to drink water”). Each text message costs $0.05 and pre-scheduled to be sent out at a specific time in the future. Over the next two weeks, we are building recurring reminders to increase ease of use in scheduling daily reminders for prolonged periods.

For more information on Heat Illness Prevention, visit the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) website. The 2012 Heat Illness Prevention Training Materials are also posted on the website.