lydamorehouse | Gryffindor, You Haunt Me

I love this summer so far. I managed to miss the 103 degree day, and have been shamelessly enjoying the cool breeze which, for me at least, makes for a good night's sleep. Last night, I opened the window and snuggled under a comforter. It was awesome. Of course, I also dreamed I was Ron Weasley, so that might have contributed to the joy.

I think, btw, that my subconscious is trying to tell me to stop ignoring the truth: I'm probably a Gryffindor, deep in my heart. I'll deny it, you know. Slytherin House needs someone like me. Someone gregarious and likable, heroic, yet deeply ambitious and a little dark. As my astrological chart says of my Mercury in Scorpio, "Your mind is deep, but rarely charitable."

Anyway, today is the day that, hopefully, I finish the revisions on Ana #3 (aka ALMOST EVERYTHING). Once I got over my inital reaction of, "Gah! My editor hates me! She's gutted the book!" (which, I should try to remember, happens to me every time, it's sort of like how I feel every time I get a rejection for a short story,) I discovered that the revisions aren't nearly as major as I feared. Luckily, my family was a bunch of duds last night and went to bed at 8:30 pm, which left me several hours to plow through pages. I got to about 175 or so, which is half way or nearly so. There is going to be more to do the closer I get to "THE END," but I'm hopeful the next several chapters will be as smooth saling as the previous ones.

Speaking of short stories, I've been continuing my podcast kick. I've listened to almost everything Lightspeed currently has on offer that seemed even remotely up my alley, and have moved into Fantasy (though I really prefer SF) as well, as checking out what's on offer over at PodCastle and EscapePod. I think I could listen a story a day for a thousand years, which is kind of nice. That's a bit of an exaggeration, of course, but I *am* seriously pleased how much stuff seems to be out there. Next time you see me at a convention, I'll be full of it. I mean I'll be full of knowledge of the short story field... yeah, that's it. ;-)

Speaking of science fiction, I just tried to Skype my dad. Any of you technically savvy people out there know why it is that my computer isn't transmitting sound?? I can see and hear my dad just great. He can see me, but not hear me. What's really, REALLY weird is that it doesn't seem to matter which computer I use. We have Skype set up on my computer and Shawn's and neither one wants to work, despite the fact that we've used it successfully in the past (I even talked to a friend who is in Korea!) I wonder if it isn't our 4G network. We've had to move it around to try to get a good signal, and maybe it no longer has the juice to connect us... anyway, if any of you folks know what might be up, I'd love a tutorial. It's so much fun to see my dad when I talk. It solves a problem I've always had with the phone, which is I'm not much of a chatter when I don't get visual cues.

Anyway, I should get back to work. I really want to finish up the revisions, because I've been kicking around a short story idea in my head. I've told myself, however, that I can't work on the short story unless I do some novel work first.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I am not a Skype expert but when I first got it up and running the second time I couldn't for the life of me figure out why my image was so blurry.

It turned out I needed to turn the camera lens thingie so it was in focus. Maybe there's a "volume" knob to turn the microphone on/up?

In a pinch you could skype and phone simultaneously. Talk on the phone while looking at each other on Skype.

That last bit is funny, because it's exactly what I did. I called my dad on the cell and we watched each other talk on the phone. :-)

I've been playing around with the settings for my microphone. I've also called Skype's test center several times and it claims that "Skype is configured correctly," (in her lovely British accent) which is why I wonder if it's an issue of "juice" from my WiFi... since the test call doesn't test my picture. Perhaps I should try calling my dad with my video turned off? Of course, IMHO, that kind of defeats the purpose of Skype. At that point it's just a phone on my computer, and I prefer the science fictional aspect of getting to see each other.

Wednesday Addams is the proper heroic Slytherin.

I think if it's a connection issue, the video would go first, as it's more bandwidth-intensive. Do you have anything else plugged into the computer that it might be trying to use as a microphone that isn't picking up your voice properly?

Skype asked me that too, as it were, in the directions on how to fix this problem. The answer is no. In fact, today, I didn't even have my laptop plugged into the powersource. I was running on battery (though when I switched computers, I was plugged in.)

I do have a spot to plug in an external microphone which I could try, but this still doesn't explain why Skype test center can hear me, and my father can't. (And it's not just my dad, because when we tried to call the computer in the other room, we had the same problem.)

Hmm, weird! Good trouble-shooting steps. When you tried it from problem-computer to other-computer, did the voice come through from other-computer to problem-computer? Are they on the same network? If so you know it's isolated to the problem-computer itself. You always could try a voice-only call with your dad just for testing purposes. I'd suggest next going to the control panel and looking for which device is labeled as the sound input and seeing if it's somehow misassigned. After that you could also try uninstalling the audio device, rebooting, and reinstalling (which it will most likely do automatically, but having the device drivers on hand is not a bad idea.)

Are you sure it's your end? Two different computers that have worked in the past have the same issue with the computer on the other end? I'd suspect it's your dad's end that's having the issues.

Both of you should try recording a snippet with your mics and playing them back, to test local input and output.

I'm not sure what is happening with Skype for you, but the 4G network part doesn't seem likely at all to me. If you were having a problem, it would have a huge impact on the video, and Skype would try to degrade the whole experience to compensate, rather than just cutting out the audio.

Are you using the same mic on both computers? (Or are you just using built-in-to-the-computer mics?) It's worked fine before?

All of the Weasely's are eligible for Slytherin since they are purebloods. So don't give up hope yet.

For the life of me, I have never understood the point of the video phone. Maybe with a "look here's the baby" kind of call. But why would I want to watch someone talk to me on the phone? And why would they want to talk to me?

Of course, I use skype mostly for texting with Michele when she is in the same building as me so what do I know?

jpj

as they others have said; it's not a network problem if the video is working. I would guess that you haven't got skype set up to use the correct mic.

If you're running on a laptop there should be a built-in mike. If you have an external webcam, it may have its own mic. finally, if you are using a headset then that will be a third mic. Jump into the settings and make sure that Skype is using the correct one, that should solve your problem.

Gryffindor, You Haunt Me

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