Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2015 May 27

= May 27 =

Windows live mail ignores my Header
Hi there,

I got a php file that sends mail.

These are my header settings:

MIME-Version: 1.0 \r\n Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 \r\nFrom: system@prognosa.co.il\r\n

Unfortunately, when a client gets a mail, windows live ignores my encoding setting and presents it as gibberish.

Does anyone know why it happens?Thanks!Exx8 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 03:28, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Do you really have a space between \n and Content-type? If so, that's your problem: a header line that starts with whitespace is a continuation of the previous field body, not a new field (RFC 2822 § 2.2.3). -- BenRG (talk) 06:22, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Excel help required
Unfortunately I have very restricted internet access in work; or I could probably Google the answer myself but I'm appealing to you wonderful people to hopefully help.

We have two different Departments who both require access to an Excel file in its most up to date condition:

1) Department 1 regularly updates the file during the day 2) Department 2 only require access to read but have a bad habit of not closing the file when they have finished with it and then leaving the office to go on site, causing problems for Department 1

Is there a way (or ways) around this. I *think* that restricting Department 2 to read only access would still prevent Department 1 from opening the file to edit? 86.98.69.155 (talk) 06:19, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I'd consider making a copy of the file for Dept.2 and configuring a job on the server to update the copy regularly, say every 5 minutes during a working day. If Dept.2 staff leave the copy open so it could not be overwritten, then they will have outdated copy, but the main file can still be updated by Dept.1.
 * Anyway the possible solutions depend on the environment – operating systems, user privileges, admin co-operability etc. --CiaPan (talk) 09:21, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * yes, I figured it was going to need some sort of scripting on the server. Thank you for your time in any case 86.98.69.155 (talk) 12:01, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Rather than copying every 5 minutes, perhaps it could copy the file whenever they attempt to open it.  Thus they would always get the current version and there would hopefully be fewer copies made.


 * You might also consider restricting department 2's access to only run reports on the file, not allowing them to read it at all. Presumably the report generating software is smart enough to close the file immediately after the report is generated.


 * A third option might be to change the read-only access to not lock the file. (I'm not sure if Excel allows this.)  The whole idea of file-locking is to prevent getting outdated info, but you may not consider that as important, in this case. StuRat (talk) 12:25, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * [EC] Having been in a similar workplace position, I find the most satisfying solution is to smack Department 2 upside the head every time they do it, until they get the message.
 * Alternatively, if Department 2 only requires access to read, than if Department 1 keeps the file permanently open during the working day, Department 2 should still be able to open it in "Read Only" mode which should answer their needs. I myself regularly consult an Excel file from the 'Department 2' position, and can, for example, add entries and/or reformat it as I require for partial printouts of certain columns only, but of course cannot save such changes. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 12:32, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure that Excel will not try to lock a read-only file. If the whole directory is read-only then it wouldn't be able to create the lock file anyway. So I think that denying write access to Department 2 will solve your problem. It's worth a try, anyway. -- BenRG (talk) 21:00, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks all. We're going to go with keeping the file opened for update by Department 1 although this has its own issue in that when the system crashes the whole file is lost. We're getting around that one by making regular backups to the desktop. Laughed hard at the "smack upside the head" comment. Trust me it's been tried but we don't work with the average workforce so it doesn't have any effect and could possibly get us deported! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.98.69.155 (talk) 04:10, 28 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Possible solutions:
 * Use a cronjob (Scheduler) to have frequently copies to the xls sheet from dept 1 to dept 2, if dept 2 uses read only access, only.
 * If the XLS sheet's information can be stored in a database, migrate and link the sheets content to a database and have each user a individual copy of the XLS file. The sheets in the XLS file update from the database, if linked correctly.
 * -- Hans Haase (有问题吗) 09:23, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Why does IP Address keep changing ?
I have been using a public computer (a PC at a local LearnDirect centre) for tha past few weeks & when I've been able to check the "Last Account Activity" in my email (gmail), it says that the activity current session is a different location to where I actually am. For example today it says: Netherlands (185.46.212.70). I'm not in the Netherlands but in Liverpool, England. In the past it said Poland, China, Denmark etc. Any ideas whats going on ?185.46.212.70 (talk) 08:59, 27 May 2015 (UTC) Also, I don't know if this is relevent but the LearnDirect centre IT is by someone called Zscaler185.46.212.70 (talk) 09:58, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Sounds like it might be using rotating anonymous proxy servers. If they set it up that way they must have felt the anonymity of their users was important. StuRat (talk) 12:20, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Well today, nearly everybody had some sort of trouble trying to login to their Hotmail, Outlook, etc accounts. 194.74.238.137 (talk) 12:37, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * If you want to log in to Wikipedia using this server, you should register an account. Wikipedia blocks IP addresses that are known to be anonymous proxies, because they facilitate vandalism.  Robert McClenon (talk) 12:55, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Your IP also looks up to Zscaler. I'm not sure why they set up their network to use random IPs/exit points, it could be for anonymity reasons, but it could also be for other reasons. Nil Einne (talk) 14:19, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Fedora machine - display freezing
I'm looking for some guidance on where to look for this problem (which I presume must be a hardware fault, but I don't know in which component).

I have a PC (64 bit Intel Duo, 2.2GHz) running Fedora Linux. Until last week it was running Fedora 20; last week I installed F21, in case it wasn't a hardware problem. From time to time (more often now, usually after no more than an hour) the display freezes. The cursor continues to move following the mouse, and if I use Ctrl-Alt-F2 to get to a console, that works perfectly (as does an ssh session running on the machine). I'm running Cinnamon as desktop, with lightdm - I was formerly running it with gdm, but substituting lightdm made no observable difference. On the other hand selecting "Cinnamon (software)" as desktop, while it makes most things intolerably slow, seems to avoid the problem. I've had a quick look at dmesg, and the lightdm and Xorg log files: I don't see anything obviously panicking, but I don't really know what I'm looking for.

When I was playing about with installing F21, I tried running many of the hardware tests on the Ultimate Boot CD: nothing turned up.

Can anybody suggest where to look to narrow down the problem? --ColinFine (talk) 11:52, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Could be low RAM (swapping to paging space could explain the intolerably slow part, and that happens when RAM is low). How much do you have ?  Also, is the problem more likely to occur after you've been using it for a while and started up multiple apps ?  StuRat (talk) 12:17, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I suspect RAM - which will not report any error anywhere. I've also seen this happen because of a faulty bus controller - which also caused errors in sound, but also did not report any error anywhere. However, you should check /ver/log/Xorg.0.log for warnings and/or errors - though I doubt you will see anything. 199.15.144.250 (talk) 12:21, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * In January, I provided advice to a different Fedora user with a similar symptom. The system had different installed display manager software, but the same general troubleshooting steps apply.  When the display lags, is the entire system unresponsive (or only the display)?  Can you monitor the system via an ssh session or a serial console so you can interactively diagnose these problems while the UI is unavailable?  In my earlier response, I provided some useful links and some debugging advice, as well as the prognosis: unless this is a very common bug, we are unlikely to be able to find and fix its root cause by simple descriptions of the symptom alone.
 * Of course, if you do follow my instructions and collect debugging information, be sure you sample the LightDM process and direct your bug report to the LightDM mailing list contact, using their instructions for filing bugs (and not for the Cinnamon project team - that information applied to User:JIP's system as of January).
 * Nimur (talk) 14:26, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the suggestions, . I have 2Gb of RAM, which I would have thought was adequate. However, it occurs to me that when I've seen the problem I'm always running Firefox (37.0.2) and I remember that Firefox certainly used to be a memory hogger. I've usually got Thunderbird going as well, but not more than one or two other things. I certainly could ssh in when I tried. I'll look at the previous discussion. --ColinFine (talk) 14:40, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * For me, Firefox generally locks up my system every time I load a page. If it is a nasty page, like Facebook, I often can't even load it. Firefox hangs for minutes just trying to render the page. So, I switched to using Chrome while in Linux, but I still use Firefox on sites that are not compatible with Chrome, such as Shutterfly. 209.149.115.214 (talk) 14:30, 28 May 2015 (UTC)