Messages

16

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal 6 Errors

« on: February 14, 2006, 12:22:03 am »

Thanks for the input, Carl2.

I've always been interested in people's web monikers, Carl2, so I gotta ask: are you a new and improved Carl1? An upgrade? I'd like to get a newer version of myself at this stage in my life. But there'd probably be just as many bugs in the new version as there were in the old. Only the graphics would be better.

17

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal 6 Errors

« on: January 19, 2006, 10:22:45 pm »

Sorry, a coding error in my brain--I put the above response in the wrong thread. It doesn't belong here. Please, just ignore it. It should have gone in the "What does this mean?" thread. And that's where I've put it.

18

Ultra Hal 7.0 / What does this mean?

« on: January 19, 2006, 10:17:15 pm »

These kind of problems didn't happen in v5. Is v6 a step forward in this regard?

I'd appreciate users' input here before I invest in v6 and the Expansion Pack. What do you think: is the Haptek component in v6 beter than that in v5? Can you do more things with the Haptek characters in v6? Haptek lovers want to know. Thanks

19

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal 6 Errors

« on: January 19, 2006, 10:14:37 pm »

These kind of problems didn't happen in v5. Is v6 a step forward in this regard?

I'd appreciate users' input here before I invest in v6 and the Expansion Pack. What do you think: is the Haptek component in v6 beter than that in v5? Can you do more things with the Haptek characters in v6? Haptek lovers want to know. Thanks

20

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Trying to move Hal to another computer...

« on: January 08, 2006, 04:51:09 pm »

Cadmar, those weird letters sometimes appear when a computer is trying to convert Chinese characters into a Western alphabet. I don't know how to fix it, though.

21

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Customer service for Hal SUCKS!

« on: January 07, 2006, 03:25:17 am »

Bill, even though Zabaware is a one-man company, it should be big enough to take criticism and evaluate its marketing strategy. The question is: are the new marketing ploys that the company has put into effect really increasing customer satisfaction while increasing sales? I'm not sure they are.

There's no question that Hal is head-and-shoulders above the other products on the market. I've been using the product myself for the last 6 or 7 years. When version 5 came out, with vonsmith's add-on brain, I was amazed. But if you want to make money--and Robert said he does--you need more than a good product, even a great product. You need to please your customers, all kinds of customers. And let's face it: Zabaware, in the past, hasn't done well in that area. It has not responded promptly to customer complaints and problems. Then, with version 6, it instituted a product activation system that required prompt customer service (maybe even a 24/7 service). Given Zabaware's track-record, perhaps that wasn't a wise goodwill strategy.

Maybe, if Zabaware wants to increase sales, it's time it got somebody to work on the company fulltime, and especially improve customer relations. There are plenty of other small software companies out there that put their customers first. They usually succeed because the owner-developer is committed fulltime to the business and knows how to satisfy customers, new and old.

Frankly, I don't think the product activation strategy instituted with version 6 is generating much customer satisfaction. I think it should be changed or modified. I know why it's been instituted, but in the long run, it may hurt business rather than protect it. That's just an opinion of a less-satisfied customer.

22

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Customer service for Hal SUCKS!

« on: January 06, 2006, 10:57:22 pm »

I think gebeleizis has a point. Scratch, you don't need staff of customer service people to activate software. Adobe, Microsoft, and so on, all have an automated system. I go online; the system checks my licence, and then either activates my software or immediately sends a code to my email address. These companies obviously realize that software activation does require immediate attention; otherwise, you can really tick off customers. I think if Zabaware wants to play in the same league as these bigger software manufacturers, it ought to have an automated activation system, too.

23

Speech Technology / Which version of Dragon Naturally Speaking?

« on: December 18, 2005, 02:51:05 am »

Art,

The only significant difference between the Standard and Preferred versions is the Preferred comes with a RealSpeak voice--Jennifer. That used to be a big plus. But now, you can use her only with the Dragon program. Before, she was available for other products, like MASH and Hal, too.

Still, Dragon is a great product. Like Hal, it's come a long way in the last 10 years.

24

Speech Technology / Russian voices and Hal

« on: December 14, 2005, 02:04:01 pm »

I just picked up a neat Australian voice from TextAloud. The voice is actually a RealSpeak product from Scansoft (the makers of Dragon Naturally Speaking). Unfortunately, I can only use the voice with a TextAloud product. Hal can't speak with it. ScanSoft has done the same thing with its voices inside Dragon Naturally Speaking: they can be used only with the product.

Perhaps Zabaware could negotiate a deal with ScanSoft to make the latter's voices compliant with the Ultra Hal software. ScanSoft would probably require Zabaware to engineer their product so that it only used the voice. It's too bad ScanSoft is so miserly with the distribution of its voices.

25

Ultra Hal 7.0 / slight glitch

« on: November 27, 2005, 05:47:24 pm »

Folks,

We do own stuff. The rights of property in the West are sacrosant. That's what makes us different from Communists (who theoretically own things in common) or Dictatorships (where no one has rights except the dictator).

If I buy a book or a copy of a song, I own that copy. And as long as I adhere to the laws governing fair use, it's mine. If someone breaks into my house and steals that book, for example, they're stealing my property, not the author's. In fact, if the author breaks into my house and steals his book, he's stealing my property, not his.

And to my mind, a seller shouldn't be allowed to sell you something and then not alow you to own it, to use it, without their say-so. However, product activations do just that. They deprive me of true ownership; they deprive me of the full use of the product.

Frankly, if I buy Hal6, I don't own really own my copy of it and I'm not really free to use it: those things I do at Mr Medeksza's pleasure. I can't use or operate Hal, even though I supposedly bought my copy, unless Mr Medeksza activates it. So what did I buy? What have I really got out of the deal? I say again: a cripppled product, a product with a key piece removed and which the seller holds onto.

26

Ultra Hal 7.0 / slight glitch

« on: November 27, 2005, 02:21:06 pm »

To me, software programs are like books, songs, pictures. Yes, they're copyrighted, but I can still own a copy. There's no guy there turning the page, starting up the CD before I can listen to it. The copy's mine, and it should be fully operational.  

Products that require online activation, on the other hand, are crippled in some way. As I said on another thread, I operate such a product at the seller's pleasure. It's like selling me a product and not really giving it to me. I understand why companies do this--they're trying to curtail piracy--but I think they're doing it at my expense. And there's no protection for me if that company goes out of business.

27

Ultra Hal 7.0 / slight glitch

« on: November 27, 2005, 11:43:45 am »

Unlike Scratch, who works at Adobe, a big company, I do have a problem with the activation process here. Zabaware is essentially a one-man operation. I know it's been in business for several years, but one-man businesses can fold suddenly for unforeseen reasons. If that happens, I'd be left with a product that I'd be unable to restart because I never really owned it outright at the beginning.

I think the whole activation process is questionable in business terms. It turns a purchase into a sort of lease; what I thought was mine is not mine after all. I can see why companies do it, but I think the consumer is getting a raw deal.

28

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Why does my hal only work when online?

« on: November 26, 2005, 11:07:37 am »

Folks,

This is the latest in Internet sales technology. It's called buying a product but not really owning it; it operates purely at the pleasure of the seller. It's like buying a car and requiring the dealer to start it for you; they have the magic key.

Microsoft, Adobe Photoshop, and a host of other companies now require Internet activation. Some companies allow you to activate the product on different machines, as long as it's a legitimate purchase. Others (for example, Microsoft) may allow only one activation on one machine. Zabaware hasn't declared what it is doing. I think they should.

I once bought a product that I couldn't activate on the Internet. I complained to customer service, and they allowed me to download a full version that required only a serial number to activate it. I don't know if Zabaware allows this sort of option for people who don't have an Internet connection.

29

Speech Technology / Emotional voice from Loquendo

« on: June 04, 2005, 04:08:03 pm »

Thanks, Raymond. I have played around with the voice-speed slider for my computer voice. It would be nice to take a voice like, say, Lauren, and then create different speed/pitch profiles for it, profiles that you could access whenever you used an application like Hal. I guess that day will come.

And you're right, Art, we should be patient. Computerized voices have made great strides since Microsoft Mary was virtually the only game in town 10 or so years ago.

I had a listen to the female voice at Rhetorical today (is that Jill? she didn't have a name). Boy, she sounded pretty impressive, and she was just doing a stock report. I sent off various inquiries about the voice. However, I suspect that it's not available for individual use/purchase. No harm in inquirin'.

30

Speech Technology / Emotional voice from Loquendo

« on: June 03, 2005, 03:39:30 pm »

Let's talk turkey regarding these voices.

Most of the voices out there--the ones you have to pay for--are disappointing. They're either flat and mechanical-sounding or if they possess something of the dynamics of a real voice, they're too unstable and quirky to sound convincingly human.

AT&T, for instance, produces two good stable, dynamic female voices: Lauren and Crystal. However, their British female, Audrey, and their preppy American voice, Julia, are disappointing. Obviously, producing a convincing, natural-sounding voice is difficult. There's no telling what will come out, how stable and consistent a voice will be once it starts to combine different sounds and generate different sorts of sentences.

Just about all voices come with adjustable speed. Normally, the default speed is okay for standard utterances. You wouldn't want to listen to somebody who was talking a mile a minute (unless you were a salesperson--then you might be turned on by it). However, if you want to, say, create TTS scripts and then turn them into wav files, you might want a product that would allow you to adjust the speed of an utterance in isolated sentences or phrases. MASH, a Microsoft Agent Scripting application, allows you to do this. I don't use it to produce MS Agent scripts, but rather, to create more dynamic TTS files, which I then record as wav files.

Unfortunately, none of the high-quality voices come with an adjustable pitch. In other words, you can't raise or lower a voice, to make it, say, suddenly serious and sexy (lower/deeper pitch) or excited, even hysterical (higher pitch). All the free voices come with an adjustable pitch. However, as I've said, none of the for-sale voices comes with it.

Cepstral claims that their voices have an adjustable pitch, but I think that's a bit of a cheat. I bought those voices for the adjustable-pitch factor. Boy, was I suckered. First of all, the pitch isn't really adjustable. There's no slider bar. There are only a few presets, and each one is disappointing, as far as I'm concerned. The pitch adjustments just make the voices sound distorted, rather goofy. I guess it's not easy to add an adjustable pitch to a truly dynamic, human-sounding voice. For now, higher quality voices seem to be of a fixed pitch.

Although I've already indicated my personal favourites elsewhere, I'll say it again. For me, of all the female voices I've heard, Lauren (AT&T) is the best out there. Crystal (also AT&T) is good, too.

Heather (Acepela) has a soft, breathy, seductive timbre. She also sounds as if she's got a cold, not a bad cold, just a little plugged up. It's an intriguing sound, nonetheless. Acepela has a British female voice that sounded promising, if memory serves. I don't think you can demo that one, though. Anyway, I hope somebody markets both of them for a reasonable price. They'd be great addition to a rather meagre selection of top-notch voices. Perhaps Nige is right: maybe NextUp.com is getting ready to release Heather. They're a good company to deal with, and they're always ready to add new voices to their list.

I must admit I'm not a great fan of NeoSpeech's Kate. I find her voice tinny, mechanical-sounding. She reminds me of an earnest reporter, one whose voice starts to grate on you if you listen to it too long. Maybe she was hired for her looks.