Monday, September 22, 2008

Fixing sound files generated with Cepstral

If you generate a bunch of files with Cepstral, using default settings, you're probably going to be suprised when Asterisk doesn't play them. Even worse, sox will likely fail to recognize the file and refuse to transcode it.

The problem is that Asterisk is expecting an 8 kHz wav while Cepstral generates 16 kHz wavs (for most of its voices). You're faced with regenerating the files or transcoding them. Depending on the number of files, one method or the other will be preferable. I've put both methods in the wiki.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Cepstral and app_swift

Rec'd Cepstral for my birthday. Picked up the Allison, Damien, Shouty and Whispery voices. Had a bit of fun getting it to work. Works nicely though embedding SSML in the text is a bit wonky (i.e., some punctuation requires de-referencing). Notes are in the wiki.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

ShmooCon 2009

With little or no fanfare (or I've been working way too hard to notice), ShmooCon 2009 has been scheduled for 6-8 Feb 2009. If things go as they have in the past, expect tickets to go on sale early in November.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Fat fingers

The more you work with *nix, the more you'll realize that it's the little things that will trip you up. Case in point: I tried installing OpenMeetings on my home system and continously get the "NetConnection.Call.Failed rtmpt://localhost:8088/openmeetings/hibernate" error. Hours of troubleshooting later, it turns out that I called the config file "hibernate.xml" vice the proper "hibernate.cfg.xml".

I've updated the wiki notes to show the proper method.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Tiddly Gushy

Got a thumb drive full of valuable stuff but can never find anything on it because you can never remember what the filenames mean? Have multiple work machines that you just wish would have a common address book? Ever wish you could run a private wiki at work but you're not allowed? Ever hear of TiddlyWiki?

A coworker showed me TW a couple days ago and I haven't put it down since. It's a tool that I've been needing for a very long time now.

For those that don't know, it's a wiki written in JavaScript, meant to run from the local file system (e.g., hard disk or thumb drive). It looks like it'd make a good index tool for CDs or DVDs full of miscellaneous kruft. It looks like it'd make a good container for various beginner's guides also. I'll keep you posted.

Monday, September 1, 2008

IAX?

There's discussion on the #savonet channel that an IAX interface for Liq is being developed. This could make things simpler. It's nothing that you can't already do by using Icecast as an intermediary service. However, I'm looking forward to experimenting with it.