What's New


	What's New

Here are some of the changes that have been made in some of the more recent versions. Many of these changes have come from suggestions made by CyberBuddy users.
See the new CyberBuddy Agent Viewer exclusively on the CyberBuddy CD-ROM.

Now Tell CyberBuddy what to do!

Check out the new
Speech Recognition Versions
available on the CD-ROM.

CyberBuddy comes in 3 versions:

Version 2 - The standard, downloadable version of CyberBuddy.

Premium versions (Version3 and 4) with many added features (Available on CDROM)

Version 3 - CyberBuddy with Speech Recognition

Version 4 - CyberBuddy with Speech recognition and Phone functions like Caller ID.

Also introducing, Cyber the Chat Bot.
Talk to him on UIN 1111.
Click on his button to go to his Web Page.

Now! Create your own characters Instantly from virtually any image!
Check out CyberBuddy Agent Magic!

2.12.27 (3.12.27, 4.12.27)

Further improvements in the RSS News Feeds.

Minor changes in instant messaging.

2.12.26 (3.12.26, 4.12.26)

Further parsing improvements in the RSS News Feeds.

2.12.25 (3.12.25, 4.12.25)

Better parsing of RSS News Feeds.

Chat Improvements for reflector.

2.12.24 (3.12.24, 4.12.24)

Now! Cyberbuddy supports and reads RSS News Feeds !

Chat Improvements.

2.12.23 (3.12.23, 4.12.23)

improvements related to instant messaging

fixed a bug for leap years in reminders

a few fixes in the weather report

2.12.21 (3.12.21, 4.12.21)

A number of improvements made in the chat when using reflector.

Fixed problem in deselecting CyberBuddy launch at startup.

Don't give online / offline announcements if user is unchecked or chat is paused.

If option was set to silence CyberBuddy at certain hours, sound effects would still be heard. - fixed

"Block" button added to chat screen.

CyberBuddy will now use some character's non-standard animations as well as standard animations.

When a user was checked or unchecked in the Remote Chat Window, the status was not always recorded.

Synchronizing in chat improved.

Ping function in chat improved.

Other changes and improvements.

2.12.20 (3.12.20, 4.12.20)

Improvements in chat using reflector.

Email Spam filtering now shows the reason for the deleted email.

A button was added to launch the Agent Viewer program if installed.

2.12.19 (3.12.19, 4.12.19)

Corrected negative number problem in stock reporting

2.12.18 (3.12.18, 4.12.18)

Auto Correct Editor and Auto Animate Editor added in versions 3.12.18 and 4.12.18 (premium CDROM versions).

Updated Stock reporting

2.12.17 (3.12.17, 4.12.17)

Significant Chat Mode update for those who previously could not connect in Chat, when behind a router or firewall.

As requested by some of the advanced users, CyberBuddy now processes animation and sound effect tags in all functions. This means, for example, you could put a sound effect in a reminder.

In Chat mode, online and offline announcements won't be heard unless the sender is in your buddy list or is checked in the online list.

As requested, a feature has been added to allow automatic reading of the clipboard.

2.12.15 (3.12.15, 4.12.15)

Fixed problem with automatic feel-good messages.

New scrolling routines in the Instant Messaging receive window.

Improvements in email HTML parsing.

Fixed problem with full sound effect list in Instant messaging.

"From Name" in instant messaging not repeated when receiving sequential messages from same sender.

Automatically detect internal networks and suggest using reflector for Instant Messaging.

Fixed problem with rapid sequential messages when using the private messaging mode.

2.12.14 (3.12.14, 4.12.14)

Instant Messagers Look! In versions 3 and 4 of CyberBuddy there is now a fully resizable remote chat window available.

Email subject lines are now filtered to remove extraneous characters.

Some improvements for those who use the "reflector" in Instant Messaging.

Other minor improvements in Instant Message Handling.

2.12.12 (3.12.12, 4.12.12)

Instant Messages sent to "Group" now queued for faster sending when large groups are on.

Some Email Filter improvements using headers created by Spam Assasin. See the section below (2.12.11).

Further enhancements to the Interactive Scripting Capabilities

2.12.11 (3.12.11, 4.12.11)

Further improvements in Email text parsing.

Email Filter now uses headers created by Spam Assasin and other server programs to filter Spam. See the CyberBuddy Help file or Online Help File Section for details.

Reading clipboard text parses HTML

Instant Messaging shortcuts added with F keys (See help file or Online Help File Section for details)

2.12.10 (3.12.10, 4.12.10)

Improved Email text parsing.

Corrected some problems in Instant Messaging if you were using the "Messages From Contact List Only" option.

A "Feel Good Messages" checkbox has been added to enable / disable the compliments.

New - Offline notification. Now you can select to have the character tell you when someone has gone off Instant Messaging as well.

Fixed a few minor bugs in the Voice Send feature.

Help File greatly expanded.

Paging feature now reports the result.

2.12.09 (3.12.09, 4.12.09)

Corrected problems is selecting/deselecting CyberBuddy to run at startup with Win XP,NT and 2000.

Improved Animation / Sound window in Instant Messaging.

Enhancements for those users on a LAN or router using server based Instant Messaging through a reflector.

Corrected a problem where sometimes the preference for word balloons on the main character were not remembered. This meant that sometimes you may have word ballooons and not want them and visa versa.

Versions 3 and 4: Important New Feature! Added support for Interactive Scripting. You can now use CyberBuddy as a partner while giving presentations with Power Point or other screen media. In fact, even without Power Point, you can have him bring up and explain Text documents, Word documents, Excel documents etc.

2.12.08 (3.12.08, 4.12.08)

Oops. There was a bug in 2.12.07 that resulted in the "Time" function not working in the downloadable CyberBuddy version. CD-ROM versions were not affected. - Fixed.

Some additional abbreviation enhancements in Instant Messaging.

2.12.07 (3.12.07, 4.12.07)

Fix for some clickable URLs in Instant Messaging lines.

Added the capability to CyberBuddy command line functions to add a URL to the command line instead of a text file. See Advanced Functions.

Some abbreviation fixes in Instant Messaging.

2.12.06 (3.12.06, 4.12.06)

A new feature has been added to the WWW function. CyberBuddy can now be told to let you know when it cannot reach one of the URL's on the WWW tab. A great way to know if a server is down.

The double-clicking of links in the Instant Message receive window and email screens has been improved.

Some additional improvements made in versions 3 and 4 for multiple simultaneous characters. The characters will not now interrupt each other by trying to speak at the exact same time.

2.12.05 (3.12.05, 4.12.05)

Some changes made that makes it easier to re-establish Instant Messaging connection if you were dropped offline by your ISP and come back online. Especially helpful for dialup users.

Faster program startup and initialization.

Email spam filters are now sorted.

Better filtering of Page content when CyberBuddy reads pages in the WWW function.

Version 3 and 4 users, enhancements in the Multiple Simultaneous Character feature.

2.12.04 (3.12.04, 4.12.04)

CyberBuddy Versions 3 and 4 now allow Multiple Simultaneous Characters on your screen. Adds a whole new dimension of fun.

CyberBuddy Versions 3 and 4 have a new speech recognition feature. Custom Speech responses. You can now add custom responses to spoken phrases. For example, You could say "Meet my Girlfriend" and have CyberBuddy respond "Hello Julie, nice to meet you!."

Instant Messaging updates

Other minor enhancements, fixes

2.11.20

Fix for: On some computers, in new installations of CyberBuddy, the program may show an error on startup.

2.11.19

Improved display of certain types of email content.

On some computers, at some times, during a restart, a message would come up indicating that the MS agents could not be loaded. This appeared to be a timing issue and is addressed in this version.

Update button goes to the appropriate download page now depending on the version of CyberBuddy you are using.

A few minor improvements in the way Instant Messaging operated through the "Reflector Server" when required.

There was an error in version 2 that would not allow you to change the "Page" sound in advanced options. It is now fixed.

The "Play what I send" option in instant messaging would not always shut off if you unchecked it. This is fixed.

2.11.14
Major update for Instant Messaging Users

CyberBuddy Instant Messaging will now work behind many routers and Windows Internet Connection Sharing. If you have multiple computers behind a router or Windows ICS, there is an option in "Advanced Options" called "Use Server Based Instant Messaging." This option routes incoming messages through a reflector, allowing these computers to all use CyberBuddy Instant Messaging.

Significant speed updates for instant messaging.

Other program function speed improvements.

Program Exit added to popup menu.

Fixes a problem where some Proxy users were getting "Not Connected" messages

Other performance improvements.

2.10.30

Character and speech options now shows a list of the characters animations.

Character and speech options window now shows how many characters you have.

A fix for the way reminders are displayed.

2.10.28

Paging function added to Instant Messaging

Voice Send now works with hight level of audio compression

Alternate Language files are now properly packaged with the program

Instant Message scroll Window for Win2000 fixed

2.10.23

Support added for CyberBuddy Web Cam

Improvements in File Transfer Functions

Improvements in Sound Effects

Added option to prevent program startup when Windows starts.

Instant Message "synchronize" improvements

2.10.18

Added sound effect support to Instant Messaging. For more on this, see the Sound Effect section of Advanced Functions.

A number of Instant Messaging improvements.

Automatic Synchronizing in Instant Messaging.

"Check for Updates" button on About Tab now correctly checks for the latest version.

Other minor fixes and updates.

2.10.14

Added feature to allow blocking of certain UINs

Various improvements in Multi Buddy Chat and File Transfer

Other minor fixes and updates.

2.10.10

Many improvements in the Multi-Buddy Chat

"Auto-Animate" added to automatically add animations to your instant messages.

Adding Animations to messages improved.

Slightly larger instant messaging windows.

A "pre-reminder" feature will remind you of upcoming reminders before they are due.

Other fixes and updates.

2.10.01

Now Chat with Multiple CyberBuddies at the same time. Like a Private chat room. (The other CyberBuddies must have the same or later version).

"Synchronize" function that allows you to join a chat already in progress with another CyberBuddy. You "synchronize" with your buddy's contact list.

File Transfer Function now added. Exchange files with other CyberBuddies. (The other CyberBuddies must have the same or later version).

2.09.20

Now Multiple Users can have different profiles on CyberBuddy

Better email content display

Email Signature

Advanced Options added

2.09.19
Please note: If you got version 2.09.18 there was an error that prevented the "Character and Speech Options" button from working. This version corrects it.

Updates to the way recurring reminders are set.

Reminder editing implemented.

Widened the email receive and send windows.

Printing of Email added.

Email reception improved. HTML emails can now be shown and read.

Hyperlinks in email can now be clicked.

Online Tutorials added.

Some ISPs use caching servers. This can cause problems in Instant Messaging due to the fact that a users actual address might be shown as the address of the caching server. This version implements a fix for this.

other minor improvements and updates.

2.09.14

Now you can have your name pronounced differently than it is spelled. A name pronunciation box has been added to the "My Name" section.

Now you can select a character called "Random" in character selections. When "Random" is selected, a random character from your character collection will appear.

The "Online List" on the "Send" tab now shows the last time your buddies were online.

Popup menu added to email screen to select functions

"Recently Filtered" button in Spam Filtering form will show last 25 spam emails filtered.

Background Music Volume control added to character options screen

Fixed email popup when in "Silent in Screen Saver" mode

Several other minor fixes and enhancements.

2.09.10

Fix for temperature being given twice in some weather reports

Found some additional character sequences that can cause the Agent Server to freeze. CyberBuddy now parses these sequences.

Updated "Tour of Program" with background music and more.

Other minor improvements and updates.

2.09.09

Improvements in instant messaging now allows CyberBuddy to work behind some routers. You and the person you are messaging with must have the latest version for this improvement.

Silence CyberBuddy when Screen Saver is on, option.

A couple of new "skins" selections.

A few of the windows have been modified to accomodate users that use large fonts.

Story readings can now have background music. (Story builder is updated as well).

Improved checking of online status.

Found a bug in the Agent Server that freezes on a certain character sequence. CyberBuddy now detects and eliminates this sequence.

Other minor improvements and updates.

2.09.06
CyberBuddy would not correctly report -(minus) temperatures in the weather.

Instant Messaging Updates:
Now it's easy to add people to your contact list, from the CyberBuddy online directory. You will notice that in the online Directory, the UIN numbers of people in the list are hyperlinks. Click on the desired UIN (if you have this version), follow the instructions to add that person automatically to your online contact list.
Note: To get the online directory, go to the "Buddies" tab and click the "CyberBuddy Buddies Page" button.

Another new feature. If you have someone in your online contact list, and want to add them to your buddies list, just double-click on the person in the contact list.

2.09.05
Minor change to the away message handling.

2.09.04
The Instant Messaging Send/Receive had a limit of about 1000 characters. This limit has effectively been removed.

When selecting a new character, in the character options, the character's default voice parameters will also be loaded. These are the voice parameters as specified by the designer of the character. You can change them of course with the various settings.

When installing CyberBuddy for the first time, the default "skin" was not loaded.

The receiving of certain documents, including the buddy list, has been greatly speeded up.

Other Minor bug fixes.

2.09.01
Major Update:

CyberBuddy now has "skins!" You can customize the look of the cyberbuddy program.

New Feature:
Web Watching Wizard - With this feature, you list your favorite web pages in Cyberuddy. CyberBuddy will then check these pages for you, at designated intervals, and will tell you when they change. In addition, CyberBuddy can read to you what has changed. This means that you can tune CyberBuddy to your favorite sports page or financial page, ot other interest, and CyberBuddy will tell you about information that has changed on the site. It's like having your own, private news and information reporter.

You can now pause and resume reading of large documents! Click the agent character once to pause reading, click it again to resume.

The size of text read from the clipboard is not limited by the size of the "Read" screen in CyberBuddy. CyberBuddy now reads the clipboard directly.

You can now define a separate character for sending Instant Messages. This is the character that will come up in your friends CyberBuddy when you send them messages.

Email processing has been speeded up. In addition, CyberBuddy will now read documents that previously merely reported that a document was attached.

Stock page processing speeded up.

The use of rasapi.dll has been eliminated. You no longer have to have Windows Dialup networking installed to use CyberBuddy. This should be especially helpful for NT users.

Other fixes and enhancements.

2.08.05

Instant Messaging:

CyberBuddy will now change the speaking character to the character and voice of the sender in Instant Messaging. (if the sender has this version or later). If you do not have the character of the sender, the character will not change. In the receive screen, next to the sender's name, you will see the name of the character they are using. If you were in "away mode" when the message was received, the time the message was received will be shown.
There is a new check box option that will allow CyberBuddy to Pop-up to the "Send Screen" when a message is received.
A number of chat shortcuts, like "lol", "brb", "rofl", etc. are now interpreted by CyberBuddy

New Feature:
CyberBuddy now has it's own special document type. Text documents can be created with special tags to control animations, sound effects, character changes, etc. These documents have a file extension of .cbb. You can create these special documents for your own web site and have content that will automatically read by CyberBuddy. When you update to this new version, go to the Story Page. Click on "The Princess and the Pea" for an example of how this works. A free program is available for creating these special documents. Check out the "CyberBuddy Story Builder".

Fixes:
A bug in the publish UIN section could cause "access violation" errors to come up.
CyberBuddy would sometimes re-size causing the user to have to stretch the main program screen.
If received email subject was blank, would sometimes pick up the last email subject.
"Dropped files" may not have read properly.
Some character change functions could cause CyberBuddy to hang for a bit.
Double clicking the character did not always stop the speaking.
Other minor fixes and updates.

2.07.08
Fixed a problem when selecting "Quiet Time". If you had selected to start at a time before midnight, and end quiet time after midnight, it may not have worked properly.

Fixed a problem in saving options for multiple characters. This could cause the box checked "Use Multiple Characters" to change, or could have caused other options such as the character sound effects to not opearate properly.

When CyberBuddy reads a web page document, it strips out all of the HTML codes before reading it. In previous versions this may have been a very slow process depending on the size and complexity of the document. In addition, it may not have been possible to stop the reading of the document by double-clicking the character. This version has new routines that drastically improve the speed of handling web documents.

I've tried to help keep characters from interrupting each other when they are trying to say something.

2.07.05

"Read Clipboard" added to popup menu.

When using multiple characters, the desired character position (selected by the user) may not be correct when the character displayed. Fixed.

If CyberBuddy tried to retrieve several things at once from the internet, one of the routines could hang. This is fixed.

2.07.04

I fixed a problem in the installation routines for versions 2.07.00 to 2.07.03. This could have caused CyberBuddy to fail to install on some systems.

When using the new multiple character features, CyberBuddy could, on occasion hang. This has been fixed.

When using multiple characters, two character icons would sometimes appear in the system tray instead of one. This is fixed.

A "Quiet Time" function has been added. If you leave CyberBuddy on all the time, as I do, this feature will allow you to designate a time for CyberBuddy to be silent.

In Instant messaging, you can now select to have the messages that you send appear in the Receive Window along with the messages that are received from others.

In instant messaging, if you were chatting with several people and were about to send a message to one person, but at that moment, recevied a message from another, you would end up sending it to the person that you just received from. CyberBuddy will now not change the "Send to" UIN or IP address if you are typing in the send window.

The speed measurement accuracy has been improved.

Some additonal animations have been added.

Other updates and fixes.

2.07.01
You asked for it, so here it is! CyberBuddy can now use multiple characters. Assign a different character and/or voice (along with other options) to the different functions of CyberBuddy!

In previous versions, CybrBuddy would not properly decode quoted-printable text in email messages. This would result in CyberBuddy saying that there was an attachment rather than displaying or reading the text of the email message. This has been fixed.

At times, when CyberBuddy was trying to do several things at once, an error may have displayed. The error may have shown as EAccess violation at $ffff or I/O error 32 or ECreate error or some other error. This has been addressed in this version.

A number of other fixes and updates.

2.06.00
CyberBuddy now looks for natural breaks such as the end of sentences when reading text. This is most noticeable when reading email, documents or URL's.

"Read a Document" button added to the "Read" tab to read text and web documents.

Enhancements and fixes to email. Email receive would sometimes not function. This version has recovery built in. Email Send also had problems, fixed in this version.

Email read would sometimes give an "out of memory" error. Fixed in this version.

Added "speech tags" to Add Action selection in Instant Message Send. Allows you to add speech changes such as whisper, emphasize word, and monotone voice to instant messages. New shortcut keys also added for this.

A number of other fixes and enhancements.

2.05.00
Major Updates!

All internet protocol sections have been re-written. Faster and more reliable communication. Now tested on Windows 2000 and Windows ME (Thanks John Liem).
If you have had any problems or errors with CyberBuddy, be sure to try this version.

Email now allows for automatic reading of email message text. Last email checked time is displayed.

On the Buddies page, where you put your comments to Publish your UIN, you can now put in punctuation and even some limited HTML to spice up your listing.

CyberBuddies standard voice messages are now included in a file instead of coded directly into the CyberBuddy program. This means that CyberBuddy can now be adapted to many languages. I have put up a page dedicated to more languages. Also, advanced users can change many of the voice messages within CyberBuddy. A page to help advanced users will be put up soon.

If you have moved CyberBuddy to another computer and want your original UIN to go with it, there is now a facility to change the UIN in CyberBuddy. To do this, send an email with the UIN that your CyberBuddy is currently set to, and the UIN you would like it changed to. You will be emailed a small file to place in your CyberBuddy folder. The next time you start CyberBuddy, the UIN will be changed. Email UIN change requests to cyberbuddy@yeayou.com

New Voice Message function. Note: The Voice Message function is no longer compatable with previous versions. If you use the Voice Messaging function with friends make sure they also update to the latest version.

Many other speed and reliability improvements.

2.04.00
Now it's easy to contact other CyberBuddies!
There is now a list of CyberBuddies that would like to chat using CyberBuddy instant messaging or voice.
This version contains a section on the Buddies tab that allows your UIN to be listed in a directory of CyberBuddies.
Click the "CyberBuddy Buddies Page" button on the Buddies tab to see the directory.
Other minor fixes.

2.03.02
In the previous version, the Voice Send routine stopped working. This has been fixed.
When using instant messaging, you can now enter the other CyberBuddy's IP address OR their UIN number. CyberBuddy will lookup the IP address for the UIN number.
In instant messaging, sending the message by pressing the Enter key is now an option that is selectable.
Now, when you upgrade CyberBuddy, any custom messages that you have entered will be preserved. The upgrade will not overwrite them.

2.03.01
Bug fix: If you tried to add 1 buddy to the buddies list, and it was the first buddy, CyberBuddy would not always save this entry in the list.

Instant Messaging Updates:
Sometimes CyberBuddy would receive duplicate messages and repeat the message. This version checks for, and ignores repeats.
The "Enter" key can now be used to send messages.
More shortcut keys have been added to add animation. These are listed in the help file.

Other minor fixes and updates.

2.03.00
Spam filtering added to the CyberBuddy email functions! Let CyberBuddy get rid of that spam.
Fix for error 103 that sometimes occurred when retrieving email.
Colors adjusted better for those having only 256 color systems.
Other minor fixes and additions.

2.02.00
Now, personalize your CyberBuddy! You can now add or edit many of the messages given by CyberBuddy. Make him say what you want.
Reading of web pages improved, more filtering of unwanted HTML tags.
New help file in better format.

2.01.01
Stock quote server changed formats. This version corrects for it.
Email will now only announce new mail if desired.
New improved help file format.

2.00.09
CyberBuddy 2 released after test. Check here for CyberBuddy 2 details.

CyberBuddy 2 is now the current supported version!
Check out the features of CyberBuddy 2 here

Original CyberBuddy 1
This version has now been replaced with CyberBuddy 2.

1.24.00 Released 6/1/00
CyberBuddy now supports the original Microsoft� Speech engine as well. This gives the capability of even more voice selections. See this page for details.
Fixed Windows shutdown problem seen on some machines.
Fixed minor problem with varying pitch and speed of voice if the user changed the speech parameters.
Fixed problem where microphone volume was set to zero sometimes when the setup of Voice Sending was used.
Other minor fixes and corrections.

Last Update 10/10/2006