Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2006 August 22

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1 on 1 video conferencing

I'm being asked about some video conferencing software at work and I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations? I'm basically looking for reliability, and speech and video quality, and I haven't really used any video conferencing software lately, so I don't really have any idea what's a good deal nowadays. Skype seems to be the program of choice right now, would that be a good idea? freshofftheufo ΓΛĿЌ 08:57, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is this in a business with an extremely high-bandwidth connection or just home/office over a slow network? I got good (not great) video conferencing using a lot of dedicated bandwidth on milnet for the Navy and over a dedicated T3 between two universities. Over a shared T1 or (gasp) a home Cable/DSL connection, I've only been able to get blocky video and voice that sounds like it is being transmitted over a string between two tin cans. To make the video better, sound had to be turned off. To make the sound good enough to understand what was being said, video had to be turned off. --Kainaw ^(talk) 14:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I assume it's a business packaged cable line (they just call that fibre-optic here). ginganet is a popular company here that supplies video-conferencing packages (they basically just sell their footprint-impaired camera, and force you to use it over their dedicated ISDN line... yeah, I'm serious) and I've seen it used for English conversation classes. The picture was bad (especially when there were 4 people on screen) and the voice was a little worse than telephone quality, but it still did what it was supposed to do, and the complaints were balanced out by the huge amounts of cash that people were paying for the machines. I thought, maybe, that the quality would have increased since then, and our bandwidth will probably be 2-10x more than what they were restricted to with the ISDN line. freshofftheufo ΓΛĿЌ 16:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You Could just use windows messenger live. The video quality is good. the sound is alright. it gets the job done. and its free. if you are going to have a one on one conversation then its perfect. Im not to sure about it in a business environment but, it is still an IM and it does get people distracted from their work...JEZ

Photoshop parallel lines

For photographs of buildings it is often desirable to eliminate perspective, so that the vertical lines left and right are parallel. How does one do this with Photoshop (or Gimp)? Shear comes close, and I expected this to be a variation of that, but not so it seems. Surely this is a much used feature. DirkvdM 10:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't use Photoshop, but could it perhaps be Trapezoid, if Photoshop has such a feature? Dysprosia 11:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

[Edit conflict] You would usually achieve that with the optical zoom on your camera and taking the picture from far away. The distorted perspective is caused by wide-angle lenses, and trying to correct that digitally (using Photoshop or something like that) would greatly degrade the quality of your images. freshofftheufo ΓΛĿЌ 11:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Trapezoid sounds exactly like what I want, so I googled that with 'photoshop' and found the solution of using edit > transform > perspective. I just tried it and it is exactly what I need. I missed it because you first have to make a selection. If you don't, the option is greyed out. I should still have noticed it, though. Thanks for the tip. The quality doesn't really deteriorate very much. All that happens is that the bottom gets 'pinched' (no pun :) ). Of course, a different extrapolation takes place at every horizontal line, but any negative effect of that is hardly noticeable.

Btw, photographing a big building without zoom is difficult enough because of the distance one has to take. With sufficient zoom to practically eliminate perspective would in most cases be very difficult or even impossible - one would have to stand hundreds of metres away and have no obstructing objects in the way. Then again, it's better than standing in the middle of the street, where I often find myself when searching for the best angle. :) DirkvdM 12:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The professional solution before Photoshop was to use a view camera. --KSmrq^T 12:57, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it's nearly impossible to take perspectiveless pictures of building faces like that (with a simple camera), but I don't agree that simply stretching the image is the best solution, or a solution that is used professionally. Then again, I usually take pictures of buildings from afar anyways, purposely allowing obstructing objects into the frame! freshofftheufo ΓΛĿЌ 16:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So you got it now? I know how to make parallel into trapezoidal, so I guess you could just do the reverse. — [Mac Davis] (talk)

Public Messenger 2.03

I let my broheim use my PC for one second and its all SNAFU now. Im getting a yellow triangle in the system tray that keeps stating "System Alert: Popups". Tons of popups are coming, without IE even being open. He claims he went to addictinggames.com and ebaumsworld I ran adaware and symantec antivirus. I got something on adaware about a falcon thingie or something like that. BUt nothing on the symantec. I went to control panel and there is a program im not so sure should be there: Public Messenger 2.03

I was about to remove it but it said I needed to reboot first...so before I potentially fall into their trap I wanted some advice. And any advice would be very welcome here!! Its my baby! How can I be expected to spend 14 hours a day following fantasy sports with adultfriendfiner popups ever 4.6 seconds

Thanks!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.162.90.183 (talk • contribs) .

If your antispyware program says to reboot, it should be safe to do so. Reboots are usually necessary to remove the registry entries the adware installs. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 17:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well it wasnt my antispyware program saying to reboot. In the control panel, when I chose to remove the public messenger 2.03, a prompt came up saying that i would have to reboot to remove. Again, any help would be appreciated. Thanks!!!
Did you get this message following a de-installation using the Control panel in the Start Menu? If so, it should probably be safe to do so. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:29, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have this same message. It says "reboot" before uninstalling the program. So, if you reboot, you go to control panel to uninstall and you get the same message over and over, it just keeps saying "reboot before uninstalling." It is a trap, and I don't know what to do.

Hey guys, I'm having the same problem and I too believe that it's a trap. Any word on how to remove it? There doesn't appear to be much useful advice available. Internet Explorer directed me to a webpage with Adware/Spyware packages and it provided a free scan. I used PestCapture which told me that I had about 148 infected areas. However, strange thing is that McAfee VirusScan is coming up with a clean bill of health. So, either IE is promoting bullshit prevention or McAfee is worse than I realize. Either way, I don't know what to do. ANY advice would be appreciated. --76.211.143.66 10:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WMA to MP3

I recently bought a new phone because it had an MP3 player built in, however when i tried to play my music some songs would not play because of the fact they were WMA not MP3. How can I convert from one to the other? Also what is the difference between them? if its any use i use "creative MediaSource" for music on my computer.Ken 20:31, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The answer might depend on what operating system you have on the computer you will be using for the conversion. So, which is it? —Bromskloss 20:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

not sure if i understand that, is windows XP my operating system? if its not can you give me an example of a possible system so i can say what i use?Ken 21:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Windows XP is an operating system. Here's some general information that applies to all operating systems: WMA and MP3 are both lossy audio compression algorithms. In plain english, this means they throw away some of the audio data you're not supposed to be able to hear, in order to make the file smaller. WMA and MP3 have the same purpose, but they differ in the specifics and they are incompatible with each other (that's why your phone can play MP3 but not WMA). In order to convert from WMA to MP3, you have to decompress the WMA file to a plain, uncompressed format (e.g. WAV), and then compress it again with an MP3 encoder.

However, there are many reasons why you should never do this. WMA throws away some parts of the audio data, and when you decompress it, you don't get a perfect copy of the original. Then when you compress it again with an MP3 encoder, it throws away different information, so it sounds noticeably worse. If you convert back and forth between formats enough times, eventually there will be nothing left. So what you should do is try to find the original, uncompressed audio (like a CD), encode your MP3s from that, and delete your old WMAs. The MP3s produced by this method will sound better, take up less space, or both. If you don't have a CD, well... then you have to decode and re-encode. —Keenan Pepper 21:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that, Unfourtunaly i dont have most of the C.D's. ill have to try borow them again. Ken 22:31, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

winLAME works wonders. --Russoc4 15:24, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Given the already posted warnings about loss of quality in converting from one format to another, this page might be helpful. (If the link does not work, go to the Creative support site and search for solution ID 4634). Although it is entitled "Converting MP3 to WMA with Creative Audio Converter", it appears to address conversion in the other direction as well. Two things to note: If any of your WMA files have DRM restrictions, this probably won't work. Also, you might have to download the current version of MediaSource to successfully convert WMA to MP3. Good luck. --LarryMac 13:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jgl_Rt

Hi, I have a folder on my computer called Jgl_rt. It contains something called jesterrun0.dll I don't know where this came from and I havn't deleted it because i thought it might be important. Can somebody tell me what this is and if it is dangerous or not.

Thanks

Is it in your recycle bin? Lots of people have this issue, but it doesn't appear to be harmful. See microsoft.com's page on it. Hyenaste ^(tell) 21:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is also a file called ~. is it important?

Resetting a Hard Drive

Hi, my laptop randomly turns off when you turn it on. I think it may be a worm or something on the hard drive, so I was wondering if anyone knew how to reset the hard drive and erase all the data on it without opening Windows. Thanks!

You could boot from a diskette, USB drive or CD. —Bromskloss 21:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but how exactly would you do that?

Probably, you have a CD containing your operating system. You put that in and restart your computer so that you can re-install the operating system. (Btw, it's a good thing if you sign your comments.) —Bromskloss 22:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you're worried about a worm, I would recommend booting from a disk or CD and run a virus scanner. You might be able to get rid of the virus without wiping your hard drive (if you have a virus, that is). - Mgm|^(talk) 11:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Format the C drive then reinstall the Operating System after backing up data that you want to keep. --Proficient 04:19, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the machine rather suddenly halts without any warning and without any delay (the alternative would be sudden hard disk activity or flickering graphics and then off), it might just be a heat problem. At one time my laptop would spontaneously power down because its fan had become faulty and the motherboard heat sensor would eventually kill the power to prevent damage. --Tardis 17:48, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Trojan/Zlob-QK

I did some research and found that a trojan "Zlob-QK" is at the root of my problem pertaining to the program "Public Messenger 2.03". However, I cant find a consistent solution how to get rid of it on any message boards. I havent taken any actions as of it, cause Im sure it does something horrible to my registry upon reboot. I found the file on my hard drive as well at C:\Program Files\IntCodec and there is an uninstall icon.

Again, any help is grrrrrrrreatly appreciated

Thanks!!!

Programming languages

What language are Nintendo DSs programmed in?--71.30.197.252 23:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are you referring to Nintendo DS games? Or possibly some sort of operating system that runs natively on a DS console? I'll assume you're asking about games, to which the answer would be in any language that has a compiler made for Nintendo DS systems. It's fairly safe to assume that there are C and C++ compilers, maybe many more, though at the same time there may be a community that only generally supports development using the most popular compiler. 222.158.162.44 08:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]