Voice with no mic

[sarna Islay]

This is my problem. I have no internal mic. My mic is not plugged in. Yet, when I am in chat and listening to others I've had two people tell me they can hear me typing every now and then. This worries me alot, because at times I may be on the phone and I do not wish my calls to be heard. I don't know how they are hearing me.

What I want to know is this. How can I listen to others talking and also turn off or completely remove the portion that will put any sound through from me. I know there is a talk button. I have never used it except when we were trying to figure out how sound was coming from my computer and the lock symbol was closed. I will leave SL before I'll allow any personal information to be heard by strangers without my knowledge. Please help me put my mind at ease when I'm chatting by knowing that stupid talk feature is gone.

[Fender Strangelove]

Sarna--what they are hearing is the automatic typing sound that is played when you type.  It's not a microphone, it is built into the software.  Set PlayTypingAnim to false to turn it off, either by using Debug settings or by using a viewer that has this option included in its Preferences.

[Lily Brooks]

Yes, rest assured, Sarna.  They can not hear you! That is just a "typing sound program" that happens to everyone. You usually don't hear it unless your sound is turned up high. No one can really hear you at your computer at home without a mic (and even then you have to press the talk button)

[Kalderi Tomsen]

Sarna,

Don't worry about it - either they are noobs themselves or they are teasing you.  The typing sound and animation is very common in SL.  If you do not have a white "dot" over your head, then you are not voice enabled and nobody can hear anything that you are doing.

Turning off the typing animation can be a little disconcerting for the people you are tlaking to, though - a lot use it as a sign that you are about to "say" something and stick around.  So if you turn it off, don't be surprised or offended if people walk away from you while you are typing.

If you are seeing a white dot over your (or other's) heads, and don't want to use voice (either to speak or hear others) you can turn it off in the Preferences screen - you cna get there from the viewer menu - look for "Preferences" and click on it.  Look for the voice tab, and make sure that the box in there called "Enable Voice chat" is unchecked.

Then, no matter whether you have a mic on or not, they won't be able to hear you.

Hope this helps.