Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2006 October 2

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Microphone

I have a headset microphone and on my old PC I could hear my voice. I got a new laptop and went thru the same procedure that i did before and now it wont do that. Is there a way to download a driver for that? Thanks!! --Zach 00:13, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

No driver neccessary. If you're running windows, open the start menu and click run. Type "sndvol32" then enter. You should see a number of devices that your sound card can mix together. There should be a device that says, "Line In" it's probably checked as muted. Uncheck that and any device you connect to your sound card's line in jack will play when its connected. If it's not listed, go to options>properties. There should be a number of devices you can add to the mixer. —Mitaphane _talk 02:42, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Nothing is muted :( Ug, this is frustrating, thanks for your help tho. --Zach 21:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

IIRC, some sound cards have a "monitor" option, which does something which you describe. But some sound cards don't. It may be the case that your PC soundcard has the monitor option available, but your laptop soundcard doesn't. Though I haven't seen something like this for a while, so don't trust me 100% on this. Dysprosia 06:37, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Question: What kind of sound card/computer do you have?—Mitaphane _talk 01:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

ksh or bsh variables

I'd like to write a little script that copies a file from one directory to another, like this:

cp /home/<username>/alpha .

However, I don't know what the username variable is. Can someone help? --HappyCamper 02:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Try inserting `whoami` for your username. If it's someone elses, then you will probably need to specify that on the command line when you invoke your script (use $1). Dysprosia 02:49, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

cp ~/alpha .
cp /home/$USERNAME/alpha .
cp $HOME/alpha .

--Kjoonlee 08:24, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, this is really helpful. I'd like to ask, how do you get a list of these $ variables? And can you use the same syntax in a Makefile? --HappyCamper 11:37, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

If you've got GNU coreutils installed, you can run env to see all shell variables that have been set. I think some of these are provided by the shell. I used GNU bash to test. I'm a newbie when it comes to make, so I'm afraid I don't know if it works with Makefiles. --Kjoonlee 12:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Check the manual page for the shell you're using for variables that the shell provides. You can use whatever syntax your default shell uses in a makefile. Dysprosia 14:14, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Missing after posting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ERCOMER

Hi, My question has to do with a post I sent in last month. The URL can still be found in Google, thus it must have existed at one point (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ERCOMER). But it is now gone from Wikipedia. Could someone please let me know how this is possible? Do I have to resend everything?

Thank you.

ERCOMER editor —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ellenchan (talk • contribs) 12:52, October 2, 2006 (UTC).

Hello,

Deleted ? Maybe you should take a look at our policy (and deletion policy.)--193.56.241.75 11:31, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, your article was deleted, check the deletion log. It was written as an ad and didn't meet the Wikipedia verifiability criteria. You may be interested in what Wikipedia is not and your first article.

In future, the best place to ask about this sort of thing would be Help desk, and if you could sign your posts it would be helpful in keeping track of who said what. — QuantumEleven 12:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Computer won't change visual settings (win98)

I was trying to play a movie on an early version of real player, and it asked me to change the color quality, but now it won't change back... even after going to the menu and clicking on the different screen resolutions and color qualities. The computer just restarts and stays with the same qualities. Also how can i delete the Os on the computer (Still talking about Win98) format c/s/u doesnt seem to work.Sasuke264 15:35, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

For the second question, do you mean "How do I overwrite deleted files with binary zeroes to make sure nobody can retrieve the data ?" ? StuRat 15:46, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like he wants to delete his OS, but format.exe doesn't seem to work. I always use a DOS boot disk to format my computer, or better yet, the install disk for the new OS that I want to install. Windows and Linux install disks (not upgrade) almost always format the hard-drive automatically (after prompting) before installation.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  03:41, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

actually i know nothing about the binary 0's and i do not have an ms-dos boot disk... All i have is a windows 98 boot disk and CD. What i am trying to do is if i can't fix my comp. i wanted to delete the OS(win98) and replace it with win98 therefore restoring the defaults. Thanks for any help you have given and may continue to give Sasuke264 15:08, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Simply re-installing Win98 (you can just insert the install disk while the OS is running) will allow you to format and restore all defaults.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  12:13, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Transferring files

I recently bought a new laptop and I want to get a large amount of data (in excess of 20 GB) from my old desktop onto the new laptop hard drive. What's the best way to go about this? The desktop only has a CD-RW so you can imagine I want to do this over some kind of network. Can I hook two PC's together by a network cable or do I need a router? Any suggestions are welcome...

While you can connect to PCs with a crossover cable (or a router/hub/switch), that is only the beginning of your problem. You will then need to get the two to talk to each other. Then, you have to give one permission to copy files from the other. Finally, you can move the files. It would be a hell of a lot easier to get a thumb-drive (they are at least 20GB now) and put the files on that. Then, go to the other PC and copy them back off the thumbdrive. --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:55, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Does your old laptop have a firewire port? --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:34, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes!

In that case, I'd recommend looking on eBay or somewhere for an external firewire drive. They're always useful for backups (in which case get a larger one) -- and we're talking like 50 cents a gigabyte now, it's really ridiculous. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 05:14, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

20GB?! Those cost hundreds of dollars --froth^{T C} 01:17, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

• Assuming you are using windows its dead easy. Buy a cross over cable from your nearest computer store. It'll probably cost you like 10 bucks. Then just plug the two computers together and windows networking will take care of everything. It should definately take less than an hour to transfer. AmitDeshwar 06:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The other possibility is that if you have a router or a hub (both compys connected to the net at the same time) just transfer the files via Yahoo IM, ICU or MSN. Anchoress 01:54, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

You mean, assuming you are using Mac OS 9 or above it's dead easy. Buy a firewire cable from you nearest computer store. Plug the two computers into each other, then reboot the old one while holding down "T" for "Target Disk Mode". It will mount as a removable drive on your new computer. Should take about...um...iono. But faster than ethernet. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 ^{(T | C | @)} 04:11, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Password security

Is it possible to set an Username and Password for a folder.if so,how?

Thank you

Here's a fairly good guide for Windows XP; of course, you didn't specify the OS, so I'm just taking a guess that you're using it. If you want better security (XP accounts can be broken fairly easily), or want to secure files/folders outside of your "Documents and Settings" folder, then see TrueCrypt. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Converting .AVI to .MPEG

Hi. Does anybody know of a way I could convert a .AVI file into a .MPEG (or similar) file which could be edited on movie editing software. I have Adobe Premier and Windows Movie Maker. Thanks! Robinoke 21:17, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Premier should be able to open .AVI files. Do you not have the codec required (ie. can you not open the file with Window Media Player)? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

First you need to find out the FourCC of the avi you've got. Then download the appropriate codec. Finally download VirtualDub (which should come with several mpeg encoders) and change the video compession to mpeg (I actually recommend 2-pass XviD) then save the file. Voila! --froth^{T C} 01:13, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Guys! Robinoke 10:08, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Gmail

How do I view the IP of the person who sent me an email in Gmail? Thanks.

lots of issues | leave me a message 22:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

In the email, click More options, then Show original, and it'll show as: Received: from <hostname>

Also, just a note on your signature: it's probably better to use wikilinks (ie. lots of issues) rather than external links. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:23, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Minichess

I cannot find any information on 5x5 and 5x6 minichess - are they really solved or not? Any software implementations? The only info I did find was a short article in Hungarian that I can't read -

http://www.math.u-szeged.hu/~bognarv/minisakk.html

and a notice in Italian that further tournaments in 5x5 chess are cancelled because "the game was solved". By whom, when, how - no answer... 212.199.22.244 23:06, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

ISP bandwidth limit in Australia?

Answered

I was going to link my friend, who lives in Australia, to a movie clip online (One of a magician screwing up his act and spiking people in the hand if you must know). She told me right after finding out it was a movie that she couldn't watch it because she was over her bandwidth limit for the month(No, she doesn't run a server). I don't know much about this magical thing called bandwidth, and I don't want to know about it, I just thought that this sounded ridiculous. The company is called "Optus", and either she explained it badly, I have an even more limited understanding of the internet than I thought, or this company sounds pretty shady.

Could someone clarify this for me? Is this bandwidth limit a bunch of BS? Is this even a question? Razma Dreizehn 23:27, 2 October 2006 (UTC)Razma Dreizehn

Bandwidth cap. Most (all?) ISPs have bandwidth limits. Even if they do not advertise the cap it's usually mentioned in the TOS, though it could be as vague as "...an unreasonable amount of bandwidth...". Certain ISPs are worse for this, and ISPs in whole regions may follow one another. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 23:37, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I had a few problems not unlike what Consumed mentioned when I lived in Toronto. Rogers, which is the biggest and most popular fiber-optic ISP in the area temporarily bans all users it claims are "abusive, users who use their internet to a degree that it interferes with the connections of others", which basically means that they are not able to provide enough bandwidth to support their entire customer base, so they cut off the most active suscribers (I believe the representative I talked to after being cut off put me in the "top 5% of users", which means they're cutting off a lot of customers). You'll usually have much more luck if you switch providers, preferrably one that isn't bursting at the seams.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  03:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thanks very much for the info. As it turns out, her little brother has a habit of downloading full length movies. 129.15.131.247 17:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)Razma Dreizehn

Bandwidth is the limit a ISP gives ther customers. It is the amount of downloads you get per a month. Usually the more you pay for your internet the higher will be the bandwidth and speed of the internet. Bandwidth limits can range from as little as 100MB download a month to unlimited. Is your bandwidth is not unlimited however then once you exceed your download limit you have to pay extra for everything that is downloaded over your limit. *Note: everything you do on the internet (load this webpage) is considered a download be almost all ISP's. It is the information you download from your ISP's server.