Amazon Echo review

I heard lately about a device called Amazon Echo which is designed by Amazon company. I searched over the internet and see tens of review videos and articles about it and have the following conclusion:

Amazon Echo is a cloud-connected device which means that it relies on the internet to upload voice, convert it to text, find the answer as text, then download this narrator voice to the device again. Therefore, it is highly recommended to have a relatively fast internet connection to feel it responsive in real time.

For sure, one good point about Amazon Echo that it depends on the cloud which makes it easier to develop and get smarter with time.

It is mostly rare to pick up amazon Echo in safari trips or on beach as it needs both electricity and internet and in this case the smart phone wins.

Amazon echo is designed with 7 microphones, so it can captures voice well even if the talking person is relatively far from the device (they call this far field technology)

As a speaker, I think it does not compare with home theater or high wattage subwoofers

  

From my point of view, I don't feel it special because a smart phone application can do the same job of assistance.

The Amazon Echo, is always connected to power source which limits its portability across home rooms. Therefore, it should be used in fixed place as a piece of furniture near a power supply. Even if Amazon added internal rechargeable battery for it, it will still need to be recharged frequently.

For sure, it will be quiet profitable for Amazon to make you have at least one piece per room.

Among most of reviews, the best place to use Amazon Echo is the kitchen where you can ask it to add items to shopping list, add tasks to "to do list", and play music while preparing food.

It can also do basic functions like timer, alarm, reminder, calculator, currency and unit converter, etc.

It does not have too much useful applications in real life. I personally find this device so much funny for lonely or introvert people.

Amazon Echo is an input/output device, but it will not act at all unless you give it an input.

One good point, that Amazon Echo always stand by and available for everyone at home. From the other side, it can be used only by one person at a time which makes smart phone wins also this time.

If Amazon Echo is used as a friend or a family member, then it will destroy the relation between family members.

In all reviews, most of people were asking Amazon Echo many general questions, and it successfully answered it, but these questions are so basic. It can be used for basic internet searches and for sure it is not that useful for professional who are seeking deeper details.

If Amazon Echo has an LCD, hologram, or projector display I will feel it more entertaining than the current situation.

Amazon Echo is always hearing you, so each time you want to keep your private conversations away from being uploaded to the cloud you have to mute it.

For me, it is a silly thing to know that Alexa (the name of Assistant in Amazon Echo) has the same synthetic voice and gives me the same tonality and answers as if someone else asked.

Cool Effect: How to convert picture to monocolor in Powerpoint

A quick tutorial in PowerPoint to make a cool effect for pictures.

(1) Insert a a transparent background .png image in PowerPoint. In my example I use the following image. Alternatively, you can insert a picture and remove its background.

(2) Select the picture then go to Format - Adjust - Color - Picture color options

(3) Set the brightness of the image to 100%

(4) Now, all colors are converted to white

(5) Again go to Format - Adjust - Color and select one of the "Recolor" options.

(6) Here you are the result as you can see in the picture below:

(7) Enjoy...

This effect may be used to create shadow boards for hand tools for 5S. So you can arrange your tools and create and preview your custom shadow boards on PC, then print it on paper with the proper size (A4 to A0). Additionally, you can export the shadow picture (after re-scaling it) to any CNC cutting software to cut your shapes precisely on foam piece to make foam insert. Also, you can convert the monochrome picture to scalable format using any software or online service. For me, I use www.picsvg.com which gives good results and details.

Tags:

DIY 5S shadow board for hand tools

Do it youself shadow board for hand tools

Home made shadow board for hand tools

DIY foam insert for hand tools

How to make drawing effect in PowerPoint

In the following quick tutorial I am going to tell you how to make a drawing effect or contour effect for a transparent .png picture.

(1) Insert the picture in PowerPoint

(2) Make glow effect and set the glow color. This color will be the drawing color.

(3) Set the brightness of the picture to 100%. This will transform all colors in the image to white

(4) Apply "Set transparent color" effect on the picture and select the white area.

(5) Now you have a contour of you picture

(6) Apply "Wheel" animation effect on the picture. Now, it will make a drawing effect.

PowerPoint VBA: How to get shape name

This is the simplest ever way to know shape name in PowerPoint so you can use this name in VBA code:

[1] Open animation pane

[2] If you already have the shape, select it, and add any animation effect to it

[3] You will see the shape highlighted in animation pane with its name.

[4] Delete the animation effect.

[5] Done...

This methods works for shapes, images, and textboxes.

Tags:

PowerPoint VBA How to get shape name

PowerPoint VBA How to know shape name

PowerPoint VBA How to get picture name

PowerPoint VBA How to know picture name
 

PowerPoint VBA disappear animation effect

Tags:

PowerPoint VBA disappear animation effect

Power Point VBA disappear animation effect

PowerPoint msoAnimEffectDisappear

Power Point msoAnimEffectDisappear

Without any complications, PowerPoint has four group of effects:

[1] Entrance effects

[2] Emphasis effects

[3] Exit effects

[4] Motion paths

PowerPoint has a list of animation effects names that you can find in the following Microsoft page (by the way, some of them does not appear in the GUI of PowerPoint, so you can call them by VBA):
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff744314.aspx

The tricky part is that there is no exit animation effects in VBA because exit animation effect is just the reverse (opposite) of the entrance effect (see the pictures below and compare). In other words, there are set of animation effects that can be configured to be "Entrance" or "Exit" where the default configuration is "Entrance".

That means -in our case- there is no "Disappear" effect to be called by effect name like "msoAnimEffectDisappear", but it can be called by configuring the effect "msoAnimEffectAppear" to be "Exit".

The following macro adds "Disappear" effect to shape number (1) in slide number (1)

Private Sub AddDisAppearEffect() Dim Shape1 As Shape Dim ShapeEffect as Effect Set MySlide = ActivePresentation.Slides(1) Set Sahpe1= MySlide.Shapes(1) ' Add the appear effect Set ShapeEffect = MySlide.TimeLine.MainSequence.AddEffect _ (Shape1, msoAnimEffectAppear, , msoAnimTriggerAfterPrevious) ShapeEffect.Exit = msoCTrue      ' This line to configure the animation to be exit effect End Sub

Now, I think it is done. Stop googling this again :)

Excel VBA free lancing in Egypt

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Excel VBA free-lancer

Excel VBA free-lancing

Excel Visual Basic for Applications

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For more information, please contact me:

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E-mail: shadyengineer88@gmail.com

Mobile: +2 011 271 85 868

Smart phone stroboscope tachometer

Today, I searched over the app store for a stroboscope tachometer application to visualize oil flow and splash pattern in transparent hermetic refrigerant compressor model (typically its motor RPM is around 3000 rpm or 50 Hz) by seeing stagnant images. The idea of this category of applications is using the phone flash light as a stroboscope light and blinking it using the set frequency to act like stroboscope.  

I downloaded "Stroboscope tachometer app V 3.2" on my Lenovo A7000-a smart phone and I calibrated the stroboscope app with non-contact tachometer UNI-T UT372 and I got relatively amazing results. Since this non-contact tachometer captures the edge rise of the reflected light from the rotor, then it was good for calibration for this stroboscope app.

For my smart phone, the app worked fine up to 1000 rpm with high accuracy. By increasing the RPM the error increases in diverging way. At higher RPM values more than 1500 rpm, the application can't exceed the value of 1500 rpm with fluctuation in RPM values (this may be due to processor speed of the phone and I guess it can generate higher values on other phones with higher processors frequency).

Solution is

Excel VBA: Detect arabic letters in cell

Tags: Excel VBA - Detect Arabic letters in cell - Detect non-English letters in cell

My case is: I have an Excel sheet which is updated daily. Each cell can contain Arabic letters only, English letters only, or both Arabic and English letters. Since I like specific font for Arabic "Sakkal Majalla" and specific font for English "Tahoma"  I used to edit fonts manually for each cell I edit (which was irritating and time-consuming) till I figured out how to simply automate this process with a simple tweak.

The following is a preview for "Sakkal Majalla" font:

The following is a preview for "Tahoma" font:

The next is VBA code which is simple (may be not efficient, but for me it worked like magic):

Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range) Application.ScreenUpdating = False For j = 1 To Target.Cells.Count   ' if multiple cells are edited once (by pasting cells from other place) If IsNumeric(Target.Cells(j).Value) = True And Target.Cells(j).Value <> "" Then    'if cell contains numbers only then it will contain zero characters Target.Cells(j).Font.Name = "Tahoma" Target.Cells(j).Font.Size = 9 Else ' cell contains text/sring OldFontSize = Target.Cells(j).Font.Size For i = 1 To Target.Cells(j).Characters.Count If InStr(1, "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789", Target.Cells(j).Characters(Start:=i, Length:=1).Text) < 1 Then With Target.Cells(j).Characters(Start:=i, Length:=1).Font         .Name = "Sakkal Majalla"         .Size = OldFontSize End With Else With Target.Cells(j).Characters(Start:=i, Length:=1).Font         .Name = "Tahoma"         .Size = 9 End With End If Next i End If Next j Application.ScreenUpdating = True End Sub

Excel nested If trick

Tags: Excel nested If trick, Nesting more than 7 IF statements in an Excel function, Alternatives To Nested IF Functions, How can I nest more than 7 IF statements together?, Simplified nested If.

Assume the following simplified case: we want cell B1 to have certain value based of the value of cell A1.

The psuedo code is:

If A1=10 then 

B1=A1*2

Elseif A1=20 then

B1=A1^2

Elseif A1=30 then

B1=3*A1^3

Else

B1=0

EndIf

Excel formula code placed in cell B1:

=IF(A1=10,A1*2,IF(A1=20,A1^2,IF(A1=30,3*A1^3,0)))

The previous formula called "Nested If" which means If statement inside another If statement.

For sure this Excel formula seems to be complex and it will get complicated by increasing the number of cases. In addition, Excel can't accept more than 7 nested If statments.

The tricky solution (without using VBA) is to use separate If statements summed together instead of nested If.  See the formula below

=IF(A1=10,A1*2,0)+IF(A1=20,A1^2,0)+IF(A1=30,3*A1^3,0)

The above solution is easy to read, revise, and edit later.

Try this solution and you will get the same result.