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    Alexa: Alexa Skills, Tips & Tricks
    Alexa: Alexa Skills, Tips & Tricks
    Alexa: Alexa Skills, Tips & Tricks
    Ebook148 pages59 minutes

    Alexa: Alexa Skills, Tips & Tricks

    By Tom Edwards and Jenna Edwards

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Here it is - The Amazon Alexa User Manual that should come in the box of every Alexa enabled device!

    From the Number 1 Best Selling authors in Computers and Technology, this clear and concise guide will show you how to get the very best from your new Amazon Alexa enabled device. Step by step instructions will take you from newbie to expert in just one hour!

    About the Authors:
    Tom and Jenna Edwards are the Amazon Tech authors behind the Number 1 Best-selling e-books 250+ Best Kindle Fire & Fire HD Apps and All-New Fire 7 User Guide: Newbie to Expert in 2 Hours!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTom Edwards
    Release dateNov 15, 2019
    ISBN9780463448649
    Alexa: Alexa Skills, Tips & Tricks
    Author

    Tom Edwards

    Tom Edwards, originally from London, England, settled in Sacramento, California where he met his wife Jenna Edwards. Both work in the tech industry, Tom is a web designer and Jenna is a graphic artist, they share a passion for technology and embrace all the latest gadgets with gusto! The reviews of all the apps in their bestselling ebook 250+ Best Kindle Fire and Fire HD Apps for the New Kindle Fire User were written and researched by Tom and Jenna. Jenna also designed the book cover. Other than exploring new tech, Tom and Jenna enjoy spending time with their kids and cooking for friends.

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      Book preview

      Alexa - Tom Edwards

      Introduction

      Welcome

      Welcome and thank you for buying Alexa - Alexa Skills, Tips & Tricks!, a comprehensive introduction and companion guide to the exciting possibilities that Amazon’s AI brings to all Amazon’s Alexa enabled devices.

      Do You Need This Book?

      Well put it this way…I certainly wish I’d had a book like this when I bought my first Echo! Between Amazon’s online Alexa help guides and numerous techy blogs you can find a lot of the information contained in this book…if you’re willing to spend hours searching it out and clicking back and forth.

      And that’s the point… this Alexa book is a time saving manual primarily written for those new to streaming media devices, Bluetooth devices and tech that works in tandem with your PC or mobile device.

      If you were surprised or dismayed to find how little information comes in the box with your Alexa enabled device and prefer to have to hand, like so many users, a comprehensive, straightforward, step by step Amazon Alexa guide, to finding your way around your new device, then this book is for you.

      Furthermore, many articles and posts online are very quickly out of date. The Alexa app and all the Alexa enabled devices are still fairly new in the big scheme of things and there will be new features, skills and services, not to mention Alexa tips and tricks, appearing constantly over the coming months. We will be updating this Amazon Alexa manual as these developments unfold, making it an invaluable resource for even the tech savvy.

      Even if you are buying the first edition of this Alexa instruction book, never fear, you too can keep up to speed with all the new Alexa app updates by signing up to our free email newsletter here - www.lyntons.com/updates - so you’ll never miss a thing.

      As we will be updating this book on a regular basis we would love to get your feedback, so if there is a feature that you find confusing or something else that you feel we’ve missed then please let us know by emailing us at ReachMe@Lyntons.com.

      If you find this guide helpful we’d be ever so grateful if you would leave us a review on Amazon once you’ve finished the book…they really do help.

      Thank you!

      So without further ado let’s begin...

      1. What is Amazon’s ALEXA?

      Alexa is the brains behind all Amazon’s Echo devices. The cloud based AI assistant is getting better and better at understanding what we say, via its voice recognition software, and delivering an ever growing smorgasbord of helpful features. There’s a long way to go, but we think this kind of voice activated technology is going to radically change the way we interact online.

      For now we turn to the Echo throughout the day for news, weather, music and general information. It assists us in many ways with time management and scheduling, home automation, online purchasing, communication and social media, with more uses being added on a regular basis.

      This guide will help you get the most fun and functionality from Alexa. We want to set your mind at ease from the very beginning: Setting up and using the Alexa app is simple. From there, each step in tailoring this smart device to fit your lifestyle is easy and takes just a few minutes. The trick is in knowing what capabilities there actually are. That is what we will be focusing on in this guide. We will show you features that you might not have been aware of or that you would have only discovered via trial and error.

      What we won’t be doing in this guide is showing you how to set up your Alexa enabled device. If you want specific instructions for a particular Echo device or an Alexa enabled device, like a Fire tablet or Fire TV, then you might be interested in one of our other device specific guides. You can see them all via our author page on Amazon. http://amzn.to/2CGsd6W

      We also won’t be digging into each Alexa enabled device to see which Alexa features do or do not work with each device. The reason is simple, the information would be out of date within a month!

      It feels like every few weeks Amazon adds or adapts a new feature to Alexa and some of these features are only available on a few devices at first, but then available across all devices... it’s difficult to stay up to date.

      What we will do is give you two great resources so you can check out the latest compatibility issues yourself.

      First off we have this Amazon help page (http://amzn.to/2B3IaTW) where each Alexa device is listed along with the Alexa features that are not supported at this time.

      Next up is this Amazon page which is helpful for those of us who have more than one (or several!) Alexa enabled device. Find out which devices have shared content and settings, as well as which ones require a wake word - http://amzn.to/2DSFryd

      Talking of wake words, I’m sure you already know that for most devices you will use a wake word, usually "Alexa", before making any request.

      If you find it odd to address an inanimate object using a woman’s name, you can use one of these alternate wake words, "Amazon", "Echo" or "Computer". We will explain how to set your preferred wake word later. We’ve tried each option and have finally stuck with Alexa. It seems perfectly natural.

      Quick tip: "Echo" is a viable alternative wake word, but, for us at least, "Computer" and "Amazon" were not good choices as we say these words quite a lot in our day to day conversations. This causes our Alexa device to wake up and listen for an instruction more often than we would like.

      Another thing that we will definitely be looking at in this guide is the Alexa App. To really get going with Alexa you will need to get familiar with the Alexa app, a vital piece of the Amazon Echo system.

      In short, the App is a piece of software easily downloaded to your smart phone, tablet or accessed via a browser on your PC or Mac. The Alexa app is, essentially, the remote control center for all Alexa enabled devices and this guide will take you through every aspect of the app.

      Voice recognition software is the key to your communication with the Amazon Echo. The device is programmed to understand US and UK English and will comprehend most users without a problem.

      We’ve had some fun speaking to the device using exaggerated intonations and inflections including a variety of badly performed accents, and Alexa has understood us remarkably well.

      Okay, so let’s move on to an over view of the Alexa App.

      2. The Alexa App Overview

      This chapter is an overview of the Alexa App and how to use it. In subsequent chapters we will go into each section of the Alexa App in detail.

      Accessing the Alexa App

      Our preferred method is to access the app via a browser (Chrome/ Safari/Firefox etc) because of the larger screen size.

      So if you want to try this method then open a browser window on your pc or mac and enter this address www.alexa.amazon.com

      If you would prefer to access the Alexa app via your mobile phone or tablet then go to the app store of your device (e.g. Google Play, Apple App Store or Amazon App Store), search for "Alexa app" and then download and

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