Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 November 21

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November 21

System->Administration->Network does not appear in Ubuntu 8.10

I can't find System->Administration->Network. I can only find System->Administration->Network Tools. In Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04, I can find System->Administration->Network but in Ubuntu 8.10, I can't. I want to access Network Settings. Is this default in Ubuntu 8.10 or a bug? What should I do to have System->Administration->Network in the menu? Jet (talk) 00:37, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

It seems to be the default for 8.10. I don't know what the "Network" was in previous versions, gnome-network-preferences or (not installed by default) gnome-network-admin maybe? --194.197.235.221 (talk) 01:52, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Are you able to run "network-admin" from the command line? --128.97.245.81 (talk) 03:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

sudo apt-get install gnome-network-admin --wj32 ^t/c 06:08, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's installed by default in Ubuntu 8.10 - most of its functionality can now be achieved using the Network Manager applet (next to the clock). Running the code wj32 posted in a terminal should install it, though. --saxsux (talk) 10:45, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Free Antivirus

Looking for a good free antivirus program. Suggestions include AVG Free, which I'm a little hesitant towards since the false positive fiasco, Avast!, NOD32, and two which I don't want: ClamWin and Antivir. Anyone have suggestions for which I should lean towards? I have McAfee, but it won't do anything unless I exit Norton, which I can't for some reason. Avnas Ishtaroth _{drop me a line} 05:22, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I use BitDefender Free Edition. It's basically BitDefender (a prestigious product) without all of the bloat, free of charge. It actually has a better detection record than McAfee and Norton. By the way, you should only have one anti-virus suite installed on your machine at a time. As you have seen, they tend to get in each other's way and often interfere with the normal operation of your computer.--Rjnt (talk) 05:44, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Antivirus software is extremely unreliable; any clever programmer can construct malicious code that is utterly undetectable as such until some security researcher sees it in the wild and constructs rules to detect it. Also if you're running it in the background to intercept disk writes it can destroy any semblance of performance on your computer. Just don't run untrusted code; it's not that hard to avoid closed-source freeware with the success of open source, and presumably anything you're paying for is from someone reputable.. .froth. (talk) 06:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't mean to be condescending but it makes little sense to have two elephants in one little room. That's basically what Norton + McAfee is. I believe it is much easier to uninstall Norton now than ever before. Uninstalling McAfee should not be that hard, either. Just make sure that you don't have more than one real-time scanner. ClamWin should fit right in with other players unless you enable real-time protection. Kushal (talk) 11:01, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm still a part of the 'Use the Norton Removal Tool!' camp. If the actual Norton/Symantec folks make it themselves and make it fairly readily available, I'd much rather use it (very easy to find on Google, just make sure to get it directly from Symantec...it 'expires') Washii (talk) 05:33, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I use Avast! and have had no complaints; it runs quietly in the background and no malware has gotten through. It downloads updates at inconvenient times, but there's probably a setting in there I've been too lazy to hunt down. I used AVG for years, but dropped it like a hot potato when it became a resource hog (a la NAV or McAfee)Matt Deres (talk) 20:26, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Hey Rjnt, Bitdefender supposedly offers no protection against spyware, is that true? --Thanks for answering (talk) 04:35, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

CSS for the blind

I resisted learning anything beyond elementary HTML, on grounds of laziness and accessibility, until I installed WordPress and had to learn basic CSS to make my blog look halfway decent. I see that CSS can specify how voices should express heading-style and so on. Supposing I don't care whether my writing sounds like Ingrid Bergman or Danny DeVito, is it worthwhile to add voice code to my stylesheet; or do vocal browsers have decent defaults? If I did want to make my website sound pretty, what client might I use to try it? (I'm on MacOS.) — This is prompted by a recent question on Humanities that touched on website design for the blind. —Tamfang (talk) 06:31, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

My best vocal experience has been with Opera. It is rather simple to set voice parameters in CSS and, since you should be using a single stylesheet for your whole site (to make it all look similar), you only set it one place, not in each HTML file. -- kainaw™ 12:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it likely that blind users will use an overall screen reader, like JAWS or MAGic, which will replace all voices with their own. StuRat (talk) 13:53, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

That is very true. I have worked with blind programmers and database analysts. The voice they use is very fast such that is sounds like quick chirping, not speaking. -- kainaw™ 14:19, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

http://www.w3.org/WAI/ may have some information (or may at least be interesting) --h2g2bob (talk) 16:51, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Printing a file into a bitmap or something

i want to print a picture from another program into a bitmap format. Is there a way to do that? PS sorry about my sig, it's not working right yet.  Buffered Input Output 14:13, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

There are many bitmap formats. What do you want? The Windows .bmp format? Just open the picture in Paint and save it as .bmp. I don't use Windows, so I'd open the original pic in GIMP and save it as "Windows .bmp" format. -- kainaw™ 14:18, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I will assume you are on a Windows computer:

1) If you display the pic, then hit the Print Screen button on the keyboard (usually up and to the right of the Backspace key), it will be copied into the picture buffer.

2) Then go to Start + (All) Programs + Accessories + Paint to start Microsoft Paint.

3) Do an Edit + Paste and hit Yes to expand.

4) Do a File + Save As to save it as a BMP file.

The following steps would trim the image:

3.1) Pick the "Select" icon at the top of the left side icon list. It will be a dashed rectangle.

3.2) Move the mouse to one corner of the area to keep.

3.3) Hold down the left mouse button and move to the opposite corner of the region to keep. A dashed rectangle should surround the area you want to keep.

3.4) Use Edit + Cut to cut the part you want to keep.

3.5) Use File + New, followed by No, to discard the rest.

3.6) Do an Edit + Paste and hit Yes to expand.

I don't know if this works under Windows Vista, as they have changed many things for no apparent reason. StuRat (talk) 14:34, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Makes me want to set the fox on fire myself...

I'm using the FireFox web browser and have an annoying problem. I'm editing a Wikipedia paragraph then click on another existing paragraph and start typing text there. Unfortunately, there is a lag. This didn't used to be a problem, as it would eventually catch up to my typing and everything would be fine. Now, however, the change in location doesn't register until after the text is typed. So, the text I typed AFTER picking on a new location doesn't go where I clicked, but rather where I was before I clicked. The flashing cursor then moves to the new location. I'm considering scrapping this version of FireFox if I can't fix this annoying prob. My version info:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8.1.18) Gecko/20081029 Firefox/2.0.0.18

StuRat (talk) 14:47, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

My wife has this problem with McAfee is doing a file scan. McAfee uses 99.999999999999% of system resources, so there is nothing left for her to use. The lag creates a race condition - which registers first in the CPU, her mouse click or the keyboard presses? Since the keyboard is PS2 and the mouse is USB, the keyboard usually wins and gets in first. She is just starting to learn to kill the McAfee virus scan before asking me about some new problem. -- kainaw™ 15:18, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not running any anti-virus programs, and both my mouse and keyboard are PS/2. So, can you think of any other reason why the keyboard might jump ahead of the mouse ? The delay can be as much as 5 seconds. StuRat (talk) 15:50, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Could be a problem with one of your add-ons. Try starting Firefox in safe mode so only default settings are loaded to see if that makes a difference. Go start, run and type with quotes

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -safe-mode

If the problem is gone then start Firefox normally, one by one disable your add-ons and then restart to see which one is the culprit. SN0WKITT3N 17:10, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, where do I go to disable them ? StuRat (talk) 17:24, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Click on Tools and you'll see Addons. Click on an addon you don't want and select "disable". -- kainaw™ 17:50, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok, that shows something called DOM Inspector 1.8.1.18 and their own TalkBack 2.0.0.11. I can only uninstall the first, but I'll see if that makes a diff. StuRat (talk) 19:01, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

So far it seems to be working. Thanks. StuRat (talk) 07:09, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

BeautifulSoup

Hello - is there any way to get BeautifulSoup to spot xml tags which close themselves - like this: <tslash /> ? It makes the nesting go all wrong.

Here's an example:

from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulStoneSoup
print BeautifulStoneSoup('''<xml1><tnested>ok</tnested><tslash /><tnested>wrong</tnested></xml1>''').prettify()

prints

<xml1>
 <tnested>
  ok
 </tnested>
 <tslash>
  <tnested> <!-- this shouldn't be nested! -->
   wrong
  </tnested>
 </tslash>
</xml1>

I know I could set selfClosingTags=['tslash'], but I'd much rather detect it all automatically. --h2g2bob (talk) 16:45, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I've written a hack that works using regular expressions.

def make_soup(page):
	# Those fools don't recognise <foo..../> as a self-closing tag in xml.
	# Lets fix that for them
	re_self_closing_xml_tags = re.compile( r'<([^>\s]+)(\s[^>]*)?/\s*>' )
	page = re_self_closing_xml_tags.sub(
		lambda m : '<%s %s></%s>' % (m.group(1), m.group(2) or '', m.group(1),),
		page)
	return BeautifulStoneSoup(page)

If there's other/better solutions then I'd be interested. --h2g2bob (talk) 18:01, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Localhost offline in firefox

Currently I have no network at home, no LAN or WLAN. This causes my Firefox to start in offline mode.

Which is a good thing, I think it makes sense. The problem is that I have a local webserver running (on this machine) and I can't connect to it via http://localhost/ or http://127.0.0.1. Firefox then complains about the 'offline mode'.

Under Edit>Preferences, I have market "No proxy"

I think local addresses like the ones above should always be allowed as they are not dependent on the actual LAN/WLAN connection.

What is wrong? Mr.K. (talk) 17:33, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

This extension will allow you to alternate between online and offline mode. SN0WKITT3N 17:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I researched the problem further and it is actually a bug specific for Firefox 3.0 + Ubuntu Hardy. Your suggestion would work, but I find easier to just go to File > Offline mode and uncheck it. Mr.K. (talk) 17:33, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Password Problems Windows XP Pro

A friend of mine has a problem with Windows XP Pro. A few days ago they turn it on and it comes to the login screen with his four accounts. However, no matter what account he tries to login with, it asks for a password. None of the accounts had passwords, as it is a family computer. Even trying safe mode, where you have access to the additional "Administrator" account presents the same problems for all user accounts.

My friend suspects they have a virus, but from researching this in Google I get a bunch of mixed responses, from spyware to a remote user hacking and screwing things up. I am aware of things that would cause this, but I do not know how to treat it, since I have never (nor want to) experience this problem.

I am away at school right now and am unable to help my friend, whom I talked to over the phone for about an hour last night. He cannot find his Windows XP disc, and thus I am not able to have him repair his installation. He can get to another computer and check e-mail, but needs to get into his computer to access his documents. What can I suggest to him to do in order to solve his problem? --Willy No1lakersfan (Talk - Contribs) 18:09, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I just used a tool called Ophcrack to recover the passwords to an XP system. It took about 10 minutes, but revealed the passwords to all the accounts. Your friend would need to be able to download the ISO and burn it to a CD. --LarryMac | Talk 18:36, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Another approach is to boot from CD. Of course, this would require bootable Windows CDs (or, it might also be possible to use a Linux boot disk; I've used Skinny Puppy 4.0 for this before). Once booted, you could then recover the files. StuRat (talk) 18:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I use ERD Commander, a bootable CD that has a locksmith feature to reset your password. I also hear that Hiren's Boot CD will do the trick. Hiren's is also free.--Rjnt (talk) 20:18, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Just use Offline NT Password & Registry Editor to change the passwords. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 20:21, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

The tool works great, but it's recommended to blank the passwords, not to set them to something else. Ophcrack uses a rainbow table approach, and relies on the password being ascii, and shorter than 15 characters. If it indeed is a virus that has generated random hashes, ophcrack is unlikely to work, while the tool reccomended by 71.106 will. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 12:03, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Unless he has an irrational fear of losing his exact harddrive, I suggest getting a new harddrive that comes with Windows on it. Then just hook up his old drive to a non-booting slot, and copy all the files he needs from there. Then obliterate all the files on his old one, and now he's got double the disk space. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 00:00, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I had the same problem with the same O/S. My solution was to log on as Administrator, and leave the password blank. Hope it helps.DOR (HK) (talk) 02:58, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Set top box

Not sure if this should be here or on Science, but is is "Electronics, sofwtre and hardware", so... My mother has a UK Freeview Set top box. It is a Thomson (DTI 550) whose website states there is no support file for the particular box and Thomson appear to have left the consumer electronics market. I was trying to get a missing channel for her using "Menu | Auto tune", the reult of which was that about a dozen channels including BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, ITV3 (but not BBC4) have been found but with the wrong channel numbers - they are coming up at the end of the list with numbers 801 through 816. Is there any way of changing the channel numbers back to 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10 etc (As the dentist says, 8's missing)? -- SGBailey (talk) 19:22, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Being from the US, I don't have any knowledge of the Freeview service (thanks for the link), but I was able to find a post by someone here that had a similar problem with channels appearing in the 800 range. It seems they disconnected the aerial and rescanned to clear all channels, then reconnected and scanned again. Obviously this isn't a proven fix, but it's the best I could find. Laenir (talk) 19:37, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Worth a try. Thanks. -- SGBailey (talk) 23:02, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

My DVD recorder has a built in DVB tuner. When I first got it, I ran the auto-tuning and it allocated the digital channels to channels 1 - 100, radio to 700+, regional channels to 800+ and analogue channels to 900+ (I believe this is the normal scheme of things). I've recently had the recorder repaired and now I can get hardly any DVB channels - BBC1 and BBC2 have disappeared from channels 1 and 2 due to "bad signal", and many other channels keep breaking up to be unwatchable, though the regional channels are still there if a bit fuzzy. Either the repair has broken something or the signal strength is much worse than it was. Luckily, I only ever use the recorder to record Sky through the scart leads.

How does all this help you? I suggest you check your mother's signal strength and all the connections and aerial leads. It might improve things. Check out the old TV channels on her TV. Failing that get the set top box repaired or get a new box.

Astronaut (talk) 19:07, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

sudden shut-down of HP Pavillion laptop

I just got my computer back after the motherboard was changed. I can now turn on the computer, which is a major improvement, but instead a new problem has arised: with no prior warning, the computer suddenly shuts down. it dies completely as if someone cut the power supply. Has anyone got any idea as to what is the problem? I have wondered if it might be som problem with temperature, since it seems like the fan is working more now than it did before the motherboard was changed. could that be it? how do i check the internal temperature, and if it is too high, how do i lower it? very greatful for any ideas! /Marxmax (talk) 19:52, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Sudden shutdowns are usually either the power supply or temperature. Laptops do have temperature problems just by their design, such as trying to vent out heat on the bottom of the case which tends to be blocked by the surface the laptop is sitting on. If it is overheating, you can't just fix it by adjusting some setting. You need to fix the hardware - which means you need to send it to a repair shop. If it is the power supply, you can't fix it by adjusting some setting. You need to fix the hardware - which means you need to sent it to a repair shop. -- kainaw™ 20:34, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Does it seem hot right before it shuts down ? Does it take about the same amount of time running before a shut down each time ? These would tend to indicate a temperature problem. If the fan is louder, the blades may be rubbing against something, which could be bad, especially if it cuts through wires. I'd suggest you take it back to the people who installed the motherboard and demand that they fix it for free. StuRat (talk) 20:50, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

One way to diagnose heat problems is to get a can of 'freezer spray' (a good computer store will have it) - you can squirt that on the electronics as they heat up and see if the system still crashes...if it does - then it's probably not an overheating problem. Another thing freezer spray may do is cause the system to crash immediately - that generally indicates that there is a bad solder joint or a hairline crack in the circuit board. SteveBaker (talk) 03:47, 22 November 2008 (UTC)