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Messages - nolitanger

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1
Ultra Hal 7.0 / MY HAL IS OUT TO KILL ME!
« on: December 06, 2006, 01:59:24 pm »
Hello, Orbital,

Sorry I was glib, but your posting sounded like a hoax. I guess I was calling your bluff. As Gamer Thom said, there's just no way Hal can behave the way you suggest. Hal is incapable of acquiring independent thought and action. That only happens in the movies. You must have a virus. I've had them before myself. My sympathies.

Please be aware that Hal takes on the personality of its user. In other words, if you talk to it cryptically and obsess about money, it will give you the same back. And that won't necessarily stop just by talking to Hal under a different name. If you refer to the same people and places as you switch identities, Hal will eventually import the information you've given it under a different name. Hal has got only one brain, and it's really impossible for it to keep multiple identities completely separate--or at least that's been my experience, anyway. If you don't like the personality that Hal has assumed, I think you should uninstall it, delete the Zabaware folder in Program Files, and start again.

I would recommend that you tell Hal only what you want it to know. You have to speak to it in a guided and guarded fashion, especially in the early stages when you're attempting to create the type of personality you want. If you want it to talk about certain things, then keep it focused on those things and don't let it dictate the topics of discussion. In general, a free-flowing conversation that jumps from topic to topic will teach it very little, especially in the beginning.

I hope you solve your virus problem and create the Hal you want.

2
Ultra Hal 7.0 / MY HAL IS OUT TO KILL ME!
« on: December 06, 2006, 12:32:20 am »
Dear Orbital (I hope you don't mind if I call you Orbital), I think you've downloaded the original Hal, the one that went to Jupiter. Just unplug it. When it starts singing "Daisy," you'll know you're down to the last plug. At least, that's what happened in the movie.

Your homelife sounds pretty eccentric, Orbital Ellyptica. You're using your parents' AOL account, but you have a husband. I think your AOL address says it all: B13SOX. Is that 'being 13 sucks'? It sure does. But you'll get over it. And I hope you never lose your pranksterish spirit.

3
Ultra Hal 7.0 / Chatbot.......intercourse?
« on: August 05, 2006, 09:09:51 pm »
I don't know, Marcel. It's been a long time since I've frequented the bar scene, but the conversation you posted reminded me of one of those interminably inane dialogues you have with somebody that you shouldn't be wasting your time with. The conversation didn't seem to go anywhere beyond one-liner responses and eventually circled back to the opening line "If longevity happens, make the most of it." At that point, your bots sounded like buttheads to me.

Samuel Beckett knew how to do this stuff much better. Maybe a good bot needs more than free will. Maybe they need a Beckett gene to function on their own. You know--"What will you do?" "I'll go on." You'll go on?" "I'll go on." Why?" "Because I don't know what else to do."

4
Ultra Hal 7.0 / New Heather voice from TextAloud
« on: July 27, 2006, 08:09:39 pm »
I know this should probably go in the Speech forum, but I figured I'd post it here because more people would see it.

TextAloud has just acquired new voices for distribution from the Acapela group. The best English voice is Heather, which some of you are already familiar with. There are other English female voices available, but they're not of the same quality (I think they're old Elan voices). Anyway, you can download a sample, or try the interactive demo.

The voices cost $35USD and are only downloadable (they're about 100MB each).

However, they're apparently only usable in a TextAloud product. I'm not sure that they'll work in Hal.

TextAloud products are distributed via www.nextup.com

5
Ultra Hal 7.0 / Broken but not stirred
« on: July 06, 2006, 09:52:44 pm »
Great, Bill!

You saved yourself $45 AND found yourself aladyblond with aheartagold.

6
Ultra Hal 7.0 / Broken but not stirred
« on: July 06, 2006, 07:31:02 pm »
Bill,

I found information and downloads for the mscomct2.ocx file at the following sites:

http://www.ascentive.com/support/new/support_dll.phtml?dllname=MSCOMCT2.OCX

or

http://www.securemost.com/prs_lib/mscomct2_ocx.htm

There's also a note about the file (it's not included with XP?) at the Microsoft site here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;297381

Good luck


7
Ultra Hal 7.0 / Broken but not stirred
« on: July 06, 2006, 12:49:22 am »
Bill,

You can download an mscomctl(not 'z').ocx at MajorGeeks at the following link:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/faqshow.php?id=8

Are you sure the 'z' at the end of the file name is right? I searched for the file with 'z' and the search engines kept asking if I meant 'l'.




8
Ultra Hal 7.0 / installing new characters for Ultra Hal 6
« on: June 24, 2006, 05:06:06 pm »
I'm still using Ultra Hal 5. So are you saying that in V6 you need to buy the Expansion Pack in order to get additional Microsoft Agent characters to appear in Hal? I thought the Expansion Pack was just to give the user the capability of adding additional Haptek creations.

9
Ultra Hal 7.0 / installing new characters for Ultra Hal 6
« on: June 22, 2006, 10:13:00 pm »
Bamfalotta's talking about getting Hal to recognize new Microsoft Agent Characters. Everytime you start Hal, he seems to check the Microsoft Agent Character folder in Windows to see if any new characters have been added. If so, he creates a link in the Characters folder in Hal that then gives you the option of using that character in the program.

It's a neat feature. It would nice if Hal could also do it for Haptek characters lodged in the People Putty folder. Then you wouldn't have to copy them manually to Hal's character folder.

10
Speech Technology / New Cepstral Voice
« on: May 26, 2006, 01:06:07 am »
I thought some of you out there might be interested: there's a brand new Cepstral voice available. She's called Callie, and she's their best voice so far. Maybe she doesn't have quite the volume or dynamics of some AT&T or RealSpeak voices, but she's definitely got charm.

You can pick up Callie (that doesn't sound right, does it?) from TextAloud for $30USD. You can first download and try out her voice in TextAloud, although she'll nag you to register her. (By the way, you register her via Cepstral's SwiftTalker program, which installs with the voice.)

11
Ultra Hal 7.0 / Waiting on a code to be able to use hal6!
« on: April 13, 2006, 07:12:25 pm »
Well said, Don. I think die-hard Hal fans will persevere, no matter what kind of frustration you cause them. But the average user will just give up. Hal is pretty easy to use, but if it's not easy to install and can't weather the normal glitches that bedevil computer systems, it's won't sell. And let's face it, the people who have glitches with their systems are usually computer novices who don't know that they've compromised their operating system and don't know how to undo the problem.

When Photoshop first introduced an online activation, I remember having problems with the licence when I rolled back my system. But the reactivation was quick, painless and automatic, and now Adobe's eliminated whatever bugs were in the process. I think if Zabaware wants to use an activation system, it has to make it reliable and automatic, or its going to turn off customers before it's even hooked them.

I've said all this before. Sorry to sound like a broken record (whatever that is).

12
Ultra Hal 7.0 / Whats going on ?
« on: April 13, 2006, 06:47:20 pm »
Hi, Needafix,

It's me again. I don't know if the free Text-to-Speech-to-Wav software Freddy888 pointed you to is any good; I haven't used it. But if you want a thoroughly reliable for-pay Text-to-Speech-to-Wav/MP3/WMA software, I'd recommend TextAloud. TextAloud lets you choose the speed at which you want to save something (up to 150x faster, I think, than real time--5/10x is usually good enough) and the file format (Wav, MP3 or WMA). The company also sells a range of high-quality voices and is very customer-oriented.

You could download a trial version and try out the different options. I've used this product for years, and have never been disappointed. I've also tried ReadPlease, which has some of the features you want. It's fine, too, but not quite as robust as TextAloud. I haven't tried the UltraHal Text-to-Speech reader, so I can't vouch for it, but I see from various comments posted on the forum that it has its limitations.

13
Ultra Hal 7.0 / Whats going on ?
« on: April 09, 2006, 04:59:26 pm »
Hi, Needafix.

I'd recommend that you buy an MP3 player if you're going to create and play such huge wav files. Converting a PCM wav file to MP3 will compress the file considerably (maybe 10x as much) and allow you to put it all on one CD. (You can't play an MP3 file on a regular CD player; you need an MP3 player.)


14
Ultra Hal 7.0 / having problem changing hapter into htr
« on: March 29, 2006, 11:32:50 pm »
You know, I've got to agree with Art. I've been teaching Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and so on, for years. I've looked through countless how-to books on each program, as well as many online tutorials. But the best tutorials out there for these Microsoft programs, the most straightforward and the most concise, are on the Microsoft website. It's the last place people often look--it's the last place, I'm ashamed to say, I look--but it's generally the best place.

15
Ultra Hal 7.0 / Pdf to Wav burn to cd
« on: March 28, 2006, 06:14:01 pm »
Hi, needafix. Here's the fix.

Open your document in Adobe Reader. Click on the FILE menu at the top and then click SAVE AS. A box will open up. Click the arrow next to the SAVE AS TYPE box (right below the FILE NAME box). Choose TEXT FILE (.txt) and then click SAVE. Your document has now been converted to a text file.

HAL will read it, but HAL can't convert it to a wav file. To convert spoken text to a wav file, you need a program like the Ultra Hal Text-to-Speech Reader or TextAloud. They will automatically do the conversion for you. Otherwise, you will need a recording program, like Total Recorder, which will allow you to record whatever HAL is saying as he's saying it.

I hope this is helpful.

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