Messages

1201

Ultra Hal 7.0 / how do I get the password tu unzip again?

« on: January 16, 2002, 11:47:01 pm »

It should have been emailed to you also. If you no longer have that email, you can also go to http://www.zabaware.com/assistant/redownload.html and type in the email address you used during your order. You will get the password resent to you in this email as well as a new download link (you do not need to redownload however).

Robert Medeksza

1202

Ultra Hal 7.0 / THE FUTURE

« on: January 16, 2002, 11:44:31 pm »

I completely agree with you, AI is the future of computing. Zabaware is currently a privately held corporation. However, we are currently looking for venture capitalists, although that is a quite a challenge given the current economic conditions and all the dot bombs.

Robert Medeksza

1203

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Linux edtition Hal?

« on: January 16, 2002, 11:40:20 pm »

Well we are hoping to release a Linux and Mac version in 1 or 2 years. Unfortunetely much of Hal is currently programmed in Visual Basic which is a langauge that only exists in Windows. However, our programmers are working hard at converting Hal function by function into C++. In fact, in a few weeks we will be releasing a small free update to Hal. Among other things, this update will speed up Hal's thinking by 3 times because we have converted many of Hal's bottlenecks into C++ code. We will continue converting the rest of the program into C++ over the next couple years and when that is complete it will be possible for us to port Hal to Linux and Mac.


Robert Medeksza

1204

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Error 2355 when installing.What is it &how to fix?

« on: January 09, 2002, 01:51:07 am »

I've looked through a different document on Microsoft's site explaining what to do if Office 2000 gives this error. I've found a few more suggestions that might be of some relevance in Windows 98. First if you have any antivirus software, try temporarily disabling it during the installation. If that doesn't work try installing the latest version of Internet Explorer. If that doesn't work go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com and download all critical and recommended updates, which you probably should do anyway if you haven't already.


Robert Medeksza

1205

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Error 2355 when installing.What is it &how to fix?

« on: January 07, 2002, 11:45:12 pm »

This is a problem with the Microsoft Windows installer service. Please go to http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q296742 for more information regarding this problem. Basically you need to load some updates to your version of Windows.

Robert Medeksza

1206

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Hal at start-up

« on: January 07, 2002, 11:42:17 pm »

If you are running Windows 98, most likely this problem is due to the way this version of Windows performs a shutdown operation. It force closes the program instead of properly shutting it down. This is a "feature" turned on by Windows 98 in order to speed up shutdown. All other versions of windows have this function turned off by default. If you are running Windows 98, instructions on how to turn off this feature can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q187607

Robert Medeksza

1207

Ultra Hal 7.0 / windows xp, and hal.

« on: January 07, 2002, 11:36:14 pm »

Hal has been tested to run under Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, and XP. However under 2000 and XP if the installation program asks whether to overwrite an existing file with an older version of that file be sure to say "No"

Robert Medeksza

1208

Ultra Hal 7.0 / win xp HAL IS SILENT

« on: January 07, 2002, 11:34:28 pm »

When installing Hal under Windows 2000 and XP the installation program might ask you if you want to overwrite a newer file with an older version of that same file. Always be sure to say "No"

Robert Medeksza

1209

Ultra Hal 7.0 / New characters

« on: January 07, 2002, 11:33:04 pm »

The easiest thing to do would be to open an existing UHP file in Notepad and modify it for a different character. For example you could open the genie.uhp file I mentioned above and modify the Object= line to point to a different installed character. Also modify the Name= to give the character a different name and modify the Preview= and Startup= to give it a different preview image.

Robert Medeksza

1210

Ultra Hal 7.0 / New characters

« on: December 12, 2001, 09:38:03 pm »

Ultra Hal Assistant will accept either its own proprietary character plugin which is an an OCX file, or it is able to accept any MSAgent character if you make a small UHP text file telling its object name. Also you need to make a JPG of an intro screen for the character and a preview image. Its actually quite simple. The best way to see how this works is to look at how Ultra Hal Assistant loads the current MSAgent characters. Lets take the Microsoft genie character as an example. Open the file "C:/Program Files/Zabaware/Ultra Hal Assistant 4/genie.uhp" It will look like this:

[Ultra Hal Assistant 2.0 Plugin]
[DO NOT MODIFY]
Type=Face
Name=Genie MSAgent Character
Speech=True
AgentChar=True
Startup=genistrt.jpg
Preview=geniprvw.jpg
Object=Genie
BGColor=048048048

You can have Hal use any MSAgent character simply by making a file like this one. Just figure out the object name of your ACS file and set the Object= line appropiately. Also change the name line to whatever the name of the charater is. Make 2 jpeg files with a startup screen featuring the character and a preview of that character and reference the files in the Startup= and Preview= lines. The jpg files should be located in the "Characters" subfolder.

Robert Medeksza

1211

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Error, hal won't run

« on: December 04, 2001, 06:19:31 pm »

It seems the Microsoft MSAgent components are having trouble installing on your computer for whatever reason. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/downloads.htm and download and install the core MSAgent file as well as the american english voice.

Robert Medeksza

1212

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Forum back online

« on: September 22, 2001, 02:08:22 pm »

This forum was shut down for the past 4 days while we were removing the Nimda virus (http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-201-7225343-0.html?tag=tp_pr) from our server. We appologize for any inconvenience.



Robert Medeksza

1213

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Teaching Hal

« on: September 16, 2001, 11:43:51 pm »

The new Ultra Hal 4.0 brain learns a lot different then the previous 3.0 brain. It places a much lower priority on learned information. I would reccomend trying to use the 3.0 brain plugin if you are going to use the learn from text file feature, as it places a higher priority on this type of learned information, and will produce better results.

Originally the learn from text file feature was not included in version 4.0 because of its poor performance with the 4.0 brain. We included it in the last update because it was a highly requested feature. We will periodically post updated versions of Hal brain on our plugin page (no updates yet). The next update will include better support for the learn from text file feature. Brain updates will be very small (less then 500KB), since they are simply small VBScript files.

1214

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Skins

« on: September 16, 2001, 11:35:17 pm »

The new Ultra Hal 4.0 contains all the Hal skins that currently exist. Is anyone interested in creating new skins?

1215

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Every new version seems worse

« on: September 16, 2001, 11:34:13 pm »

I'm sorry you feel this way. We spend thousands of hours on each version trying to make it better. We include the latest in speech recognition technology with every new version. Every new version is more complex then the previous and requires more of your computers resources, and therefore more powerful computers.

Could you be more specific in what areas of Hal do you think are worse? Maybe include error messages, conversation logs, or step-by-step instructions on how to recreate the error you are having. I would be glad to help you try to solve these problems or to know what to change in the next version.