Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 June 28

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June 28

How can I view my own website on the Internet?

I have setup a website on my personal home computer under IIS.

The website is managed using IIS Manager (found by going to /controlpanel/admistrative tools/internet information services manager)

The IIS manager shows a tree structure starting with "Internet Information Services" under which the first folder is named "chipmonk" (the name I gave my computer when I installed the operating system).

Under CHIPMONK (local computer) there is a folder named "Web Sites" and then a folder named "Default Web Site" or CHIPMONK (local computer)/Web Sites/Default Web Site.

By right clicking on "Default Web Site" and selecting "Virtual Directory" from the drop down menu I was able to create a "Virtual Directory" of a regular folder on my computer found on drive c:\ named "Julie" or c:\Julie

By making the folder named "Julie" a "Virtual Directory" IIS then designates it to be the default website on my personal computer.

An Internet browser can be used to view the files in the folder as web pages using any one of the following addresses:

http://localhost/Julie/index.htm
http://CHIPMONK/Julie/index.htm
http://192.168.1.115/Julie/index.htm
http://127.0.0.1/Julie/index.htm

Now here is what I want to do... the IP address associated with my home computer is something like 66.230.200.100 and I want to be able to set things up so that I can replace "localhost" or "CHIPMONK" with my IP address in an Internet browser and be able to view the website from places besides my computer.

How can I do this? Julie Dancer 00:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

You are behind a NAT router. You need to have the router forward incoming port 80 to your computer on the internal network. --Spoon! 00:35, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I am connected to the Internet with a Westell 6100 DSL modem provided by Verizon when I opened the account. Julie Dancer 00:41, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Bear in mind that essentially what you are trying to do is host a website from your home computer which is expressly forbidden in the majority "home" broadband plans I've come across. Vespine 00:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

What is the reason a provider would not want you to do this? Julie Dancer 01:12, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Many do not want you to soak up the upstream bandwidth. Your provider may or may not regulate/enforce the operation of a web server. They may also sell a "commercial" package which costs more, but provides more bandwidth. Or, you may luck out and find that your provider does not care if you run a web-server (I have had no problems with most of my various service providers, but I do not generate huge amounts of traffic either). Nimur 01:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Verizon does offer 10 MB of web space with the account but does not provide for ASP. Most of the ASP hosting services I have tried do not know how to configure permissions that will allow you to write to a file in the _private folder and do not provide a user console or control panel that will allow the user to set these permissions whereas they are easily set under IIS. Julie Dancer 01:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Also bandwith is next to nothing since both frequency of access and file size are minimal. Julie Dancer 01:45, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

A search on the Internet turns up this page about port forwarding for your router. You can try it; I do not know the correctness of this information. --Spoon! 02:03, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

This is similar to other instructions for setting up port forwarding on the Westell 6100 DSL modem but does not explain the very last setup screen that appears to give an option for the internal modem IP address which would be I suppose the external address of the computer as listed above, i.e., 192.168.1.115 Julie Dancer 03:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I think Verizon blocks port 80 for security reasons on their non-business service plans. You could use a different port though.

The last step mentioned on the page above says to select the item you just created in the Service Name drop down box and click enable. Here's what you do after that:

1. At the Host Service? dialog box, click OK to allow incoming connections to be forwarded to a local PC.
2. The Host Device box appears.
   • If your server computer is set to get an IP address automatically from the Westell 6100, then choose your computer's name from the Host Device drop down box and leave the IP Address box empty.
   • If your server computer is set to a static IP address in the same subnet as the Westell 6100, then type in the computer's IP address in the IP Address box.
3. Click done.

(You can see screenshots of these steps in the manual (PDF, 7.4 MB), starting on page 80.)

You might want to setup your server computer with a static IP address. This way you can hard code the specific address in the port forwarding rules and not have to worry about the Westell 6100 recognizing your computer by its name.

1. First log into the Westell 6100 and go to Configuration, DHCP. Make a note of the DHCP Start and End Addresses (it looks like they're 192.168.1.15 and 192.168.1.47 by default). These are the IP addresses that the Westell 6100 hands out automatically to computers on your LAN, so if you setup your server computer with a static IP address, you want to choose a number outside of this range to avoid any potential conflicts. (For example, 192.168.1.100)
2. If you have Windows XP, read this page for how to setup your server computer to use a static IP address. The use the same address when you setup the port forwarding rules in the Westell 6100.

--Bavi H 09:21, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Content Managment Systems

Hi, im looking at creating an internet directory similar to dmoz. It is going to be for my business and need it to handle a fair amount of pages. What would be the best CMS (Content Managment System) to do this? Ive already checked out http://opensourcecms.com/ but am having trouble finding a good system that may work for me. The best ive found so far is drupal.

) thanks for any help :)

help desk and support

how is the user supported to troubleshoot through the help system/How does the help system operates, what search technique does it use and how does it work

Is this some sort of homework? Because the questions are very vague. - Akamad 08:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Use common sense to create a fictional answer. Point out the obvious, like purchasing a 3rd party support plan generally costs less than hiring staff to provide support in-house. Tip: When asking questions (a) don't expect an essay as an answer and (b) provide enough context to answer the question. "Help system" could mean online help, technical support, or any number of other topics. --h2g2bob (talk) 09:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Term for a type of online game

Is there a term for the type of MMOG, such as Knight Fight, in which a significant part of the advancement can happen while the player is logged off and/or in which a player character can be active 24/7 even when the player is not? NeonMerlin 06:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Zero-player game --froth^t 14:31, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I've also heard games such as this called "persistant", but that's more for animal crossing and it's ilk than MMOs. --_ʇuǝɯɯoɔɐqǝɟ 12:00, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

C0FFEE

Why is #C0FFEE actually a light cyan? That's a silly colour for coffee.

It's a hex color code. see web color chart -_ʇuǝɯɯoɔɐqǝɟ 07:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The colour is written as 1 byte each for red, green and blue (making 3-byte or 24-bit colour). The value of the bytes are written in hexadecimal (note the 0 is a zero). So red is C0=192, green is FF=255 (the maximum) and blue is EE=238. See web color. --h2g2bob (talk) 08:50, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

One thing about the Sound Recorder...

My Sound Recorder is working and recording stuff again. But...there is one problem. It is recording stuff in the computer, but it is not recording sounds from outside, like when I yell, it doesn't record it, but when a video on the computer is playing, it does record it. So, how do I solve the problem?

Go to Volume Control, Options, Properties, select Recording, check each box and hit OK. You probably have "What U Hear" selected, but change that to Microphone and it should be fixed. Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme 17:35, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Deploying Wikipedia on Intranet..

Downloading wikipedia (moved from above)

Sir I need to download and install wikipedia on our company's intranet.Though there are various web pages available explaining the methods , none of them completely work.Even the wikipedia site doesn't explains it clearly .I am following this link http://www.yafla.com/dennisforbes/Many-Ways-to-Skin-a-Wiki-Hosting-a-Wiki-on-Windows/Many-Ways-to-Skin-a-Wiki-Hosting-a-Wiki-on-Windows.html . While following the Option1 and reaching step 9, the following error is generated

Creating tables... using MySQL 3/4 table defs...Query "CREATE TABLE user ( user_id int(5) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment, user_name varchar(255) binary NOT NULL default , user_real_name varchar(255) binary NOT NULL default , user_password tinyblob NOT NULL default , user_newpassword tinyblob NOT NULL default , user_email tinytext NOT NULL default , user_options blob NOT NULL default , user_touched char(14) binary NOT NULL default , user_token char(32) binary NOT NULL default , user_email_authenticated CHAR(14) BINARY, user_email_token CHAR(32) BINARY, user_email_token_expires CHAR(14) BINARY, PRIMARY KEY user_id (user_id), UNIQUE INDEX user_name (user_name), INDEX (user_email_token) ) TYPE=InnoDB" failed with error code "BLOB/TEXT column 'user_password' can't have a default value".

If somebody could look into this matter and explain the probable reason of error and explain the correct method I will be highly obiliged.

Anand202.54.110.19 09:09, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I have downloaded Apache,Mediawiki,PHP and MySQL. I need to install and run wikipedia on an intranet. Can somebody explain the sequence of steps. Mohan202.54.110.19 09:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

• Try this link. EliminatorJR ^Talk 11:33, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I've merged your two sections since they're the same question. Keep in mind, that even if you get Mediawiki up and running, you won't have all the content of Wikipedia. -- JSBillings 11:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Have you got Apache, PHP, MySQL and MediaWiki installed? See also Meta:Data dumps and Wikipedia:Database download. --h2g2bob (talk) 00:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

---

We want to deploy Wikipedia on our Intranet. For deploying wikipedia, we have downloaded all the Html pages from the link http://static.wikipedia.org/downloads/April_2007/en/. The total space consumed was more than 5 Gb. Now we want to deploy this on our Intranet using Tomcat Jakarta. What we have to do. We have installed Tomcat Jakarta, and these pages can be deployed in any directory. How to use wikipedia so that these pages can be searched. I think, we are clear

Regards,

202.54.110.19 11:12, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Out of curiousity, why do you want to run an entire copy of Wikipedia? --_ʇuǝɯɯoɔɐqǝɟ 11:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Since you've downloaded the static pages of Wikipedia, you have lost the ability to search it using Mediawiki. You'll have to implement your own seach and indexing service, either through tomcat (with something like Nutch maybe?) or some other indexing service. -- JSBillings 14:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Suppose we want to have mediawiki type of search,then what has to be downloaded. Please clarify... 202.54.110.19 04:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

As mentioned earlier, follow the instructions for installing Mediawiki and then get the Wikipedia:Database download. -- JSBillings 11:29, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Wireless problem on Mac

Sorry, I asked this on June 27th. I usually make a point of not reposting questions, but I haven't solved the problem, and the problem has changed somewhat since. I have a USB Wireless, and it has stopped functioning. This came after updating to 10.4.10. I've been all over the internet trying to find out what the problem could be, and have ended up re-installing OS X as 10.4.6 then updating to 10.4.9 (using my cable connector). However, the problem still persists. The symptoms are that the USB is recognized, connects, then disconnects after about 30 seconds, after which I get an error telling me "No Device!!". Un- and replugging it produces the same results. I have reinstalled the driver (I had to, as my system was wiped with the reinstall), and still no difference. Can anyone help? Manga 15:12, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like you're having problem with the hardware, if a complete reinstall of the software doesn't eliminate the problem. Have you looked at the console.log or system.log? (Run the Console app in /Applications/Utility or read the files in /var/log). Try watching the logs when you plug in the device, and when you try to use it. There might be more information there that can help you debug the problem. You could also try plugging the wireless device into another Mac (or other supported OS for that matter) and see if the problem persists. -- JSBillings 16:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I get 'The IOUSBFamily is having trouble enumerating a USB device that has been plugged in. It will keep trying. (Port 1 of hub @ location: 0x19000000)' and 'The IOUSBFamily was not able to enumerate a device'. GetFullConfigDescriptor returns NULL, too. So, I am not sure what that means, or what to do next. Also, unfortunately, I don't know anyone else who has a Mac, so I'll have to work on this on my own computer. Is there anyway I can fix the above problems mentioned in the systems.log? Thanks in advance. --Manga 17:14, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you connecting the wireless device directly into your computer? That error makes me think that there is some sort of connectivity problem where the mac either loses the ability to identify the device, or the device isn't reporting back to the mac when queried. You might want to check to see if the USB device is still under warranty. -- JSBillings 17:36, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I am connecting directly to the computer. I don't have the USB cable. I bought it on eBay from a trusted seller abroad, so there will be no warranty and it may take weeks to get it back if I ask him to replace it, even if there is a warranty. So, you think it is more likely a hardware problem than anything else? If there is absolutely nothing I can do, I might as well buy another, then. Thanks for the help. --Manga 17:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought - you shouldn't need another Mac to test the device, just another computer with a USB port. Perhaps you can test the device on the Windows PC of a friend, neighbor, or family member. --LarryMac | Talk 20:40, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

More DS Wi-Fi crap

When I try to use the Wi-Fi connection thing in Pokemon Diamond, this happens:

a. It connects

b. It lists my friend (only have one at the mo), who wants to trade

c. I apply to trade

d. It tries to communicate with her

e. It says "Communication error. You have been disconnected from Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection." and gives me error code 86420.

What could be going wrong? The troubleshooting thing on the website is not up right now. Vitriol 19:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[1] --LarryMac | Talk 20:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

None of those are giving me anything I can actually use, because of my piece-of-shit Netgear. It's a DG834G, by the way, and I'm using the Nintendo USB thingy. Vitriol 20:41, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Does this page help? Some of the links on the Google search seem to mention needing to set up a DMZ, so that might be your best choice. --LarryMac | Talk 20:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The Netgear page doesn't give instructions on setting up a DMZ for a DG834G... Vitriol 21:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Free media players suitable for WinMe

After going through the article comparing media players I found three that seemed able to play everything: MPlayer, The KMPLayer, and VLC. I went to their websites to find out their minimum system requirements - unfortunately at least two of them don't bother to tell people what these are, even though this information has been requested on their forums. After spending most of the evening on it I found that all three of them need at least XP, but I only have WinMe.

So could anyone suggest free media players suitable for WinMe please? The kinds of things I would like to do would be to play .3gp files, play .flv and in particular save streaming video or streaming audio on my computer (only for my personal use). Thanks.

Do you have to run ME? You might have an easier time finding a media player and good codecs, as well as up to date software in general, by switching to something like Xubuntu. Remember that ME is nearly 7 years old now- the average person has probably replaced their computer two or three times since then. --_ʇuǝɯɯoɔɐqǝɟ 20:13, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have to run WinMe. I also forgot to add that I'd like to be able to play video in slow motion. (Surely running older computers is good for the planet, bad for Mr. Gates?) Thanks

http://www.gomplayer.com/download.html GOM Player is popular in Korea (and some people in Japan use it as well). It probably doesn't support saving, but the latest version should support 3gp and flv files. --Kjoonlee 00:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Media Player Classic is an open-source program that is designed to look like the old Windows media players. It supports ffdshow and various new codecs. You might enjoy it, it has a very nice user interface. Nimur 05:03, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Aggregating RSS content into html webpage - newbie question

I want to create a website about a particular specialised subject. On one of the pages I would like to be able to show recent news about that subject. I hope to do this by looking at several RSS feeds, but filtering them so that only those articles that included relevant keywords in the headline were included in the page. Plus I'd like the articles to be ordered by date, with the most recent at the top, preferably with several lines of text from the content of the top article showing.

I am not a programmer, and I have been trying to learn about RSS and html over the past couple of weeks. I know there are lots of RSS scripts available, but I havnt yet found anything that can do what I'd like. Does anyone know if there is an easy way to do what I describe above (preferably without having to pay a monthly fee to someone) or have I got to learn about PHP and MySQL as well? Thanks

XSLT might be the only thing you need. The RSS feeds arrive as XML files; your "filtering script" can be an XSLT that (selectively) transforms those into an XHTML page (that you can view in your browser). XSTL is a bit tedious, but if you spend some effort learning the syntax, you will find it is a very powerful tool. Nimur 05:35, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Would lots of servers have XSLT or another XML transformation language installed, or is it something I could upload into my website directory myself? As I said, I'm a newbie. Thanks.

A client's browser is responsible for performing the XSLT transform (usually). Modern browsers such as Firefox support this (I believe the latest Internet Explorer also supports it in a standardized form). This section of the XSLT article describes how it works - it's very similar to applying a CSS file to an unformatted HTML file; only you have significantly more control of the resulting display. (The result may not even be a web-page - it can be anything that takes the form of an XML-like file). So, to briefly answer your question, your server does not need to do anything special to enable this transform; your users must have a fairly recent browser such as Firefox or IE. Nimur 16:42, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Does this mean XSLT cannot be used with IE6 please? As I have WinMe the highest IE I can use is IE6, so I would not be able to see anything in my prefered browser. Also, does doing it client side mean that web search engine robots would not be able to see the content of that webpage? 80.3.43.181 11:57, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

The answer is difficult to explain over the message boards to a non-programmer. The basic point is this. You will be able to use XSLT with MSIE 5.0 and above, but there is a difference between viewing the content on your own machine versus re-publishing the content so that you and anyone else connected to the internet can view it as well. To get the latter solution, you will generally have to set up a webserver, and that will require programming. There are other solutions you could implement without requiring a webserver, but they require knowledge of javascript or something similar, and the solution will involve a little extra work. You might want to talk to a programmer and talk about your specific requirements. Tell them what you want to build and then ask how many different ways can it be built (or just hire them to do it for you). NoClutter 19:59, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

linux tty switching over ssh

Dear Wikipedians:

I use slackware Linux in console mode, by default it supplies me with six ttys that I can switch (locally) by pressing Alt+F1-F6. However, when I ssh into my slackware box I find that I cannot switch into any of the six local consoles by using Alt+F1-F6. Is there anyway to switch to tty1 to tty6 if I'm logged in remotely using ssh?

--74.12.38.8 22:23, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not know the answer to your question, but I do have a different sort of solution if you don't find the answer you want. There is a program called "screen" that mimics shell consoles. You run "screen" and a console appears. You can do whatever you want in it. You can detach from that screen and start a new one - leaving the programs in the previous screen still running. You can make many screens, all running different programs, and attach/detach from them whenever you like. I use screen a lot because it keeps running even when you log out. I SSH into a box, run screen, start a program that will run a long time, and log out. I then log in a few hours later and reconnect to the screen to see how the program is doing. -- Kainaw^(what?) 22:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The ttys you see at the console aren't the same as the ttys that you get from an SSH connection. Each ssh connection gives you 1 tty when you connect, so it is like one of the ttys you see when you are ate the console. Next time you are logged in via ssh and locally on the console, run 'w' to see a list of your login sessions. You'll see some as pts/# for the SSH connections (and Xterms, which allocate virtual ttys too), and tty# for the logins at the local console. As the aformentioned answer mentions, you can run screen. GNU Screen allocates more ttys for each window it opens. -- JSBillings 22:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

To answer your question -- no, you can't switch Virtual Consoles with Alt-F# from an ssh connection, and if you did, you wouldn't see the change since the local ttys aren't the tty provided to the ssh connection. (Technically, you could do it from inside a connection by sending the right bytes to /dev/console). -- JSBillings 22:58, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, actually, you can switch virtual consoles quite easily from a ssh connection. The command is chvt. --cesarb 00:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to all. Gnu Screen is exaaaaaaaaaaaaaactly what I needed!!! Persistence is the keyword I meant to say in my original post. --74.12.38.8 23:50, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

C++ tutorial

Greetings,

I am seeking a complete and commendable C++ tutorial. What is to be thought of this one? Is there any other recognized as having a reputation of efficiency and clarity?

Thank you very much & God bless you,

82.112.132.94 22:41, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikibooks has great C and C++ utilities: C++. Nimur 05:05, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Many regard Bjarne Stroustrup's book, The C++ Programming Language, as the the seminal work. It starts gently enough, but it's certainly not all written for beginners. On the other hand, if you get used to consulting it and finding things in it, it'll never let you down. --Nigelj 09:56, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Linux UPnP IGD "soft" port forwarding configuration software

Dear Wikipedians:

My ISP is kind enough to supply me with an ADSL modem capable of supporting UPnP IGD (Universal Plug and Play Internet Gateway Device). I am wondering what is the name of the Linux software that would allow me to set up additional port mapping (say between port 22 on my PC and port 22 of the ADSL router for my ssh daemon) on my UPnP IGD enabled ADSL modem?

Regards,

--74.12.38.8 23:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

New IP:

76.65.14.65 03:25, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Iptables can do just about anything... It's folding my laundry as we speak!

For instance...

iptables -A FORWARD -p tcp -i eth0 --destination-port 22 --destination 192.168.1.2 -j ACCEPT

--SXT40 06:03, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks SXT40 --74.12.37.9 19:54, 29 June 2007 (UTC)