Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 March 13

= March 13 =

SMS forwarding
Hi,

Does anyone know if it is possible to get a Windows Phone to forward sms messages to another number or to an email address?

The reason I ask is I'm thinking of going on a plan with a Nokia Lumia 800 which does not have coverage in rural areas and so there will be times when I will need to leave behind my Lumia 800 and take my old phone (which does have coverage). I would like to be able to be notified of any messages/missed calls I may get whilst I am away (note: in this scenario I would be leaving the Lumia 800 behind where it has coverage and hence able to forward).

Thanks for any advice! --Fir0002 01:56, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Can you put the SIM card from the old phone in the Nokia? Maybe you will then have coverage.  Astronaut (talk) 07:11, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately no - it's a limitation of the frequency band the Nokia supports --Fir0002 07:49, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * From reading the User Guide it doesn't appear to be natively possible. However, as always there's an app for that. There might be others, I just found that one after a brief Google search. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 13:00, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * That would be perfect but it doesn't support the new Windows Phone platform that the Nokia runs off (it only supports the old Windows Mobile and BlackBerry) --Fir0002 02:36, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Alternatively is there a way to send an SMS auto reply? --Fir0002 08:36, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

great firewall of china
Is the only reliable way of getting around the firewall to pay for a vpn subscription? (If so does anyone have a recommendation?)

I also remember an online comment that sarcastically asked why anyone would actually pay for vpn. (Do they probably mean that there is some kind of free option?)

Thanks for the advice.

Momofukucakes (talk) 02:25, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I've seen it suggested that China tries to block VPN traffic that goes thru the internet.   This can be done somewhat successfully with PPTP, L2TP/IPSec or just IPSec. It's more difficult with OpenVPN and SSTP given the difficulty distinguishing it from other SSL traffic in particular, HTTPS. (It would seem even blocking VPN traffic would cause problems for some businesses, perhaps they aren't so heavily restricted.) However if you use a commercial VPN service providing internet access, it's possible they may try to block all connections to these services whether now or in the future. The company may try to subvert this by changing the IPs but in an arms race against the Chinese government, I'm not sure they'll win. Particularly given that IPv4 addresses are running out or have run out (APNIC) so they'll probably have difficulty obtaining new ones. Nil Einne (talk) 04:35, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Secret Facebook group problem
I administer a secret Facebook group for a youth organisation. A member accidentally quit the group and wants me to re-add her. When I try, Facebook tells me that once someone has chosen to leave a group, they have to personally request to be re-added. That, however, is impossible, because this person cannot see the secret group to ask to be re-added because she is not a member.

I was proud of actually finding the part of Facebook where I could report this problem some weeks ago, but have had no response, and the problem still exists.

Anyone got any ideas? HiLo48 (talk) 08:23, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Arrange a time when you can both be online to briefly switch the group from secret to closed, have the ex-member request to re-join, then switch back to secret once more? It won't disclose the group's content, only its existence - and then, temporarily. 131.111.255.9 (talk) 09:00, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Can't you send an invitation to the group to her? --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:13, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * No, that's when I get the message that, because she chose to leave the group, she has to initiate the request to rejoin the group. HiLo48 (talk) 14:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Interactive voice response recommendation ?
I'd like something more than an answering machine at home. Specifically, I'd like the following:

1) Standalone system (not on my computer) answers all incoming calls on my regular US home line (not PBX or anything fancy) before the first ring.

2) It then plays a message I record and requires the caller to press a button to continue, hanging up on the rest. This is to get rid of robocalls, which I don't want filling up my answering machine.

3) It then plays another message I recorded, asking for a secret code. Those who enter the code can get the phone to ring.  The rest may only leave a message.

4) At this point it should work like a normal answering machine. That is, after some number of rings, which I can set, it will then record the message.  Ideally these messages would be recorded into a different inbox than those who didn't know the secret code.

5) A light or lights should light or blink to show when incoming messages are present.

I don't need voice recognition. So, can anyone recommend a system which fits the bill ? If it can't be done as a standalone system, I would then consider a system on my computer, but I would also need a way to get phone calls on the computer in the first place, which would work with the software. (My reasons for preferring a standalone system are that I find the Internet to be less reliable than a land-line phone, and I also don't want to leave the computer on 24/7.) StuRat (talk) 16:37, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Google Voice provides something similar: you can turn on call screening globally, and then turn it off for groups of people that you know. You can also request that anyone being screened provide their name, which will probably defeat robocalls, since there's got to be a button press involved in that. You can have your messages (and their sometimes hilarious mechanical transcriptions) forwarded to your email if you like. However, I think that, if you have an existing land-line number, people who call it will always bypass Google Voice entirely (with mobile phones, you can arrange for Google Voice to intercept all incoming messages), so you'd need to publicize a new number (or go through a complicated process to port your landline number to Google Voice). Paul (Stansifer) 17:01, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * (EC) I don't understand the connection between the internet and a computerised system. There's no reason a computerised system can't use a landline and no reason the internet has to be involved. (Remember even your standalone system is ultimately some sort of computer.) If you're worried about space, look for an ultra small form factor computer. If you're worried about power usage, something like an Atom or perhaps an ARM or other embedded system won't necessarily be much more power hungry then a specialised system considering you only need 1. If you're worried about cost, while such a system will potentially probably cost US$100+ your needs are specialised enough that I expect it to be at least that. The other alternative is to buy a small old PC, these can be had fairly cheap in NZ so I presume the same in the US. It really depends how much work you want to put in it. Realisticly something like the much touted Raspberry Pi should be good enough since it doesn't sound like what you need is particularly demanding although I'm not sure how good driver support is for this sort of thing on ARM (I presume some people making Asterix systems have been using ARM based systems for a long time, but it may be some devices aren't properly supported). Although do bear in mind you need continous real time performance.
 * BTW, if you have ideas of doing this on Windows 98, I'm not sure I'd recommend it. *nix would be better and if you really want to use Windows, 98 just shows like a recipe for failure and problems.
 * Also your goals as stated do seem unrealistic. I don't believe it's possible to answer before any rings since any device needs at least part of the ring to detect there's an incoming call. Also I don't believe you can cause the land line to ring again after you've answered, unless the PSTN provider has provided some way of doing that. A better way of doing it that should work would be to connect the phoneline solely to your device so that no rings on the phone line are audible. Then connect any phones to the device so it's the device that causes them to ring when needed (and provides the voice). This does mean if your device fails you will get no incoming calls including in any power failure, although depending on how it fails, this can apply to any device connected to the phone line. (Note I say device here to emphasise whether you do it with a computer or a standalone device you should expect the same thing.)
 * As for software Asterisk (PBX) may be intended for PBXes but should fit the bill. I believe it's the most popular by far for anything like this, but there are other alternatives. As for hardware, a USB voice (analog) modem should be able to connect to the phone line and answer calls, as voice modems have been for the past 15+ years although you'll need to find one which works in the OS you choose. An Analog Telephone Adaptors can connect back to the POTS phones. According to our article, some ATAs do have a Foreign eXchange Office link (as well as a FXS link) so you should just need one device. From a quick search, an example which may be sufficient for your purposes may be this device . According to it should only cost about $65.55. There are other alternatives although I'm not sure if they're cost effective for a cheap home system such as yours  . Perhaps there are dedicated Asterix embedded systems which would also be sufficient, you may want to look in to that.
 * P.S. As said, there's no reason the internet has to be involved at all, you can have the system completely disconnected most of the time for security. However having the device connected will allow fancy things like accessing the voicemail from other places without having to dial home, sending important mails by email etc. With additional services you could even do stuff like send text messages to your phone.
 * Nil Einne (talk) 17:31, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * A long while ago, when I bought my first modem so I could access the internet via dialup connection, the modem came with some call management software. I can't remember though if that was used to just configure the modem or whether the PC had top be left on for it to work.  Maybe an old dialup modem is what you need.  Astronaut (talk) 17:57, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Alternatively, if it is "robocalls" or telemarketing calls, why not register your number with the National Do Not Call Registry? Astronaut (talk) 18:04, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I have done that, but the evil politicians exempted themselves, and drove me nuts with robocalls when we had our Republican Party primary here last week. I don't want a repeat when the general election rolls around, later this year. StuRat (talk) 18:10, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

To clarify on the rings, I'm fine with a ring sounding on the other end of the line, before it picks up, I just don't want to hear it on my end, although an indicator light would be nice. Once they enter the code, I do want an audible ring at my end. If it can't make my phone ring, then it would need to make the ringing sound itself. StuRat (talk) 18:24, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

As for my motivation at not using a PC, there's the initial purchase price for a dedicated PC, the electricity used and heat generated, but even more worrisome is that every PC I've ever owned locks up and needs to be rebooted on a fairly regular basis (and it could be quite some time before I notice the need to reboot it). Thus I don't consider them to be reliable enough. I want this system to work 24/7, not just when the PC feels like it. StuRat (talk) 18:20, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't know what type of magical box you are looking for, but I work on IVR systems all day long. They run on server class PC hardware.  -- LarryMac  | Talk  18:39, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * So nobody sells an embedded IVR system which runs on it's own hardware, just like a normal answering machine ? Perhaps IVR is the wrong name for what I want, then. StuRat (talk) 18:43, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * You might be able to find a multi-mailbox answering machine with a priority caller or VIP feature that does some of what you want. For example, I found a manual for the AT&T 1726 Digital Answering System:
 * This machine has three mailboxes and one greeting for all of them. So you could record a greeting that says "To leave a message, press 2". If no button is pressed, the message defaults to junk mailbox 1, but if callers press 2 the message goes to the safe mailbox 2. Unfortunately, in this scenario, you'd have to periodically empty the junk mailbox 1, and if callers don't pay attention to the instructions (or don't have a touch-tone phone), they may leave a message in the junk mailbox anyway. If you settle for this compromise, it might at least help filter your junk messages.
 * The machine lets callers enter a 3 digit priority code during the greeting, and the machine will alert you. However, the manual doesn't say how long the alert lasts, only that the caller can press 5# to stop it and leave a message instead. (A similar model, the four-mailbox AT&T 1725 has a priority alert that lasts 30 seconds.)
 * The machine has an option to remain silent during recording.
 * Further searching online may find other advanced answering machines with features that better fit what you want. --Bavi H (talk) 03:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Can it pick up before the first (audible) ring ? StuRat (talk) 03:19, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I just read through the manual, and it looks like the minimum is 2 rings. I suppose I could turn all my ringers down or off, so they don't bother me while I'm asleep.  The only problem is I don't know if the "priority tone" is loud and long enough to wake me, in the case of an actual emergency.  This is my goal, to be immediately available to people I know, in an emergency, and never available to robocallers at all.  And allowing robocallers to overflow my answering machine isn't good.  (If it would just use a fixed allocation for the 3 mailboxes, they could then overflow mailbox 1 without messing up mailboxes 2 and 3, but that's not my reading of the manual.) StuRat (talk) 03:49, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * You're right, a full machine might be a problem, but the machine does store 40 minutes total (up to 119 messages), and enforces a 3 minute maximum per message (according to the troubleshooting item about incomplete messages). Just to be clear, I've never had this machine. I mainly wanted to point out searching for advanced answering machines may help you find a workable compromise. --Bavi H (talk) 04:35, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, but I hope there's some method quicker than reading through the user manual for each and every answering machine model. StuRat (talk) 04:38, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * As stated, the electricity usage and heat generated should not be a big use if you are careful with your hardware selecton. It's perhaps worth being realistic here. If for example your computerised system uses 27W all up average and your dedicated system uses 5W this suggests about a 22W difference. This isn't a small amount, but is easily equivalent to one CFL light on all day or 3 on for 8 hours. If this is still too much, you'll have to explore lower power systems. (I think even some Atom systems may be able to achieve under 20W and the ATA should add too much when not in use.)
 * In terms of initial cost, the answering machine you're discussing about seem to cost over US$100. If you shop around enough the computer hardware for a dedicated low power system should not cost more then $300 so at best you're spending 3 times. As stated earlier, your alternative option is choosing a perhaps slightly larger and less power efficient and risk of lower reliability refurbished small form factor older PC like those from offices and stuff. These are readily available here in NZ so it would be surprising if they aren't in the US.
 * As for needing to restart as LarryMac has hinted, people you need high reliability with downtime potentially costing thousands of dollars and do not want to have to restart once a year let alone regularly use computer based systems. And of course it's not just IVRs, but many servers out there and even most workstations. Of course if you don't want to pay the price for server class hardware suited for such extreme reliabilities (and from the sound of it, you'll likely need someone to administrate it for you anyway) you'll have to settle for slightly lower reliabilities. But even then, plenty of home users running Windows are able to get away quite successfully with restarting less then once a month and it's not uncommon to hear of people running home *nix systems who have restarted in many months or even years. I myself have a router (made from an aforementioned refurbished old PC) running m0n0wall which the only time it has had a specific problem was when the compact flash card died after many years. (I do restart it every so often when the internet dies for some random reason, generally along with the dedicated ADSL modem but this isn't necessary, I see no difference between restarts. Restarting is also needed by design when changing certain settings but this is similar to other home routers.) I can't say why you get such poor uptime but at a guess, user error and using old computers with Windows 98 probably plays a big factor.
 * Nil Einne (talk) 05:04, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * P.S. To clarify the uptime comment, remember there's broadly, two types of downtime you are probably concerned of here. One is a user or administrator controlled need for restart for hardware or software reasons. On a dedicated system for Asterisk, the need for this should be very rare and of course you since you are the user/administrator, you should know when it happens. The other is downtime due to temporary or permanent software or hardware failure. In this case you have little control although as stated choosing better hardware will help reduce the occurence. But even with fairly cheap hardware, the failure rate should be fairly low probably on average in the order of a year or more. To be informed quickly when such a failure does occur you'd need another system or systems which monitor the wellbeing of your voicemail system although with some temporarily failures particularly software ones, a well designed system should be able to restart itself. Note that this is no different from using specialised box except that your failure rate may be slightly higher. Nil Einne (talk) 05:29, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Software/hardware/Safari conflict?
Please help me. I hope I am in the right place. I was linked here by user:OrangeMike. I get out of my depth pretty quickly in the technical stuff. I have edited sporadically since 2008, but lost access for several months. Now I am unable to log on. So far, with a lot of help from other users, I have determined that I am not blocked, and my email is enabled. I now have a new password which, as far as I have tried it, works under SUL on all projects except enWP, which is where I prefer to edit. My device is a Huawei M860M build/ERE 27, using an Android OS: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1-update1; en-U.S.;)/AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) version /4.0 Mobile Safari browser/530.17. I have the Firmware version 2.1 update1, Kernel version 2.6.29perf android@localhost#1 build#M860V900R001C153B251SP03 9-18-2010, Safari version 530.17, which I think to be critical after reading of default rejection of cookies by recent Safari browsers. Most of the preceeding specs are Greek to me: I sort of know what a kernel is, etc. I am attempting to contact Huawei about loading another browser, if possible. Maybe Apple or Google would be a better use of my time. I've recently been able to log on to enWP at a library, using the new password, reinforcing my idea of a browser problem. Please help. the Ragityman 69.171.187.73 (talk) 21:22, 13 March 2012 (UTC) 17:49, 13 March 2012 (UTC)69.171.178.88 (talk) 15:04, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't mind if someone copy/pasted this request to MY talkpage user_talk:Ragityman, but PLEASE don't cut it from here until I see if I can get some help. I have yet to successfully copy/paste anything with the equipment noted.  My IP changes, seemingly w/o rhyme or reason, not only on reboot.  I'm not concerned about my IP being seen, for that reason, but I WOULD VERY MUCH like to be able to log on to English Wikipedia at home.  The hours of our library have been cut as a budgetary consideration, and they were never good nights, weekends and holidays.  I can access MY user page, and even edit it, but I've been advised that I'll be more likely to get the technical help I need on this page than there.
 * I have visited Apple's support page, but since I'm not using an actual iphone, no help.
 * Rags69.171.178.28 (talk) 15:52, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * My IP, I believe, will always be 69.171.178.xx or 69.171.187.xx (or possibly ".x").
 * Rags69.171.178.83 (talk) 16:22, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

open source or free video editing
Hello,

What is the best free video editing software for me to get. I would really like Adobe Premiere but I do not have any money. I am not enormously computer-savvy so would prefer if it was something that is semi easy to use. I am running Windows XP. Thank you very much.

Anthony J Pintglass (talk) 19:03, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately there are not something of comparable power as Premiere that is simultaneously free and easy to use, in my experience (movie editing software is still a heavily non-user-friendly area, and the various open source options are, in my experience, either too bare-bones in what they do — e.g. just let you splice together existing movie clips — or impossibly, baroquely complicated). Your best bet is probably to try and get Windows Movie Maker, which is available free with XP as part of Service Packs 2 and 3 (you may even have it installed on your computer without realizing it). --Mr.98 (talk) 20:39, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Hello, yes, I have this. I am looking for the next step up. Thank you for your help. Anthony J Pintglass (talk) 22:05, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The next step up is a big one, to full non-linear editing systems. I've never seen one that I would describe as user-friendly. Take a look at the programs listed in that link, though, under free and/or open source. I've played around with a few of them, but in my experience they are very unintuitive. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:05, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * This question comes up a lot on this message board: search; some answers. The consensus seems to be that Avidemux is the best free software, though it's limited in functionality; the XP version of Windows Movie Maker is easy-to-use but very limited (the W7 version is less good and even more limited); Zwei-Stein ZS4 is more powerful but much harder to use.  --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:22, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * There is kino and kdenlive. I've used the former a bit but not the later. 86.130.188.210 (talk) 22:59, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Problem with Pywikipedia
Hello. I've set up Pywikipedia to work on a third-party wiki and the bot itself seems ready to go. Nevertheless, I get the following message: No JSON object could be decoded. And the bot never gets around to editing the wiki. What can I do to solve this problem? Thanks.--Leptictidium (mt) 19:05, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Does the Wiki in question implement API? Try  (substitute whatever URL the API lives at)  and see if you get a proper JSON object. You can roughly recognise JSON by nested curly braces and   pairs. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, the question implements API. Where should I add the code you provided? Thanks. Leptictidium (mt) 11:06, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It's a (UNIX/Linux) shell command to retrieve one item via http. You need to install wget, which is available for most platforms (and installed by default on most free UNIX-like OSes). Another problem might be a proxy - if you are behind a proxy, you need to make the bot aware of the proxy somehow. Details are quite OS-specific. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:23, 14 March 2012 (UTC)