More4me2do

Found this most interesting article in the Guardian giving an inside look into Christian activity in China. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/china-christians-religious-persecution-translation-bible Here are a few interesting quotes from the article giving you an idea of what is happening to those that are advancing believes in Christ. Don't know if I should be fearing for our brothers or be happy about BtheG being attacked. You can also imagine what would happen if we had official places of worship in China. Definitely an argument to be made that the Chinese government behaves like their father corrupting God's word of truth. You have to admire people that believe in the Bible and do whatever the Bible teaches them to do, you only wonder how God will introduce them to a visible representative of his people. This explains a lot why Chinese tourist who go by our carts with Chinese artwork in the SMPW work show sometimes a disdain for our message, almost like evangelists in the US Bible belt.

Here is the good news, the creator of the Daily Text Flash Briefing skill has pushed out a correction and I am glad to say it works now exactly as it did in 2018. Thanks again for the correction and the wife and I are very pleased that are morning breakfast is back to normal.

You are correct why you have the difficulties. However there is a way to change countries but I am not sure how to do that and then reset it to your home country, I did this once and had a real hard time to get rid of the UK settings as I was there for a short time. Google is your friend here and find out how to switch to other Amazon countries. On the other hand to publish an Alexa skill you have to be a developer and sign up for an account. The developer of the skill that I posted here, just signed up for the jwtalk.net forum. Once he has been enabled he may shine some light on the difficulties in this thread.

Your screen shot looks totally different then mine from my Android phone, what shows when you click on the link that I posted? Also you HAVE to use the Daily Text skill that has Flash Briefing enabled. There are two skills that give you the daily text one with 118 reviews that does NOT do Flash Briefing and one that has 15 reviews that DOES do flash briefing. When you search try also jw.org in the search field OR set it up from the link that I posted.

From your picture it looks like you are not in the Alexa App but rather just on the Amazon site. If you use the Amazon site you have to use the Alexa Skill category. Where did you set your Echo up from, Smartphone, Tablet or PC? If you used the Amazon Website then try this link in the Internet Explorer browser or your default browser. As you can see it shows as category Alexa Skills and there you get returns for searching for JW. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FB6A31I/ref=pe_1098610_137717230_cm_rv_rej_eml_dphttps://www.jw.org/en/

Sorry about the misunderstanding, didn't know you had all the different default Flash Briefing skills still active. You can edit the order and number of flash briefing entries that you have in your queue from the Settings menu then by selecting flash briefing and disable the ones you don't want. I disabled all the default entries and just have 4 in there, Daily Text, What's New on JW.ORG, JW.ORG Newsroom and the weather. After that the program exits the Flash briefing, that takes less then 2 minutes depending on the entries in What's New and the Newsroom of JW.ORG. I don't want to listen to BBC, CNBC, Reuters or the WSJ don't have time for that. If you though want to keep all your entries for future use, then edit the order and move the ones you want to listen to the top. When you are happy with what you have listened to, then just say "Alexa Stop" and it exits. I know that Amazon wants us to listen to the junk that the vendors paid them to put in as a default in the Flash Briefing, but you can customize that to your liking. I really don't have a problem with using the Alexa Skills it was the daily text flash briefing that had a code problem. I made my living in the IT world and am the tech support in my family, but this Flash Briefing Skill did no longer work after 12/31/2018 and I wanted to alert others. As you can see from my other posts after I contacted the creator of the daily text Flash Briefing he will push out a corrected version sometime over the weekend. All the best.

The mystery is solved as I contacted the creator of the Daily Text flash briefing skill and here is his answer: Just a little while longer and the stuck on 2018 Daily Text will be no more, but the 2019 daily text will be for at least another year.

Well let me sum it up for you: You HAVE to go to Settings then click on Flash Briefings. it shows the default flash briefing skills that Amazon has like BBC, CNBC and Reuters. On the top is a PLUS button with the label Add Content. Click on that PLUS button it opens a page listing Flash Briefing skills. On the top is a magnifying glass icon click on that and type into it JW. It will now show all the skills that have something to do with JW. Like JW.ORG What;s New also JW.ORG Newsroom add those to your Flash Briefing and you can then in the Flash Briefing page order which you want to listen to first. I also have the weather announcement in the Flash Briefing. Be mindful NOT all the skills that are appearing when searching for content are Flash Briefing ENABLED. Hope this helps and maybe you can show some of the younger ones what you can do. I also agree with the lengthy commands for the JW Access commands. I just use it when I want to show off my setup and play Original Songs or Children's songs it does have a WOW factor.

Sorry didn't get from your comment we are talking about JW library on the smartphone. This thread is for those that have an Amazon Echo and use Alexa. Voice navigation as well as finishing tasks using voice is the future here is what I do. Sitting at the breakfast table, open with prayer then I say "Alexa Flash briefing" and it starts to read to me, while I am eating my breakfast. Multi Tasking. Until December 31st I first listened to the FULL daily text, then What's new on JW.ORG, followed by the JW.ORG Newsroom headline finally ending with the weather report. No device or screen to touch, just talk to the Echo that is hooked up to my amplifier.

To announce the date, read the text and then the comment plus the references at the bottom. In other words what you have open on your phone, when someone reads all that writing takes 67 seconds.

I do mine from the Alexa app on my smartphone. It easier to do it from the app as I can't get it from the website. In the app you have a menu entry that says Skills & Games. Click on that and you will get a search bar. In that type JW and you get all the JW skills. However for the Flash Briefing in the app you have to click on Settings then Flash Briefing. Click the + sign to add new content. So far the only ones that work in the Flash Briefing are What's New on JW.ORG and the JW.ORG Newsroom. I also use the weather skill from Amazon. Not interested in the News Organizations flash briefings. So far NO Daily Text flash briefing works, just the normal voice command like "Alexa, open Daily Text for today" If this does not work for you invite a tech savvy young brother to your home and ask him to do it 🙂

WOW, I am not so sure if I should touch that attention span admission. For Friday January 4th the daily text timed takes 1minute and 7 seconds, the What's New from JW.ORG plus the JW.ORG Newsroom headlines and the weather takes a total of 32 seconds. If that is too long for your attention span, what do you do if you have a boring speaker? 🤔

You can set up in the Flash Briefing (Home Page / Settings / Flash Briefing) different skills. The creator of the skill has to enable the flash briefing capability. At present that is only the Daily Text skill that appears there but it still does year 2018. All the other skills that do the daily text you have to give a specific voice command like "Alexa open JW library and read me the daily text". or another "Alexa open days text" but these do not work in the Flash Briefing where I have set up the What's New on JW.ORG and the JW.ORG Newsroom headlines plus the weather. Everything was fine until January 1st. You have to add the skills from the App (Home Page / Skills and Games) the type in the search box JW and you will see all the skills that work with JW.ORG.

Do your skills do their job from the Flash Briefing? When I say "Alexa, Flash Briefing" it reads the Daily text first, then What's New at JW.ORG followed by headlines from the JW.ORG Newsroom and finally the weather. I am not talking about a skill that you have to ask to read the text, and the only skill that appears in the Flash Briefing after adding new content is the one that has still the 2018 texts. All the other skills are separate and yes they will react to the voice command, but it will not say the day and date, plus the references where the article is taken from. What is the name of the skill that you use?

For 2018 I enjoyed the Flash Briefing in Amazon's Echo with Alexa. It read the daily text as well as what's new on JW.ORG plus headlines from the JW.ORG news room. However with 2019 the skill for the daily text is stuck on December 31st 2018. The updated version with the 2019 logo still reads 2018's daily text. Since no other skills for reading the text will appear in the Flash Briefing part does anyone have an answer how to fix this or a substitute skill that can be used in the Flash Briefing? The only other option is to enter a lengthy voice command like "Alexa Open JW Library and Read the Daily Text" to read the text but both of the skills that read the text do not include the date nor the references the text was taken from. Thanks M4M2D0