Susan updated

Although I am not 100% serious about Susan, I do occasionally update her. Susan is a command-line driven, ASCII-based personal assistant app for Windows.

Susan version 1.1.0.42, follow the links to find out more.

I have pushed out a new version which you can download now.

What's new?

1. Susan's messages now occur more frequently, and are date-specific. For example, tomorrow she will be wishing you a happy new year.
2. Various bug fixes, specifically solving a problem with BBC RSS feeds which made the news appear with extra characters.
3. Bug fix that caused the time to appear as 12am rather than 12pm.
4. Load your Instagram page with the command 'insta'.

Susan main page showing news feed. If you feel the need for a command-line driven ASCII-based personal assistant, then Susan is your girl.

If you ran a previous version of Susan then you will be directed to the new Download location as soon as you boot her up again.

Susan updated to version 1.1.0.38

There's a new update to Susan - the ASCII-based personal assistant for Windows.

She now has a timer feature.  Simply start the timer with the 'start' command.  The timer will count up in seconds, minutes and hours.

Older versions of Susan will prompt you to download the new version.  If you are new to Susan, and you want an ASCII-based personal assistant app then follow the links below.

Go to the main Susan page now.
Find other Susan-related posts.

I really like this Windows 10 feature

Recently some relatives made a long flight.  Naturally I wanted to track the progress of this flight (should be called 'mission').

At first I used flight radar. I found this very difficult to track an individual flight because although I knew the flight code (used by the airline operators), I didn't know the callsign code (used by air traffic control). I am not even sure whether I have got this distinction correct.

In some desperation I then typed the flight number into Cortana and was delighted to discover that she had it all covered.

Switching to my Lumia 950, the details were there in a nice Cortana card too.  Go Microsoft!

Next steps - Implement this feature in gorgeous ASCII for Susan.

Susan updated to 1.1.0.34

If you feel the need to be amused by an ASCII version of Cortana, then do click below to get Susan for your Windows PC.

I've updated Susan - the command line personal assistant app to the current version (1.1.0.34).

Susan - now with awesome ASCII loading screen.

What's new:

• 'Susan' banner ascii art added on load screen.
• Backwards compatibility added.
• User defined variables now appear in the auto-suggestions.
• Fixed bug where date appears as '01st of...'
• Assignments can be made using variables.
• Fixed bug where variables could not be the first term of an expression.
• 'exec' function can take variables as a parameter eg exec <$myvar>
• Fixed bug when displaying the '2nd' day of the month.
• Goodbye message on closing.
• 'tell me a joke' command added.

I've updated Susan - the command line personal assistant app to the current version (1.1.0.34).

Pop along to the downloads page now.

Read the other Susan related posts.

Changing where Susan looks for the news

Unless you live in the UK, you will probably want to change where Susan looks for your news and weather information.  Susan uses RSS feeds to get news and weather.  By default these point to the BBC news feeds.  To change things, first find the RSS for the news or weather service you want.

Here is the RSS feed for BBC business news:

http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/business/rss.xml

To set the business news as your main news feed, type:

setNewsfeed http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/business/rss.xml

Type 'rerun' to check everything went as planned. You should now be getting the news from your chosen feed.

Changing the Weather Feed.

First find the RSS weather feed for your area.

Second use the setWeatherfeed command as described above for the news feed.  Type 'rerun' or 'weather' to check that everything is as expected.

Changing the primary feed.

The primary feed is an additional news feed that you can set to any RSS feed you like. Susan will pull items from this feed onto here display at random intervals whenever she is bored.

Set the primary feed using the setPrimaryfeed command, followed by the RSS feed, as described above for the news feeds.


Still reading?  
See all Susan related posts.  
You might also like - the Reverse Polish Notation Calculator.

Doing maths with Susan

Susan, the command line personal assistant, can perform calculations for you.  Simply type your expression followed by the all important equals sign (=).

For example:

3 + 4 =

Will output the answer '7'.

You can set variables using the equals sign as an assignment.

For example:

mass = 45.3

Then try:

force = 0.039

We can now use our variables in expressions:

force / mass =

Susan will keep your variables in memory so they will be available the next time you load her.

You might want to make expressions that are dependent on other variables.  For example, the acceleration is a function of mass and force.  Changing one of these will affect the acceleration.  To do this, use the 'relative assignment' operator (:=).

For example:


accel := force / mass

We can now make changes to both 'force' and 'mass' and use the updated 'accel' in other expressions:


3 * accel =

For a full list of built-in mathematical expressions, see the online help - simply type 'help' into Susan to load this up (or press F1).

Still with us?  
See all Susan related posts.  
You might also like - the Reverse Polish Notation Calculator.

I made a command line personal assistant in BASIC

I am not 100% serious about this application, however, just to amuse some students I have written a personal digital assistant app in BBC BASIC for Windows.

Introducing Susan - your command line personal assistant.

Susan running in Windows 10

Susan can:

• compose email;
• keep you up to date with the news and weather;
• solve mathematical expressions;
• remember your wife's birthday;
• search The Web;
• run macros and scripts;
• keep time;
• say stuff

For the full list of features see the online help, or Susan's homepage.

The current version (1.1.0.26) is available to download.  Should there be much interest in Susan, I'll add some new features (possibly alarms and reminders first).

I would appreciate helpful feedback through the social media links at the top right of this page.