Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 July 15

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 15

Is there a way to disable the zoom button for iphone apps on iPad?

Greetings, oh mighty and exalted Wikibrain.

I humbly ask that you might aid me in my quest for knowledge.

I am using an iPhone app on an iPad2, as there is no native iPad version of this app. Because it's an iPhone app you're given the choice of either having a tiny app in the middle of the screen, or scaling it to fill the whole screen. This is toggled by pressing a 1x/2x onscreen button in the corner.

I use this app (and indeed, all iPhone apps on my iPad) in 2x mode. I have no interest in 1x mode, it's of no use to me at all. The problem is I'm using a drum machine program, and occasionally I'll accidentally hit the zoom button, rescaling the app, and completely screwing up my rhythm.

So, my question is this: Is there any way to get rid of this button completely and just make the iPad always use 2x mode? I've gone through all the settings in the control panel, and didn't see anything, nor did a Google search turn anything up.

Am I just going to have to learn to be more precise with my onscreen drumming?

Any help appreciated! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.113.29.67 (talk) 02:14, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

What should I do with my old computers and computer parts?

I'm cleaning out my place and I have a ton of old computers and computer parts. By 'old', I mean stuff that's 5-10 years old or so. For example, I have boxes of old printer cables, video cards, sound cards, etc.. These are PC parts, not Mac. What should I do with them? I hate to throw them out, since they're still working (or they were working years ago). I know I could try to sell them on eBay, but I honestly don't think they're worth much, and probably not worth my time trying to sell them. What should I do? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:58, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

There are several things I do with them, depending on what they are and if they work.

• If they don't work, I save them up and once a year we have an "electronics recycling", where they take anything except TVs and send them to be recycled, mainly getting the metals.

• If it works but is a little out of date, we have a place called the "STAR Foundation" that takes anything except CRT monitors. They put together systems so that people can use them to learn computer skills. They don't care if it is 5+ years out of date. Last week I gave them a 15 inch LCD monitor. About a month ago I gave them a laser printer that works, but has XP and Vista drivers only, and now I have only Windows 7. I've given them modem cards, video cards, memory modules, etc, and said "use them if you can, otherwise recycle them".

• Other than that, I might take it to Goodwill or Habitat for Humanity. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 16:50, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

In Saskatchewan here we have SARCAN, which accepts used consumer electronics of all kinds. Useable products and parts are either sent to charity or sold with the proceeds supporting community programs, and unusable products are recycled. Perhaps you have something similar in Chicago, like freegeekchicago.org? BigNate37_(T) 18:00, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

As a teacher of "hands-on" computer courses, I often introduce students to the hardware aspects of computers by getting them to take apart old ones, photographing and documenting what they find as they proceed. We are capable of demolishing a lot of computers that way. See if a local school running such courses could make use of your old equipment. HiLo48 (talk) 18:05, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

eBay! Shadowjams (talk) 22:48, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

One caution: Don't donate hard drives, they may still contain personal info. It's possible to delete it all, but far easier just to destroy them. The value of a 5 year old hard disk is quite minimal, anyway. StuRat (talk) 22:51, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually since wiping a drive sufficient to make data recovery nearly impossible is fairly easy (at most you may risk a tiny amount of data in reallocated sectors if you don't use the HD's erase function or it's improperly implemented) whereas actually destroying a drive is something that's likely more difficult for the average user to do right, and know they did right, wiping the drive makes far more sense. Sure throwing a drive up and down or hitting it with a rubber mallet will probably kill it, but there's no guarantees. Nil Einne (talk) 03:23, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I think I could figure out how to destroy one. Might be fun.  :-) StuRat (talk) 03:42, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The Freecycle Network. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:03, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

"Sure throwing a drive up and down or hitting it with a rubber mallet will probably kill it, but there's no guarantees." Today's drices take an awful LOT of abuse!!! If you really want to destroy all data, you should use a deletion tool first, then demolish the drive physically. 85% of the drives were recoverable(by professionals) after the collapse of the twin towers... If that's the amount of punishment they can take, a rubber mallet won't do one bit of good. Hit it with something stronger than the twin towers; the Pentagon will probably do a bit of damage... :]

If the data are really sensitive, be creative. Deletion tool, and then either keep the drive (it's not that big after all) or drop it off on recycling day somewhere else, where nobody will draw the connection to you, or your company. (:

If it's only some embarrassing surfing habits, put the drive into a different PC, delete ALL partitions from the HDD, make a new partition as large as possible, and make a huge text file like "BLAH BLAH BLAH" repeated 16,777,215 times. Then make one folder on the new partition and make copies of that file in there until it's full, then fill the remaining space with a shorter file. That'll suffice to overwrite >99.9 of the data, and it's fast and free.

"The value of a 5 year old hard disk is quite minimal, anyway." On the market, yes. But it's still quite useful. You can run XP quite flawlessly on 8-year-old components, and that'll suffice for everything except games. Bit of overstatement but usually good enough. Some organizations will be quite happy - a local astronomy club and the like. Less than 5 years: ebay. More than 10 and working: a museum maybe? ;) - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 07:54, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Battery charging mystery

Dear Wikipedians:

I use a Mophie battery, pictured here:

to provide in-the-field charging of my smartphone when I am outside.

However, however, when I attempt to charge the Mophie battery itself using the Belkin charger (a surge protector with 2 USB charge ports), pictured here:

I find that all four led indicators on my Mophie battery lights up simultaneously (only three led indicators are lighted in the photo above, indicating the power level of the Mophie battery at 3/4), whereas normally, while the battery itself is being charged, the led indicator for the current power level at which the battery is being charged is supposed to blink, while the led indicators for the power levels that have already been charged should stay constantly lit, that way I know the progress of the charging process for my Mophie battery. And I find that no matter how long I keep my Mophie battery plugged into the Belkin charger, the battery won't be charged, I know this because after I have removed my Mophie battery from my Belkin charger and press the power-level indicator button on my Mophie battery only 1 indicator light would light up.

The thing is, my Mophie battery will charge properly with either my Google Nexus smartphone power adapter or my Blackberry Playbook charger (the Blackberry Playbook charger unit is shown in the photo of the Belkin charger, it is the black rectangular (with round corners) fat adapter with some plastic wrappings pasted around it that is plugged into one of the regular AC-main power sockets on the Belkin charger), you know, one of those direct AC-Main to micro USB charger units. I find the inability of my Mophie battery to be charged on my Belkin charger to be very frustrating and would appreciate any insights you may have on how I can make my Mophie battery properly charge on my Belkin charger's USB charging ports.

Thanks for all your help,

L33th4x0r (talk) 17:21, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, I do not know for sure what the problem is, but I found in the USB article the following:

"The USB 1.x and 2.0 specifications provide a 5 V supply on a single wire from which connected USB devices may draw power. The specification provides for no more than 5.25 V and no less than 4.75 V (5 V±5%) between the positive and negative bus power lines. For USB 3.0, the voltage supplied by low-powered hub ports is 4.45–5.25 V.[42]

A unit load is defined as 100 mA in USB 2.0, and 150 mA in USB 3.0. A device may draw a maximum of 5 unit loads (500 mA) from a port in USB 2.0; 6 (900 mA) in USB 3.0. There are two types of devices: low-power and high-power. A low-power device draws at most 1 unit load, with minimum operating voltage of 4.4 V in USB 2.0, and 4 V in USB 3.0. A high-power device draws at most the maximum number of unit loads permitted by the standard. Every device functions initially as low-power but the device may request high-power and will get it if the power is available on the providing bus."

So I think the problem could be that one adapter uses a different USB version and delivers a lower maximim current, than what your battery needs. --helohe (talk) 22:51, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Online Vulnerability Scanner

Is there any free online service which makes a full vulnerability scan, lets say with OpenVAS or Nessus, Nmap and nikto, on my ip address? I can not test it locally because I would like to find out if my system is vulnerable from the outside (WAN side). --helohe (talk) 23:00, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't know exactly what sort of vulnerability you're referring to, but Shields Up amy do what you want.--Phil Holmes (talk) 14:45, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

They may mean testing of firewalls, virus attacks, etc.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:26, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

You probably mean an online port scanner such as [1], [2].Smallman12q (talk) 21:34, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, somehow. But I am looking for some tool which also tries known exploits on the open ports it finds. I could run Nessus locally, but then I need to figure out a way to relay it somehow, that the scan goes through the actual WAN interface and is not just routed through the local network. --helohe (talk) 00:38, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Could you try it from a friend's house? If you get good at it you could start a service and make a few bucks.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:39, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes I can do that. But I am a bit lazy :D --helohe (talk) 18:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)