DonationCoder.com Software > N.A.N.Y. 2010
NANY 2010 Program Idea Suggestion Thread
doctorfrog:
EXPOSITION
I really envy my friend's Mac for only one thing: the talking clock. It's such a pleasant and slightly wooden voice, piping up every half hour to calmly state the time.
Every now and then, I look around for a Window equivalent. They're all terrible. Or require money. Or are written in MS Basic '95. Or use scratchy samples of annoying sounds.
I'm not sure why, it being nearly 2010, Microsoft doesn't have voice synthesis worth a damn. Apple has more pleasant synth voices emanating from tiny iPods. The last thing I want is a talking clock that makes any use of Microsoft voices.
I guess what that leaves me is a talking clock that intelligently uses wav samples. Fortunately, there is a fairly decent voice synthesis engine available online. It generates wav files which can be used as fodder for this program (see my caveat below, however):
http://www2.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php
A TALKING CLOCK, YOU SAY
So, what I'm suggesting is:
- a talking clock
- that uses a small assortment of wav files to announce the time
- example: "It's one p.m."
- clock seamlessly plays:
- its.wav, one.wav, pm.wav (three wavs, played one after the other, smoothly to form a single sentence)
- user-configurable announce intervals (:15, :30, :60, never)
- clock is itself extremely small and efficient, using next to no resources
- clock has an icon that can show in the tray, or not show in the tray, depending on what the user wants.
- clock no dependence on external runtimes.
BONUS:
- hotkey/double-click announces current time
- configurable countdown timer
- alarm clock with, say, three alarms
CAVEAT:
- the att voice demo does not allow redistribution of generated files. users will have to create their own from the demo or other sources. The developer of this project will have to supply his/her own wav files with the install package. Still not a bad idea, people could record their kids saying the numbers and have the clock regurgitate them back at them, or some other irritating usage.
GrowMap:
I don't know if this is the best place but we (serious bloggers and Social Networking users) REALLY need some tools built. I belong to a private group of really sharp power users who will gladly alpha and beta test them and with my persuasion I have no doubt that we would also be interested in promoting the tools developed to the public.
I know this is donationcoder; however, these tools would be highly marketable and we could set up an affiliate program and get power affiliates to sell them for the developer(s). The founder of our group has an affiliate marketing blog and company that is often ranked number one and some of the others are power affiliates.
We need two things:
1) A way to identify specific blogs we want to interact with consistently and track our comments and links in those blogs. Ideally this tool would include Blog Name, hot-linked URL, PR, DF, CL, KL (PageRank, Dofollow, CommentLuv, KeywordLuv). We could add that data manually or a really slick tool would identify and update PR and toggle DF, CL, KL.
2) Blogging Group tool with these features:
a) Ability for each member to add and update their site URLs and the most important Keyword Phrases and specific page/post to link to each phrase.
b) Ability for each member to add and update their Social Networks (ideally where they only have to add their user name and NOT the entire link - the tool should know how to format it)
c) Section for members to share requests to spread only their most important, most recent content. If that section could allow other members to check off that they chose to share that specific item and where (columns for Tw, SU, Fa, Fr, Di, De, Re where those abbreviations stand for Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook, FriendFeed, Digg, Delicious and Reddit) that would make it even more valuable.
What we need is a fast, effective way to be consistently productive. Members need to focus on what is most important and this tool would hone in on that. Every business, corporation, Search Marketer, blogger could really use a tool like this.
mouser:
Here's a small one:
What about a program that sits in the system tray and lets you configure 2 colors and a numeric range. Essentially you are setting two ends of a range, a min and max value, and a color associated with each end of the range.
At any time you could double click to type in a new current numeric value, and it would adjust the desktop background color to a blend between the min and max of the range and between the two colors.
The idea: You could set one color like blue that you really like on your desktop, and one, say Red, that you really dislike. Then you set the range to indicate for example your weight if you are on a diet, or a min and max # of pages you have to read a book each day. So when you deviate from your goal, the background will be something you really dislike.. might serve as a nice motivation.
mouser:
On a related note, I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't already have this program requested in coding snacks and implemented, but what about a super simple program that lets you easily configure a list of [ActivityLabel,Color,WallpaperImageFile] items (has to be easy to edit and add these from a nice gui so it's really quick and fun!), and then lives in the tray where you can right click and choose a new Activity Label from the menu, and changes desktop to that.
I think it could just be useful to help you change what project/activity you are working on at any given time, with some nice visual feedback.
Could add other things to it like showing in menu amount of time spent in current activity, etc.
Paul Keith:
Here's a small one:
What about a program that sits in the system tray and lets you configure 2 colors and a numeric range. Essentially you are setting two ends of a range, a min and max value, and a color associated with each end of the range.
At any time you could double click to type in a new current numeric value, and it would adjust the desktop background color to a blend between the min and max of the range and between the two colors.
The idea: You could set one color like blue that you really like on your desktop, and one, say Red, that you really dislike. Then you set the range to indicate for example your weight if you are on a diet, or a min and max # of pages you have to read a book each day. So when you deviate from your goal, the background will be something you really dislike.. might serve as a nice motivation.
-mouser (December 04, 2009, 04:14 PM)
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This doesn't fit the bill but maybe you guys can contact the people who did this program for help: F.lux
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