Interactive chat bot tutorial: Step 1

CHAT BOT TUTORIAL 1: Set up basic chat bot

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For help, or to share ideas with others interested in bot development please visit our conference room and forum. Our events calendar also lets you know when tech help will next be on line.

What's Part 1 all about?
	In Part 1 of this tutorial you set up a link to our pandora bot. This is an artificial intelligence robot based on the work of Dr. Richard Wallace and the A.I.M.L. foundation. In Part 2 you are going to learn how to create your own pandorabot, and link it to the world you set up in Part 1.
What do I need?
	a web host an FTP program for uploading files to your web host.There are many excellent free/shareware/low cost programs out there - we use SmartFTP.
Download the files
	Download the files here, and use e.g. WinZip to unzip them into the same folder on your hard drive (e.g.called bot). The files should work from your hard drive (if you're connected to the Internet) so you can try them out before uploading them to your website.

Try them out!
	Connect to the Internet and double click on the file bot.htm in the folder where you stored th files you downloaded. The very simple world should now load. Make suire the chat window is open at the bottom of the atmosphere screen, then type a question for the bot by starting it with a B: e.g. B: Hello. You should get a reply from the pandorabot displayed in the chat window underneath your question e.g. Bot Says: Hi! It may take a few seconds for your pandorabot to reply - this depends on a number of factors: how busy the Internet is the speed of your Internet connection whether or not Cyber3d's chat server is working (the bot uses this to communicate with the web page and others). If you don't get an answer check whether the chat server is working by clicking: and checking whether there are any names in the User Box that pops up. If it's blank, try refreshing the web page (F5) - if that doesn't work you'll have to try again another time when the chat server is working, sorry! When building your own world for your bot to inhabit you can choose what chat server you want to use - we have used Cyber3d's as we have found that pretty reliable (unlike Adobe''s!!!). If you're still having problems then pay a visit to our forum - there's a topic called Using Intelligent Chat Bots in Atmosphere where you can find out more information and post any questions you may have. Once your bot is working, go ahead and ask it a few questions! You will be talking to our default bot "TEST" but you can choose your own bot in the later stages of this tutorial
Upload the files to your website
	Once you are happy things are working, simply upload the files to a suitable folder on your web site and access them from there.
What's the next step?
	We are in the process of updating our tutorials to make setting up your own bot even easier. We hope to have the next steps of the tutorial: setting up your own pandorabot setting up a text to speech system animating the bot adding the script to your own world teaching your bot updated and ready to help you by the end of January 2005 so please call back soon!