Q. My nephew is getting married in a few months, and his grandparents will not be able to attend due to illness. They have a computer and have seen one grandchild graduate college by watching the ceremonies on the Web. I have been asked to try and set up a Webcast so the groom’s grandparents can see the wedding. There may also be others watching too who cannot attend, not sure of how many that will be. The location of the wedding is a high school and does have high-speed Internet access. What equipment will I need to make this happen?
Rich Ostry @aol.com
A. In theory all you need is a low-cost PC video camera and an account with one of the various instant messaging services that include video calls. Microsoft’s offering is at http://messenger.msn.com and AOL offers video messages at AIM.com, while other versions are expected soon from Yahoo and Google. They all work by having both the sender and the receiving parties acquire accounts, and they’re pretty good if you can accept the slightly jerky and smallish pictures.
Recently I reviewed a new service from Sony and GlowPoint, a video messaging company, called IVE, that is well worth checking out for this unusual project. This service worked well in my tests, and I was particularly impressed when displayed as full-screen video on my monitor. For your nephew’s wedding this would be particularly welcome.
Downloads are free for a basic and trial version of the software; a $10-per-month add-on expands the service to include unlimited Internet phone calling to any number in the world, and calls can include video messaging if desired. The free version, which works only among people with the same service, is all you need to connect a group of watchers, including gramps and gran with bride and groom’s hitching ceremony.
IVE users are given video phone numbers rather than confusing IP addresses, and the service has an online “live video operator” who can assist in getting the link established well before the rice flies.
Details and downloads are at www.myive.com.
But be advised that these kinds of video calls are designed for close-ups of a caller’s face rather than whole-room shots, so you are going to need to get very close to the action in order to deliver passable results no matter which service you choose.
You might try attaching a proper video camcorder to a laptop rather than using the low-cost video cams normally sold for the modest needs of messaging. Put the camcorder on a tripod close to the action and connect it to a laptop loaded with messaging software and you’ll probably get higher quality. Furthermore, if you set the camcorder to record while it is connected to the PC there will be a high-quality digital tape to send along afterward.
Q. My question is about an uncooperative mouse pointer. There are times when I’m on a Web page and wish to click on the Back button, or a selection box, etc., and the mouse pointer behaves strangely: As I move the mouse pointer toward the desired button, it appears to “jump back.” The closer I move the pointer to the button, the further back it jumps. When this occurs, it makes clicking on the button difficult, as the mouse pointer is moving, in a very jerky manner, in a direction opposite that of the mouse. Have you heard of this problem? Is there a fix?
John Bianchi, Jackson, Calif.
A. Your computer probably has become infected by any one of several virus and worm downloads and, if so, your best fix is to acquire antivirus software like Norton AntiVirus at Symantec.com or McAfee at McAfee.com or PC-cillin at TrendMicro.com or eTrust EZ at www.ca.com or something else, Mr. B.
A number of worms listed under the umbrella term Nimda make this sort of thing happen, as do several other flavors of hacker mayhem such as the infamous W32.Magistr.24876@mm.
Lacking anything meaningful to do with their dead-end lives, a number of virus hackers for years have included making icons seem to run away from the mouse pointer in their malicious code. If this sounds cute, keep in mind that most of these schemes included the mouse trick along with some terribly virulent worms that do stuff like attack people on one’s contact list, turn the infected computer into a robot for forwarding spam e-mail attacks and other crimes.
These viruses have been around for some time and so antivirus sellers all have included antidotes in their products, which sell at various rates, mostly in the $40 to $60 range. Another alternative is to try one of the free open source antivirus offerings such as Clam Win at ClamWin.com.
There always is a small chance that mice can get messed up either because they are set wrong in the Windows control panel or the track ball has picked up some kind of clutter, like bits of adhesive tape, eraser crumbs and even glue globs. So check out your mouse’s track ball by rolling it about in your hand and looking closely.
Then click on Start and Control Panel and Mouse and check out the settings. These vary by computer and mouse make, but the things to look out for are scroll speed settings and customized pointer menus.
It would be great if the culprit is gunk or bad mouse settings, but I fear you’re going to need some antivirus help.
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Q. I own a Compaq Presario, which has both a CD and a DVD drive. It has recently decided to not allow any sound to be heard from music CDs that I pop into the CD drive. The speakers do work, evidenced by online news video play that I routinely listen to. And the CD drive itself is functioning: The display light is on, and the Windows Media Player window opens, announces the name of the artist and the song being performed, shows the timer ticking off the track play time, and the “skin” is responding to the song being performed. It is as though I had the speakers turned off; nothing can be heard from the CD. I tried multiple CDs, nothing, not even from a voice-only instructional CD I tried.
I made some initial attempts at finding the problem, went into the troubleshooting features of my Windows Media Player, and it told me that all the components were working properly. Any ideas? Thanks.
Susan Ani @gmail.com
A. Your problem takes less time to solve than it did to type up, Ms. A. Click on Start in Windows XP and then select Control Panel and then open the icon for Sounds and Audio Devices. In the display that pops up, open the tab for Volume and then click the Advanced button. In the menu this summons there will be volume sliders and mute boxes for the various available sound sources. You will find a check mark in the Mute box next to the CD listing. Click it to make it go away and your music will come in loud and clear.
This is a common problem because various bits of software, particularly the kinds of news video you say are working, are set to mute the CD input while they are playing. They are supposed to restore CD sound when stopped, but as you know from bitter experience they often fail to give control back to the CD player.
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Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at [email protected] or via snail mail at the baiduhai, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL 60611. Questions can be answered only through this column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com/askjim.