q and a
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday August 11, 2009
Q I always like to read your column in the paper and this time I've got this weird thing happening to my computer. I've installed Pinnacle PC TV with a USB stick on a desktop computer. I had it running on my laptop perfectly but on the desktop the picture is upside down. Any suggestions?A Don't worry about learning those handstands. You will, however, likely need to update the video drivers on the desktop computer. The video card and software will be different to that used by your laptop. This may explain why the image displays properly on one machine and not the other. Updating drivers is usually a matter of visiting the video graphics card maker's website. Check your desktop's documentation to find out what brand, such as Nvidia (nvidia.com), go to the manufacturer's site and look for links to "drivers" or "updates". If updating the driver doesn't work, it may be time to examine any other video-related software installed on your desktop, including any codecs, and see whether removing these resolves the issue. Good luck.Q Help! My computer is talking to me. I must have pressed some key combination and I can't turn it off. The grating computer €śvoice€ť states every move I make. It's extremely irritating. I am using a Mac with Leopard. Can you please help?A Yes, and it's quick to fix, although you may still want to turn the volume down. Go to System Preferences and look for the item called (you may have guessed it) Speech. Go to the Text To Speech panel. Incidentally, it is possible to choose from a selection of voices to find one slightly less horrid. But in this case, of course, all you need to do is click any ticked boxes to switch the voice off completely. Ah, the serenity!qa@nicolemanktelow.com smh.com.au/techtips
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald