Thank you for joining the team of sevaks who are working to preserve the heritage of Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami's spoken word. The initial objective of the GITA project is to transcribe every word ever spoken by Gurudeva that was ever recorded on audio tapes or video. With between 1200-1500 audio files to transcribe it is a massive project. If we had 20 sevaks who did two transcriptions a month, the project would take about two and a half years. At present, we only have about 6 sevaks who are doing the work. Suffice it to say that this is a long term endeavor, and we appreciate the depth of commitment you are giving to this important project. Those who are doing the work give testimony to the great joy they find in listening to Gurudeva's voice, which is like "nectar" for one's spiritual life.
Below are instructions for getting started. You may find it more convenient to print out this document to follow along on your computer. Or, open a second window in your browser. Position this window so you can read these instructions and access the files (as described below) in the other browser window.
Please feel free to call me if you can talk on the phone and access the internet at the same time. And we will guide you through the set up. This is sometimes more efficient both of us, because if you find something you don't understand, we can resolve it immediately instead of typing many e-mails back and forth.
Brahmanathaswami, Ph: 1-808-634-5456, at Kauai Aadheenam.
For those of you who may have already met with Brahmanathaswami and were "tutored" at the aadheenam and made notes, or who are particularly adept at use of their computers, we offer a quick start description. Assuming all goes well, after installation you can then skip to the "usage" section below.
a) Create a new folder on your hard drive in an obvious, familiar location with your working documents... call it "Gurudeva Transcriptions" or "Transcription Seva"... any name will do.
b) Go to the Aadheenam sevak web site: http://www.himalayanacademy.com/audio/transcription/
c) Underneath "Tools" Click to download the "HA Livecode Player" "engine-program" for your platform (Windows or Mac, Mac OSX)... don't close your browser yet.. just minimize it... unzip, it Mac OSX Version, Windows x86-64 Version or Windows x86-64 Version and put into the newly created transcription folder.
d) Go back to the sevak website and download the Audio_Transcriber.rev stack... unzip and save in the same folder with HA Livecode Player.app. Double click HA Livecode Player.app. If you see a beautiful rainbow above the Iraivan Temple and image of Ganesha and a little fire, then you know that the HA Livecode Player was installed, You may find some more useful tips in the long detailed version below.
a) The very first thing is to create a new folder on your hard drive. The location should be the area on your machine that you commonly use and are familiar with and from which you normally open and save documents. Windows users will normally save this to "My Computer" and inside "My Documents." Since there are several "My Documents" folders, on most Windows systems. use the one you usually use. The desktop itself is also a suitable location. Since you will access this folder often, put it with your other commonly accessed documents.
b) Once you have navigated to the location, use the "New Folder" option on your system to create the new folder. Set the name of the folder to "Transcription Seva" or "Gurudeva Transcriptions" or "GITA". Any name will do.
c) We recommend you make "Favorite" an alias or "shortcut" to the new folder on your desktop for easy access in the future. Mac OSX users can also drag the folder to their dock.
d) This new folder will contain all the tools and files we will be using for this project.
We have developed our own transcription software using the outstanding Livecode development IDE. The "engine" program is called HA Livecode Player.app. The HA Livecode Player.app can be used to "run" documents which are called "stacks." To most users the "stacks" will appear to be complete applications in themselves, but they are documents none-the-less, just as a letter you have written in MS-Word is a document in relation to the program MS-Word. Another example: HA Livecode Player.app is like Adobe Acrobat Reader... and a "stack" is like a PDF. The HA Livecode Player.app is the program and the stack is the "document." which is created, opened, saved and closed. For discussion purposes we simply can refer to "the Player" and "the Transcriber."
In addition we have also the "transcription file" which is a third component. This is just a simple text file, formatted as an xml document, which is separate from both the Player and the Transcriber. Don't worry if you don't understand all this now. It will all become clear as you begin working. Read the following instructions for downloading, once through before you start...
a) Keep this window open in your browser. Now the link below to go to the sevak web site on the server at Kauai Aadheenam. You will be required to enter a user name and password. Just enter "sevak" in both places. After the new window opens, move it to the side so you can continue reading these instructions. Now, click here to go the transcription sevak web site: http://www.himalayanacademy.com/audio/transcription/.
b) Below the Satguru's pictures are several links under "Tools." Start by first downloading the Himalayan Academy Revolution Stack Player, which is the first link. it will take you to another web site and you navigate and finally choose the one for your computer: either Mac or Windows. This is the "program" you need. It is a zipped file and you will need to decompress it and put it in the newly created folder on your hard drive. You may need to double click the zipped file to decompress it... if you are asked if you want to save it, choose to save it in you new folder. If it unzips automatically you will need to find it and manually move it into the new transcription work folder.
Do no close your browser windows....
c) Once you have unzipped the file you should see HA Livecode Player.app. ( the ".exe" may or may not appear, depending on the preferences or properties you have set for your file system.) Double click this file and it should start up and you will see a picture of Lord Ganesha and a small fire burning... if this works, we are ready for the next step.
a) Now go back to your browser and using "Back" keep going back until you see the Sevak's page again, or click this link again. http://www.himalayanacademy.com/audio/transcription//. Click the second link under tools: Download the LiveCode "Audio Transcriber" (code name "ATRA") application stack. It will download almost instantly because it is a very small file. You will also need to unzip this file and place it in the your new transcription folder. This completes the installation process.
a) Open Audio_Transcriber_3-2.livecode: Having started up the Himalayan Academy Livecode player, move it to the side so that you can see the folder you are working from and click on "Audio_Transcriber_3-2.livecode" and hold and drag it on top of the HA Livecode Player.app window. Keep dragging until you are on top of the square button that says "Favorites" just to the left of Ganesha. The button will turn green and then you "drop" the "Audio_Transcriber_3-2.livecode" onto it. Audio transcriber should now open in a new top window. If you move this to the side, and click down on the "Favorites" button of Himalayan Academy Livecode Player pull down menu it will tell you "Audio_Transcriber_3-2.livecode", you will see it has been added to the little menu, and you can choose this later to begin again. If see only "Delete" from that pull down menu, try it again: take Audio_Transcriber_3-2.livecode file and place it on the "Favorite" button You can also click on "Open" button.
b) Enter Preferences: Along the upper left hand edge of the screen of Audio_Transcriber_3-2.livecode (whatever ever the version will be numbered) you will see a series of small menus: "File" "Edit," "Tools," and "Help. " Click on "Edit" and choose the "Preferences" menu item. Another small window will open. Enter your proper use name as it was given to you. It is usually just one name, all lower case. Next click on "Browse" and find the folder that you have created for this work and click the button "Choose" and you should see the path to your working folder now in the preferences. It will be something like "/Users/MyName/Desktop Folder/Transcription Seva/" or :\C\My Computer\My Documents\Transcription Seva\". Close the preferences window. Under the "File Menu" choose "Save Transcriber" to save your preference.
c) Download a Sound file: if you are connected to the internet, you should see a small green light turning next to the "connection status" button. If you see a red circle with an X through it, you should first connect to the internet... make sure you can to websites in your browser. Go back to the Audio_Transcriber.rev and click on Connection Status again and it should turn green. Once you know you are connected, click on "View & Download." A new window will open up. Click on "New and Incoming" and then double click on one of the sound files in the list, which is your list of files on the server on Kauai... The program will asked if you want to download, click OK and then wait a while for the sound file to download... After it is finished, the program will tell you and you hit the small "close" button to close the listing view. the sound file will be automatically, placed in your transcription directory.
d) Choose a Sound file: Next, click the little button "Select Audio File" navigate to your new transcription folder and you will see the newly downloaded sound file... click to open and then hit the button "Play" and the sound file should begin playing.
e) Start Transcribing: You may now begin transcribing. When you need to stop, click "Stop" and then from the "File" menu, choose "Save Transcriber." You may now quit HA Stack Player and when you return the next day you can use "Pick up from last session" to continue where you left off. More details on the transcription process are in the GITA FAQ file.
f) Enter Header Information: After you have been transcribing for a while, you should save the transcription to a separate file. But, to do this you will need to enter all the "Header" information. These are details about the talk which you access by clicking on "Edit" and choosing the "Header" All field must be filled in with the exception of "date" which, if unknown, can be left blank. For "Given By" and "Category" you click on the button with the down arrow and choose one. normally you will choose "Gurudeva" for "Given By" and an appropriate category. If the location is unknown, that is, you do not know where the talk was given you must enter "unknown"... enter some preliminary description. You will be able to edit this later. Then, click Save and Close.
g) Save Transcript to File: Now, on a daily basis you should to go the "File" menu and click "Save Transcriber" and also click "Save Transcript to File." After doing so, you can look on you hard drive and you will see a new file with the name of the audio file but it ends in .xml. You can open this in any text editor and view you transcript.
h) Send Transcript to Kauai: After you have completed the transcript, make sure you are connected to the internet and the connection status icon is running green. Then Click "Post to Kauai and Save" and your file will be sent to the server at Kauai Aadheenam.
i) File Upload Check: To confirm that your file arrived on Kauai, click "View and Download" and you will now see a new file in the "New and Incoming" directory. You may also email Brahmanathaswami at to ask him to confirm your file has arrived. Once you have confirmed that your transcript has arrived, you can start a new transcription.
For more details see the "Frequently Asked Questions" document,.
or send your questions to Brahmanathaswami by email, or call him. Afternoons, Kauai time is best for him.
Once, again, thank you for your seva on this all important project.