Messages

1

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

« on: April 16, 2018, 05:10:23 AM »

All,

It has been a few weeks since I started this topic and despite having some great interaction with a few of the forum regulars, I had hoped that James would have participated in the conversation as well. It is possible he hasn't seen this topic but since there hasn't been much activity topic activity as of late, I don't think this topic would have slipped his attention. Regardless, the effort was made to try something in order to give back to him for all his effort.

I don't plan on adding any more posts to this topic as that would only serve to annoy folks.

Keep on spreading the word about VoxCommando and keep on creating awesome things.

Thank you for lending me your attention for a brief spell.

Sincerely,

MetaCode

2

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

« on: April 08, 2018, 02:49:03 AM »

Kalle,

I am happy to see your participation in this topic. Welcome!

Personally, I feel we are all walking a fine line with how bold companies have become with our private information and these cloud based virtual assistants. I am not going to go into tin foil hat territory but I have to say that companies are only going to get more hungry for our data in order to squeeze as much profit as possible from us. Just like Apple is using the "We respect your privacy and will not make you the product" marketing approach, so can VoxCommando appeal to the privacy conscious customers that want a virtual assistant but don't want to worry about their personal information. You make a great point about depending on the Internet to even have these cloud based virtual assistants work.

The quest to find the perfect way to capture your voice so the software will hear you properly. I know what you mean. Hopefully, you find what you seek. It is great we have a few options today to choose from to get us one step closer to that ambient virtual assistant.

The advertising I am suggesting doesn't have to be expensive at all. I am suggesting we start with a grassroots movement to rally the existing VoxCommando community (people that want to be influencers/evagelists for VoxCommando) and come up with some ideas to get the ball rolling (e.g. LinkedIn, Youtube, blogs, Twitter, Email signatures, Forum signatures, etc.). Everything has to start from somewhere...

The curated marketplace or command database as you called it would be a place where interested VoxCommando community members could create, maintain, and support commands for regular every day users. How the commands are structured and function would be up to the command maintainer to decide but could very well be robust enough to accommodate a large range of user needs and scenarios. The forum is loaded with useful information and command suggestions but one has to search for them. My suggestion focuses that information in an organized, curated fashion, and opens up the possibilities for additional income for several parties. Reducing/eliminating this barrier to entry will be key in appealing to the less technical customers we would want to win over.

I am grateful to see some of the regulars wanting to participate in this topic. Thank you, PegLegTV and Kalle. Keep the thoughts and ideas coming, folks.

Sincerely,

MetaCode

3

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

« on: April 06, 2018, 08:19:28 PM »

PegLegTV,

You are very welcome.

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify what I was trying to initially convey and for your thoughts on what could be done to showcase the value of VoxCommando. I can't count the times I have wished I had a way to cut down on the manual repetition in my daily IT workflow. Generating emails, generating Excel reports, creating change requests, etc. Hence why I set out to find a way to speed up my ability to interact with my PC and how I found VoxCommando.

Here is a great example of someone who paired up Cortana with their own application to enhance Excel. There are more examples on the channel of that YouTuber for those that are interested. I can see VoxCommando being an enabler for all sorts of tasks and functions that could be created by the VoxCommando Community.

Your examples are wonderful and I definitely relate with the last line of your previous post. Streamline your workflow enough and you find yourself banking all that extra time that would have otherwise been stolen from you. Do enough banking of extra time and you will more than pay for the cost of a VoxCommando license.



All,

I know I am not a regular here and I certainly don't have the number of posts to earn me any kind of rep in this forum, but that won't stop me from encouraging you to take a moment and ask yourself "How can I help?" It doesn't have to be much and no one is asking for you to send in more money. We live in an age of influencers and evangelists. I already see a lot of energy in the forums when it comes to helping out folks with VoxCommando or other matters. If we direct a portion of that energy in a consistent and meaningful direction, I am pretty sure we could raise the public's awareness of VoxCommando and grow the community. A win-win situation for everyone involved.

Before someone asks "MetaCode, you are pretty gung-ho about doing this...what's your angle, bro? ," I will say I have the same thing to gain as all of you do. Ensuring VoxCommando stays around for a long, long time. I know JitterJames said he would support it for a long time for the reasons he stated (see link in my initial post of this topic) despite the lower than desired sales, but why not improve the odds of long lasting support by having the community take some action as well? I searched the forum for any similar topics to see if the subject was ever approached and I couldn't find anything so here I am. And no, I am not affiliated with VoxCommando or the company that owns the software.

Sincerely,

MetaCode

4

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

« on: April 06, 2018, 02:15:10 AM »

PegLegTV,

Hello and thank you for the in-depth and thoughtful response to my post.

I think you may have misunderstood the meaning I was trying to convey when I said I was hoping more folks would voice their thoughts on the topic. My intention was to get a conversation started with anyone that wanted to pitch in. If JitterJames desired to follow through with any suggestions that came out of the topic, I completely understand it would be his call to make. I never intended to imply otherwise. After seeing how helpful everyone is in this forum, it wasn't a stretch for me to believe it would be worth trying to rally the troops and brainstorm some ideas to help JitterJames get more financial fulfillment out of VoxCommando.

On the issue of people wanting Plug-n-Play virtual assistants in IoT type standalone devices, I can't disagree with you there. But...that is just one market segment. VoxCommando represents another market segment that contains IT professionals, power users, do-it-yourselfers, businesses, and even regular PC users. Just from my time in IT, I can tell you that voice control software like VoxCommando is not commonplace in matters of support, system administration, or workflow streamlining. So there is an opportunity to further saturate that market segment with the right advertising and packaging. We could even win over some of the users of the Plug-n-Play IoT type standalone devices with the curated marketplace suggestion I made. Those customers not willing to learn the inner workings could still benefit from VoxCommando with pre-made commands provided via the marketplace that could come very close, if not, surpass what the Plug-n-Play virtual assistants of the world can do. Keep in mind what I am suggesting is all within the market segment and operating environment (Windows PC) that VoxCommando currently resides in.

I applaud the efforts of you and all the other folks in this forum that have made VoxCommando an integral part of the daily life and I encourage you not to feel disheartened because a lot of people out there don't realize what a gem VoxCommando is. That is why we are here, right now. To come up with more ways to show them what they are missing. There is more than enough enthusiasm and expertise in this forum and the VoxCommando Team to make that a reality. Teamwork, people. Teamwork! 

Sincerely,

MetaCode

5

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

« on: April 05, 2018, 03:57:54 PM »

Hmmm. Well this is a bit disheartening By now, I would have hoped to see some of the folks that frequent these forums regularly, voice their thoughts on this post.

Sincerely,

MetaCode

6

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

7

Feature Requests / Re: VoxCommando Universal Windows Platform Version

« on: March 05, 2018, 03:55:01 PM »

James,

You are very welcome.

Thank you for the dialog and the opportunity to learn more about you.

Sincerely,

MetaCode

8

Feature Requests / Re: VoxCommando Universal Windows Platform Version

« on: March 05, 2018, 02:02:54 PM »

James,

Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate getting a deeper glimpse into your thoughts on VoxCommando and its future.

If I may, I would like to offer some counterpoints.

The two main reasons are that the 'U' in UWP, which is supposed to stand for "Universal" really stands for "Only works on Windows 10".  I'm not a fan of Windows 10 myself (actually that is quite an understatement) and would not want to force others to use the Windows 10 OS in order to use VoxCommando.  In my opinion the Win32 platform is really much more *universal* than UWP.

The state of Windows 10 doesn't quite sit well with me either. The suggestion of going UWP was to prepare for the possible shift away from Win32. Granted, I don't have a crystal ball that will tell me that is going to happen for sure but it was worth mentioning since I care about your prosperity and the future of VoxCommando.

Also "if it ain't broke don't fix it". I really don't think the Win32 platform is going to disappear any time soon and in fact I would not be surprised if it outlived UWP.

Microsoft is motivated to move developers away from Win32 for various reasons ranging from security enhancements, corrections to mistakes they made in the past, compliance with new UI/UX design changes that fit Windows 10's new mobile friendly philosophy, inclusion of app in Microsoft Store. How far they are willing to go to make this a reality, I cannot say. Right now it seems like they are trying to put the genie back in the bottle and it seems unlikely they will succeed but never say never.

I think it still makes sense to run VoxCommando on a desktop machine as opposed to a lightweight mobile platform and it relies on a full implementation of .NET anyway in order to use the speech recognition libraries provided by Microsoft so I'm not even sure if it could be ported to Windows Phone etc.

Project Polaris involves modularizing the Windows operating system in a yet undisclosed way. I don't believe Microsoft is going to make a lightweight mobile platform in the same sense as Windows 10 Mobile. Having already failed at making Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile a success, my gut tells me that they are probably going to introduce a more robust modularization system which would allow the addition or subtraction of components like various .NET frameworks. Perhaps they are "borrowing" some wisdom from the Linux world (e.g. Arch Linux) and trimming Windows' fat even more than what was done in the past. If that is the case, then you would have a new market of mobile PCs that you could capitalize on. It may be possible to do that and continue to provide your software to legacy OSes.

The other main reason is that that would be a great deal of work with little payoff assuming it's even possible.  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.

I am saddened to hear that VoxCommando is not bearing the financial fruit you would like it to. Your software is one of the few that offers the type of enhancement to Windows' built-in voice recognition capability that, if harnessed the right way by the user, could be a HUGE productivity booster. You certainly deserve to be making more money from this wonderful software.

Although I can't blame you for not wanting to put in any additional effort towards major changes, I encourage you to reflect on your words about how you see VoxCommando to be far superior than the Cortanas, Alexas, Google Assistants of the world. I completely agree with you and that, I feel, is the key to your success in this age of virtual digital assistants. These cloud based assistants may have the resources and marketing to make them appear useful, but I feel they are all missing a key focus. They all lack the ability to help users in a lot of the moment to moment tasks that occur on a PC. Not to mention getting them to do anything new requires advanced level programming that will alienate most users. I feel your software is closer to the goldilocks zone of where virtual digital assistants should be. A robust and easy to understand/use macro system and numerous plugins that extend its capabilities accordingly. If I may be so bold, those big companies should be taking their cue from you and what you have done with VoxCommando.

Please know that my counterpoints are not objections to your stated direction of the future of your software. More like food for thought for the future and a chance to send some encouragement and praise to you.

Thank you for wanting to keep VoxCommando alive for a long time to come. I appreciate all your work and energy.

Sincerely,

MetaCode

9

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

10

VoxCommando Basics and Core Features / Re: Question About VoxCommando Network Activity

« on: October 27, 2016, 10:59:22 AM »

JitterJames,

Thank you for the clarification.

My apologies for my poor choice of words.

Sincerely,

MetaCode

11

VoxCommando Basics and Core Features / Re: Question About VoxCommando Network Activity

« on: October 27, 2016, 12:10:11 AM »

VoxCommando Team,

Thank you all very much for the work that was performed in this new version of VoxCommando to address this concern. Remember...every time a security hole is closed, a security analyst gets his/her wings 

Also, I greatly appreciate Nime5ster's time in posting back to this thread with the information of this upcoming update.

Sincerely,

MetaCode

12

VoxCommando Basics and Core Features / Re: Question About VoxCommando Network Activity

« on: October 18, 2016, 01:12:20 AM »

JitterJames,

Thank you for considering this security enhancement to VoxCommando and for allowing me to dialog with you on this matter to this extent.

I hope I was able to help in some way to make things better.

Sincerely,

MetaCode

13

VoxCommando Basics and Core Features / Re: Question About VoxCommando Network Activity

« on: October 17, 2016, 02:09:10 PM »

JitterJames,

Thank you for elaborating on your thought process behind the design of this UDP broadcast and for your question.

I can certainly see the consideration you put in with having the information being sent to VoxWav or user-created apps. Keeping VoxCommando as bloat-free as possible is safer, more stable, and easier on the developer. No argument there.

TL;DR - To answer your question, I prefer to err on the side of caution. Personally, I don't wish everything I say to VoxCommando be broadcast like that. Especially if I am performing dictation. At home, it isn't much of an issue for now since I can block it with my local firewall. But if I used VoxCommando at work for a productivity enhancer in IT administration, I would have concerns knowing what I know. Considering how some businesses hardcode firewall configuration with policies that prevent user tinkering, my mitigation step wouldn't be applicable. If you want to know more about my motivations or are really bored and want to kill a few more minutes reading this post, please proceed to the paragraphs below.

Before I go any further, I feel like I should put forth a disclaimer. I am a newbie to this forum, a complete stranger, and respectful of people and their efforts. Even though my intentions are benevolent in providing my feedback to any and all who desire it, I always try to tread carefully. The last thing I want is to insult or injure the recipient of said feedback. It is evident that a lot of work has gone into making VoxCommando, its documentation, and the continued support your company offers. I highly respect that and would never want to be perceived as someone who doesn't see the effort you put in or as someone whose expectations can never be fulfilled or as judgmental. Please take what I say as polite, constructive feedback.

The best way that I can answer your question is to present you with an experience I have gone through quite a few times. It will help you understand my thought process. When I was on-boarding a new software platform in a previous corporate position I held, the IT security team of said company was very good about scrutinizing the ins and outs of the software platform to ensure the due diligence was performed by the developer(s) and implementers so that security was not sacrificed for the sake of fancy features or convenience. Now, the IT security team did not go through the source code line by line looking for adherence to secure coding practices but they did examine the obvious behavior of the software platform from the perspective of application security, network security, data security, etc. Being security conscious by nature and leveraging experience from previous positions I have held in my IT career, I had my bases covered and made sure I remediated/mitigated any gaps/issues I could find before the IT security team had a reason to worry. This made the on-boarding of the software platform less painful for all parties involved. You would think what I did was nothing special but I can't tell you how many times I get surprised looks from people when they see me actually working towards my goals with security in mind.

I don't know how many of your customers utilize VoxCommando in a business environment or how important security is to them, so I don't want to speak out of turn here.  But, if my past experiences (such as the one described above) have taught me anything is, like the old adage says, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Security analysts (the good ones at least) are quite picky about how an application behaves. Today's "oh what harm will that little feature do?" or "it was easier to set it up this way," is tomorrow's hacker/social engineering attack vector. In the setting of a home environment, security may not be at the forefront of the user's mind, but in a corporate environment, it is a different story. With the popularity of home automation and Internet of Things technology, homes will start to become appealing targets to wrong-doers as well.

In the scenario of this specific function of VoxCommando where the user prioritizes security, one could solve it a couple of ways (shown in order of ease).

1. If user is not utilizing VoxWav or another 3rd party application that depends on this UDP broadcast, then the user can configure their local firewall to block the broadcast - I presume that is safe to do.

2. Your suggestion of adding the option to enable/disable that function.

3. The developer could implement secure transmission of the information to prevent eavesdropping.

My intention in this thread is not to challenge the design of VoxCommando. I just ask that you always keep security in mind when designing and implementing functions within VoxCommando.

Thank you for reading this lengthy post.

Sincerely,

MetaCode

14

VoxCommando Basics and Core Features / Re: Question About VoxCommando Network Activity

« on: October 15, 2016, 08:55:00 PM »

JitterJames,

Thank you for the information and guidance.

My concerns about the verbose nature of the UDP broadcast are not based on the scenario of a home LAN being compromised or undesirable network traffic traversing the LAN/WAN barrier. In a post you made indicating the diverse usage of VoxCommando by others and yourself (see here), one could argue that VoxCommando could be used in, for example, a corporate LAN where the audience of such broadcasts cannot always be controlled. In such a scenario, even if one doesn't include critical passwords, certain private information could be conveyed within the command (depending on how the user constructs the commands) that the user may desire to have remain private. Keep in mind that you have created quite a powerful and robust productivity tool and your licensing allows for business use (with permission from your company, of course), so it is bound to be used by power users outside the realm of home automation (e.g. IT administrators automating repetitive server maintenance tasks). As an IT technologist myself, I would be foolish not to use the VoxCommando to make my job more efficient if it checks all the boxes of my needs.

In this scenario, mitigation steps do exist. If VoxWav use is not needed or desired by the user, he/she could configure their firewall to restrict this specific UDP broadcast as long as it doesn't negatively impact VoxCommando.

Please know that I understand that to some I am presenting an edge case since VoxCommando has its roots in home automation. Nonetheless, computing is evolving and the user experience is changing towards less keyboard/mouse-centric interaction. We will see more speech recognition software become the norm as personal assistants transform how users interact with technology and how that technology uses information. As a concerned citizen for the welfare of VoxCommando, I felt it appropriate to speak as if I was evaluating VoxCommando from the viewpoint of a security analyst.

Thank you for entertaining this conversation. Just sharing some food for thought and desire nothing more than to see VoxCommando succeed. 

Sincerely,

MetaCode

15

VoxCommando Basics and Core Features / Re: Question About VoxCommando Network Activity

« on: October 15, 2016, 11:54:34 AM »

By the way the main reason that we advise you to make a firewall exception is actually because VC communicates (sending and/or receiving) with so many different programs and devices through various network connections via various features and plugins.  Whether or not you actually need to use network communication will depend on how you set things up but the majority of users will need it for at least one application.

JitterJames,

Thank you for that information. It makes perfect sense.

Sincerely,

MetaCode