Topics

1

General Discussion / Suggestions on Increasing Customer Base and Longevity of VoxCommando

« on: March 23, 2018, 03:22:10 PM »

James,

Good afternoon.

I got to thinking about the response you gave to the topic titled "VoxCommando Universal Windows Platform Version" earlier this month. I quote below the specific part that I am going to focus on in this topic.

I'm basically not making any money with VoxCommando and am currently focused primarily on maintaining the software and am not seeking to make any major changes that would cost me a lot of development time since there is no reason to expect that this time would ever be paid back in the form of new license sales.

Although I consider VoxCommando to be far superior to the other giant cloud based options out there, most people would much rather buy an Amazon Echo Dot or Google home device (or use a cracked version of VoxCommando) than to pay someone like me for a software package.  So my motivation to sink a large quantity of my time into development is just not there anymore.

As an individual that wishes to see VoxCommando and you flourish and have a long life, I had the following thoughts that I wanted to share with you and the rest of forum.

• Create website banner for use by third parties to advertise VoxCommando on their blogging and social media platforms of choice - Initially or at a later time, you could tie in affiliate marketing to provide a financial incentive for people to use this.
  
  
• Create email signature (with and without pictures/banner) for use by third parties to advertise VoxCommando in their email program/website of choice - Initially or at a later time, you could tie in affiliate marketing to provide a financial incentive for people to use this.
  
  
• Create a curated marketplace to store vetted VoxCommando commands - VoxCommando is an amazing application that has a lot of potential uses in the right hands. After perusing the forum and from my own personal experience in IT support, I see an opportunity to lower the barrier of entry of non-power users. Just like your wiki is an excellent central source of information to teach users how to use VoxCommando, the marketplace would make it much easier for customers to find commands that fit the task they need performed or make requests. Initially or at a later time, you could tie in affiliate marketing to provide a financial incentive for people to develop and support commands for the marketplace.

There is some work that will need to be done to make these suggestions a reality but I cannot emphasize enough the potential of VoxCommando in the present and future. The benefits will more than justify the time and energy invested.

I hope I am not out of line for creating this topic and sharing these thoughts. The feeling I get from the various topics and posts I have read in this forum is that the VoxCommando community is friendly, helpful, thoughtful, and supportive of VoxCommando and you. I can only speak for myself, but, I know I would be willing to do more to help. Perhaps there are others that would be willing to join me...

Sincerely,

MetaCode

2

Feature Requests / VoxCommando Universal Windows Platform Version

« on: March 04, 2018, 10:49:25 PM »

James,

Good evening.

For a while now Microsoft has been putting forth effort to entice and assist developers in migrating from developing their software for Win32 to the new UWP app platform. A portion of developers have made the move to UWP and a portion are holding fast in Win32. I am not a developer myself but from what I can tell via various online publications, the reasons for this vary from technical restrictions/considerations of the new UWP app platform, waiting to see what everyone else will do, or if Microsoft will abandon the new app platform altogether.

Several months ago, rumors started appearing about two new projects that Microsoft is working on in the realm of software and hardware. Project Polaris and Project Andromeda. For information on each project (for those interested) please see below.

• Project Polaris - https://www.windowscentral.com/understanding-windows-core-os-and-polaris
• Project Andromeda - https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-andromeda-everything-we-know-so-far

Both of these projects represent Microsoft's efforts to create a new market for their hardware offerings and an appropriate user experience to compliment it. This new user experience will primarily cater to UWP apps but doesn't quite abandon Win32 applications. I don't feel these projects are vaporware because it was Microsoft's intention all along to create a universal user experience across multiple device form factors when they first released Windows 10. Also, Microsoft has been showing a clear adoption of more mobile friendly technologies with each upgrade of Windows 10 so it stands to reason that Win32 will reach its limits in the not so distant future.

May I ask if you have any plans on evolving VoxCommando to a UWP app by re-writing it or convert it using the Desktop Bridge (Centennial)?

Thank you for your time in reading this lengthy post.

Sincerely,

MetaCode

3

VoxCommando Basics and Core Features / Question About VoxCommando Network Activity

« on: October 15, 2016, 03:19:32 AM »

Dear Friends,

I hope this post finds you all in good health and spirits.

Recently re-discovered VoxCommando 2.2.2.6 and started to explore its many features and capabilities.

I noticed two network related activities that I wanted to get clarification on. I include my thoughts on each bullet point to show research effort or guesswork.

1. During each startup of the VoxCommando application, a connection on TCP port 80 from my computer to VoxCommando.com (destination IP address 192.185.45.219) - I could not find any specific information on this activity in the VoxCommando wiki or forum. The only exception was the installation instructions on the VoxCommando wiki (see here) that advise the user to create exceptions in the Windows Firewall for VoxCommando. May I kindly inquire on what VoxCommando is doing with this specific network connection? License check? Version update check? Telemetry upload?

2. After I issue the first voice command (voice command can be anything) once the VoxCommando application has started, a network broadcast on UDP port 32080 from my computer (see bullet point #3 for an oddity during this network activity) to IP address 255.255.255.255 is performed - I could not find any specific information on this activity in the VoxCommando wiki or forum. Both UPD and TCP 32080 ports are unassigned on the IANA Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry (see here) so that makes getting more information on this network activity more difficult. Considering VoxCommando is engineered to work with Home Automation technology, I could venture a guess that it is broadcasting to any network-aware equipment that can listen to network traffic from my computer. May I kindly inquire on what VoxCommando is doing with this specific network activity?

3. In addition to the behavior observed in bullet point #2, I notice when the VoxCommando application initiates the network broadcast on UDP port 32080, it is using the source IP address of my VirtualBox Host-Only network adapter and not the source IP address of the wireless network adapter I use to connect to my wireless router (which is what the VoxCommando application should be using) - For those that are not familiar with VirtualBox, it is an application that allows the creation and use of virtual PCs (see here). One of its functions is that it has the ability to create a closed network so that only virtual PCs can communicate with each other. In order to do this, VirtualBox creates its own unique wired virtual network adapter and assigns it an IP address in the private IP address range of 192.168.X.X. The purpose(s) of this closed network function can be various (e.g. for testing, etc.). I would like to clarify that I am running the VoxCommando application on my actual hardware installed instance of Windows 7 and not in a virtual PC within VirtualBox. My best guess here is that there may be logic in the VoxCommando application that makes it prefer the use of a wired connection and not a wireless connection when performing this specific network activity. My 3rd party firewall doesn't log any similar network activity to what I documented in bullet point #2 and #3 for my wireless network adapter so I am inclined to believe the aforementioned network activity is only occurring on the wired virtual network adapter of VirtualBox. So, if the network activity documented in bullet point #2 is of any importance, and I am correct in my assumption, it won't be going anywhere on computers that have similar scenarios such as my own. Just wanted to call that out.

Thank you for taking time to read my somewhat lengthy post. I hope I have provided enough information for a good start. This is my first post and will improve as I learn the lay of the land of this forum and its citizens.

I appreciate any feedback that can be provided.

Sincerely,
MetaCode