*** ANSWERMAN INTERNET EXTRA *** For the week of March 10, 1997 This is the free weekly newsletter for the community of Internet users on America Online. Ready for something different? Your intrepid AnswerMan is dancing on the cutting edge (or is it the bleeding edge?) of Internet tools. This week, we're taking a look at tools for putting your voice in your e-mail. =*=*= IN THIS ISSUE =*=*= AnswerMan's Update -- Voice E-mail Upcoming Weekly Focus & Chats -- What's coming up The End -- How to contact us or unsubscribe =*=*= WHAT YOU CAN DO THIS WEEK WITH ANSWERMAN =*=*= Go to keyword: For: AM FOCUS Pointers to voice e-mail sites, lots more ANSWERMAN Daily tips and Internet message boards NET HELP Get quick help for your Internet questions NET TUTORIAL Clueless about the Internet? Start here! AM CHAT Read transcripts of Internet chats that you missed AM GLOSSARY RTFM to decrypt that Internet jargon Here are direct links for AOL 3.0 users: Go to keyword AnswerMan Go to keyword AM FOCUS Net Tutorial =*=*= ANSWERMAN'S UPDATE -- My E-Mail is Talking to Me =*=*= You may have seen the ads on the Web -- for programs that will let you send electronic mail messages that contain your voice rather than just text. This week, I threw caution to the wind to get the skinny on voice e-mail. Does it work? Yes! Is it for everyone? No. There's nothing magic about voice e-mail -- in fact, it's really quite simple. To send a message with audio in it, you need to use a special program that works in cooperation with the AOL software. That program lets you record your voice using your computer's microphone, encodes the sound of your melodious voice, and sends the file as an attachment to an e-mail message. There's nothing magic about sending a message with a file attachment -- you can do it when composing an e-mail message just by clicking on the "Attach file" button. However, audio e-mail programs streamline the process of creating and e-mailing a sound file in one fell swoop. But there is a catch -- first, you'll need a computer with basic multimedia capabilities: sound and a microphone. You'll also need the AOL 3.0 software (if you don't have it yet, you're out of my will! Get it at keyword UPGRADE.) The person to whom you're sending audio e-mail will also need a computer with sound capability, as well as software to play it. Ah yes, the software. Just about all the sites and software that I mention in this newsletter are free -- and if they're not, I try to let you know about it. The two programs that I've found for doing voice e-mail are not free -- the commercial Windows program costs $30 and the Mac software is shareware, costing $35. Of particular note -- you don't need a screaming fast modem to send audio e-mail -- unlike the streaming audio and video tools that I've talked about in the newsletter, the data for audio e-mail doesn't have to arrive particularly quickly. -.-.- Windows -.-.- The de facto choice for AOL Windows users who want to send audio-laden mail is Voice E-mail from Bonzi software. The program is very easy to use. When you install Voice E-mail, it integrates itself into the AOL software by adding spiffy menu items for creating and listening to voice e-mail. The sound quality is good, and the program makes nice compact files -- one minute of sound squeezes into at attachment of about 130K. That takes less than two minutes to transfer at 28.8 KPBS. The software lets you include a still shot of your smiling mug in your message, too. You can get the software from https://www.bonzi.com/america-online/secure-site/voiceaol.htm. If you're going to take the plunge, have your credit card handy -- you need to shell out $29.95 before downloading it. (The $29.95 price is a "special offer" that always seems to be ending on the day you visit the page. I can only assume that this is a marketing ploy to get you to order quickly.) In order to listen to messages created with Voice E-mail, your message's recipient will need to go to http://www.bonzi.com/freeplay/vemplay.htm and download the free player software. Your recipient may see this as a minor inconvenience, but the player software does a good job of turning small files into understandable audio. The recipient doesn't have to be an AOL user -- in fact, versions of the player are available for America Online, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Eudora and other Net connections. But the player is only available for Windows, so your Mac-using friends won't be able to listen to you croon. System requirements for creating or playing voice e-mail are: any sound card. Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, or Windows 95, 4 MB of RAM, and 2 MB of free disk space. Plus you'll need a microphone to send voice e-mail. -.-.- Macintosh -.-.- Bonzi Software doesn't have a Mac version of its program, but there's another audio e-mail program for the Mac that I'm fond of. It's a shareware program called VMAIL, and it works differently than Bonzi's program. VMAIL encodes your voice as a QuickTime movie before e-mailing it to your friends. Because it uses QuickTime, you can send your voice messages to anyone with a QuickTime player -- and that's standard on any Macintosh and pretty common on multimedia PCs too. Your message's recipient doesn't have to be an AOL member. QuickTime audio uses about 7 KB for every second of audio, so a 60-second verbal treatise will run about 400 KB. VMAIL will also let you include a still image with your sound file. If you have a QuickCam or other video camera, you can send moving pictures rather than just sound. (Yes, this sounds cool, and it is -- but video files are huge, to the tune of about 30 KB per second of video. This makes for long upload times for even short video messages. Even if you don't mind waiting for the upload, the recipient may not be fond of downloading a 1.8 MB file just to see your face for sixty seconds. So I say stick with relatively low-bandwidth audio.) There is one major hurdle for Mac users that want to use VMAIL: it needs to use an SMTP server to send the mail through. (An SMTP server is a computer that accepts and delivers Internet e-mail.) The bad news is that AOL doesn't have an SMTP server. The best thing that I can recommend here is this: if you have a local Internet provider, you can use their SMTP server to send messages with VMAIL. If you don't have access to an SMTP server, VMAIL just won't work. (I've been working on finding one that we can all use, to no avail so far.) If you have access to an SMTP server, you can get VMAIL at http://www.shout.net/~dtrinka/NA/Prodovw.html. -.-.- In Summary -.-.- All in all, putting audio in your e-mail is cool, if you and your e-mailing cohorts have suitable equipment -- from a sound card on Windows to an SMTP server for your Mac. One of my testers gave up after realizing that she needed a special player (too much hassle for her.) So if you're willing to experiment and you have an online friend or two to talk to, give audio e-mail a try. It's a sound decision :-) Here are direct links for AOL 3.0 users: AM FOCUS: Voice E-mail Tools & Info Voice E-mail software (Windows) Voice E-mail player (Windows) VMAIL (Mac) =*=*= THE WEEKLY FOCUS & CHAT =*=*= Every Sunday, AnswerMan hosts a live chat to close out that week's Focus topic. Here's what's coming this Sunday, March 16, 6PM ET: All about Audio e-mail -- Give your overworked fingers a break and learn how you can send and receive e-mail that contains your voice rather than your typewritten words. Does this technology work? Is it reliable? How is the sound quality and do you need a fast modem? AnswerMan will answer these questions, and yours, this hour. Every week, AnswerMan focuses on a particular facet of using the Internet. Here are the Weekly Focus topics we'll be covering in the near future: March 17 - March 23: Finding People with the Net March 24 - March 30: Chatting on the Web March 31 - April 6: Privacy & the Internet Here is a direct link for AOL 3.0 users: AnswerMan Chat and Transcripts =*=*= THE END =*=*= That's all for this week. Got comments about this newsletter? We want to hear them! Send 'em to AnswerMan. The e-mail address is AnswerMan@aol.com. We would hate to see you go, but if you must leave, there are two easy ways to unsubscribe yourself from this newsletter. You can use either. #1: Send an e-mail message -- To: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: UNSUBSCRIBE Body: UNSUBSCRIBE ANSWERMAN #2: For AOL 3.0 users only: Click here then press "Unsubscribe". Most of the time I'm a peaceful man, but I lost my temper that day. Just one last bottle of Nesbitt's Lime Soda and we had to throw it away. Copyright 1997 by America Online. All rights reserved.