Computing desk
< January 17	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 19 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

January 18

Voice Modulation

Does anyone here know where to find some open source voice modulation software that isn't a plug-in for another program? Specifically, one that can modulate in real time. The effect I'm most interested in is something similar to that sense in The Matrix where Neo screams as his throat turns to metal ("the mirror scene", if you will). Chris16447 (talk) 01:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To those unfamiliar with the movie, that effect appears to be (largely) ring modulation. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Csound should do it, although setting it up is nontrivial. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:42, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can achieve effects like that in real time using any AudioUnit aware application in MacOS X. You probably want the flange effect cranked up to crazy levels. --24.249.108.133 (talk) 23:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Although it is designed for phonology and speech research and analysis, you can do some very strange things to voices (and other sound) in Praat. Pfly (talk) 23:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Booting from a copied virtual drive (but with non-virtual questions too)

OK. So I'm using Parallels Desktop for Mac. Bear with me. This question might be answerable even if you don't know anything about virtualization, as I'm not sure where the problem lies.

My preexisting virtual disk which normally runs Windows XP Home (and does that just fine) has 3GB of data on it. I want to copy it to another virtual drive that I can boot off of in its place. (There are reasons for me wanting to do this that we need not go into, it has to do with how Parallels handles drive space. The existing drive is taking up over 24GB of space on my drive; if I can get it into the other one it will take up only around 3GB. Long story.)

I can load the drives into the virtual machine as if I were just plugging in hard disks. I used GParted to create a partition on the second (the target) drive, and tried to use its "copy" function to copy from the first (source) drive to the second.

It copied fine, from what I can tell, but I can't boot off of the other drive. I get a "No boot device available" error from the BIOS. I've gone in with Windows XP Recovery Console and run FIXBOOT and FIXMBR but neither of those things worked.

I tried copying the source drive to a new, blank target drive using dd, thinking that maybe it was something about GParted's copying that made it fail. dd claimed that it copied everything over but then the target drive could not be read at all (either by GParted or by Recovery Console). So that seemed to be a bust too. The only odd bit is that GParted thought that drive was formatted as FAT16 whereas I am pretty sure I selected FAT32; anyway I don't see why either should make it totally unreadable.

I tried using Parallels Transporter, which allows you to migrate drives to different virtual machines, one the GParted-copied drive and it ALMOST seemed to work—it started up Windows and got as far as the blue "Windows" screen before it just stopped responding. Any clue what is going on there? Running FIXBOOT or FIXMBR had no effect.

So, here's the question -- how can I go about copying the one drive to another in a way that will make the second drive bootable to Windows XP, in Parallels? I'm not really sure where the problem lies -- should the GParted copy partition have worked normally? If not, does that mean the issue is with Parallels in some way? How would you handle a situation like this if it wasn't virtualized? I know that what I'm doing is something of a hacky work-around but it feels like it should work. All of this effort is being made, by the way, because Parallels Compressor is hoarking on that big virtual disk and the Parallels support people aren't being of any help as to why. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 02:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

China

Are there any ways to get around China's block? I have a friend who's going through withdrawal.69.246.23.58 (talk) 02:46, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 03:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sudoers file with wrong permissions?

Whenever I try to use sudo on my mac, I get:

sudo: /private/etc/sudoers is mode 0666, should be 0440

What the hell?! I haven't even touched it. How am I supposed to fix it if I can't use sudo? I could pop in a liveCD, but is there a way to fix this without booting linux? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rgrasell (talk • contribs) 04:57, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

google.com/search?q="is+mode+0666,+should+be+0440" --f f r o t h 06:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, why don't you just log in as root to change the permisisons? If OS X has some lock-its-own-users-out mentality, surely theres a recovery mode of some type. (see FIRST result) --f f r o t h 06:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interestingly enough (froth will laugh deliriously at this, but I'm sanguine, I can take it) I don't even know how to log in as root on this, my main machine these days, the Mac I'm typing this on. Whenever I need to do something as root (which is very, very rarely), I just use su. But I honestly don't know how I'd fix the problem the OP complained about if it happened to me. —Steve Summit (talk) 00:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you've enabled root, su - will work too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.8.37.162 (talk) 06:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Disk Utility's "Repair Disk Permissions" feature should fix this (I just tested under 10.5.1, pretty sure it'll work under earlier versions as well). If for some reason that doesn't do it, I'd recommend booting in single-user mode or from an installer DVD; both of those will get you root access without going through sudo (or needing a root password). Speaker to Lampposts (talk) 23:09, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The disk permissions thing works. Thanks guys.--Ryan (talk) 01:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I never even thought about using sudo on this macbook. Kushal^t 14:36, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hosting an mp3

What is a good website I can use to host an mp3 so I can stream it on a blog or other such webpage? It doesn't have to be free--just reliable.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 04:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Salut!

If you have Google's Gmail, you could start by looking at Google's Google Page Creator. Upto a hundred megabytes is available for free of cost. Care should be taken to link the pages as http://example.googlepages.com and not http://www.example.googlepages.com For a real world example, take Benjaminrogerstexas http://Benjaminrogerstexas.googlepages.com works but http://www.Benjaminrogerstexas.googlepages.com does not work. Hope that helps. Kushal^t 00:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Kushal, I have gmail and shall give it a try. --The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 03:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are very welcome, sir! Kushal^t 04:52, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please let us know how your experience went with streaming mp3. Kushal^t 13:06, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• I've been very pleased with http://www.ripway.com/ You need to sign up, but its safe, and you can download your music from other computers, etc. 86.139.90.67 (talk) 23:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Close rs232 serial port using turbo c

Hai, I am doing a project in turbo c for communicating between two PC's using rs232 seerial port.So i wrote a code in turbo c using ("dos.h and bioas.h ") these header files i send the data in 38400 baudrate. In another pc using hyper terminal i recived the data using the same baud rate.Data's reciving correctly.but i had problem is if I Closed my program but ("not closed turbo c editor"). the port is not closed. so i can't use other serial port communication programs such as ("Hyper termial ").after i run my program and close my program without close the turbo c editor. then i am unable to open the port in other language and other application unless closing the turbo c editor. so i want solution for this problem.Please any one give idea or send code in turbo c.please...

thank you,

R.Rajesh kumar —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.63.175 (talk) 05:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please forward VB topics?

07:08, 18 January 2008 (UTC)192.248.92.4 (talk)NUSRA

I'd start by reading Visual Basic. -- SGBailey (talk) 10:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Protecting a backup

I am backing up my data on a DVD. What is the best way of encrypting these data, so they can be safe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.205.37 (talk) 11:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You could use TrueCrypt to make an encrypted container file on your hard disk, copy the files into it, then burn the container file to the DVD. -- BenRG (talk) 20:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Toast 8 also allows for disc encryption. --24.249.108.133 (talk) 01:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give TrueCrypt a try. Thanks! 217.168.1.14 (talk) 11:59, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Colorspaces and desktop publishing

I've dabbled in desktop publishing for a long time but I never quite wrapped my head around colorspaces in a way that sometimes matters (it probably doesn't help that I started in the desktop publishing world dealing with exclusively black-and-white media). How do I guarantee that what I see on my screen will look similar to what gets printed up? (Obviously there will be some inherent different due to the medium change, but I've noticed that by fiddling with the color settings in InDesign and on my Macbook I can have the same RGB/CYMK values look radically different (different enough for the tasteful to become garish) and I'm never really sure which of those is the best setting for approximating, say, a standard color laser output, much less printing it up on a real press. Things always end up being a little off when I get them printed—bluer than I had wanted, for example—and while none of this is ever the end of the world, I'd like to have a little more control over things. What do people normally do here? --24.147.69.31 (talk) 20:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at our article about Gamut; the differences in gamut between your display and, say, a CMYK printing press are probably the biggest sources of surprises to designers. And, of course, our color space article can help you understand the transformations that take place as you go from RGB to CMYK and the like.

Atlant (talk) 15:08, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Desktop Expresscard readers?

Does anyone know if there are external Expresscard readers for desktop computers (either USB or Firewire)? A Google search seems to only return USB/Firewire adaptors for Expresscard slots. But I have an Expresscard flash memory drive I want my desktop to read. --24.249.108.133 (talk) 23:18, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Expresscard is based on PCI-Express, so your best bet would be a PCI-Express -> Expresscard adapter. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]