PC Keeps Shutting Down Every 30 Minutes
December 28, 2012 at 3:06 pm | Posted in PC | Comments Off on PC Keeps Shutting Down Every 30 MinutesToday my PC started spontaneously shutting down every 15-30 minutes. If I left it off for a while, I could start it up and it would run for another 15-30 minutes before it would shut down. Very annoying!
I suspected it was some sort of overheating problem due to the fact it would run okay for a while once I’d given it a chance to cool down. To test this theory I downloaded a tool to monitor the CPU temperature called RealTemp. As soon as I ran this tool I could see the problem. All 4 CPU cores were running at 90 deg C, and this was while the computer was Idle. It wasn’t even a hot day, probably only about 22 deg C indoors.
I immediately powered off the PC and opened it up. I suspected that perhaps the fan used to cool the CPU had failed. This turned out to be fine, however there was a lot of dust around the heatsink. Perhaps the build-up of dust was trapping the heat in the heatsink and causing the CPU to overheat. I unmounted the fan and heatsink (You can do this by hand simply by undoing 4 clips that hold the heatsink and fan in place over the CPU) and vacuumed it to remove all dust. I also took the opportunity to completely vacuum all the dust out of the PC case – it was everywhere. I noticed that when I removed the heatsink both the CPU cover and heatsink were covered with the remnants of thermal paste. Thermal paste is used to provide a good conductive bond between the CPU and the heatsink.
I wasn’t sure if this was strictly necessary, so I scraped both the CPU and heatsink surfaces clean and replaced the heatsink and fan. I powered on the PC and ran RealTemp again. It was now showing around 70 deg C for each core. This was still way too high. It looked like the thermal paste really is needed.
So I powered off the PC and went down to my local PC store and picked up a tube of thermal paste for $9. When I got back I removed the heatsink and fan and this time applied a layer of thermal paste to the CPU cover. I then reinserted the heatsink and powered up the PC again. This time RealTemp reported the CPU temperatures at around 37 deg C. Much, much better!
I’ve been monitoring my CPU temperatures throughout the day, and during typical usage such as web browsing, the CPUs sit at just over 40 deg C.
I’ve learnt that thermal paste is not an option when mounting a heatsink to a CPU.
Child Voice Now Available for Text2Go
November 11, 2012 at 1:56 pm | Posted in eBook, text to speech, Text2Go | 3 CommentsThree new IVONA voices have just been released for Text2Go, one of which is the female child voice named Ivy. Once the novelty of listening to a child text to speech voice had worn off, I was left wondering what I could use this voice for? The first thing that came to mind was perhaps a child text to speech voice could be used to read a childrens’ book aloud. To test the theory I set about converting a childrens’ ebook into an audiobook.
The ebook I chose was the popular childrens’ book The Sunflower That Roared by Michelle de Villiers available for free on Smashwords.com. This delightful story is full of beautiful watercolour illustrations. Like all ebooks published through Smashwords, it’s available in multiple formats, including .epub which is supported by Text2Go. If you have Text2Go installed you can just right-click on the link and Text2Go will download it and convert it to an audiobook for you.
I wanted to preserve the illustrations in the ebook and ideally have these displayed at the correct time during the narration of the story. This is possible without too much extra effort. Each chapter in an audiobook can have its own image and during playback it will display the image for the current chapter. By splitting the ebook into chapters and associating the correct illustration with each chapter, it’s possible to cycle through the illustrations as the story is narrated. The easiest way to split an ebook into chapters is to use the ‘Split at Cursor’ command in Text2Go.
The other thing I did before converting the ebook to an audiobook was to slow down the speed of the Ivy voice. This makes it easier for a child to understand and is also more realistic for a child reading out loud. You can change the speed of a voice in Text2Go using the Options page.
The final step is to have Text2Go convert it to an audiobook, transfer it to iTunes and then sync it to your iPhone, iPod or to best appreciate the illustrations an iPad.
Here is a screenshot of my iPhone I took during playback. 
You can listen to an except of The Sunflower That Roared.
The ultimate test was to see if it would keep my 4 year old son engaged, so we sat down and listened to the story together. It certainly held his attention for the entire length of the story and at the end he said he’d enjoyed it. It will be interesting to see if he asks to listen to it again.
New Premium US Voices Released for the New Year
December 30, 2010 at 12:14 pm | Posted in RealSpeak, text to speech, Text2Go | 2 Comments
I’m very pleased to announce there are now 3 new premium US voices available for use with Text2Go.
They have been developed by IVONA and feature their new BrightVoice™ technology which employs a new language model to provide intelligent interpretation of text, and crystal clear sound achieved using noise and distortion reduction. Not only that, the new text to speech engine is up to 10x faster than the previous version, which is a real advantage when converting lengthy ebooks into audiobooks.
I have also decided to remove from sale all of the Nuance Realspeak voices apart from the Australian voices Karen and Lee. The main reason for this is due to the licensing agreement placed on us by Nuance which makes it uneconomical to continue to offer a large selection of RealSpeak voices. However now that we can offer the premium IVONA voices in both US and UK accents, I don’t really think they will be missed. Note that existing customers who have purchased RealSpeak voices will still be supported.
2011 is going to be an exciting year for text to speech. As ebooks continue to take off, there is going to be more and more choice available to convert to audiobooks. I’m also hoping to finally be able to offer some high quality French, German and Spanish voices for use with Text2Go this year.
Happy New Year!
How to turn any RSS feed into an audiobook using Feedbooks and Text2Go
April 16, 2010 at 6:34 am | Posted in eBook, text to speech, Text2Go | 5 Comments
Feedbooks is primarily an ebook publishing platform but it also has an incredibly useful feature that will turn any RSS feed into a downloadable ebook. Thankfully it supports the ePub ebook format which makes it a breeze to use Text2Go to turn this ebook into an audiobook which you can then listen to on your iPod or MP3 player.
Using Feedbooks and Text2Go you can convert any RSS feed into an audiobook with a couple of clicks. In summary all you need to do is
- Enter the URL of RSS feed you wish to convert into the Feedbooks News service.
- Copy the URL of the ePub ebook generated by Feedbooks
- Use the Open URL… command in Text2Go to download the ebook (If you’ve installed the Text2Go accelerator for Internet Explorer 8, you can combine steps 2 and 3 by simply right clicking on the ePub link in IE8 and selecting the Text2Go Convert to Audiobook accelerator command).
- Review and edit the eBook in Text2Go – you may want to remove old or uninteresting news items from the ebook before converting it to an audibook.
- Start the eBook to Audiobook conversion process in Text2Go.
Here is a detailed guide to converting recent posts from the blog ZenHabits into an audiobook.
1. Copy the ZenHabits RSS feed URL (e.g in IE, right-click and select copy shortcut).
2. Enter the URL of the RSS feed you wish to convert into the Feedbooks News service.
3. Copy the URL of the ePub ebook generated by Feedbooks
4. Use the Open URL… command in Text2Go to download the ebook.
3B. If you’ve installed the Text2Go accelerator for Internet Explorer 8, you can combine steps 3 and 4 by simply right clicking on the ePub link in IE8 and selecting the Text2Go Convert to Audiobook accelerator command.
5. Review and edit the eBook in Text2Go – you may want to remove old or uninteresting news items from the ebook before converting it to an audiobook.
6. Convert to an audiobook and listen to it in iTunes or on your iPod or iPhone.
New Zealand Desperately Needs a Kiwi Text to Speech Voice
April 7, 2010 at 10:39 pm | Posted in text to speech | 4 Comments
Who cares you may ask? NZ is a small country with a population of only 4.3 million. Can’t they just use one of the existing English voices such as American, British or heaven forbid, Australian?
No! It’s not about replicating the charming Kiwi accent. It’s because all the existing English voices do a laugable job of pronouncing Maori place names.
NZ loves its Maori place names. So much so that half the streets in NZ use Maori names.
The latest in car GPS navigation units offer turn by turn spoken directions. This is where it’s sort of important that street names are spoken accurately. Unfortunately they’re not.
Take this as a typical example as spoken by Amy, the latest computerized British voice from IVONA.
As someone described it – it sounds like something you’d do after a very long night of drinking on the town.
Here is what it should sound like.
Here is another example as spoken by Lee, an Australia text to speech voice from Nuance.
Here is what it should sound like.
It’s not a shortcoming of existing TTS voices that they can’t pronounce Maori place names. It’s simply that there are different pronunciation rules for Maori words.
A NZ voice needs to be developed that takes these rules into consideration and all the better if it uses a sweet Kiwi accent. That would be choice Bro!
Finally Text to Speech Voices That Don’t Suck!
March 1, 2010 at 9:00 pm | Posted in text to speech, Text2Go | 5 CommentsText2Go, the popular Windows application for converting ebooks and web pages to speech now offers two premium quality text to speech voices that dramatically improve the listening experience. The new voices called ‘Amy’ and ‘Brian’, are developed by IVONA Software and have pleasant British accents. They offer incredibly lifelike speech and outstanding pronunciation accuracy.
“I have listened to just about every synthesized voice available and ‘Amy’ and ‘Brian’ are the best by a mile. Computerized voices have in the past suffered from robotic delivery, uneven pitch and laughable pronunciation errors. These new IVONA voices suffer none of these problems. I can’t believe how natural they sound. They have significantly raised the bar in text to speech quality.” – Mark Gladding, Founder, Tumbywood Software.
To judge for yourself have a listen to this press release as narrated by Amy or Brian.
With Text2Go and the new IVONA voices you can convert ebooks, news and articles on the web to speech and listen to them on your iPod, iPhone or MP3 player while on the go. The advantage of text to speech is you can listen at times when reading is impossible, such as when driving, running or working out. Now you can pack more reading time into your day without sacrificing other activities.
Text2Go and one IVONA voice costs $US55. There is a free 30-day trial of Text2Go and the IVONA voices. They can be downloaded from http://www.text2go.com.
Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think of the new voices.
Text2Go 4 Released – Now converts eBooks to Audiobooks
November 14, 2009 at 9:28 pm | Posted in eBook, text to speech, Text2Go | 1 Comment
Text2Go 4.0.2 has been released today. The major new feature is ebook to audiobook conversion. Text2Go reads ebooks in the open ebook format know as ePub (.epub), html (.htm or .html) and plain text files (.txt). The ePub format is preferred. If you have an iPod, Text2Go will create an audiobook complete with chapter marks. If you have another MP3 player, Text2Go will create one MP3 file per chapter and name them so they will appear in the correct order.
There is a tutorial on the Text2Go website that guides you through the process.
Changes since the beta include
- A faster text to speech process, resulting in quicker ebook to audiobook conversion.
- Support for DAISY text-only DTBooks.
- Improved ‘Split by Section’ command. It now recognises more variations of chapter headings.
- Support for ebooks containing drop-caps represented as an images.
- Correctly reports progress for ebooks with over 100 chapters.
- Now asks the user if they wish to share pronunciation corrections the first time they create a correction. Previously this was on by default.
You can download it directly here. Existing Text2Go users – make sure you uninstall your current version first.
I’d like to extend a special thanks to everyone who participated in the beta test and provided feedback. You input was invaluable.
Shocking Statistics Published During Work Wise UK’s Commute Smart Week
November 11, 2009 at 9:20 pm | Posted in Commuting, text to speech, Text2Go | 1 CommentUK Workers spend nearly 22 million hours commuting every day, equivalent to £266 million worth of working time
Each worker spends on average 52.6 minutes commuting to and from work each day, with workers in London having the longest commute of 74.2 minutes per day. The research was undertaken by the union congress and published to coincide with the start of Work Wise UK’s Commute Smart Week.
One way to alleviate this problem according to TUC General Secretary Brendon Barber is for employers to offer flexible working arrangements.
“Remote working and flexible shifts can reduce commute times, save on office space and reduce energy costs – saving companies money and helping staff enjoy a better work life balance.”
This is a great suggestion for some jobs but for many, such as those in the service and retail industries, employees must keep regular hours and work from the premises. It’s still possible for an employee in this situation to vary their hours but it requires extending their day at either the start or end. For example, an employee could commute into work early and go to a gym located near their place of employment.
Another strategy is to turn your commuting time into productive time. At least this way the time spend behind the wheel is not a complete waste of time. This exact scenario was the inspiration behind Text2Go. I was spending over 90 minutes in the car every day and wanted to put this time to better use. As a software developer I needed to spend a lot of time learning new technologies. My solution was to create an application to turn articles, and news available on the web into speech and transfer it to my iPod. Now I could switch off the inane breakfast and drive radio shows and listen to information I found interesting and relevant to my profession.
Recently ebooks have been gaining in popularity. There is now a huge collection of top quality novels available on the web. Every genre is available and in fact due to the low cost of publishing on the web, you’re much more likely to find a genre specific to your tastes (now you can purchase those teen zombie romances you love so much without being embarrassed at checkout time). Many ebooks are free and almost all are significantly cheaper than a paperback, often available for a couple of dollars – the price of a cup of coffee. Text2Go 4.0 has just been released and supports direct conversion of ebooks in the standard ePub format to audiobooks. Chapters from the original ebook are preserved in the audiobook, making navigation during playback easy.
There is an unlimited amount of information on the web, catering to all interests and professions. Now is the time to turn some of that wasted commuting time into productive or at least entertaining time. If you do this, I promise you, your commuting time will seem much shorter and you’ll arrive at your destination a lot less stressed and perhaps just a little more well informed.
For more tips on commuting see
15 Ways to Maintain Your Zen Calm on the Road
8 Ways to iPod your car – from ultra-cheap to ultra-sophisticated
Text2Go 4.0 Beta Available – eBook to Audiobook conversion
October 28, 2009 at 9:27 pm | Posted in eBook, text to speech, Text2Go | 7 CommentsI few days ago I invited Text2Go owners to take part in the Text2Go 4.0 Beta. I’m now opening the beta up to anyone who’s brave enough.
You can download it directly using this link Text2Go 4.0 Beta. If you already have a previous version of Text2Go installed, make sure you uninstall this first.
The beta version is quite stable and I encourage you to give it a try. Having said that, if you do find any bugs, please use the Support… command within Text2Go to let us know.
The major new feature is ebook to audiobook conversion. Text2Go reads ebooks in the open ebook format know as ePub (.epub), html (.htm or .html) and plain text files (.txt). The ePub format is preferred. If you have an iPod, Text2Go will create an audiobook complete with chapter marks. If you have another MP3 player, Text2Go will create one MP3 file per chapter and name them so they will appear in the correct order.
There is a tutorial on the Text2Go website that guides you through the process.
Here are a few sources of ebooks to get you started.
- Smashwords, a great source of contemporary works by independent authors
- epubbooks.com, a nice selection of free, public domain classics in the ePub format.
- Project Gutenberg, the original, most extensive source of public domain classics.
- Finding Free eBooks, free ebooks from all over the web.
- eBooks Just Published, my own site announcing reasonably priced and free ebooks.
This new version includes the following minor enhancements.
- Improved hotkey support. You can now define hotkeys for commands that work in Internet Explorer, such as Add Text, Speak Selected Text, Text2Go, Check Pronunciation, etc.
- Support for larger audio files. Text2Go was previously limited to producing audio files up to 2GB in size. This was a limitation of the Microsoft .wav audio file used as a temporary file during text to speech. Text2Go will now save speech directly to an MP3 file, avoiding this limit. A side benefit is that outputing MP3 files is now faster as there is not need to convert from a .wav file to an MP3 file.
- A number of minor bug fixes.
Let me know what you think.
Text2Go Now Supports Hotkeys
August 27, 2009 at 9:45 pm | Posted in text to speech, Text2Go | 2 CommentsText2Go 3.7.3 has been released today. It’s a minor release that includes support for hotkeys and the ability to skip forward and back a sentence or paragraph when reading aloud at your PC.
Hotkeys can be configured by going to Options… and selecting the Hotkeys tab.
To add a hotkey, select a command from the list, click in the text box where it says Press hotkeys, and hold down the key combination you want to assign to the command. When you’re happy with the key combination, click the Assign button to assign it to the command.
The Text2Go toolbar has been enhanced to include controls to skip forward and back a sentence or paragraph. These additional controls only appear when text is being spoken.
Skipping back a sentence or paragraph is a little tricky. If you’re more than 2 seconds into a sentence or paragraph, Text2Go will take you back to the start of the current sentence or paragraph. If you’re less than 2 seconds into a sentence or paragraph, Text2Go will take you to the start of the previous sentence or paragraph. This works in much the same way as music players work when skipping back a track.
If you’re wondering whether Text2Go is compatible with Windows 7, I’m happy to report the answer is a definite yes! I’ve been running Text2Go without problem on Windows 7 64-bit since the release candidate. I didn’t have to make any changes to Text2Go to support Windows 7. Text2Go already supported Windows Vista and there aren’t a huge amount of architectural changes between Windows Vista and Windows 7. This means that just about all software than runs on Windows Vista will run on Windows 7. I’m really loving using Windows 7. Microsoft really have got it right this time.
Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.
Text2Go Blog 