Mailtalk
for
Blackberry
By Maildover LLC
Dear User,
Congratulations for getting Mailtalk! If you did not get it yet, look it up in Blackberry App World, under Utilities->Voice Dictation. Mailtalk is also available at http://www.mobihand.com/ and at http://crackberry.com/
Mailtalk application designed to enhance the emailing experience, when reading the email text is inconvenient. Mailtalk can read out loud the email text, either on user’s demand or automatically when a new email message arrives, according to the user setup.
Note that Mailtalk communicates with external server on the Internet to convert the email text to voice; thus there may be some delay between getting the email message in the Blackberry to the vocal readout, all depends on how good is the Internet connectivity at the time.
This is the initial version of the Mailtalk, introduced at 6/29/2009, so look for enhancements soon. All enhancements are FREE for download to Mailtalk users. Any feedback, questions or requests are very welcomed.
Talk to you soon!
News - 8/18/2009
New Mailtalk beta version is available, that includes SMS reading!! contact support at maildover@gamil.com if you'd like to try it out
How Mailtalk works
Mailtalk provides rich set of configuration options, for the convenience of the user, such as selecting male or female voice, limiting the number of email messages reading and more. The default setting should work for you, so that you don't need to setup anything, but you have the option to change these settings.
In addition ot that, there are many Blackberry models, operating systems, carriers and configurations out there. Mailtalk is designed to work out of the box, and this is usually the case, but in some cases you may need to modify the setup to get it to work for your device. To try it out, start Mailtalk, select menu->go, Mailtalk will attempt to read aloud the first message in your email inbox.
As mentioned, Mailtalk provides rich set of configuration options to make it work in different scenarios. You may access these options when you start Mailtalk, using menu->setup Mailtalk. In some cases you may need to modify the Blackberry own setup options as well. All of these are explained here.
Blackberry setup
In case Mailtalk does not work out of the box, there may be some Blackberry setup options that are missing. Please check the following.
If Mailtalk won't start - i.e. the Mailtalk pegion icon is "stuck" when you click on it, most likely the Blackberry phone number is either not entered or incorrectly entered in the SIM card. For most carriers in the USA, this is taken care of automatically and the number is set when the device is purchased. For other carriers, especially of non-GPRS carriers, it has to be setup by the user. To do this, enter the your blackberry phone number here -
Options->Advanced Options->SIM card->menu->Edit SIM phone number
If Mailtalk presents a message saying "no emails in your mailbox" although there are some, verify that -
Options->Advanced Options->Default Service: Pointing to the email mailbox for which you want Mailtalk to work
If Mailtalk presents a message saying "check Internet connection", you may be required to provide APN. Make sure the APN is configured correctly-
Options->Advanced Options->TCP/IP: Pointing to your carrier's APN. I have found this as needed setup for some carriers in Europe, such as O2 Mate in UK. For example, the O2 Mate APN is
O2
(UK)
Gateway IP: 192.113.200.195
Port: 9201
APN: wap.o2.co.uk
username: o2wap
password: password
Here is a link some of the APNs for Blackberry:
http://www.blackberryfaq.com/index.php/Carrier_specific_APN/TCP_settings
Mailtalk setup
Mailtalk setup options may be divided to two categories - convenience and connectivity. Mailtalk options are being accessed by starting Mailtalk and selecting menu->setup Mailtalk. Note that for any setup change, you need to close and run Mailtalk again for the setting to take effect. Here are the convenience options:
"Check box for speaker, uncheck for bluetooth": Checked by default. Uncheck to use bluethooth headset.
"Check box for Listen mode, uncheck for On Demand mode": Unchecked by default. When unchecked, you start Mailtalk, select menu->go! and Mailtalk will read aloud the messages in your mailbox. When checked, Mailtalk will play each new email message arriving into your blackberry as it comes.
"Check box for male voice, uncheck for female voice": Checked by default.
"Message Volume": 100 by default. Enter the pre-set speaker volume, as used when Mailtalk reads aloud the messages. Values between 10 to 100.
"Maximum number of emails to read out, limited to 5": Default 1, enter a number between 1 to 5
Here are the connectivity options:
"Check box for long timeouts": Checked by default. Uncheck this for quicker response from voice server
"Check box for dynamic URL": Unchecked by default. If you have old blackberry, may need to check this box to work.
"Check box to allow voice path selection": Unchecked by default. You need to check this box if you want to use bluethooth (see above)
"Check box to use SDCard": Unchecked by default. Check this box to save message voice to your Blackberry SDCard, uncheck to save messages to blackberry memory.
"Check box to URL pay": Checked by default. If checked, Mailtalk will use audio streaming, meaning the voice from the server will stream to your blackberry without saving the message voice locally on the blackberry first. Streaming voice quality is lesser than non-streaming option, and depends on your Internet connectivity. If you uncheck this box Mailtalk will first download the messages voice and then play them. The voice quality in this option is better but it may take more time to download the message voice. Its also possible that voice download will fail because there is not enough memory or space on the blackberry. Note that if you are using enterprise blackberry (BES), you may need to check this box at all times, since the BES server blocks the voice download.
"Check box to default mailbox use": Checked by default. If you don't have enterprise blackberry (BES), you will probably need this box checked. If you do have BES blackberry, you may need to uncheck this box. When you uncheck this box, Mailtalk will look for any messages in any subfolder mailboxes, which are usually configured for enterprise users.
Notes:
Mailtalk was tested on Strom, Tour, Bold Curve and Pearl
Questions, comments? maildover@gmail.com
Dedicated to Ethan and Sophie