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[Tcat]

AH!!! I get it!  That would be a great feature to use! Will Play! Thanks!
Any other tips, thoughts out there? Maybe we could get a thread for newbies like me!

"I was surprised, I didn't have to join paypal of anything like that! Just click the link on Bill Web Site and enter a credit card number. Just like making a purchase... from paypal."

Humm... no. Just because I am paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me. I lost $996.18 for 3 weeks in PayPal via the scammers and Air France bogus ticket... I got it back after hoop jumping .... I lost the CC # to a small web site while buying sushi stuff... No, I only use paypal for that reason. At least I do get my money back after a month... I teach computer security... The bad guys are big business... Google my name, Tcat... you will see I work hard, but we have to be right 100% of the time. The bad guys, only once...

[-Bill- (of wgjohns.com)]

Tcat

Yes, in hind-sight, I probably should have named that "X10 Listener", "Signal Listener" or even "Event Listener".   

The idea is that BXVC monitors all X10 signals received or indeed sent by the CM15A and can be told to respond to them.

As Dave_x10_L pointed out, not only does this allow you to have BXVC respond to signals received from "real" modules like motion sensors, palm-pads, etc., it also allows you to create complex MACROs in AHP and have them issue a command to a "dummy" module within AHP thereby triggering a response from BXVC!

I find your response about Pay-Pal interesting.  Many people have refused to donate through the link on my site because they don't trust Pay-Pal!  That, and for some unknown reason Bank of America cards refuse to work with Pay-Pal (I couldn't even register mine with Pay-Pal as proof of my identity!)

Anyway... payment through a Pay-Pal account is easier on me, and if I didn't trust them, I would never have given them all of the information they require to prove I am me and allow me to accept donations through their service!   

I assume  that you finally got it to recognize your camera mic's?

Play away!  It's really great to hear what others are accomplishing with BXVC!

[Tcat]

YES! I did get the PIR units to turn on and off the various cameras so BXVC can hear me!
MS speech is not up to Dragon Naturally Speaking, but given a limited set of commands, its certainly good enough.
The mikes in the CMOS cameras are incredibly sensitive.

Too bad The cheap Dell/e-machines box Ate XP today. No not even system restore is bringing it back.
May have lost the PCI bus...

A different thought... since you are creating in .Net V2, prehaps a section to call a batch file or shortcut?
Being able to say "launch Fire Fox" when I get up and start making coffee would sure be a time saver!

PayPal is not the greatest thing since sliced bread... AND given the Big Business of Black Hats, it's a step forward.
They have the resources for security as they have over 100 million accounts. Across the pond, no charges, and no interest paid.
So they have quite a few dollars for investing in "the float".

I have to prep and deliver speaking to a bunch of MS folks... so I will be off this project for a few days...

Thank you all for such a great community!
Tcat

[-Bill- (of wgjohns.com)]

YES! I did get the PIR units to turn on and off the various cameras so BXVC can hear me!

Glad to hear it!   

MS speech is not up to Dragon Naturally Speaking, but given a limited set of commands, its certainly good enough.
The mikes in the CMOS cameras are incredibly sensitive.

Yes.     This is one of the reasons I have pretty much given up on the idea of having BXVC allow the user to speak into text-boxes (like speaking a new device name instead of having to type it in).  It is just not very good at accurately recognizing free-form dictation.

Too bad The cheap Dell/e-machines box Ate XP today. No not even system restore is bringing it back.
May have lost the PCI bus...

Ouch!   

A different thought... since you are creating in .Net V2, prehaps a section to call a batch file or shortcut?
Being able to say "launch Fire Fox" when I get up and start making coffee would sure be a time saver!

Actually, this is a fairly frequent request that is (sadly) still buried in my "to do" pile.  

I have to prep and deliver speaking to a bunch of MS folks... so I will be off this project for a few days...

Thank you all for such a great community!
Tcat

Good luck, and thanks for being a part of the community!   

[HA Dave]

I had tried to get Kate to play "doorbell" and announce visitors when they approach my front door. I just didn't have a good place for a motion sensor, and traffic on the road would cause false triggers. Nobody wants to hear "you have a visitor at the front door" in the middle of the night.

Then today I was opening a new package of CD-RW's and got this ideaI cut off those locking "ears" from the CD case, and spray painted it black. I lined the back (inside) with Velcro, drilled a drain-hole at the bottom of the case, and nailed it to a stake. I used self stick Velcro on the back of the motion sensor, programed it and stuck it inside the CD case.

No more traffic related false triggers!

[-Bill- (of wgjohns.com)]

Dave_x10_L:

Cool!     Like putting "blinders" on a horse!   

Watch out for those leaves though!   

[Tcat]

My "couple days" turned into weeks and 21,000 miles of air travel. 
Back in MX. Today I did a write up for the CompTIA DHTI+ exam and managed to work in quite a bit about BXVC and X10.

Wireless speakers arrived in my run.... so now I can "hear and be heard" <a pun on one of my presentations> all around the house....
In the next couple days I will play with IM and BXVC with the whole house concept.

In an unrelated note, I did get a couple of the 2-way lamp modules. They are really slick! Too bad they are dropped from the lineup.

[azzar0]

OK, 24 pages later I understand a little bit more about BXVC. I have a couple of questions:

• 1.) When is BVC coming out?
  
  Just curious, I have yet to play with BXVC (I prefer java to .net, but it sounds like the new version is better)
  
  
• 2.) Can you get local weather information loaded into BXVC so that you can ask:
• "What is the temperature outside?" or
• "Is it supposed to rain today?" or
• "What's the forecast for the next few days?" etc
  
  
• 3.) It would be nice if you can have a "Status" category, where you can add standard and custom phrases. Additionally, BXVC would use an internal flag (boolean) to control Status announcements.
  
  For instance, suppose you have a few standard announcements like speak the time every hour (during the day or both day / night), announce the current weather information, next 1/2 day weather information, and top 5 news stories (from a decent source, NOT FOX!). Let's also assume that you define some custom announcements like "Your garage door is still open - remember to close it", etc. If you instruct BXVC to set Status to ON, then every hour these announcements will come on. You can turn the announcements off by saying "Status Off" OR "Standard Status Off" would only play the custom announcements, "Custom Status Off" would only play standard announcements, etc.

Bill, I applaud your initiative and devotion. I will gladly send you a donation to support this project, even if I end up not using it (I hope I do though, it sounds cool - pun intended As a programmer myself (when duty calls), I completely understand the amount of work and time you put into it.


[TTA Edit: Added WHITESPACE and formatting to improve readability.]

[Tcat]

Maybe we can all give a hand to Bill with a little $ and thin slice the .Net project into bite sized chunks so it can get done in some timeline less than building the 8th wonder of the world?

I can throw a few bones and maybe some names for coding help....

The program is killer cool. I wish I was home more to use it. (As I prepare for a new class in Silicon Valley) it would be nice to have that computer reminding me time is slipping... 

I would *love* to see an option to MS Speech. I have licenses to Dragon, Via Voice, Voice Xpress, etc...

[azzar0]

Maybe we can all give a hand to Bill with a little $ and thin slice the .Net project into bite sized chunks so it can get done in some timeline less than building the 8th wonder of the world?
The program is killer cool.

Agreed!

[-Bill- (of wgjohns.com)]

WOW!I can't believe how long it has been since I posted a "progress report" about my development efforts!   

So, here goes...

I have translated BXVC into Visual BASIC Express and so far, it (aka BVC) works great!   

BVC is currently in alpha-test by three people and again, it seems to work great!  It even appears to work on Windows Vista without having to install the MS Voice Recognition SDK!   

BVC is basically a "more Windows like" version of BXVC.

BVC includes "standard" Windows features like:

• Installs to the "Program Fiiles" folder.
• Creates Desktop, Start Menu and Quick Launch icons (optionally).
• Creates an uninstall entry in Control Panel's "Add or Remove Programs" list.
• Drop-down menus.
• Configuration settings grouped by function under separate "tabs".
• "Browsing" for files instead of having to type in a file name and / or path.

Other changes include:

• Backup and restore of "User Settings", including configuration settings, Device List, Custom Command List, Listener List, user imported Audio Files, user imported Face Graphic sets, etc.  (The current alpha-test version doesn't do this, but I am almost finished adding the "final touches" to the development version.)
• Imports "User Settings" from BXVC, including configuration settings, Device List, Custom Command List, Listener List, user imported Audio Files, user imported Face Graphic sets, etc.
• Face Graphic sets can be easily "imported" from within BVC instead of "manually" copying and pasting files and folders.

It has taken much longer than I expected to translate, but that is partially because I am such a "perfectionist" and want everything to work even better than the original BXVC!  So, it hasn't been just a matter of translation, but more like "translate and improve".  Yes, I could have released BVC a while ago, and most users wouldn't have minded some "manual importing" of files, however, me being me, I want to get it "right" the first time!

While I have had some success getting basic IR functions working in Visual BASIC Express, there are a number of things I need to add to BVC before IR will be usable.  A big one is "command sequences" (more or less "simple MACRO's") as each IR command that requires more than one keypress on the remote (like change to channel 244) will have to send a sequence of IR commands.

... More to follow! ...

[Don N]

Wow, this sounds fantastic.  As a current user of BXVC, I look forward to integrating BVC.  And as a "purchaser" of BXVC, I have no problem in donating additional funds to Bill for his efforts in building BVC.  Something we should all consider.  An early thank you!!!!!! 

[azzar0]

Well, I tried BXVC last night and I must say, I was pretty impressed, even though I knew exactly what to expect. I added a custom phrase "Who is the most beautiful woman in the world?" and Butler (that's what I call it) says "Why Daphne, of course!" (Daphne is my wife). Needless to say, that brought a smile to her face. Up until that point she was worried that I lost my mind. She still thinks that I lost most of my mind, based on the looks I get, but at least Butler tells her she's beautiful, hehe.
I also have x10dispatcher running, but I use it mostly to play custom wav files (like "garage door is open", "welcome home", etc) based on motion sensors / security sensors activity. My question is - can I only use BXVC and eliminate x10dispatch from the mix? I like x10dispatch very much, it is very neat, but it seems that the two apps overlap in this area. I could very easily have BXVC play either a pre-recorded wave file or simply tell it what to say when it "hears" an x10 event...
Anyway, I'd like to hear your opinion about that.
Bill, can you tell me if you have any plans to incorporate any of the features I mentioned in one of my previous posts in a future release? Also, I can help testing BVC - I wouldn't mind installing and running it on my machine - can you email it to me (azzar0@yahoo.com)
Thanks,
Azzar0

[HA Dave]

............ Up until that point she was worried that I lost my mind. She still thinks that I lost most of my mind, based on the looks I get..............

I remember that look! Seems that all of us BXVC users have seen it. But now my wife wouldn't want to be without it, she even brags about BXVC. We both enjoy the look on guest's face's when they see BXVC demonstrated. And the wife particularly enjoys the voice announcements (similar to what you have planned) over the traditional X10 chime.

Check out the "improved voices"  and the Talking clock to make more use of the voice announcements. I think.... there is a way to use AHP macros to create a voice alarm clock..... but I haven't gotten to that yet.

[azzar0]

[ I think.... there is a way to use AHP macros to create a voice alarm clock..... but I haven't gotten to that yet.

Absolutely! In AHP you can have, for instance, a dummy module (say D10) set to come on at 7:30 AM (or whenever you want to wake up). In BXVC, you can set up a listener for D10 ON, which will then play a custom audio file OR just make an announcement. The problem with that approach is that you will have to have speakers in your bedroom and you'll have to remember to mute Butler (or whatever you named YOUR BXVC  )
You can also set up a macro that turns on the speakers just before the announcement / audio file and then back off, etc.
Speaking of audio files, however, I CAN'T GET BXVC TO PLAY THEM - HELP, PLEASE!
So I setup a listener, and asked it to play an audio file. The file path and name is E:\X10_BXVC_Audio_Files\close_pantry_door.wav.
Whenever the listener kicks in, I get an error message: "Cannot play audio file:"Audio Files\E:\X10_BXVC_Audio_Files\close_pantry_door.wav"
It seems that BXVC is adding the "Audio Files\" prefix to all audio files - is there a way to change that?
Thanks,
Azzar0