TTSynth Is Available Again

TTSynth Is Available Again

[Janina Sajka]

Dear Friends:

Shortly after we launched TTSynth a few weeks ago, we discovered that
certain users were having problems downloading our software. We closed
our doors tempporarily as a result, and spent the last week debugging
these problems. We believe we have them well solved. Consequently, it is
once again possible to purchase and download TTSynth.

http://TTSynth.Com

Of course we also provided packages through email to those few customers
who experienced problems with our initial release. We believe there are
now no outstanding issues.

Specifically, we had two problems to fix in our automated download process:

1.)	Customers using Internet Explorer on Microsoft Windows were
unable to complete transactions. This is now fixed.

2.)	Some customers using Debian or Ubuntu experienced failures due
to a bug we uncovered in the earlier version of GNU TLS used on these
two distributions. Of course it is very important that your Internet
transaction is properly protected by SSL. This is now also fixed.

Consequently, the premier Text To Speech (TTS) software synthesizer for
Linux is once again available for immediate secure on line purchase and
download using a credit card!

Available Modules Include:
     * IBM's incomparable IBM TTS text to speech (formerly called
       ViaVoice)
     * Gnome-Speech patched for use with LSR and Orca
     * The TTSynth Speakup Bridge for screen reading with Speakup
     * ttsynth_say binary for the CLI or for use in scripts
     * Also supported by Emacspeak KTTS, and Speech Dispatcher

Available Languages For Linux
     * Chinese
     * English
     * Finnish
     * French
     * German
     * Italian
     * Japanese
     * Portuguese
     * Spanish

   The best is also very affordable. Your first language license is only $40 USD
and each additional language license is only $20 USD, when obtained at the
same time.

   Use your credit card to purchase and download TTSynth now, and start
enjoying the best software speech available for Linux today.

Go to http://TTSynth.Com.

We provide TTSynth in both .rpm and .deb packages to make it easy to
install TTSynth on Fedora, Ubuntu, and most Linux distributions which
utilize these package managers.

TTSynth is a product of Capital Accessibility, LLC.

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.202.595.7777;	sip:janina@a11y.org
Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC	http://CapitalAccessibility.Com

Marketing the Owasys 22C talking screenless cell phone in the U.S. and Canada
Learn more at http://ScreenlessPhone.Com

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Cody Hurst]

Hi,

  I am wanting to know if the source code is available. I also want to know 
if it is manditory that we use credit cards because people like myself do 
not have one.

thanks
cody
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007 5:09 PM
Subject: TTSynth Is Available Again


> Dear Friends:
>
> Shortly after we launched TTSynth a few weeks ago, we discovered that
> certain users were having problems downloading our software. We closed
> our doors tempporarily as a result, and spent the last week debugging
> these problems. We believe we have them well solved. Consequently, it is
> once again possible to purchase and download TTSynth.
>
> http://TTSynth.Com
>
> Of course we also provided packages through email to those few customers
> who experienced problems with our initial release. We believe there are
> now no outstanding issues.
>
> Specifically, we had two problems to fix in our automated download 
> process:
>
> 1.) Customers using Internet Explorer on Microsoft Windows were
> unable to complete transactions. This is now fixed.
>
> 2.) Some customers using Debian or Ubuntu experienced failures due
> to a bug we uncovered in the earlier version of GNU TLS used on these
> two distributions. Of course it is very important that your Internet
> transaction is properly protected by SSL. This is now also fixed.
>
> Consequently, the premier Text To Speech (TTS) software synthesizer for
> Linux is once again available for immediate secure on line purchase and
> download using a credit card!
>
> Available Modules Include:
>     * IBM's incomparable IBM TTS text to speech (formerly called
>       ViaVoice)
>     * Gnome-Speech patched for use with LSR and Orca
>     * The TTSynth Speakup Bridge for screen reading with Speakup
>     * ttsynth_say binary for the CLI or for use in scripts
>     * Also supported by Emacspeak KTTS, and Speech Dispatcher
>
> Available Languages For Linux
>     * Chinese
>     * English
>     * Finnish
>     * French
>     * German
>     * Italian
>     * Japanese
>     * Portuguese
>     * Spanish
>
>   The best is also very affordable. Your first language license is only 
> $40 USD
> and each additional language license is only $20 USD, when obtained at the
> same time.
>
>   Use your credit card to purchase and download TTSynth now, and start
> enjoying the best software speech available for Linux today.
>
> Go to http://TTSynth.Com.
>
> We provide TTSynth in both .rpm and .deb packages to make it easy to
> install TTSynth on Fedora, Ubuntu, and most Linux distributions which
> utilize these package managers.
>
> TTSynth is a product of Capital Accessibility, LLC.
>
> -- 
>
> Janina Sajka, Phone: +1.202.595.7777; sip:janina@a11y.org
> Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC http://CapitalAccessibility.Com
>
> Marketing the Owasys 22C talking screenless cell phone in the U.S. and 
> Canada
> Learn more at http://ScreenlessPhone.Com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Janina Sajka]

Cody Hurst writes:
> Hi,
> 
>   I am wanting to know if the source code is available.

Yes and no. Please consult:

http://TTSynth.Com/pub/COPYING.

Also look at the README files in that directory. Where we have source,
you can download it from that same directory.

> I also want to know 
> if it is manditory that we use credit cards because people like myself do 
> not have one.

Regretably, it is the only mechanism we can affordably offer to
facilitate the transaction. Perhaps you can arrange with a friend?

Janina

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[ace]

What does one do if they are using a LFS or non-Deb/Fedora distro?  Also, is 
the UK voice available?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007 8:09 PM
Subject: TTSynth Is Available Again


> Dear Friends:
>
> Shortly after we launched TTSynth a few weeks ago, we discovered that
> certain users were having problems downloading our software. We closed
> our doors tempporarily as a result, and spent the last week debugging
> these problems. We believe we have them well solved. Consequently, it is
> once again possible to purchase and download TTSynth.
>
> http://TTSynth.Com
>
> Of course we also provided packages through email to those few customers
> who experienced problems with our initial release. We believe there are
> now no outstanding issues.
>
> Specifically, we had two problems to fix in our automated download 
> process:
>
> 1.) Customers using Internet Explorer on Microsoft Windows were
> unable to complete transactions. This is now fixed.
>
> 2.) Some customers using Debian or Ubuntu experienced failures due
> to a bug we uncovered in the earlier version of GNU TLS used on these
> two distributions. Of course it is very important that your Internet
> transaction is properly protected by SSL. This is now also fixed.
>
> Consequently, the premier Text To Speech (TTS) software synthesizer for
> Linux is once again available for immediate secure on line purchase and
> download using a credit card!
>
> Available Modules Include:
>     * IBM's incomparable IBM TTS text to speech (formerly called
>       ViaVoice)
>     * Gnome-Speech patched for use with LSR and Orca
>     * The TTSynth Speakup Bridge for screen reading with Speakup
>     * ttsynth_say binary for the CLI or for use in scripts
>     * Also supported by Emacspeak KTTS, and Speech Dispatcher
>
> Available Languages For Linux
>     * Chinese
>     * English
>     * Finnish
>     * French
>     * German
>     * Italian
>     * Japanese
>     * Portuguese
>     * Spanish
>
>   The best is also very affordable. Your first language license is only 
> $40 USD
> and each additional language license is only $20 USD, when obtained at the
> same time.
>
>   Use your credit card to purchase and download TTSynth now, and start
> enjoying the best software speech available for Linux today.
>
> Go to http://TTSynth.Com.
>
> We provide TTSynth in both .rpm and .deb packages to make it easy to
> install TTSynth on Fedora, Ubuntu, and most Linux distributions which
> utilize these package managers.
>
> TTSynth is a product of Capital Accessibility, LLC.
>
> -- 
>
> Janina Sajka, Phone: +1.202.595.7777; sip:janina@a11y.org
> Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC http://CapitalAccessibility.Com
>
> Marketing the Owasys 22C talking screenless cell phone in the U.S. and 
> Canada
> Learn more at http://ScreenlessPhone.Com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>
> __________ NOD32 2338 (20070619) Information __________
>
> This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system.
> http://www.eset.com
>
> 

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Gaijin]

ace wrote:
> What does one do if they are using a LFS or non-Deb/Fedora distro?  Also, is 
> the UK voice available?

     I wonder if it speaks Klingon.  How did spammers get on the list?

         Michael

doubletalk lt

[randy turner]

hi,
did rcsystems still have doubletalk lts?
hope so because i am also looking for one.
randy

Re: doubletalk lt

[Gregory Nowak]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Yup. When I checked their order page I think 2 days ago, it said they
were in stock.

Greg



On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 05:52:39PM -0500, randy turner wrote:
> hi,
> did rcsystems still have doubletalk lts?
> hope so because i am also looking for one.
> randy
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

- -- 
web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
skype: gregn1
(authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)

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eWYroVc4acSNpyXv2Og4w9o=
=4TJw
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Janina Sajka]

ace writes:
> What does one do if they are using a LFS or non-Deb/Fedora distro?  Also, is 
> the UK voice available?
> 
The U.K. voice is available, as is noted in our announcement.

Aside from Fedora rpm, or Debian/Ubuntu .deb, we have no distro specific
packaging at this time, unfortunately.

Janina

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Gregory Nowak]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 01:16:35PM -0400, Janina Sajka wrote:
> Aside from Fedora rpm, or Debian/Ubuntu .deb, we have no distro specific
> packaging at this time, unfortunately.

Since he's using lfs, all he'd really need would be a tar.gz/tar.bz2
archive. As has been pointed out earlier, a tarball would allow the
package to be installed on non-rpm/deb distros. I would think a
tarball would also be easier to produce than an rpm/deb package.

Greg


- -- 
web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
skype: gregn1
(authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)

- --
Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail dns-manager@EU.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

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4V1+yqJpudr6TXAjqMllcmA=
=+FFr
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Luke Yelavich]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Wed, Jun 20, 2007 at 05:38:41AM EST, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> Since he's using lfs, all he'd really need would be a tar.gz/tar.bz2
> archive. As has been pointed out earlier, a tarball would allow the
> package to be installed on non-rpm/deb distros. I would think a
> tarball would also be easier to produce than an rpm/deb package.

While making a tarball would be easy, the person using it would  have to 
be sure they had the libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 shared library, which is 
from gcc 2.95. Luckily, Ubuntu/Debian and Fedora still carry this, but I 
doubt very much whether other distros do, and it would certainly not be 
trivial to build it.
- -- 
Luke Yelavich
GPG key: 0xD06320CE 
	 (http://www.themuso.com/themuso-gpg-key.txt)
Email & MSN: themuso@themuso.com
Jabber: themuso@jabber.org.au
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=0504
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Doug Sutherland]

Luke said:
While making a tarball would be easy, the person using it would  have to
be sure they had the libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 shared library, which is
 from gcc 2.95. Luckily, Ubuntu/Debian and Fedora still carry this, but I
 doubt very much whether other distros do, and it would certainly not be
 trivial to build it.

Doug adds:
It's not trivial but it is doable. I have in fact done exactly that with the
ibm tts in the past, both on LFS and slackware. It does take some
considerable work, because we're talking raw guts of toolchain here.
There various parts of toolchain of specific version that are known to
work with specific versions of the other parts, like any given gcc will
work with some version of binutils and glibc etc. But I can say it is
doable and satisfying to get it done. It is also an opportunity to use
the knowledge gained in LFS toolchain build to good use. It is even
possible to actually have two different glibc versions on a system.
I wish I would have kept specific notes on what I did, but oh well.
Actually some of my notes may be in the archives of this list, I seem
to recall posting at least some info about what I did to make it work.
After changing distros, kernels, versions, etc so many times I gave
up on ibm tts, but I really do love that product. It's a shame that
ibm gave up on it, I recall an IBM engineer explaining that they
spent millions on it and could not keep doing that for free. I think
however that most of that work was on the recogniton part. The
tts was tiny compared to the recognition engine and it was clear
that their focus was on recognition. They were and are a bit out
of touch because tts has much more direct useful application
while the recognition was not worth it for me, it was cool to
play with but not accurate. It seems they have since shifted their
efforts in two other directions instead of regular old linux, they
focused on speech on embedded systems, and rolled their
speech strategy into websphere, where they make gazillions
of dollars selling to big enterprise. I suppose we should just
be glad that linux work is still available. It was a strange idea
how they did the tts, you could buy it .. or not. It was free
but you could buy it! And they wondered why nobody did.
Still chuckling over that.

  -- Doug

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Janina Sajka]

Doug Sutherland writes:
> Luke said:
> While making a tarball would be easy, the person using it would  have to
> be sure they had the libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 shared library, which is
>  from gcc 2.95. Luckily, Ubuntu/Debian and Fedora still carry this, but I
>  doubt very much whether other distros do, and it would certainly not be
>  trivial to build it.
> 
> Doug adds:
> It's not trivial but it is doable. I have in fact done exactly that with the
> ibm tts in the past, both on LFS and slackware. It does take some
> considerable work, because we're talking raw guts of toolchain here.


And we would get hit up for tech support on it--about a distro we don't
use.

Please note we've never said there wouldn't be $DISTRO packages in the
future. All things are possible, certainly. Our value add has been the
attempt to make the wiring easy and straight forward, so one can do
something like:

yum --nogpgcheck install ttsynthcore-1.0.rpm

Janina

RE: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Georgina Joyce]

Hi

I didn't see anything about a British voice.  We all assume that the English ViaVoice is Reid which is American.

The lfs team have a script to unpack debs and rpms.  So that they can be installed on a lfs / blfs system.  Can't remember what it is called.  I guess slackware users would need it too, in that case.



Gena

Amateur Call: M 0 E B P

VOIP / IM: gena1959uk



-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca] On Behalf Of Janina Sajka
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 6:17 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: TTSynth Is Available Again


ace writes:
> What does one do if they are using a LFS or non-Deb/Fedora distro?  Also, is 
> the UK voice available?
> 
The U.K. voice is available, as is noted in our announcement.

Aside from Fedora rpm, or Debian/Ubuntu .deb, we have no distro specific
packaging at this time, unfortunately.

Janina

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

__________ NOD32 2338 (20070619) Information __________

This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system.
http://www.eset.com

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Doug Sutherland]

Slackware has the rpm tool available in distro so no need for any
script. If you're doing LFS then "you're on your own" it is not 
reasonable to expect people to make software "LFS compatible".
But then if you're into LFS then surely you can make whatever 
minor tweaks necessary to adapt, and that will be half the fun.
Slack and LFS are two of my fave distros. Less is more :)

Gena wrote:
The lfs team have a script to unpack debs and rpms.  So that they can 
be installed on a lfs / blfs system.  Can't remember what it is called.  
I guess slackware users would need it too, in that case.

RE: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Jim Grimsby Jr.]

Here I go about to spam the list how ever there is another group that have
this synthesizer you can get it from 
http://voxin.oralux.net/
It is install from a shell script.  
Hth 

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Doug Sutherland
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 8:00 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: TTSynth Is Available Again


Slackware has the rpm tool available in distro so no need for any script. If
you're doing LFS then "you're on your own" it is not 
reasonable to expect people to make software "LFS compatible". But then if
you're into LFS then surely you can make whatever 
minor tweaks necessary to adapt, and that will be half the fun. Slack and
LFS are two of my fave distros. Less is more :)

Gena wrote:
The lfs team have a script to unpack debs and rpms.  So that they can 
be installed on a lfs / blfs system.  Can't remember what it is called.  
I guess slackware users would need it too, in that case.


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup


-- 
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.9.1/854 - Release Date: 6/19/2007
1:12 PM

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Doug Sutherland]

Okay I am now curious, TTSynth and Voxin are two speech
packages for purchase that include the IBM TTS which was 
free, and yet the viavoice doesn't seem to be downloadable 
anywhere anymore. Is there nowhere to download the IBM 
TTS anymore? Was it licensed for resale or something?

  -- Doug 

RE: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Georgina Joyce]

Hi

I didn't raise the question, if you look, you will see I was answering someone else's enquiry.  I've never expected anything in that respect. <Gees>

Thank you.

Gena

Amateur Call: M 0 E B P

VOIP / IM: gena1959uk



-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca] On Behalf Of Doug Sutherland
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 4:00 AM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: TTSynth Is Available Again


Slackware has the rpm tool available in distro so no need for any
script. If you're doing LFS then "you're on your own" it is not 
reasonable to expect people to make software "LFS compatible".
But then if you're into LFS then surely you can make whatever 
minor tweaks necessary to adapt, and that will be half the fun.
Slack and LFS are two of my fave distros. Less is more :)

Gena wrote:
The lfs team have a script to unpack debs and rpms.  So that they can 
be installed on a lfs / blfs system.  Can't remember what it is called.  
I guess slackware users would need it too, in that case.


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

__________ NOD32 2340 (20070620) Information __________

This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system.
http://www.eset.com

RE: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Georgina Joyce]

Hi

Another UK lfs geek, hey I'm the only lfs in the village!  <giggles>  You've got to be a Little Britain fan to understand that one.  

I was going to comment upon the English meaning American but didn't want to be flamed.  <smile>

A nice bit of free publicity though!

Gena

Amateur Call: M 0 E B P

VOIP / IM: gena1959uk



-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca] On Behalf Of ace
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 4:13 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: TTSynth Is Available Again


What does one do if they are using a LFS or non-Deb/Fedora distro?  Also, is 
the UK voice available?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007 8:09 PM
Subject: TTSynth Is Available Again


> Dear Friends:
>
> Shortly after we launched TTSynth a few weeks ago, we discovered that
> certain users were having problems downloading our software. We closed
> our doors tempporarily as a result, and spent the last week debugging
> these problems. We believe we have them well solved. Consequently, it is
> once again possible to purchase and download TTSynth.
>
> http://TTSynth.Com
>
> Of course we also provided packages through email to those few customers
> who experienced problems with our initial release. We believe there are
> now no outstanding issues.
>
> Specifically, we had two problems to fix in our automated download 
> process:
>
> 1.) Customers using Internet Explorer on Microsoft Windows were
> unable to complete transactions. This is now fixed.
>
> 2.) Some customers using Debian or Ubuntu experienced failures due
> to a bug we uncovered in the earlier version of GNU TLS used on these
> two distributions. Of course it is very important that your Internet
> transaction is properly protected by SSL. This is now also fixed.
>
> Consequently, the premier Text To Speech (TTS) software synthesizer for
> Linux is once again available for immediate secure on line purchase and
> download using a credit card!
>
> Available Modules Include:
>     * IBM's incomparable IBM TTS text to speech (formerly called
>       ViaVoice)
>     * Gnome-Speech patched for use with LSR and Orca
>     * The TTSynth Speakup Bridge for screen reading with Speakup
>     * ttsynth_say binary for the CLI or for use in scripts
>     * Also supported by Emacspeak KTTS, and Speech Dispatcher
>
> Available Languages For Linux
>     * Chinese
>     * English
>     * Finnish
>     * French
>     * German
>     * Italian
>     * Japanese
>     * Portuguese
>     * Spanish
>
>   The best is also very affordable. Your first language license is only 
> $40 USD
> and each additional language license is only $20 USD, when obtained at the
> same time.
>
>   Use your credit card to purchase and download TTSynth now, and start
> enjoying the best software speech available for Linux today.
>
> Go to http://TTSynth.Com.
>
> We provide TTSynth in both .rpm and .deb packages to make it easy to
> install TTSynth on Fedora, Ubuntu, and most Linux distributions which
> utilize these package managers.
>
> TTSynth is a product of Capital Accessibility, LLC.
>
> -- 
>
> Janina Sajka, Phone: +1.202.595.7777; sip:janina@a11y.org
> Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC http://CapitalAccessibility.Com
>
> Marketing the Owasys 22C talking screenless cell phone in the U.S. and 
> Canada
> Learn more at http://ScreenlessPhone.Com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>
> __________ NOD32 2338 (20070619) Information __________
>
> This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system.
> http://www.eset.com
>
> 


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

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This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system.
http://www.eset.com

RE: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Steve Dawes]

Is this an appropriate post for this list.
I am reading that your company stands to profit from such a post.
Simply put, this post is SPAM.
I joined this list with the understanding that this list would not be the
source of SPAM.
Please stop SPAMMING me through this list.


-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca
[mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]On Behalf Of Janina Sajka
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007 6:10 PM
To: speakup@braille.uwo.ca
Subject: TTSynth Is Available Again


Dear Friends:

Shortly after we launched TTSynth a few weeks ago, we discovered that
certain users were having problems downloading our software. We closed
our doors tempporarily as a result, and spent the last week debugging
these problems. We believe we have them well solved. Consequently, it is
once again possible to purchase and download TTSynth.

http://TTSynth.Com

Of course we also provided packages through email to those few customers
who experienced problems with our initial release. We believe there are
now no outstanding issues.

Specifically, we had two problems to fix in our automated download process:

1.)	Customers using Internet Explorer on Microsoft Windows were
unable to complete transactions. This is now fixed.

2.)	Some customers using Debian or Ubuntu experienced failures due
to a bug we uncovered in the earlier version of GNU TLS used on these
two distributions. Of course it is very important that your Internet
transaction is properly protected by SSL. This is now also fixed.

Consequently, the premier Text To Speech (TTS) software synthesizer for
Linux is once again available for immediate secure on line purchase and
download using a credit card!

Available Modules Include:
     * IBM's incomparable IBM TTS text to speech (formerly called
       ViaVoice)
     * Gnome-Speech patched for use with LSR and Orca
     * The TTSynth Speakup Bridge for screen reading with Speakup
     * ttsynth_say binary for the CLI or for use in scripts
     * Also supported by Emacspeak KTTS, and Speech Dispatcher

Available Languages For Linux
     * Chinese
     * English
     * Finnish
     * French
     * German
     * Italian
     * Japanese
     * Portuguese
     * Spanish

   The best is also very affordable. Your first language license is only $40
USD
and each additional language license is only $20 USD, when obtained at the
same time.

   Use your credit card to purchase and download TTSynth now, and start
enjoying the best software speech available for Linux today.

Go to http://TTSynth.Com.

We provide TTSynth in both .rpm and .deb packages to make it easy to
install TTSynth on Fedora, Ubuntu, and most Linux distributions which
utilize these package managers.

TTSynth is a product of Capital Accessibility, LLC.

--

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.202.595.7777;	sip:janina@a11y.org
Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC	http://CapitalAccessibility.Com

Marketing the Owasys 22C talking screenless cell phone in the U.S. and
Canada
Learn more at http://ScreenlessPhone.Com

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Fedora 7 Questions:

[Steve Dawes]

Where can I find a Fedora 7 speakup-modified kernel?
I just went to the ftp.linux-speakup.org site and could not find it.
I was looking in the pub/speakup/disks/fedora path and only found files
up-to FC6.

If nothing is available, where can I find some instructions on creating a
speakup-modified Fedora kernel myself?

I am not worried about having a speakup modified install media, I am willing
to install from the standard Fedora 7 install and then apply the speakup
modified kernel following the F7 install.

Thanks

Steve

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Travis Siegel]

Why would you need any libs (regardless of gcc version) if it was a  
statically linked binary?
All linux distros can use statically linked binaries can't they? so  
what's the problem?
unless static linked versions of said binary aren't possible to build  
perhaps?

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Doug Sutherland]

Travis wrote:
Why would you need any libs (regardless of gcc version) if it was a  
statically linked binary?

I haven't touched the TTSynth but a few years ago worked on 
getting the tts part of viavoice working on newer versions of 
slackware and also on lfs. The problem is that when the tts 
was released, that statically built binary was built using the 
toolchain and runtime environment of the time, and at some 
point it stopped working for most people. You had the choice
not upgrading your os (not a good choice!) or not having the 
tts, or trying to work around the problem. 

I forget the exact details but essentially glibc is tricky as far 
as distributions go, it is built as part of the toolchain since 
other stuff uses it, and the toolchain, that being the compiler,
assembler, linker, binutils, etc, they work together in certain
versions and they crash hard in others. You cannot take an
old binutils and expect it to work with a newer gcc or 
glibc. 

I recall that on slackware I was able to get it working on 
newer versions using some additional binaries and creating 
some symbolic links, basically I copied over binaries from 
older version of slackware and added them with the 
necessary links so the tts could find and use them. LFS was 
a different story. I had to try building several different entire 
toolchains until I found one that worked. If you arbitrarily 
pick a combination of binutils, gcc, and glibc, odds are 
that you won't even get the toolchain built. It will fail in 
the compile somewhere because these are moving targets.
It is actually quite a lot of work to get a stable toolchain
built from source, even more so if you diverge from x86
into arm and other architectures. 

As I said, I forget the exact details, but don't forget that 
even if a binary is statically compiled, it's built to work with 
a runtime c library. At some point the old binary started 
crashing with unable to resolve symbol errors. If one 
wants to get ibm tts working on slackware or lfs they 
probably need to incorporate old runtime libraries that
don't exist. With LFS in particular, the whole idea of the
system is build it as you like it, so that's why I say you
are on your own with that system. I often see how most
software will have fedora or debian or whatever support
or pre-compiled binaries, doubt you'll ever see them for
LFS, it's not even reallt considered a distro, is it?

On slackware, I'm used to having to do extra work 
because not many projects support slackware or have
any slackware precompiled binaries. On the other 
hand I almost never add binaries, only build from 
source, so that never bugs me too much. It can be a 
challenge though, for example to get the latest vmware
working on slackware you have to create a fake 
(empty) system v style init directory tree or the install
will just fail. You also have to install pam and change
a few things in the pam configuration that comes with
vmware. I still like slackware and lfs because I can 
understand them. The other systems can be a bit 
mysterious at times, convenient when they work 
but not as easy to figure out when things break. 

> All linux distros can use statically linked binaries can't they? so  
> what's the problem?
> unless static linked versions of said binary aren't possible to build  
> perhaps?

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Travis Siegel]

I thought the whole point of static linked binaries was to remove the  
exact problem you're talking about.
My understanding (which apparently is wrong) was that when you static  
link a binary, it includes *all* libs required for execution of that  
program, regardless of how many/what version/where they're located/  
etc.  It obviously makes the executable larger, but prevents the  
problems you're talking about not having the proper lib versions  
installed.
My understanding was that the whole static link thing was  
specifically supposed to solve this exact problem.
What am I missing here?

This isn't how they work according to what you're saying, but  
according to what I've read (admittedly, it's been a while, so things  
may have changed) this is the expected behavior.

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Doug Sutherland]

A better answer ...

Travis wrote:
> Why would you need any libs (regardless of gcc version) if it was a
> statically linked binary?

Well, here's what I wrote about getting it working on slackware 9.1
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~priestdo/emacspeak/list.archive.2004/msg00128.html

Apparently it's not actually a statically linked binary because I had
to use glibc 2.3.1 and invoke viavoice using ld-2.3.1.so. We take
a lot for granted with distros, it's generally easy to build kernels
but the toolchain can be a bear. Note that the enu50.so (the
speech engine library) not only required an old glibc, it had to be
invoked using old loader. When I did this I had two glibc versions
and two loader versions on my system. I don't know if there is a
better way, but this approach worked on slackware and lfs.
I have no idea if that is still true today, apparently I did it three
years ago.

Also from my notes, on slackware I used rpm2tgz to unpack viavoice.
Now I remember, the rpm tool choked because of dependencies.

I will not reveal how many hours I messed with getting viavoice
working on newer systems. An insane amount I think.

  -- Doug

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Travis Siegel]

Ahh, now that makes sense.  Not a real static linked lib.
Ok, so next question.
Why would they distribute such a prog and not distribute it as a  
truly static linked binary?
Wouldn't that prevent future problems?
Just silly.

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Doug Sutherland]

IBM Alpha Works ... 
Attracts you like a bug to lamp and then you get zapped.
A constant stream of cool stuff that you invest time in that 
you can't do anything with because you can't distribute, 
and then they pull the plug on it and work on some other 
"alpha" works. 

They probably did it that way to make it smaller.
The tts engine was small but the recognition engine was not.
If every program on your linux distro included the glibc 
statically, would be a tad redundant. Look at how big 
the animal actually is. I needed 800MB to build glibc
from source!

Travis wrote:
> Why would they distribute such a prog and not distribute it as a  
> truly static linked binary?
> Wouldn't that prevent future problems?
> Just silly.

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Travis Siegel]

Oh, I'm not suggesting that *every* program be distributed as a  
static linked binary, only those that you can't obtain source for.   
That would eliminate a *lot* of problems like this one, and ones I've  
run into with lotus notes as well.
If these commercial companies aren't allowing sources so folks can  
rebuild when they move distros, then they *should* distribute static  
linked executables so you don't have to go  through this kind of  
nonsense.  I'd think it'd be in their best interest to do so, since  
it would mean fewer support calls, fewer complaints, and most of all,  
future compatibility regardless of linux distro the client is using.
But, that's just me.

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Doug Sutherland]

A better answer regarding the tts dependencies ...

Travis wrote:
> Why would you need any libs (regardless of gcc version) if it was a
> statically linked binary?

Well, here's what I wrote about getting it working on slackware 9.1
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~priestdo/emacspeak/list.archive.2004/msg00128.html

Apparently it's not actually a statically linked binary because I had
to use glibc 2.3.1 and invoke viavoice using ld-2.3.1.so. We take
a lot for granted with distros, it's generally easy to build kernels
but the toolchain can be a bear. Note that the library enu50.so
(the speech engine) not only required an old glibc, it had to be
invoked using old loader. When I did this I had two glibc versions
and two loader versions on my system. I don't know if there is a
better way, but this approach worked on slackware and lfs.

At one point I was able to get it working on newer slackware
by using old binaries, but that eventually was not reliable anymore.
I have no idea if that is still true today, or if the instructions in my
archived message still work, apparently I did it three years ago.

Also from my notes, on slackware I used rpm2tgz to unpack viavoice.
Now I remember, the rpm tool choked because of dependencies.

I spent an insane amount of time getting viavoice working on
newer system. I for one have appreciation for what was done
with TTSynth, whatever that was I have no idea.

  -- Doug

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[hanke]

>> I am wanting to know if the source code is available.
>Yes and no. Please consult:
>http://TTSynth.Com/pub/COPYING.

It looks to me that the source code is definitely not available
except for small helper applications like tts_connector which
are useless without the main TTSynth code anyway, am I right? :(
I don't know much about IBM TTS, so please let me know if this is correct.

With regards,
Hynek Hanke

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Luke Yelavich]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 08:18:12PM EST, hanke@volny.cz wrote:
> It looks to me that the source code is definitely not available
> except for small helper applications like tts_connector which
> are useless without the main TTSynth code anyway, am I right? :(
> I don't know much about IBM TTS, so please let me know if this is correct.

This is correct.
- -- 
Luke Yelavich
GPG key: 0xD06320CE 
	 (http://www.themuso.com/themuso-gpg-key.txt)
Email & MSN: themuso@themuso.com
Jabber: themuso@jabber.org.au
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

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9h34yYLhAU+S1073hLN0iKo=
=LeUI
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Doug Sutherland]

There has never been source code available for ibm viavoice.
It is not open source, never has been, never will be. What 
was provided was a header file to be included in your own 
source which allowed you to invoke engine functions. See 
the documentation for ibm tts, it's all spelled out.

Hynek Hanke said:
It looks to me that the source code is definitely not available
except for small helper applications like tts_connector which
are useless without the main TTSynth code anyway, am I right? :(

Unless things are different than when I use it, and I don't think
so, there is a binary executable with an API that you can call
from programs. That doesn't make it useless, it just means 
the engine is not open source. You shouldn't need to mess 
with the engine anyways. 

>From what I have seen, I'm pretty sure IBM didn't own the 
source for tts, so they can't give it away. It looks to me like
it's a license from eloquence, binary license.

  -- Doug

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[Janina Sajka]

hanke@volny.cz writes:
> >> I am wanting to know if the source code is available.
> >Yes and no. Please consult:
> >http://TTSynth.Com/pub/COPYING.
> 
> It looks to me that the source code is definitely not available
> except for small helper applications like tts_connector which
> are useless without the main TTSynth code anyway, am I right? :(
> I don't know much about IBM TTS, so please let me know if this is correct.


The ibmtts componant, the TTS engine itself, is proprietary, as it has
ever been in its various incarnations. Despite this unfortunate fact,
and despite some unfortunate resulting issues we cannot ourselves
readily address, it remains the most asked for computer voice. You may
know this voice by some of its other tradenames, such as Viavoice or
Eloquence. The core code is the same in all of these.

Furthermore, our docs clearly state this. I don't understand your point,
therefore.

Janina

Re: TTSynth Is Available Again

[hanke]

> The ibmtts componant, the TTS engine itself, is proprietary,
> as it has ever been in its various incarnations. 
> I don't understand your point, therefore.

Thanks for the explanation.

With regards,
Hynek Hanke