Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 August 1

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 1

Going to a section of page is not functioning

For the past two weeks whenever I click on the arrow in my watchlist for the specific section of a Wikipedia page I am taken to the page but never arrive at the section. I have not intentionally changed any of my preferences or anything on my computer; no monobook changes, no added programs or tools, nada. Any ideas?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:24, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I am also having this problem, but only for the last hour or two. Should probably take this to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Algebraist 00:26, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I've done so. Algebraist 00:38, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

This should be fixed now, but then it shouldn't have started happening until midnight today (when a buggy revision went live). Is it ok for you now? Algebraist 01:11, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Nope, but then again it appears that whatever is affecting you is not the same as is affecting me. It's probably pure serendipity that yours stopped functioning near the same time I posted about my long-existing issue, thus implying a common cause when the timing suggests none.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:28, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll just mention that this started happening to me when I logged in today - about 10 minutes ago. --LarryMac | Talk 12:43, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Its been rebroken: see Bug 14995. Algebraist 14:05, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

what do you learn in digital communications class?????

can someone please tell me what the heck that means???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.252.8.3 (talk) 00:32, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

A description should be in the class guide. It would be impossible to generalize. --mboverload@ 03:32, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Question regarding MAC data

The IT columnist of a major Indian newspaper, the Hindu, says thus about MAC address: "...and something called physical address ... 12 digits or letters, two by two separated by dashes. This is your MAC number. If someone hacked your e-mail account and sent a mail in your identity, it will bear your IP address. But the physical address is something unique to your physical machine." "Once you have secured your PC physically, the MAC number will help you prove mails sent by hackers did not originate from your machine. That is the status today... till hackers come up with something new against MAC numbers." The article appears here

• This sounds like it jars with some commonplace online lore on MAC spoofing. Further, is it true to state that an email carries the original sender's MAC address through all hops it makes? Can somebody make it clear for me? Karvaka (talk) 07:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Pure bullshit. MAC addresses aren't recorded as part of the standard mail trace header. The sender's MAC address is only used on the first ethernet hop (which is a subset of the first IP hop, which is a subset of the first SMTP hop, so really a tiny fraction of the journey). and if anyone did bother to keep track of them, they'd be as useless as knowing the "10.0.0.x" address of the sender's machine behind a NAT router. By the time anyone reads a mail message, it's far too late to ask what the sender's MAC address was. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 07:34, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Seconded. This guy should be fired. --mboverload@ 07:38, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Plus, it's quite common to be able to change your MAC address to whatever you want. -- Coneslayer (talk) 12:18, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Which is why MAC address filtering is an incredibly stupid and terrible way to secure your wifi network. MAC addresses should not be used for any type of security or identification, they cannot be trusted. ADFSGL (talk) 12:47, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, it will be only proper if I give here the columnist's own explanation mailed to me by the readers' editor of The Hindu. The two following paragraphs have the columnist's view. "The reader misses the whole context of the news item he alludes to. The purpose is not to deliver an explicit and technically watertight explanation of MAC numbers ... if one needed to do that, Wikipedia in any case, might not be the most authentic source to search. Malicious mails are being traced to their so called sender based on the IP address. The MAC number of the networking hardware is a unique identifier of the physical system, unlike the IP address. Against a background of events where possibly innocent victims of stolen identities, are asked to explain mails bearing their IP address, it might come as helpful information that there is a reasonable way to establish that a particular PC was no t used for sending a particular mail. The onus of proving otherwise shifts to the one tracing the mail.

Before the reader leaps up to question if the MAC number is absolutely unique,let me add that it is considered by purists to be quasi unique, because MAC number spoofing is also something that hackers are doing. I have taken note of this when I suggest that the comfort of being able to say 'This did not originate from my PC', may last only "till hackers come up with something new against MAC numbers". Karvaka (talk) 01:01, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

This is just a crackpot theory from someone who apparently just found out that MAC addresses exist and got too excited about it. How is a mail forgery victim supposed to establish anything based on information that is not recorded, either in the message headers or in the server logs, by any mail server? Take a look at any message in your mailbox, wanted or unwanted, and ask yourself if you suspected me of sending it to you, how would my MAC address (00:0B:2F:4B:DC:3C on the interface that connects my computer to the cable modem) would be relevant. It's not. My IP address (98.226.122.187 at the moment) might be useful; there are IP addresses in the message headers (Received: from ... by ...) which you can compare it to. With the MAC address, on the other hand, there's nothing to compare it to. All the bleating about how "unique" MAC addresses are is missing the point. What good is a totally unique machine identifier, if no record is kept of it when a message is transmitted? --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 01:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Some mitigating circumstance: A mail claiming responsibility for the recent serial blasts in some parts of India was said to have originated from a US national's flat in Mumbai. It looks like his ISP account was stolen and used for mailing.[1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karvaka (talk • contribs) 05:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

ethernet card in Ubuntu

I am using Ubuntu 8.4.1 on a compaq desktop with Pentium III processor, 20 gb hard disk, and 384 MB RAM

lspci results are here: http://pastebin.com/m23753eee How can I get my network card working? thanks. Kushal (talk) 12:16, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

First in the terminal type "sudo apt-get update" and then "sudo apt-get upgrade" then after No internet can't do. go to System->Administrations there are two things dealing with network. My card automatically worked. So I am sorry if this doesn't work.Rgoodermote^{Not an admin}  18:07, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems that machine has a DEC 21142 ethernet device, which should be supported by the tulip driver (although some cards with workalike features appear to be supported by the "dmfe" driver instead). This page (which is rather old) discusses how to swap the tulip for dmfe (you can try either to see if it works). A check of modprobe should determine if the Ubuntu installer has already set one up (perhaps wrongly). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Oops, for "a check of modprobe" read "a check of lsmod" -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:16, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Note that this device, in some configurations, appears to support multiple concurrent interfaces. Could your problem be as simple as Ubuntu has configured only one of the ethX devices, and you've got the network cable in, and have been sweating the config of, another? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Various issues regarding DEC 2114x chips are discussed in the Linux Ethernet FAQ here (gosh, is 2003 really the latest?) which identifies de4x5 and tulip as possible drivers, and explains why neither may be sufficient. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:12, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

lspci -n would give a precise ID that might be easier to look up, since there are so many different tulip cards. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 19:54, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

here it is http://pastebin.com/f1ac639c7

babu@babu-desktop:~$ lspci -n
00:00.0 0600: 8086:7190 (rev 02)
00:01.0 0604: 8086:7191 (rev 02)
00:03.0 0780: 127a:1003 (rev 01)
00:04.0 0401: 12eb:0001 (rev 02)
00:12.0 0200: 1011:0019 (rev 41)
00:13.0 0c00: 104c:8009 (rev 01)
00:14.0 0601: 8086:7110 (rev 02)
00:14.1 0101: 8086:7111 (rev 01)
00:14.2 0c03: 8086:7112 (rev 01)
00:14.3 0680: 8086:7113 (rev 02)
01:00.0 0300: 1002:4c42 (rev dc)
babu@babu-desktop:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 02)
00:03.0 Communication controller: Rockwell International HCF 56k Data/Fax Modem (rev 01)
00:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: Aureal Semiconductor Vortex 1 (rev 02)
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: Digital Equipment Corporation DECchip 21142/43 (rev 41)
00:13.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments FireWire Controller (rev 01)
00:14.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
00:14.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:14.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:14.3 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage LT Pro AGP-133 (rev dc)
babu@babu-desktop:~$ 

thanks Kushal (talk) 22:26, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I was wrong about that. 1011:0019 is still pretty vague. Maybe lspci -v and see if there's a "Subsystem" listed under it. But are we asking the right question? You started out by offering lspci, so we're assuming that your complaint is that the card wasn't recognized, since that's the type of situation where lspci is relevant. Why don't you describe what you've tried so far, and what type of response you got --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 23:59, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, I have no idea. The connection works fine on another desktop running Ubuntu liveCD. Well, here is the pastebin http://pastebin.com/f56b633d1 http://benjaminrogerstexas.googlepages.com/lspci-v.txt Please help. Kushal (talk) 00:41, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

You have no idea what you've tried so far? --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 00:50, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I have not tried a whole lot. Oh, by the way, dhcpcd seems to not be installed. and here is another text paste http://benjaminrogerstexas.googlepages.com/ifconfig-a.txt Kushal (talk) 01:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

So the card is detected just fine... opening the conversation with an lspci dump really led us the wrong way. If you want to use dynamic addressing, it's a good idea to have a DHCP daemon installed. Does Ubuntu have an /etc/network/interfaces like Debian? That would be the place where you declare the eth0 interface's IP address to be dynamically assigned, like this:

 auto eth0
 iface eth0 inet dhcp

--tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 01:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I get a command not found for both of these commands. please help Kushal (talk) 02:09, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Ubuntu should have DHCP client called "dhcp3-client" installed. Can you check if it's there? If not try putting in your LiveCD and use it as a repository to install the package. I have also put your lspci output into <pre> tags for better aesthetics. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:47, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

What could have gone wrong here? How can I fix it? Is there any further information needed to solve the problem? What is it? Please let me know. Kushal (talk) 13:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Babu finally found his Windows XP installation disc and we were able to access the wired network from Windows XP without a problem. What could have gone wrong? (Not that it helps any in this case, since babu has decided to stay with MS Windows for that machine.) Kushal (talk) 15:03, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Easily putting together images

Hi-- I have a series of images (over 100 of them) that I simply want to put together into an animated GIF, so that first image1 appears for a second, then image2 appears, etc... Does anyone have any recommendations for a free program (or programs used together) that can do this for you? I know the GIMP has animated GIF creation capabilities, but it will take eons to open every single image file, somehow make it a layer in one single file, then create the animated GIF from that. Thanks for your help! -- 132.250.122.83 (talk) 15:08, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

If you are on Windows Microsoft GIF Animator works well for this sort of thing. Just highlight all the images you want in the order you want them, select an interval time and it will do the rest. 20I.170.20 (talk) 15:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Use ImageMagick (windows, mac, linux, etc.): convert -delay 100 -loop 0 *.jpg animation.gif -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:27, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Enter key instead of tab in text entry fields

My work involves feeding data to a Postgre database which has Python as query language. The interface is a any web browser and the OS usually is a Linux distro. If enter key, instead of tab were usable to move from one text field to another, work would be very easier. On some machines with Konqueror browser this is possible. Can this feature be enabled on Mozilla, Galeon etc? --Pitcherplanter (talk) 15:25, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Can you modify the source of the page itself? This would be trivial to implement with Javascript. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:42, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Be aware that using the tab key to move between fields has been standard practice for many years across all OS's I've used (Windows, Mac, VMS, and various flavours of unix including Linux). By all means make the enter key do the same, but other users of your input interface will expect the tab key to move between the fields. Astronaut (talk) 10:59, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

pdf file company logo to article info box

How do I upload our company logo (which is a pdf file) into my info box? IntegratedBiomolecule (talk) 17:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

What's an info box? --Sean 18:02, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi IntegratedBiomolecule! At the moment you should probably focus your attention here Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Integrated_Biomolecule_Corporation. Please don't take this the wrong way. Please read WP:CORP and WP:N. If you have any question you can ask me personally on my talk page by clicking the little @ sign. --mboverload@ 18:08, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I blame safari

I recently installed safari web browser, got fed up with it and uninstalled it and went back to internet explorer... Now when a page is loading sometimes the screen is totally red, also some websites leave the page red on blank parts..

Why? and how can I stop this?87.102.86.73 (talk) 19:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

could you upload some screenshots? Kushal (talk) 21:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I could - this image http://www.skd-dresden.de/media/images/museen/alte_meister/400_alte_meister_6.jpg (picked at random by typing "picture" into an image search) appeared red outside the boundary of the actual image when loaded in a webpage, whereas before it was white...

I actually solved the problem- it seems the background colour had been set to red, so I reset it to white and problem solved..

Except I don't think I ever changed it.. Is it possible that safari did and again why? (or have I just lost my marbles.)87.102.86.73 (talk) 21:49, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Safari would not have the privilages to make changes like that, besides, what kind of trick is that? Changing the background color. Chances are, yuo did it by mistake, or someone using the computer messed with it.

GnuCash application seems to have disappeared

I installed GnuCash last week and created a data file for my accounts. Now the shortcut has disappeared from the desktop and I can't find the exe anywhere on my hard drive, although other GnuCash files (including the data file) are still there. Could it have somehow been mysteriously uninstalled? Running Windows Vista but I'm not very familiar with it — this is a new laptop. --Ginkgo100^talk 21:02, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

stupid problem in windows

hello, I have an old desktop P3 with 256 MB RAM and 20 GB hard disk. even when I log in as administrator, I get a prompt that the administrator has disallowed it. and that is in safe mode.I cannot even get the dumb think to work when I am in normal mode.Please help. How am I supposed to disinfect the computer if I cannot even log in? Kushal (talk) 21:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Is this running 2000 or XP? Can you give us the exact error message? --mboverload@ 03:34, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

WHOIS information lookup, using VB Express 2005

Hi, i am writing a small program using VBExpress 2005 (.NET 2.0) (trying to sort out ip addresses / info, Pay per click-related), and i need to be able to look up information (owners contact info, location) given an IP address. What would be the best way to accomplish this? I've been looking for some sort of Control i can include in my project, but i cant find any free/open source ones... Can someone please point me to a tutorial on how i can do this? I was considering one of the following approaches:

a.) using direct TCP / sockets to connect to a whois server ; (i also need to know how to pass-retrieve data)
b.) using a hidden webcontrol and then screen-scraping data from it (I'd also like to read on a guide to access webcontrols document object)
or c.) Something that i don't want to have to do: call a commandline program (like whosip.exe), output to a file, then process that (or maybe get the stdout, i dunno)

I will be processing quite a number of them, just incase it matters.

Thank you all very much in advance 122.3.19.200 (talk) 22:31, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like automated WHOISing is "frowned upon" because it's sort of a spammer technique for harvesting personally identifiable information. But, here is a free-ish web service which will provide you with XML output (this should be easy to parse with standard VB .NET XML libraries)

• Sample XML query for NIMUR, from some private company I've never heard of
• The same, text/html format, from InterNIC

For reasons I don't understand, this gives me less information (about myself) than when I use whois from a linux command line (which gives out all kinds of spooky information like a phone number that's been disconnected for years, and so forth). It may be a terms-of-service agreement with this WHOIS-providing website, or maybe they have a pay/premium service for more information, or something like that. Nimur (talk) 18:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Addendum - Yes, it seems like these web services limit your data access so that they can charge for it; they also include a pleasant reminder to use WHOIS data responsibly. Nimur (talk) 18:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Website Redesign

Hello. Why are so many websites (e.g. Canada Post, 4-1-1, Google Maps, etc.) redesigning at the same time? Is the web design industry monopolizing? Is a new programming language conquering the Internet? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 23:52, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Sites regularly redesign in a way to look like they are still "up to date" and being actively maintained. (Sites that haven't updated their basic appearance for years on end tend to look stale.) Google Maps doesn't look all that different than how it did a few months ago, unless you're referring to something I don't see. They've always been adding new features. I don't think it has anything to do with a "monopoly" on the web design industry; I doubt it has to do with any new languages (though in the last year or two many big sites, following Google's lead, felt the need to convert to AJAX-like interactions). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

If implemented in a reasonable way, switching to AJAX will greatly reduce network traffic, which can greatly reduce bandwidth costs for large websites. However, redesigning a site to get the most out of AJAX can lead to a complete makeover. So, you will find many sites look entirely different after an AJAX makeover. -- kainaw™ 00:25, 2 August 2008 (UTC)