NextUp.com TTS Newsletter - May 2007

May 2007

[1 - Greetings - Win Something from NextUp.com]
[2 - Attention - We Are Changing Newsletter Service Providers]
[3 - NextUp.com Products and Windows Vista]
[4 - Wikipedia.com - Great Source for informative listening]
[5 - Help The World Find TextAloud]

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[1 - Greetings - Win Something from NextUp.com]
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Hello from NextUp.com:

Be sure to read item 2 below about our changing newsletter service providers so we can continue to reach you.

Congratulations to Sandi K., winner of the Creative Labs 256MB Muvo MP3 player.  This month one lucky winner will receive a NextUp.com golf shirt, so be sure to read on for details on how you can enter.  Thanks for staying tuned!

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[2 - Attention - We Are Changing Newsletter Service Providers]
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For several years now we've used ListBuilder (from Microsoft bCentral) to send our newsletters.  ListBuilder is closing and we are making a switch to Constant Contact, the leading company we found now offering these services.  This newsletter you are reading will be the last one we send through ListBuilder, so it is important for all of you who use spam filters to please change your filters so that you can continue to receive our newsletters by email. We frequently hear from customers who expect to receive out monthly newsletter and aren't, only to have them find that whatever spam filtering tools they use are incorrectly blocking the newsletter.  Typically with whatever spam filter or spam blocking software you use, there will be a method for specifying that certain emails should always be allowed through.  The simplest method for making sure our newsletter isn't blocked is to specify that the sending address is allowed or is a friend. 

Please set your spam filters to allow email from the following two Constant Contact domains:

@in.constantcontact.com
@in.confirmedcc.com

Another method is that some spam filters allow certain keywords or subjects.  If your spam filter allows this, simply state that any email that contains NextUp.com should be allowed.

For more information, please visit

http://www.nextup.com/listbuilder.html

Thank you for taking time to make this change so we can continue to communicate with you.  If you have any questions or problems, please contact us by email to
support@nextup.com.

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[3 - NextUp.com Products and Windows Vista]
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Windows Vista is finally here, and we've been hard at work over the last 9 months making sure our products are ready.  The latest versions of TextAloud, WeatherAloud, and NewsAloud as well as all of our voices are fully Vista compatible.  If you upgrade to Windows Vista, be sure to drop by our site and grab the last versions of our Aloud products and they will install fine in Vista.  If you have any problems at all, just drop us a note at support@nextup.com and we'll be glad to help.

All of our voices work great with Windows Vista.  There are two issues that previous voice buyers may run into when installing on Vista.  If you have a version of Natural Voices purchased prior to a year ago, the installers aren't Vista aware, and may give you a message that the operating system isn't adequate for install.  If this happens, email us and we can provide a quick fix.  Similarly, earlier installers of the Nuance RealSpeak voices may have trouble recognizing that TextAloud is registered, preventing install of the voices.  If this happens, email us and we have a quick fix.

If you haven't checked out all of the voices we have available, this is a great time to bring new quality and personality to TextAloud by adding a voice or two.  Take a quick listen to samples of the great voices we offer, and as always, if you have any questions at all, let us know.

Nuance RealSpeak Voices in 21 Languages
http://www.nextup.com/scansoft.html

Acapela Voices in 15 Languages
http://www.nextup.com/acapela.html

NeoSpeech Voices in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean
http://www.nextup.com/neospeech.html

AT&T Natural Voices
http://www.nextup.com/attnv.html

Cepstral Voices
http://www.nextup.com/Cepstral.html

Typically, due to file size and license restrictions we aren't able to make downloadable trial versions of voices available, but we've worked with Cepstral to provide a fully functional demo version of their Callie voice.  You can download this voice at

http://nextup.com/files/callie.msi

Simply download and install Callie, then exit and restart TextAloud to give her a try.

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[4 - Wikipedia.com - Great Source for informative listening]
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>From time to time we share a site we think offers great content for TextAloud listening.  The internet and computers have changed the world in many ways, but this has to be one of the best examples of the good they offer.  Gone are the day when door-to-door salesmen sold expensive encyclopedia sets, or when you could get one or two books of Funk and Wagnall's encyclopedia cheap at the grocery store.  Thanks to the internet, great information on pretty much anything you can imagine is a few clicks away and free.  Check out Wikipedia at

http://www.wikipedia.org/

This free internet based encyclopedia is available in a variety of languages and the amount of good information there is amazing.  Pick out a topic, whether it is a hobby, job related, something you are studying, or really any topic you want to learn more about.  Do a quick search, then bring pages of content into TextAloud.  Listen on the PC or make MP3 files and take them to go.  It is a great way to learn more and keep your brain young.

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[5 - Help The World Find TextAloud]
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Search engines play a huge role in helping our customers find us, so it is important that we identify search terms (also called keywords) that closely match what potential customers are searching for to meet their software needs.  For this month's contest, we'll give a NextUp.com golfshirt to the entry that gives us the most useful suggestion on potential keywords.  You don't have to send us a ton of potential keywords (although that is welcome).  The winner could be someone who sends us several potential search terms, or even one search term that we maybe haven't thought of yet.  The prize will go to the entry that we find most useful.  If the response is high and we get more than one really helpful entry, we might give away an additional shirt or two. 

Send your email to

newsletterdrawing@nextup.com

We'll pick a winner from entries received by Friday, June 8 to win a NextUp.com golf shirt. 

If you find our products useful, please share the news with your friends and at your place of business.  We offer Volume Pricing with Site Licensing available to schools, organizations and businesses.  If you'd like more information on this or have questions about any of our products, please don't hesitate to contact us at

support@nextup.com

Thank you for your interest in our company & products. 

The NextUp.com Team
NextUp.com
The Power of Spoken Audio
http://www.NextUp.com

A Division of NextUp Technologies, LLC