Brian Reynolds Identity Folder

Welcome to our demo.

This is the Identity Folder for Brian Reynolds with extension 801 on our demo.verbol.com demonstration server by Family Systems. This is Brian writing and I am very pleased to show you our first open example of Verbol Web Server V3 with Voice System providing a host of innovative features which together enable us to use voice as a medium of record like text, and featuring Voicechat , an alternative to phoning each other by which we can make voice recordings and play and navigate among them.

This is an experimental prototype which is evolving and here is our present Voice System Road Map.   All our work is licenced as CC+COOPY which provides free Creative Commons licensing for non-commercial use and cooperative licensing for commercial use.

Calling me

You can call me for help in getting started in several ways. If you have a headset and Java is enabled in your browser, you can simply click on Phone Brian on x801.   This uses PhoneFromHere to call me directly from your browser in a free VOIP call (as long as my softphone is loaded in my laptop).

If that link does not work on your PC which may be the case if you are in a corporate environment, or you are without a headset, you can reach me by following the directions Voice access using Skype and regular phones below. These enable you to call me via Skype or by a regular phone call to a New York or UK number, in either case remembering to dial extension 801 when our system answers.

While we are connected through the Voice System, each party to the call can elect to record his or her voice by pressing * in the Skype or phone keypad once. This starts our call recording process for that party after which individual voice recordings are created each time he or she speaks and silence is ignored.   Both parties can speak at once and both will be recorded. STOP PRESS as a byproduct of creating our Wave demo, both sides of all calls made through demo.verbol.com will be recorded automatically and * has no effect; if you make a call please advise the other party and ensure their consent. We will consider feedback before reverting to the earlier behavior.

These voice recordings are then accessible in the voicechat playlist in the sequence they were started and messages with links to call, play, annotate and email them are sent to my daily journal page which we can browse as described below in daily journal pages and voice messages.

Calling my voicechat

As an alternative to calling me directly, we can call my voicechat extension 4801 as described in Calling Voicechat using PhoneFromHere. For instance, if at any time during the call we get interrupted and want to replay what we said, we can Call Brian's Voicechat extension 4801 at endwhich will start playing from the latest point in the message stream we are generating. A few presses of touch tone 4 skips back and replays the messages and there are a wealth of navigation features described inVoicechat Help.

We may continue a conversation in voicechat by both clicking Call Brian's Voicechat extension 4801 at end. With voicechat, echoes are not a problem, and so a headset is not necessary and your PC's microphone and speaker may be used. If Java is not enabled in your browser you can call my voicechat via Skype or a regular call to the New York or UK number as described below in Voice access using Skype and regular phones, remembering to dial extension 4801 when our system answers.

When Voicechat answers we can use touch tones on the phone keypad to navigate, play and reply to any of the voice recordings as described below in Using Voicechat. We can also call voicechat to speak our thoughts when we have them and hold voice conversations with each other even when we are not available at the same time.   Also, when several people are using the same voicechat extension, we can see what each other is doing and send text annotations among the voice messages as described below in Chat interface.

Calling Voicechat using PhoneFromHere

For computers with Java enabled, we can call voicechat by clicking on: Call Brian's Voicechat extension 4801. If your computer does not support this feature, you can still access our system by Skype or phone; see next section.

When you are connected you will be positioned at the end of the last message played; pressing 9 in the keypad takes you to the end of the playlist so you can hear new voice messages as they arrive. Or Call Brian's Voicechat extension 4801 at end to position directly to the end of the playlist. See Using Voicechat below to learn how to record voice messages and navigate the playlist.

We can also call Brian directly in a free VOIP call (when his softphone is loaded and provided we have a headset to avoid echoes), by clicking on: Phone Brian on x801. When we are connected, each party can elect to record his voice by pressing * in the phone keypad. These voice recordings are then accessible in the voicechat playlist.

Voice access using Skype and regular phones

We can access the same features from Skype by adding the Skype name "verbolvoice" to our Skype contacts and calling it, or if you have Skype loaded Click here to call verbolvoice via Skype. When our demo server at demo.verbol.com answers, input the extension using Skype's pulldown keypad. Extension 4801 calls my voicechat and 801 calls me. Skype's keypad can be hard to find but it is there. On my Apple PC there is a round button at the bottom of the call window containing a square of dots. On Windows it may be in a pulldown menu reached by a button near the mute button.

The above mechanisms all use free voice over IP (VOIP) from our computers to the voice server. We can also connect by calling our New York number 1212 937 4944 or our UK number +44 (0)161 288 4243 from any normal phone. When our demo server at demo.verbol.com answers, input the extension by touch tone. Extension 4801 calls my voicechat and 801 calls me. Our Voicechat menu is designed to be especially convenient when using a hand held cordless phone.

See below for how to connect using a SIP softphone.

Using Voicechat

Using any of the access methods, prefix the extension with 4 to access voicechat. When you are connected, pressing 9 in the keypad takes you to the end of the playlist so you can hear new voice messages as they arrive.

Then pressing # starts recording your voice and pauses playback and pressing # again stops recording and resumes playback. Our voice messages are placed in the voicechat playlist in the sequence in which we started speaking. Links to the messages are added immediately to the daily journal pages (see below).

When calling from the page we can use the Push to Talk and navigation buttons in the phone panel. These all have touch tone equivalents for use on any phone; for example, 4 skips back in the playlist by one message.

Voicechat is equipped with recorded help messages which explain the touch tone commands and options; press * in the phone to play the help messages; or click on Voicechat Help to read them. Please note that * is pronounced star and # is pronounced pound and known in the UK as "hash"

Voicechat is useful to capture a thought or to hold conversations when the parties are not available at the same time and is not limited to two participants. Each extension has a group chat room (instructions for use below) which can be used to send text messages interspersed with the voice messages and shows a list of the voicechat participants and whether they are recording or listening to a message.

Chitchat mode

Prefixing the extension with 6 instead of 4 accesses chitchat mode which is an experimental variation of voicechat in which pressing # once starts recording after which voice messages are created each time you speak and silence is ignored. In chitchat, message playback continues during recording unless you have paused playback (key 3 to pause and 3 again to resume playing).

This can be useful when several parties are online together and meet in a chitchat extension; it feels like a regular phone call but is not limited to two parties. We can speak at once and all be recorded separately and we can navigate and play back earlier messages while still on the call. If you are in a noisy environment it is helpful to put your phone on mute when not speaking so we don't get unnecessary noise in the voice messages, and if calling from the page it requires use of a headset to avoid recording what you are listening to.

daily journal pages

Links to our voice messages are inserted into today's page of this identity's daily journal pages by an ibot, our name for a background process which has an identity so it can participate in chat rooms and revise pages. The daily journal pages are listed in this page below the insert marker (looks like a tiny book) and today's journal page has a link displaying today's date. You will need to refresh the page from time to time to see the new messages which have arrived.

To try out the behaviour added to this or the daily journal web pages by the Verbol Web Server menu, log in with your user name and password. If not enrolled you can use user name bg1 or bg2 and password guest. The basics of this Verbol Web Server are noted at quick start. Links to new folders and pages will appear at the insert marker (looks like a tiny book with an "i" in the left page).

We can create a playlist of all the voice messages in the page by clicking on the play menu of the toolbar. This brings up a list of playlist types to choose from. I am presently working on an Apple Mac and select "Pay Page with WinAmp (m3u)" then click play page, which on my laptop sends a playlist to Quicktime. I like this because the Quicktime A/V Controls, reached through the Window menu item, let me adjust the playback speed and pitch. On Windows platforms, playback speed can be varied by downloading the appropriate Enounce plug-in and then using the WMP or Real Player playlist formats.

All the menu behaviour is accomplished by the menu item sending a Verbol command to the Verbol Web Server in a link. The Verbol commands are shown as they are constructed at the foot of each menu item display. For instance we can edit a page by adding ?verbol=edit after the URL in the browser address bar and clicking return. This is useful to edit templates which cannot themselves display the menu. A list of templates is found by clicking on the version number at the left of the menu. Displaying a template by clicking on a template link in this list or within a template already displayed then adding ?verbol=edit in the address line and clicking return brings up an html editor to edit the template. Be careful as editing a template will affect all the pages that use it from then on.

voice messages

The ibot also uses the Verbol Insert command to place voice messages in a journal page;

for messages from 14.52 on 4th Sept

1819 13:31:45: Brian Reynolds [demo]<iBot-In> 13:31:49

Timestamp links now always play the single voice message for which they signify the start time. The left most link sets up Phone From Here to call voicechat at this message. The pen and mail icons bring up a form to insert annotations and email a link to this message in the page.

for messages prior to 4th Sept, here is an example of the result.

15 11:28:32: Brian Reynolds[demo]<iBot-In> 11:28:36 >>11:29:04
<<11:28:32 16 11:29:04: Brian Reynolds This is a reply to 15 [Re: demo]<iBot-In> 11:29:08
[11:31:55] <guest2> The last two voice messages are in the demo.

This link << will take you to the message whose timestamp it is next to (you may wish to right click and open in a separate window so you can still see this, also you may have to scroll up a little to see the referenced message).

The left-most numbers in links like this 15 are the master message subscripts for this extension and are allocated in the sequence that voice recordings start. Clicking opens the PhoneFromHere page at this message so we can hear it and reply by voice.

Links like this [Now icon] 11:28:32: allow us to annotate or email this message line, and the example shown above with this link is so annotated.

Links like this [Now timestamp] Brian Reynolds play the message. When we annotate the page, the form sent a verbol command on our behalf to the Verbol Web Server (and the ibots send similar verbol commands to put the voice message links on the page).

Links like this [Re: demo] are for an experimental topic feature presently under construction. At present they lead to the identity home page for the originator of the message. The name in the link can be modified by an =t command followed by the new topic name in the chat room.

Links like this >>11:29:04 and this <<11:28:32jump the browser to the message line with that time stamp and play that message respectively. These are generated when a voice message is recorded while playing another message and allow us to follow threaded conversations.

Chat interface

The voice message links pass from the VOIP server through a group chat room which can be viewed by clicking chat and logging into the JWChat client with your user name and password. If not enrolled you can use user name bg1 or bg2 with password guest. This should bring up a roster window and a group chat window for extension 801 at server conference.jabber.verbol.com. This has a list of participants in the right hand collumn.

The voicechat participants in the chat room are identified by the prefix A* and these participant entries will update to indicate activity such as recording or playing a message. This is very useful when several people are conversing by Voicechat and are on line at the same time, as it enables us to see where each is in the master playlist of the recordings.

Any regular text messages we type into the chat room will be inserted into the page among the voice messages and this is a good way to annotate a voice conversation. [This is illustrated in the last line of the example above.]

Typing =h in the chat room asks the ibot to respond with a list of the Verbol commands it obeys. For example, =t followed by a text string will set a topic name to be displayed in the voice messages stored in the daily journal pages from then on. We can also elect to follow a participant's message playback in which case our chat messages will annotate the message being played. This is useful when applied to our own playback so that we can easily annotate the message we are listening to.

using a SIP phone

A softphone such as the free X-Lite or a SIP phone adapter can be used to connect free to our demonstration voice system and will also allow us to receive VOIP calls to the extension allocated to our identity. For example, to connect to the extension allocated to your identity using the X-Lite softphone, download, install and load the softphone, then click the menu button which is the left most of the 3 buttons at the top of the phone display.

Choose SIP Account Settings and then create an account with the following settings. In the account properties, choose a Display Name such as your name, use your extension as the User name, use your password, use your extension as the Authorisation user name, and demo.verbol.com as the Domain. Check "Register with domain and receive incoming calls" and choose "Send outbound via proxy" with Address set to demo.verbol.com.

If the default setting may have changed, then in the Options menu, expand the Advanced tab and in the Network section, make sure that "Preserve bandwidth during silence period" is not checked (checking it may cause errors in our system's silence detection which enables us to separate voice utterances into separate recordings).

More voice links are at experimental voice links.
If you have any problems with this demonstration system, please email me at br@verbol.com, or Skype me at brinja2 and if I don't answer leave a voicemail.

Links to new folders and pages will appear at the insert marker (looks like a tiny book with an "i" in the left page).

Wed 29 Jul 10:42:21 CDT 2009

Missing Subject Text, Key: subject_20090806T214352

Mon Aug 10 17:51:27 2009

Mon Aug 10 17:52:09 2009

Mon Aug 10 17:52:43 2009

Fri Aug 14 17:34:13 2009

test topic

Tue Aug 25 11:22:34 2009

http://demo.verbol.com/identity-ibook/brianreynolds/2009-08-23.htm

trying topic

Thu Aug 27 14:21:51 2009