Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 March 1

= March 1 =

Real-time VST Host
Hello again. I need a free VST host that I can use VST plug-ins with that runs in real-time. What I mean by "real-time" is that it records what goes through the microphone, passes it through the plug-in, and then spits it out the mic channel again (i.e. so that it alters what the microphone really hears - so I can apply the effect to voice chat and such). I can't find any, they all just record the sound as a file that I can play back. Chris16447 (talk) 00:06, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Jeskola Buzz is pretty old and buggy in some ways, but it can do that kind of stuff with a bit of work. 209.151.140.30 (talk) 01:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Firefox address bar
How do I change the amount of suggestions Firefox gives me when I type a few letters? Like when I type "en", it gives me Wikipedia's main page and a bunch of articles I've been to. The default is 6, but I want to change it higher, but I can;t find any about:config entries relating to it. 24.6.46.92 (talk) 04:21, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know the answer, but you might be interested to know that that whole feature has had a major overhaul in the up-coming Firefox 3. I'm typing this on Firefox 3 Beta 3, and can confirm that as well as the improved matching system and expanded display, it shows 10 entries instead of 6. - IMSoP (talk) 13:10, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

But I'm in the US...
For some reason, every website I visit that has a separate section/set of servers for people outside of the US automatically redirects me to said section. For instance, I type in http://youtube.com and end up at http://uk.youtube.com. Myspace seems to think I'm Canadian, and some sites (AMG, specifically) refuse to let me enter at all because of "inconsistencies" in my connection (although if I refresh the page a few times the problem goes away). I think I'm acessing Wikipedia from the servers in South Korea or wherever it is; it loads particularly slowly and it's really frustrating. Anyone have any idea what's going on? I'm running Ubuntu 7.10 and using Opera, but I have experienced the same problem with Firefox. I've cleared the cache before and done all that stuff... I'm considering just re-installing Opera and seeing if that does anything. Oh, and my Internet connection is via our wi-fi network. Help? Thanks in advance. --69.145.120.85 (talk) 06:10, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * That's actually a feature of the websites, usually. You can define "preferred languages" in the preferences window of most modern browsers, but from experience that doesn't help much. The websites are usually redirecting you based on your IP address. It is indeed very annoying, and your best shot is to find an option on the website itself to change what location you want. YouTube lets you do that, at least if you're a registered user. The other obvious option would be browsing using a proxy, but that's a sad way to deal with the situation.
 * So yeah, there's not a lot you can do besides that. I personally hate this behavior and wish people would stop serving me different content because I happen to be somewhere else. &mdash; Kieff | Talk 06:50, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Talk to your organisations network people or ISP. Sites tend to try and work out your geographic location via IP address. It may well be that the IP they are getting is a proxy, which may be located outside fo the US or be using an IP that is not allocted to the US. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.90.184.247 (talk) 09:30, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

more youtube problems
i've tried using another browser and increasing my cache size. nothing happens. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.104.189.221 (talk) 10:13, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Is it a problem across the board or just some videos? Does it affect Google videos? What kind of Internet connection do you have? Is it dial-up, ISDN, DSL, ... ? Please let us know. Kushal 13:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Home networking
I have a PC with Windows XP 32 bits connected to a cable modem, works fine. I have another PC but with Windows Vista, the Ethernet card correctly installed and all. Now, I perform a very simple operation: I unplug the RJ45 cable from PC1 (XP) and plug it to PC2 (Vista), PC2 gets a 169.254.x.x address and, obviously, can't access the Internet. Any ideas? --Taraborn (talk) 10:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Vista has its share of problems with device drivers. One hardware vendor is even accusing Microsoft of "last minute changes".

However, if your hardware is fully installed, I see no reason why the Internet won't work. Please try rebooting the Vista system with the cable in the Vista computer? That might help. Kushal 13:09, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Does this network uses DHCP? (there might be static addresses, which may be set on xp computer, but not on vista computer) -Yyy (talk) 13:12, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

That could be the problem. Try to find out the IP address when you are on your XP machine, copy it down, and use the same IP address on the Vista machine. Kushal 13:22, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I'm using DHCP and I've tried rebooting with the cable in the Vista computer, but didn't work. --Taraborn (talk) 19:44, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Your network service could determine whether you have to choose an IP address manually. I think you can easily figure out your IP address in your Windows XP computer. Is it static? In other words, does the IP address change when you reboot your XP machine? Kushal 03:04, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * There might be some possibility, that your ISP have tied your MAC address. Try manually setting XP computers IP address (and netmask, and gateway, and so) to vista machine. (write down IP configuration, assigned to XP machine by DHCP and input these data as manual configuration to vista machine). If this works, then ISP have not tied your MAC address and I do not know how to solve this issue. If this does not works, then you, probably, will have to change the MAC address of vista computer to be the same as that of XP computer. -Yyy (talk) 08:49, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * So, umm, have you tried to powercycle the cable modem? They keep a list of MAC addresses to give out DHCP leases, and if you've only got one IP and that lease is already taken, you won't get an IP. Powercycling should clear that list out. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 08:56, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks to all, I'm trying all those things you pointed out. --Taraborn (talk) 13:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Heheh... rebooting the cable modem did the job :) Thanks mr. Crustacean! --Taraborn (talk) 13:21, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Viewing the metadata of an mpg file
Is there a tool or application that can read the metadata of an mpeg (.mpg)file? I've tried hard to find this on Google.

Rfwoolf (talk) 11:20, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Here's an example of what ffmpeg can tell you:

$ ffmpeg -i foo.mpg [...] Input #0, mpeg, from 'foo.mpg': Duration: 00:21:46.5, start: 0.374689, bitrate: 1298 kb/s Stream #0.0[0x1e0], 29.97 fps(r): Video: mpeg1video, yuv420p, 352x240, 1150 kb/s Stream #0.1[0x1c0]: Audio: mp2, 44100 Hz, stereo, 128 kb/s


 * Does that have what you were looking for? --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 23:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Kubuntu NTFS partition mounting problem
I've been using Kubuntu for about a month now.I installed it in the same hard disk as WinXP but in a different partition.Then all of a sudden windows stopped working,more details here: Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/2008 February 19. Ctrl-Alt-Del didnt work and i couldn't get to the task manager as well. So i decided to reinstall windows,but before that i wanted to make a backup copy of the data in the C:\.When i tried viewing them in my kubuntu file manager,all the ntfs partitions had disappeared from the storage media window.I got to disk&file systems in system settings and saw all the partitions where disabled.When i tried to enable them,i got the following message. - An error occurred while enabling /media/sda5. The system reported: $LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0, 0) Failed to mount '/dev/sda5': Operation not supported Mount is denied because NTFS is marked to be in use. Choose one action: Choice 1: If you have Windows then disconnect the external devices by clicking on the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon in the Windows taskbar then shutdown Windows cleanly. Choice 2: If you don't have Windows then you can use the 'force' option for your own responsibility. For example type on the command line: mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda5 /media/sda5 -o force Or add the option to the relevant row in the /etc/fstab file: /dev/sda5 /media/sda5 ntfs-3g defaults,force 0 0 - I tried using the two commands but nothing expected happen(I'm new to linux,so fairly poor in using console).Please help me out here people.I have very valuable data in the c:\ drive and i don't want to lose it.Plus,i'm really sorry for such a long post. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chidam17 (talk • contribs) 17:05, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * (fix link) --h2g2bob (talk) 17:16, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Chidam17 (talk) 18:33, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Have you tried the mount command? Try this command - if it fails, can you post the message why:
 * It would also be useful if you post the fstab file - use  to display it on the console. --h2g2bob (talk) 21:28, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It would also be useful if you post the fstab file - use  to display it on the console. --h2g2bob (talk) 21:28, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * And maybe  in terminal would help in diagnostic is well, but in this case it's obvious that you did not shut down Windows properly the last time, and now Linux doesn't dare to operate on it since it may be "dirty". If you want to force it, the code that User:h2g2bob provided should solve your problem. --antilivedT 21:54, 1 March 2008 (UTC)