New Baby Announcement System

Tomorrow is the official due date for our baby. Mie is doing well, although it's become apparent that the landing gear has been lowered. We're putting up the tray tables and bringing our seats upright in preparation for arrival.

If you would like to be notified when our daughter makes her post-natal appearance, you can sign up at http://NewBaby.AkuAku.org/. This is a web app I whipped up using Ruby on Rails and TellMe Studio that will allow me to fire off an email from the hospital. Cell phones often don't work in hospitals, and I doubt they'll have wifi either, so this seemed to be the best way to get the word out. The TellMe Studio part uses Voice XML to create a phone prompt system that asks me some basic questions: Boy or Girl? What time was s/he born? How many pounds and ounces, etc. I can answer all these questions by just calling an 800 number and speaking, no need to thumb type or any wacky stuff like that.

Since I was in a rush, I hardcoded some things as a one-off for my needs, but it wouldn't take much more effort to turn this into a general service. I might do that in my copious free time in the coming months.

Comments

[T]

What a cool app!! Thanks Dav.

Just one question. NTT DoCoMo? Couldn't see it on your list.

All the best to you and Mie! Looking forward to the photos!!

[dav]

I stole that list from someplace on teh Intraweb. Weird that DoCoMo isn't covered, but I could add it if you know the SMS/email gateway?

[cheesebikini]

Mie gave birth this morning. Below is Dav's announcement.

Sean

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Dav and Mie are happy to announce the arrival of Tesla Rhea Yaginuma!

She was born at 0920a and weighs in at 7 pounds and 0 ounces.

Check kokochi.com for photos (coming soon).