1st of all, this is just a suggestion and an opinion, nothing more… Does anyone else feel the custom Avast sounds deserve a sticky? The main reasons i think so are:
I bet 3/4 of Avast users aren’t aware they exist
The thread that 1st introduced them (at least to me) is buried somewhere deep in the forum by now
It may satisfy some of the people who seem to be adamant about customizing everything (there are quite a few threads about customizing GUI colors, etc)
I think the Avast team meant for everyone to have fun with this, and who knows when a user with the knowhow to create a new sound pack may visit the forum? (Droid soundpack please) ;D
I wonder what others think? No flaming please if you don’t feel it deserves a sticky
As for the “not hard”… sure, technically, it’s rather simple.
But from what we’ve received so far (which wasn’t much, but still) - I dare say it’s not that simple to make something that sounds well. It seems like it’s enough to write down the texts and then read them into some recording device. But… it often sounds rather dull, boring.
I mean, for personal usage, whatever the particular person likes, it’s fine
But if it should be placed somewhere on avast! web, or even included in the program (we’re still missing the voiceovers in quite many language versions) - it should be recorded through a decent microphone (i.e. not the one in notebook or cellphone), and the whole expression/pronunciation should be “lively” (but also natural!). It’s not that simple, if you’re not a professional speaker.
As for the sticky… I don’t know, there are plenty of stickies here already.
@ ArtemisF0wl
-1 to a sticky we have enough/more stickies that you can shake a stick at (excuse the pun) without another one.
I bet of the 3/4 users that don’t know about the custom sounds, 99% of them don’t care or they would come looking.
That is why there is a fully functioning forum search tool.
quite a few, when you compare the numbers posting about this compared to the total avast user base, quite a few is a minuscule number.
If they were that interested then they also have the iNews feature to make announcements on features, etc. Not to mention the avast Help Center where there could be another section slipped in after Technical support for Useful links and customisation, etc.
Why not get famous public people to actually record the message professionally?
I think it would really be cool if you could hear the voice of your favorite footballer, movie star, singer etc.
With Avast having tens of millions of users I would think that these famous people would offer to do it for free given all the free advertising that it would give them.
For example the voice message could say: Hi this is so and so and your virus definitions have been updated.
Well, I can imagine such people may have quite a few similar offers… and possibly a lot of other things to do - than spend time in a recording studio. However, I’d say the main problem is to get through to these people - over their agents.
Personally, I don’t like this “Hi this is…” (I believe we actually have something similar in one of the Polish themes). I mean, might be funny at first, but if you hear it every day, possibly even twice a day…
(just my personal opinion though)
Nothing to get these people into a recording studio. They are always around one. In fact a lot of them have studios in their homes. So all they have to do is read a few lines for Avast while they are in the studio and finished. All of maybe a minute tops.
As far as what they say I hear ya. I leave that up to the Avast team to figure out. However, no problem getting through to them. Start with a famous person from the Czech Republic that one of the people in Avast knows. Its not like The Czech Republic is that a big a country where no one in Avast would not know one of these people. Start with that one or two countryman/countrywomen and see how it goes. If people like it then I am sure that the famous people who someone at Avast knows, knows people that are famous that don’t live in the Czech Republic. So on an so forth.
I agree at least initially it would be difficult to go through agents but through personal relationships it might just work enough to get the ball rolling.
How exactly it would be done I leave that up to the Avast team.
Do you have clue how much the creators and owners of Avast are worth? I don’t but I know it is more than enough to run in the elite circles in the Czech Republic.
