Howie the Chatterbot

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• News
• Project Description
• Online Documentation
• Downloads
• How to Install
• Future Plans
• License
• Credits

News

• 1/11/2005: Howie now has a mailing list. Subscribe to get help and advice from other Howie users, and submit any useful extensions you've developed for Howie!
• 10/19/2004: Howie 0.6.0 has been released! This version features support for two new chat protocols (ICQ and IRC), a rewritten AIM front-end which avoids the connection problems previously mentioned, an updated AIML interpreter, and the usual bevy of bugfixes. NOTE: Before you go download the new release, please note that if you're running the source-code version of Howie, you now need to install the Twisted networking framework, or else you'll get all kinds of "module not found" errors.
• 8/4/2004: A problem has recently been reported with the Py-TOC module, which Howie uses for AIM connectivity. The problem manifests itself as errors while connecting and a generally unreliable connection. The author of Py-TOC is aware of the problem; more details are available at the Py-TOC site. I apologize for the inconvenience; to my knowledge, none of the other protocols are affected by this problem.
• 1/17/2004: Version 0.5.0 is available (yes, an actual version number for a change). This release includes two new front-end modules (MSN Messenger and Jabber Chat), numerous fixes to the AIML interpreter, and an improved system for customizing details of the bot's personality and interests.

Description

Howie is a conversational AI -- a computer program you can talk to. He is designed to be simple to install, configure and (above all) extend.

Howie is Friendly.

Currently, Howie is willing to discuss religion, sports, sex (reluctantly), and philosophy. He even knows a little German!

Howie is Helpful.

Howie is able to answer most questions of the form "Who/what/where/when is/was/are/were X?" -- though his answers are occasionally more entertaining than accurate. He can also help find rhymes for a word, or tell you what an acronym means. He will someday provide definitions or synonyms for any word in the dictionary, query your address book, and even perform a few simple remote system-administration tasks!

Howie is Connected.

You can communicate with Howie in a number of different ways: AIM, MSN Messenger, Jabber Chat, XML-RPC, or locally on the command-line. Future versions will include interfaces for HTTP, IRC, ICQ, Zephyr, and more! Howie's knowledge base is made up of a wide variety of Internet resources. If you find something that he can't do, it's usually pretty straightforward to teach him!

System Requirements

Howie has been tested on Windows XP, Red Hat Linux and NetBSD. However, he should work on any system that meets the following requirements:

• Python 2.2.2 or greater
• 64 MB available RAM (more or less, depending on the AIML set you're using)
• Dedicated Internet connection

Documentation

Okay, I've been severely lax in my documenting duties. Currently, all I've got is a mailing list for Howie users, and a severely underpopulated FAQ.

Downloads

All releases are available at the Sourceforge page.

Installation

Windows Binary Kit

• Install Howie using his installer.
• Edit the howie.ini file, found in the directory where you installed Howie. This file lets you set up the interfaces presented to visitors (AIM, MSN, etc.) as well as customize Howie's behavior. You can access this file through the "Howie->Configure Howie" shortcut in the Start Menu.
• To test Howie, run the "Howie->Run Howie (Local Mode)" shortcut, found in your Start Menu. This will open up a local session with Howie, so you can make sure everything is running smoothly before you put him online.
• Run the "Howie->Run Howie" shortcut to start up the Howie server.

Source Distribution

• Unzip the source archive.
• UNIX USERS ONLY: Run the "unix-install.py" script in the main Howie directory. It will automatically configure Howie to run in a UNIX-like environment.
• Edit the howie.ini file, found in the directory where you installed Howie. This file lets you set up the interfaces presented to visitors (AIM, MSN, etc.) as well as customize Howie's behavior.
• To test Howie, run runme.py -l in the main Howie directory. This will open up a local session with Howie, so you can make sure everything is running smoothly before you put him online.
• Run the runme.py script to launch Howie.

Future Plans

• Provide a variety of additional front-end interfaces for conversing with Howie, including MSN Messenger, IRC, ICQ, HTTP and GUI.
• Expand the number of services Howie can provide (e.g. providing word definitions and synonyms, tracking packages, web-crawling for items of interest).

License

I hate legalese. This software is free to use and distribute however you'd like. I'm not aware of any catastrophic bugs, but please don't come crying to me if this software fries your board. Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to make this call. For indoor or outdoor use ONLY. We live for the One, we die for the One.

Credits

(c) 2003 Cort Stratton (cort@users.sourceforge.net), with the following exceptions:

• The Win32 installer was produced using the Nullsoft Install System.
• The Windows executable was built with py2exe.
• Howie's conversational back-end is provided by PyAIML, a Python implementation of Dr. Richard S. Wallace's A.L.I.C.E. system. For more information about the A.L.I.C.E. Foundation (including information on AIML, the Artificial Intelligence Markup Language used to program Howie's responses), visit the A.L.I.C.E. homepage.
• Howie's AIM and ICQ front-ends are provided by Twisted.
• Howie's MSN front-end is provided by msnp, a Python MSN module by Manish Jethani.
• Howie's Jabber front-end is provided by jabber.py, a Python Jabber library by Matthew Allum.
• Howie is named after Howie Day, for no particular reason. If it weren't for Amy Kalson, he would be named something truly boring like PyBot or PyBorg.
• Hooray for Python!