SIRI [Alternative] for ANDROID : voice-activated assistant. its been there

Welcome is Tech Witches and Wizards

A week back two friends of mine (die hard fans of APPLE) came busting into my facebook wall as if they had become zombies and where programmed to attack my facebook wall. So what was the strange reason.

Apple's I-Phone has SIRI they say, An Artificially-intelligent software that could understand everything you tell and act per instructions without you even touching the iphone.
But they also put forward another claim, "Android don't have it"

Too bad for them that they did not even consider cusulting google and just jumped on apples advertisement.

The truth: Android has a voice activated assistant like SIRI : ok Actually it has more than one.

Its been long time since Android had these voice command recognizing tools.

if you just want to control Android with voice try.
Google Voice Actions
This is googles native voice recognition tool that can handle all Android operations but not that good with Facebook, Twitter and all those stuff.
So lets see the next.

These 2 are the ones that I would recommend the most

1) Vlingo
Vlingo Is a speech-to-text(S2T) and text-to-speech (T2S) app for Android (avilable for ios, blackberry too)  that is being vigorously developed.

• Send SMS and e-Mails
• Make calls
• Search for Local businesses (like say "Find nearest Italian restaurant" and it will get it for you). 
• Use it to Launch Apps in your phone (can't wait to tell "Angry Birds" :P).
• Update your Facebook, Twitter or whatever.
• And the amazing speech-to-text engine do not seem to be interested in making mistakes by misinterpreting words you speak, it's damn accurate.
• Another amazing feature is how it gives you suggestions like: if you ask it to book a movie ticket i will get the show times and other details for you. 

Vlingo in action VIDEO

2) Speak To It Assistant

This would be a more user friendlier one than Vlingo not to mention customizable, but the con of this app is that this is a pretty new app and can be a bit rough at time. Its lot better than vlingo on basis of the ability to understand language that you use to speak. eg: "Tell my friends am dead" ,tell that and it will update your facebook as "I am dead"

• An animated Avatar to interact with (the default librarian is hot )
• Avatar can be customized with lot of options.(male/female)
• Learns you style of speaking as you use it.
• Send SMS and Emails
• Make calls.
• Update social network status.
• It can understand more words and commands than any other known voice recognition app. 
• Location and navigation.

In operation Video 

Yah true

some of these may seem a bit crude for SIRI, but The native [Google Voice Actions]Google Voice Actions is about to see a major boost release so behold.

That's all Folks  [  R64JGAYDDSUX ]

SOLUTION: Mic Not Working in UBUNTU on TOSHIBA laptop.

Hello Tech Wizards and witches,Its been some time since I posted here but now on you can expect regular posts on multiple fields.

The issue we will be addressing and of course 'curing' will be the strange syndrome of " External or Internal Mic Not Working In Ubuntu in a laptop" I will be addressing this issue in phase to a TOSHIBA C660 running UBUNTU 10.04 Lucid Lynx as this problem is most seen in TOSHIBA laptops. SO here is the issue:

The External and Internal mic in laptop is not working. In the sense that the computer does not recognize sound from them and record the sounds given as input.

I am sorry that the method used to solve this problem gets more aching as each step pass, but as said "road to paradise is never an easy one".
So I will be guiding you step by step allowing you clear vision into each step done so that the process will be as easy as possible.

We will try to solve this in a 3 step process, the problem should be rectified in any one of these steps.

• Step 1: UBUNTU - /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf Customisation 

1. Note: You need to be able to get root (Administrator) privilege to complete any of these steps.   
2. Open terminal by pressing  Alt+F2
3. Enter:  gnome-terminal  in the text box that appear and click "Run".
4. You can also open the terminal from menu Accessories>Terminal.
5. Enter the command : sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
6. A Text editor window  will appear with the alsa-base.conf file open. 
7. in the file look for a line that says: " options snd-hda-intel model= " something.
8. if it is there replace whatever is after the = with auto
9. Save and close the file.
10. Restart your computer and see if the mic is being recognized.
11. Congratulations if it does, else no worries move on to the next step.
12. |||Note: Leave settings as it is as it will support the next steps.|||

• STEP 2: Pulse Audio Tweaking

1. Note: You will need to be the root user to install the requires software "Pulse Audio Volume Control".
2.  You must install PulseAudio Volume Control for this.
3. Open terminal as in above step and run command: sudo apt-get install pavucontrol
4.  Now go to : Menu > Sound & Video (multimedia) > PulseAudio Volume Control
5. Go to the configuration Tab
6. Select Analog Stereo Duplex or Analog Stereo Input + Analog Stereo Output as the profile.
7. In Output tab select Analog Speakers As your port.
8. Enter the input Tab.
9. Select Hardware Input Devices in the drop down at the bottom.
10. Now speak into the mic and see if it is working by watching the indicator that move.
11. Congratulation if it responds if it does not, and if it do not just move on to the next step. In 99% case it will get solved within the next step.
12. Note: Leave settings as you have set now.

• STEP 3: Update ALSA driver.
• I understand that this is a bit tiresome step considering the time involved and complexity, but i will try to be as newbie friendly and try to take this as smoothly as possibly I can.
• Note: For this you will have to completely have root user privileges.
• FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS HERE 

By the end of this final step your Mic should be running fine.
just make sure after the upgrade that the settings in the Pulse Audio Volume control is the same as said above.


That's All Folks this time.

HOWTO: Update ALSA Driver in UBUNTU

Hello Witches and Wizards welcome back.

This time around I am going to give you a step by step tutorial to Updating the Almighty ALSA DRIVER in your UBUNTU system.
Most of the time when we setup and get the system running with linux there wont me much trouble that come with the package. But at times we have this strange sound problems that can be only solved by an upgrade.
Or maybe just you are the "Steve Jobs" kind, who seek the latest and is quick to evolve. whatever it maybe here is my guide for you to upgrade your ALSA DRIVER in your UBUNTU installation, behold and keep to the prescription.

You can check your installed version by giving these commands in terminal:

cat /proc/asound/version

Test if before and after upgrade installation.

1. NOTE: You need complete root privileges to achieve this upgrade successfully.
2. Rub your hands and get ready:
3. Download the required script from here: Download 
4. Copy that file into your home directory: /home/$USER (where $USER is your username)
5. Open Terminal at Menu>Accessories>Terminal or Alt+f2 > enter "gnome-terminal" press ENTER.
6. Enter Command: cd 
7. Enter Command: tar xzvf AlsaUpgrade-1.0.24-2.tar.gz 
8. Enter Command:  chmod +x AlsaUpgrade-1.0.24-2.sh
9. Ignore steps 10 and 11 if you are new or just not interested in learning the detail.
10. Now as the next few steps which we are going to do is a bit complex from the machine point of view (Don't get scared of, it's easy on your part). so there are a few chances, like in 1 in a 10000 that things can go wrong, so we will be logging(recording the output from system to a file) each step. good thing there are tools to do this dirty work for you.
11. The command that you will be using to log the process is: scrip -a -c "" (the quotes " " are important around the command). so if you want to log it you can give the command given below between the quotes and give ALSADownload.log, ALSACompile.log, ALSAinstall.log in place of in each of the below command. -d = download, -c = compile  and -i = install.
    
12. Enter Command:    ./AlsaUpgrade-1.0.24-2.sh -d
13. Enter Command:   ./AlsaUpgrade-1.0.24-2.sh -c
14. Enter Command:  ./AlsaUpgrade-1.0.24-2.sh -i
15. Now RESTART your computer and check if your sound Out Put and Input  is working fine.
16. Congratulations you have just upgraded your ALSA drivers. 
17. [ATTENTION] In case something goes terribly wrong, like sound not at all working  immediately run: cd && ./AlsaUpgrade-1.0.24-2.sh -r

That's all folks.
See you again folks Till then, Good Bye. 

Accept Passwords Hidden By * In C++

A question I hear a lot, and a serious one too.
Any thing that deals with security and safety should be handled with extreme
care as it can ruin almost anything if it is at fault.

So here I Want to present you with a simple method to take in passwords for your c++ program by hiding them with a '*'.

#include

#include 


void getpass(char pas[])    //pas is an character array passed to this funtion
     {

       int i=0;
       while(pas[i]!=13)     //13 is the ASCII value for ENTER, so loop till ENTER
                                        // is pressed
       {
           pas[i] = getch();  //get a character without displaying it on screen
       }
       

       pas[i]='\0';    //marking the end of password.

     }

Ok , just pass a charecter array to this function, once this function executes and ends the array that you passed will have your password.

And next time, a simple encryption tool to keep your passwords safe.


So wait..........along

HoW to set-up PhP MySQL development enviorment and develop in PhP MySql

I would like to develop a programm (stock and accounts) for my own business. I would like to design like - a database (MySQL) and I have to enter data and get reports through a browser on my PC. I want a fully customized application to develop and to maintain for my own purpose.
I have basic programming knowledge in C, C++, VB 6.0, Foxpro 2.6, HTML. And ready to learn new things.
Now can you please suggest me, What softwares I have to download (probably open source) and learn. Already I have installed MySQL 5.0 and now I can create a database and simple SQL queries.

Thanks in advance.

----------------------


I am happy that you have specially asked for opensource tools and yes that's exactly what you should use.
so as you say that ,you are already familiar with C++ ,HTML.
This is going to be a breeze  as all you have to do is combine object oriented programing, with Web technology.

these are the list of programs you will need:
Apache web server.
PhP.
MySQL. (as you have already installed it).
PhPMyAdmin (a GUI for MySQL database management, can make things easier).

I would suggest that you use a combined system like
EasyPhP or WAMP (for windows)
or
XAMPP for Linux

i recommend you export your SQL Database,and install one of these tools and then import it into MySQL.

So that you dont have to spend lot of time synchronizing all of these tools.
installing one of these single packages will take care of all the tools mentioned before.
and just follow there instructions.

So that's it,once tools are ready you will have to learn PhP Programing,
(i strongly recommend the books "PhP and MySQL bible" or "PHP For Dummies" -- or just learn from the net.) 
and database accessing from PhP.( it is simple).
and then Program your software and copy it to the server directory in your system (Apache will take care of that).
then enter http://localhost
And you can watch your talents bloom.

If you are planning to make your server public, you will have to also take care of security settings.

hope that helps,
if you need any further help please contact me from tech-help page of http://blaisemcrowly.co.cc