Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2020 August 18

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August 18

Voicemail

Why do you have to call your voicemail number to set it up? It doesn't make sense to me why this would be necessary. (Apologies if this isn't really a technology question.) User:Heyoostorm^_talk! 01:24, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I am not exactly sure what you are asking here, but: for one thing, it proves that you can access the number so that you can repeat the feat again in the future. For another thing, an administrator can populate your box with useful defaults, but he cannot supply personalization, such as your password, your greeting, and other such things. Therefore, voicemail is nonfunctional until you've proven that you can (1) access it and (2) have enabled sane settings in order to receive and review voicemail messages. Elizium23 (talk) 02:02, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

It varies from one phone company to another, but part of the reason for tightening security was the News International phone hacking scandal which was only made possible because many people hadn't changed their default access number. Subscribers are now obliged to set up their own access number.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:13, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Shantavira, are you referring to the PIN/password or to the telephone number to access voicemail? Elizium23 (talk) 14:45, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 16:04, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Shantavira, you will have to excuse me for being ignorant of a voicemail system which allows its unprivileged users to choose an access telephone number. Elizium23 (talk) 17:38, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I apologise for the unclear question, but you answered it pretty well. User:Heyoostorm^_talk! 15:56, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

It's the end of the world as we know it

With Adobe Flash approaching EoL (and Flash player automatically becoming disabled), will there be some way to continue using Flash games, etc., perhaps an emulator or something? And, what will happen to sites such as Armor Games; will they just go out of business? --2606:A000:1126:28D:4010:D10A:69ED:7785 (talk) 15:38, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Have you looked at Adobe_Flash#Alternatives?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 16:06, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I just had a look, and those seem to be developer tools, except Shumway, which is discontinued. --2606:A000:1126:28D:4010:D10A:69ED:7785 (talk) 16:17, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

You can choose not to update Flash. The disabling at Y2K20 is/was added in an update. (Be aware that outdated software is more susceptible to viruses.) 95.168.121.117 (talk) 16:22, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I think its too late for that (it updated not too long ago). --2606:A000:1126:28D:4010:D10A:69ED:7785 (talk) 16:44, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I looked into the situation at Armor. Some games are migrating to Steam (only) while some are/will be converted to HTML5. Presumably, some lesser-known games will disappear. --2606:A000:1126:28D:4010:D10A:69ED:7785 (talk) 17:30, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Just un-disable it? People will certainly write guides for this as there's plenty of Flash stuff kicking around. Ideally you'll do it in some sandboxed environment because of security risks. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 06:18, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Quake runs slow on an i5.

I tried running Quake (the original DOS game) under FreeDOS on a relatively new Intel i5 machine, and was amused to discover that whilst Quake worked (without sound), the highest resolution modes exhibited low frame rates, in fact, the motion was not smooth at all. How is this possible, given how old Quake is? I didn't have the same trouble in DOSBox, is it something to do with my hardware?--Leon (talk) 19:33, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Star trooper man, is this thread helpful? Have you considered alternate emulation methods? Elizium23 (talk) 20:52, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

No, it's not this. I only did this out of curiosity, I use DOSBox for gaming!--Leon (talk) 17:36, 21 August 2020 (UTC)