opening a site and entering username and password

Is there a way and how to open an url and enter user name and password using scripts?
url like https://www.something.com/upd?something=somethingelse
the url asks for username and password (login dialog pops out (no login thru php))
and it would be good if the script could enter username and password

the page in question records the IP from which the request came and logs it for latter use.
so there MUST be a ? in the url

anyone?
the url works from IE and FF like this
https://username:password@www.example.com/ip/update?hostname=