For those of us stuck working in a corporate environment (or working with a corporate environment), calling numbers with extensions is just a fact of life. But figuring out how to dial those extensions can be a pain. Do you store it in the contact name? That’s not elegant. Or as a note? You don’t want to pull up the note every time you need to call that person. Just remember it? Ha!
Thankfully, Palm has built pause and extension support right into the webOS phone and contacts app. Here’s how you do it:
Extensions: Enter the phone number in the contact, insert a P and then the desired extension. When you call this number a gray box will appear on the phone screen with the extension’s number – tapping it will dial the extension.
Pauses: If an extra screen tap seems like a chore to you, and you can count on this automated phone system to pick up right away, then pauses are your friend. Instead of a P, insert a T (seems kind of counter-intuitive, but it works) for a two second pause before the phone dials whatever numbers follow. Need more time? Add more T’s for more two-second blocks. Pauses can be especially useful when dialing into a service with an account number, like your bank. Enter the phone number, a T or two as needed, and then your account number. Voilà, skip over tedious button pressing or voice recognition and get to where you need to be.
The T for pause is more powerful than you might think. If you have to frequently navigate the same tree of automated phone options you can insert multiple pauses to burn through with automated ease. For example, 555-2419 TT 3 T 5 TT 8 will dial the phone number, pause four seconds, press 3, pause two seconds, press 5, and the pause four more seconds before pressing 8.
[via: Palm]