January 2006

[1 - Greetings - Win Something from NextUp.com!]
[2 - NewsAloud 1.05 Released]
[3 - More Languages for TextAloud - They're Here!]
[4 - TextAloud Tip of the Month - More Information or Help on Using TextAloud]
[5 - Enter to Win a NextUp.com Travel Ticket Manager or an MP3 Player!]

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[1 - Greetings - Win Something from NextUp.com!]
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Hello from NextUp.com!

We hope 2006 is a great year for each of you.  We're thankful for the opportunity to serve our customers and appreciate your staying tuned.  Congratulations to Jim N., last month's contest winner for a NextUp.com Golf Windshirt.  This month one lucky winner will receive a NextUp.com Travel Ticket Manager, and we'll also be taking entries to win an MP3 player, so be sure to read on for details on how you can enter.

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[2 - NewsAloud 1.05 Released]
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We've updated our popular NewsAloud program.  For those who haven't tried it, NewsAloud automatically retrieves news stories from the internet.  You select news categories you are interested in, and NewsAloud will retrieve hourly news updates from several news sites.  You can have articles spoken aloud or create mp3 files from the stories to dump to your ipod or other portable player.  There are even options to have it automatically speak or create the files without interaction so you'll have a directory full of audio files ready each morning for your commute.

New in this version we've added/updated several Reuters news feeds as well as adding support for RSS and Atom News Feeds.  More info on using NewsAloud with RSS Feeds is available at

http://nextup.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1838

NewsAloud is only $19.95 at

http://nextup.com/purchase.html

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[3 - More Languages for TextAloud - They're Here!]
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One thing we get again and again in our customer feedback from TextAloud users is people looking for their language.  For a long time now, we've been working to meet this demand by bringing you voices in Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian and more.  In replying to these inquiries, we always said to watch our newsletter for word on when some of these languages would be available.  Well, they're here! 

Our recent addition of the outstanding RealSpeak series of premium text-to-speech voices from Scansoft includes a total of 27 voices in 17 languages. Here is a quick sampling

US English - Jennifer
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Jennifer.mp3

British English - Daniel
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Daniel.mp3

Australian English - Karen
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Karen.mp3

Chinese (Mandarin) - Mei-Ling
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Mei-Ling.mp3

Chinese (Cantonese) - Sin-Ji
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Sin-Ji.mp3

Danish - Nanna
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Nanna.mp3

Dutch – Claire
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Claire.mp3

Dutch (Belgian) – Ellen
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Ellen.mp3

French Canadian – Julie
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Julie.mp3

French - Sebastien
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Sebastien.mp3

German – Steffi
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Steffi.mp3

Italian – Sylvia
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Silvia.mp3

Japanese – Kyoko
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Kyoko.mp3

Korean – Narae
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Narae.mp3

Norwegian – Nora
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Nora.mp3

Polish – Aqata
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Agata.mp3

Portuguese (Brazilian) – Raquel
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Raquel.mp3

Portuguese – Madalena
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Madalena.mp3

Russian – Katerina
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Katerina.mp3

Spanish (Mexican) – Javier
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Javier.mp3

Spanish (Castilian) – Isabel
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Isabel.mp3

Swedish – Ingrid
http://nextupdownloads.com/scansamples/Ingrid.mp3

These amazing voices cost $35 each and are available via download or CD.  Hear all the samples and get more information at

http://www.nextup.com/scansoft.html

In order to purchase and use these voices, you do need to own (or purchase) TextAloud or any of our Aloud products.  For those of you who have not yet done so, you can add TextAloud to your order at a discount when purchasing the voices.

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[4 - TextAloud Tip of the Month - More Information or Help on Using TextAloud]
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For this months TextAloud tip we wanted to point out several places where you can get more information or help on using TextAloud. 

TextAloud Manual - We have a really nice, 80+ page manual for TextAloud.  It is available as a web page, or download in word and pdf format.  There is even an audio version available for download.  If you have a problem or question, or just haven't figured out how to do something yet, the answer is probably in the manual at

http://www.nextup.com/manual.html

TextAloud FAQ - On our support pages, we've got 20 or so frequently asked questions, so be sure to check there if you are in a hurry for common answers

http://nextup.com/TextAloud/tafaq.html

Advanced FAQ - We've recently created an Advanced FAQ.  This section of our site changes more frequently than others, allowing us to quickly post answers to questions that we get and think that others might learn from.  The Advanced FAQ is at

http://nextup.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=11

User Forum - We have a great family of users out there, and many of them are very active in our User Forums.  Through these forums, users help other users, talk about problems, answer questions, or just toss around ideas for how to get the most from our products.  Please check out the NextUp.com User Forums at

http://nextup.com/phpBB2/index.php

Just Ask Us - The most important tip to remember is that we love to hear from you.  While most companies do just about everything they can to keep customers from contacting them, we love it.  Long ago we learned that  most of you are smarter than us.  We learn from every email, have made countless friends, and try our best to treat each of you like a friend.  So, if you have any questions, a problem, a suggestion, or just want to say Hi, please don't hesitate to email us at

support@nextup.com

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[5 - Enter to Win a NextUp.com Travel Ticket Manager or an MP3 Player!]
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We actually have a two part contest this month, so be sure to read this whole section.  Since so many of our customers are also active Internet users, we wanted to do something this month relating to blogs.  For those who haven't experienced this yet, a blog (short for "web log") is a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically—like a what's new page or a journal.  The content can include any number of things such as links and commentary about other web sites, news about a company or an interesting product, diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, and so on. Word of mouth has always been our best resource for spreading the word about our software, so we're very interested in blogs.

We want to find out if you might know of bloggers who could be interested in writing about TextAloud or our other text to speech software.  To enter our contest this month, tell us about a blog that might be a candidate to comment on our software.  It could be a specialized blog on a topic like education or reading. Or it could be a technology-related blog, or pretty much anything.  We'll take all suggestions since, if you are reading them, or they are something you find when you stop to think about this, then such blogs may be of interest to us. Send your email to

newsletterdrawing@nextup.com

We'll draw a winner from entries received by Friday, January 27 to win a NextUp.com Travel Ticket Manager. This is a neat zippered wallet to hold your airline tickets, identification, passport, etc. We find them to be indispensable when traveling so you might like one too.

Now, for part two.  We'll read all entries above, and may contact some blogs we think would be interested in telling their readers about our software.  You may want to contact them too as a reader.  We've already had some exposure in blogs so we think this may lead to more. If you are connected (through your suggestion to us or directly to a blog) with getting us written about in a blog before February 28, we'll enter you in a separate drawing for an ultra-light (1.1 ounces) MuVo TX FM MP3 Player with 256 MB of flash memory for listening to music and portable audio files created by TextAloud.

If you find our products useful, please share the news with your friends and at your place of business.  We offer Volume Pricing with Site Licensing available to schools, organizations and businesses.  If you'd like more information on this or have questions about any of our products, please don't hesitate to contact us at

support@nextup.com

Thank you for your interest in our company & products. 

The NextUp.com Team
NextUp.com
The Power of Spoken Audio
http://www.NextUp.com

A Division of NextUp Technologies, LLC
 

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