Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with input

Please recommend a replacement input device for my Macbook, the trackpad isn't working for me.

Your Time Machine Sucks — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 08:13:57 -0800

Loathe the new Macbook trackpad in XP, what input device should I use instead that doesn't require a desk and is OK for gaming? New Macbook. The buttonless trackpad takes about twice the force to click as my old Macbook trackpad and after half a day my thumb was going numb. Tap-to-click works fine on the OS X side but is very inaccurate on the XP side even with the updated trackpad driver, more so when the machine gets hot. What kind of input device can I plug in and use to game with no desk around? Wired is a plus, and I don't play twitch games so it doesn't have to be insanely precise, just more precise and ergonomic than the skittish anti-thumb trackpad. Thanks!

Latency problems using Oxygen keyboard to input into Sibelius 4

Lotto — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:44:39 -0800

How can I fix a latency problem with a Oxygen8 v2 midi controller keyboard inputting into Sibelius 4? I've just become the proud owner of a shiny Oxygen 8 V2 midi controller, which I primarily want to use for recording into Sibelius 4.

When not recording I can play notes in and they come up instantly but when I try to record in 'flexi-time' there is a significant lag between my pressing the key and the computer recognising it, which obviously leads to massive accuracy problems. I'm aware that there are ways round this in terms of different input methods but I'd quite like to fix it.

I'm running XP and am computer-literate enough to be able to follow instructions/find more information if you show me where to look but not computer-literate to sort this out on my own!

Thanks!

Missing Pinyin IME keyboard

hellopanda — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 03:02:19 -0800

Trying to add Chinese as an input language in Windows Vista Ultimate, but the Pinyin IME keyboard option does not appear. Selecting any of the Chinese languages (PRC/Taiwan etc) only brings up the option of a "US keyboard". How do I fix this? Incidentally, all Chinese text turns up as gibberish, whether viewing documents in Microsoft Word or viewing websites on IE/Firefox. I've tried all the available character encoding options in the browsers, but none has worked so far. I assume these issues will be fixed once a Chinese keyboard has been added to the language bar, but if the problems are not connected, I would also appreciate some tips in this respect.

How to record electric guitar noiselessly with minimal computer specs?

Phire — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:03:06 -0800

I'm looking for a decent USB-to-audio input adapter, like the M-Audio Jam Lab So I'm looking for a 1/4" jack to USB adapter that I can use to record electric guitar playing with minimal noise, without getting a professional recording system and a $500 sound card. The two I've looked at are the Jam Lab referenced above and the Edirol UA-1EX.

What can you tell me about either of those adapters, and are there better alternatives out there?

Price range is around 50-120 CDN (so 100 USD max).

Is an Apple keyboard on a PC supposed to be glitchy?

qvtqht — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:53:45 -0800

I have strange issues with my keyboard and mouse in Picasa: shortcuts with modifier keys don't work. Other keyboard and mouse glitches also occur in other applications. Windows Vista; Apple aluminum keyboard; Microsoft Habu mouse. Most of the time, the shortcuts with modifier keys, like Ctrl+A, don't work in Picasa. Also, selecting multiple photos with Shift+click doesn't work either. They work occasionally, but not usually. Things like the spacebar for starring a photo and the arrow keys for navigating still work.

Another glitch, which may be unrelated to the first, is that the tools do not seem to work most of the time in Photoshop. Regardless of which tool I select, clicking on the image doesn't do anything. In Photoshop, shortcuts with modifier keys work fine.

- Vista Home Premium SP1 on your average crappy HP desktop/tower
- Apple aluminum keyboard (I suspect this is the main problem here)
- Microsoft/Razer Habu mouse
- Picasa 2.7
- Photoshop CS3

Wanted: Car stereo with simple aesthetics and aux input

wildblueyonder — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:30:35 -0800

Car Stereo Recommendations: must have an aux input. Must have zen-like interface simplicity, and mostly pushbutton operation except for the few things for which knobs really make sense. A manual should be all but redundant for operation of this device. Would be nice if it has bluetooth built-in. Satellite radio is a plus. What am I looking for? Here's an example that I don't think is good: the Eclipse Cd7200 MkII. The buttons are small and the labels are small and probably difficult to see. The most prominent control is a knob which is great for volume but I'll be the designers use it for other stuff for which it was never intended. 7 band EQ and gold-plated connectors and Das Blinkenlights are also overkill and really not preferred. And stuff with neon accent lighting is way way to common.

I almost think what I'm looking for will have the aesthetic of a basic built-in factory stereo -- big buttons, simple controls, radio + a few other things. I think I've seen stuff like this in high-end rental cars (Chrysler Sebring). Hell, even this random honda unit gets at the simplicity, even if it's really not all that great looking.

But I'm starting to think that every aftermarket car stereo is designed by 12 year old boys (God bless 'em). Hope me, Metafilter.

Basic Audio Recording with Audacity: Need help removing the microphone from the input mix

abbyladybug — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:51:13 -0800

I'm using Audacity to record audio from various software on my laptop, but it's grabbing info from my microphone instead of my speakers. How do I fix this?! I am newish to using Audacity. The first time I used it was on my old laptop, and I was able to use it perfectly the first time. Now I have a new laptop (a Dell running Vista), and whenever I try to record, it defaults to the input coming from the microphone. I can't figure out how to make it where the input is just what's playing through the speakers (browser, audio software, etc).

Any ideas?

Need a fast, comfortable mouse

qvtqht — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:24:00 -0800

I am looking for a good computer mouse with certain criteria. It should fit my hand well (I like the rounded but flat mice like the IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0. An "arrow-shaped" design is also an option.) And it needs to have a high-resolution sensor, ideally 2000dpi or higher. I like to have a comfortable mouse. And I like to have the cursor move very quickly in relation to the physical mouse movement, to the point that other people have a really hard time using my computer without adjusting the mouse. (After getting used to being gentle with the mouse, it really cuts down on wrist strain for me.)

Following are the last three mice of a long series that I have tried. All are corded, and I'm planning to stay that way.

Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000: Very happy with the shape. Cord is thin and flexible, which is good. Eventually broke. Sensor is kind of slow.

Razer Pro v1.6: Sufficiently fast sensor. Pretty crappy mouse shape for me -- the mouse is very long and narrow, which does not give me enough room to rest my entire hand, while I have to reach very far forward to click the buttons, and especially use the scroll wheel. Cord is kind of wiry.

Microsoft/Razer Habu: The 2000dpi sensor is about as fast as I want to go. On-the-fly speed adjustment is a nice plus. The mouse is a little big overall for me, and a little too tall, but the shape itself is good. The cord is nice and flexible. The drivers and control panel are absolutely craptastic and unusable, but the mouse works fine without them; I just wasted a few hours realizing that I shouldn't use them.

Nice pluses: No visible lights on the mouse. The two Razer mice have blue LEDs shining in every direction, which is annoying at best, and looks unprofessional at work at worst. Lightweight. I think that's all I can think of right now.

I looked and looked for a detailed review site dedicated to mice or input devices and haven't found one. If one doesn't exist, I am liable to start one up!

Stop-Start Computing

SansPoint — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 19:39:16 -0800

What would make an old Windows computer stop accepting input for short periods of time (2-3 minutes)? My housemate has an old Compaq PC running Windows XP. Lately, it's started pausing for 2-3 minute intervals, not accepting any input. The keyboard buffer isn't overflowing: it's even mouse input that stops dead. It also seems to just seize up.

I'm going to run Memtest86+ on it, but I can't imagine anything that would cause it to exhibit these symptoms. He has Antivirus and Spyware software, though any Windows worms would hit my Mac mini first, which is the DMZ host.

I'm a bit out of practice with Windows. Help?

Laptop Front Audio Input Concerns

Overzealous — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:56:02 -0800

Are front headphone jacks on a laptop computer a real pain? I need to get a new laptop and several of the models I like have the audio jacks right under the mousepad, directly where my palm would go when I'm mousing.

Any heavy headphone users out there have one of these models? Is your headphone jack always in the way? Is this the only spot left on a notebook computer to put an input?

Connecting an Xbox so it comes on automatically

gfrobe — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 08:20:13 -0800

When I had a Playstation, I could just turn it on and it would appear on the TV. I now have an XBox hooked up to the same TV through the same scart connection, but have to cycle through all of the inputs on my TV to get the XBox screen to appear. Is there a way to make it automatic like it was with the Playstation? Same goes for turning it off. When I turned off the PS2, the TV would come back on. Now, when I turn off Xbox, I have to repeatedly hit the input button to get the TV back. I haven't changed any settings on the TV since switching the games so am curious if this is a limitation of the Xbox or am I perhaps missing a setting somewhere?

How can I make a laptop display's VGA input work?

gregb1007 — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 08:01:28 -0800

What can I do to make a VGA input on an LCD monitor work? I have recently acquired someone's old 150mhz Presario 1600 (1997) laptop that has a VGA input at the back of its LCD display. I have a much newer 600mhz Presario 14XL20 whose display I threw away because it broke off from the computer.

I connected the newer laptop to the older one's VGA input, however hitting the "VGA input" button on the Presario 1600 gives me a blank screen instead of displaying the data from the other laptop.

There should be a way to make this work and I am hoping that you can give me some suggestions. A vga input in a laptop LCD display should be able to display the data from the computer connected to it. (Btw that same laptop without a diplaydoes display its data when I plug it in via the same VGA cable to my desktop PC's monitor.)

Fixing Firefox

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 03:27:11 -0800

Making Firefox behave like a Mac application... While it's trivial to add OS X-like themes to Firefox to make it look like a Mac application, are there preference or component modifications that can make it behave like a proper Mac application?

Specifically, with respect to how mouse and keyboard input are managed, these are a couple examples of what I'm talking about:

• I double-click on a word to select it, and in all other Mac applications, dragging additional words selects those words in entirety, instead of letter by letter as in Firefox

• I use Alt and Command modifiers to move the cursor around in text input areas throughout the browser (within a page and in the widgets); in Mac applications, these modifiers work as expected, but in Firefox, they take on Firefox defaults

Thanks for any advice. I would love to move to Firefox from Safari, but its interface continually frustrates.

SCART input to PC

lemonfridge — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 04:05:24 -0800

I have a Freeview box with SCART output that I want to watch on my PC. It doesnt have any kind of video input yet, but thats where you lovely people come in. Almost a year ago my TV blew up while I was studying my degree. As as was so busy I thought it was a good thing - one less distraction. I graduated 7 months ago and havent missed it. I dumped the TV, sold my HiFi and DVD player, but now I have a Freeview box doing nothing.

How can I connect its SCART output to my PC so that I can watch Windowed TV while working, or maybe record stuff as well? Ive tried USB and PCI DVB tuners but they've all been slow and nasty to use. It's a great Sony Freeview box that I don't want to go to waste.

Looking for an easy to use database interface

trbrts — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 09:34:25 -0800

I need to collect a list of names and addresses at a trade show on a Windows XP Home Laptop. It needs to be setup in such a fashion that attendees walking past our booth can input thier information themselves. How can I do this? I was originally planning on running PHP and MySQL on the laptop and building a form that would run in a full screen web browser, but because of a lack of support for IIS with XP Home and some other issues, this option is no longer feasible. What other programs or methods can I use to accomplish this?

Is my computer possessed? My BIOS has a mind of it's own!

TrueVox — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 20:47:50 -0800

I've got a tower (AMD 3000+ with a gigabyte motherboard, 3/4ths of a gig of ram, etc.) that I'm trying to set up for a media center. The thing is, the first screen (where it's checking the ram) the keyboard works fine. I can go and edit my bios settings, save and exit, etc. However, on the next screen (where I have the option of booting from CD and such) keyboard input ceases to be. What's going on? I go into the bios, tell it (just as an example) to not boot from the drive that's in there, at all. Ever. And then I reboot it, double check it in the bios settings again, reboot, and IT BOOTS FROM THE HARD DRIVE!!! I can't stop it (remember, no keyboard input at this point) and when I get to windows, I can't do anything either (keyboard...). How is this happining? I don't think my bios battery is wearing out - I still have good accurate time. What in gods name could be causing this?

Thanks for the help!

2 mice/cursors 1 computer

ejhdigdug — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 09:45:34 -0800

Has anyone ever added two mice/cursors to one computer? Can I get that on my computer today? Ever sense I was first introduced to a computer, I've alwayse thought it was just a matter of time before someone added a second mouse to the computer. I mean I have two hands after all. I'm still surprised that no one has done this yet. Or have they? I thought this would be a good question for MetaFilter. Has anyone ever added a second mouse to a computer and try sell it to the public? Is there any way I could add a second mouse to my computer right now? (It's Windows)

I think a second mouse would be extremely useful. I could keep one cursor on the tools and the other actually doing the work, that way I could switch tools without having to take time to drag to the tool bar and back. Or I could use both mice to stretch things apart. Or use one to open new applications while the other closes one. Any thoughts on that?

Hebrew input support in X

ori — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 16:46:56 -0800

How do I add a foreign language (Hebrew) input to X, and how do I switch keyboard layouts? This was easy to set up in Gnome and KDE, but I've since left those for Fluxbox, which doesn't (seem to) have a proprietary configurator. I'm running Debian/Testing, xorg 6.8.2dfsg.

Mac OS - lower the menu bar?

shino-boy — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 22:19:20 -0800

Tiger 10.4.3 - Can I lower the menu bar? I'm using a cool USB touchscreen with my Mac mini (Tiger 10.4.3). But the touchscreen is less responsive at the very top of the screen - right where the menu bar is. Can I lower the menu bar?

I'm using the mini for a very specific application and I really want to use the stylus with the touchscreen, not a mouse.
Any ideas?

How to get Spanish to work in my computer?

Colloquial Collision — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 00:51:31 -0800

I would like to add a Spanish keyboard (language interface pack?) to Windows XP in order to make typing Spanish more efficient. Unfortunately when I go to choose a Spanish keyboard, 20 Spanish dialects are presented. These choices can be found in the Input language form in the Add Input Language window.

The options range from Argentinean Spanish to Venezuelan Spanish, along with two non-dialectic options, International Sort and Traditional Sort.

This is exactly where I went in Windows XP to find this form:
Control Panel > Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options > Add other languages > Regional and Language Options / Languages Tab > Details Button > Text Services and Input Languages / Settings Tab > Add Button > Add Input Language > Input Language Form

Should I choose International Sort or Traditional Sort? What is the difference between these two options?

I currently use a United States Dvorak layout for typing. Typing in English. Is there a Spanish equivalent?

Or am I going about this the wrong way? Is there an easier way to insert vowels with accents or umlauts, and Ns with tildes without resorting to typing unicode? (Or opening up separate programs like character map and inserting one character at a time, for example.)

Thank you o muchas gracias.

Windows locale troubles

squidlarkin — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 13:01:19 -0800

?????! I can type in Japanese and have a slightly broken OS as a result. I'm running win2k, and I've installed the Japanese input option, which works great. The catch is that in certain contexts, certain extended ASCII characters are displayed as Japanese characters; for example, my command prompt is "C:¥>". This I can cope with. The problem is that:

1) Certain apps (mostly ones written in Java, so far) assume I want a Japanese interface. I do not.

2) Playing Nethack is a living hell.

Chances are at this point you're nodding your head and saying, "This is easy! He's got his locale set to Japan!", but no, it's clearly set as English (United States).

Filmscanner input resolution?

carter — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 12:16:24 -0800

Filmscanner 101. Is there any advantage to setting the *input* resolution for scans intended for monitor display to anything greater than 72dpi? The default input resolutions on my scanner vary with the dimensions selected for the output file. Bigger output files require higher input resolutions (from 704dpi to 1759dpi). As everything will be displayed at 72dpi, why not *scan* everything at 72dpi? It all looks the same to me on my screen.

Does anyone here have a Griffin Powermate? If so what do you use it for?

zero — Tue, 14 Dec 2004 21:56:55 -0800

Does anyone here have a Griffin Powermate? If so what do you use it for?

Is there any way to just "listen" to the mic input on a PC?

LairBob — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 11:33:22 -0800

ThisCan'tBeThisHardFilter: Is there any way to just "listen" to the mic input on a PC? [more inside] I've got a line running from my cable box to my laptop's mic input, and I just want to be able to listen to the TV as I'm doing other things on the PC. (This is primarily for night-time, when I'm using headphones to work/play on PC, and want to be able to listen to the TV next to my desk. With the phones on--even my nice "open-air" Sennheisers--the set needs to be on louder than I'd like for me to hear it.)

I know it's hooked up fine, because any of those little apps that let you record analog inputs will digitize the TV sound for me just fine. I don't want to digitize the sound, though--I just want to hear it. Surely, that can't be so hard?

I've tried _everything_ I can think of--settings in various control panels, seeing if third-party apps will just let me monitor the mic input, lots of Googling--and nothing. Any ideas?

Help with projector/setting up a movie club

NGnerd — Sun, 01 Aug 2004 19:38:12 -0800

two for one:
I just set up my new projector and while it is AWESOME, i'm having an issue with running my incomputer tv input through and losing allot of quality. 1) is there a good piece of software for interpolating tv input to make it higher quality
2) i'd like to organize a movie club to take advantage of the new beast and meet people in my area (berkeley for the bay area mefites). I'm thinking a craigslist ad but i wasn't sure how you would start such a thing when you don't know anyone (similar to starting a bookclub or something) sorry for the misspelling (there's no edit button before post and i'm too lazy to go back). so here's some more info: the computer has an ATI radeon all-in wonder 8500 DV card which has all the good inputs (tv, rca, etc). The software that came with the card is ok, but when you put a 640x480 image on a 10' diagnol screen the quality takes a dump (the projector is good for 1024x768 and HDTV easily). So what i'd like to find is a piece of software which interpolates the frame upwards from the input tv signal size to the maximum screen size. I know there is tv hardware that does the same thing and figure the computer should be able to do the processing easily.

as for the second part, i've been in the area for a year but recently had my good friends move into the city (it's a shlep for them as the bart sucks), so i'd like to meet some pop-culture junkies like myself...and show of the projector of course. I've found really iffy results with craigslist so i wasn't sure if there's a better forum to check out.