Episodes
Thursday Nov 07, 2019
Demo of the Amazon Echo Whisper mode
Thursday Nov 07, 2019
Thursday Nov 07, 2019
In this demo I show you how to use the Amazon Echo Whisper mode to get the Echo to whisper back to you when you whisper to it.
Great for checking the time in the middle of the night when you don't want to wake up your partner.
Monday Sep 02, 2019
Demo of adjusting the speech rate of the Amazon Echo (Alexa)
Monday Sep 02, 2019
Monday Sep 02, 2019
In this demo, I demo the commands for adjusting the speech rate of Alexa on my Amazon Echo plus.
Tuesday Mar 12, 2019
Wind Chimes for your Amazon Echo
Tuesday Mar 12, 2019
Tuesday Mar 12, 2019
Yes, Wind Chimes skill for your Amazon Echo when you don't have an actual one available smile.
Wednesday Jan 16, 2019
Demo of adjusting Reading Speed of Audible books on the Amazon Echo using Alexa
Wednesday Jan 16, 2019
Wednesday Jan 16, 2019
When you are listening to Audible audio books on your Amazon Echo, Alexa now lets you adjust the REading Speed by saying Alexa:
Read Faster (up to max 150 percent),
Read Slower (down to 75 percent) or
Read at Normal Speed (back to 100 percent).
Finally we have at least some control of Auidble audio books speed as we do on the Iphone, not as fast, but certainlyh better than nothing.
Now I can really enjoy my Amazon Echo with my Audible books the way I like to listen to them.
Tuesday Oct 16, 2018
Demo of the new Amazon Echo Show using Voice view screen reader
Tuesday Oct 16, 2018
Tuesday Oct 16, 2018
In this demo, I give you a physical description of the Amazon Echo Show with its 7 inch touch screen, how to turn on Voice view (screen reader), Voice view Tutorial, some basic and handy gestures, navigating around the Amazon Echo Show with the touch screen, turning on the Start and End action sounds, and playing music/movies.
Oh and of course, using Alexa smile...
Sunday Oct 14, 2018
Sunday Oct 14, 2018
In this demo, I go through the main feature differences between the new and previous version of the Amazon Echo Dot plus play a bit of music and a audio book for you to hear the difference.
Friday Feb 02, 2018
Friday Feb 02, 2018
In this demo, I take you through setting up my Amazon Echo Dot via the Amazon Alexa app now that the Echo is officially supported in Australia as of Feb 1 2018.
I must say though, I prefer using the alexa.amazon.com website rather than the iOS app as sometimes I find double tapping with VoiceOver doesn't work and I have better access to the webpages with VoiceOver on the Mac using Safari than I do using the Amazon Alexa app with VoiceOver.
I still don't understand why Audible is not accessible here in Australia, only Kindle books.
I hope Amazon improves the English Australia voice for reading Kindle books, it pauses far to much.
Wednesday Jan 24, 2018
Demo of the new English Australia voice for the Amazon Echo
Wednesday Jan 24, 2018
Wednesday Jan 24, 2018
In this podcast, I give you a brief demo of the English Australia voice of the Amazon Echo which is about to be officially released in Australia as of Feb 1 2018.
In the meantime, if you do have an Amazon Echo in Australia and you would like to use the new English Australia voice, go to
Choose the Settings tab, choose your Echo, choose Language, and in the language pop-up select English Australia.
The Australian voice Unfortunately pauses between paragraphs when reading a Kindle book after I posted this podcast, and even worse, I have now learnt that Amazon will not be allowing audible.com books to be accessed in Australia, which doesn't make sense since the service is here anyway.
The Amazon Alexa app is in the Australian iOS App Store.
Friday Dec 29, 2017
Friday Dec 29, 2017
The Remember This skill for the Amazon Echo is an excellent list generator for doing up my weekly shopping list.
I use it as a throw away weekly list - adding items through out the week and then using this list to check my final shopping list that I use when I go shopping.
Disabling and re-enabling the skill after the weekly shopping, gives me a fresh new list to start the next week.
Deleting items by number in the list (if not required) I find is a lot more effective rather than trying to get the voice recognition to recognise the item I wish to delete.
Very easy skill to use: aDD item, Delete item, List, Help, and stop or Goodbye.
Sunday Nov 26, 2017
Walk through of setting up an Amazon Echo via the alexa.amazon.com website
Sunday Nov 26, 2017
Sunday Nov 26, 2017
As the Amazon Echo is not officially supported in Australia either via the Android or iOs stores, I decided to do this demo on setting up an Amazon Echo via the alexa.amazon.com website.
For thos of us in not yet supported country's, this will at least get you up and running with an Amazon Echo, and of course, if you want to buy an echo, they are certainly available on eBay.
Enjoy.
Wednesday Aug 02, 2017
A comparison of Google Home in Australia and the Amazon echo
Wednesday Aug 02, 2017
Wednesday Aug 02, 2017
In this demo, I take you through a number of common tasks between Google Home which is officially supported in Australia and the Amazon Echo which is not.