Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2016 December 31

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

December 31

What is TCP port 1374 used for?

My firewall logs show an inbound TCP connection from a server at 104.28.15.88 (CloudFlare) to port 1374. Googling that port number only turned up the name of a service called "molly" associated with "EPI Software Systems" but absolutely nothing about what the service is supposed to be for. What exactly is this service? 69.40.146.46 (talk) 04:12, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

• I suppose you found [1]. That port is in the "registered" range, so well-behaved applications should not use it as a randomized port number, if I remember correctly (that is what the dynamic range is for - if you have the courage to read it, RFC 6335 should describe the whole system). Could be a portsweep looking for vulnerabilities, who knows. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 16:31, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

• Right, yeah that's basically what I was thinking. Strange thing though is that there is just nothing at all out there describing this so-called "molly" protocol. You would think that someone would have documented it at some point, but apparently not! 69.40.146.46 (talk) 18:13, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

• Information on Molly is here: [ http://www.veeco.com/products/growth-control-and-scheduling-software-for-mbe-systems ]. The company that sold Molly used to be called Applied Epi -- were they bought by Veeco? I only worked on a Molly system once and it was years ago, but if I remember correctly from studying the manual that bit about "Flexible architecture allows new components and instruments to be easily integrated—supports other process control hardware connected through standard interfaces" is talking about port 1374. I doubt that any real-world uses ever go farther than a LAN. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:50, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you so much! 69.40.146.46 (talk) 19:26, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

How to read Kindle books on iPad?

I buy Kindle books from Amazon but my country cannot buy Kindle and get Kindle iPad app. How to read Kindle books on my iPad? --Curious Cat On Her Last Life (talk) 05:52, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

• @Curious Cat On Her Last Life: Does Amazon_Kindle#File_formats help you? (In particular, is Calibre (software) able to perform a conversion in a format you can read?) Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 16:11, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Almost definitely not by default due to DRM. However probably an Apprentice (not related to The Apprentice AFAIK) called Alf could help. Although this does require you're able to actually read the books on your computer. If you can't convince the Kindle Windows program to work because of where you live, you're basically SOL since AFAIK Kindle DRM as with quite a lot of DRM, is only partially broken. (You can remove it if you have the necessary keys, but you can't generate them yourself so you need to get them from the DRM provider.) Nil Einne (talk) 20:19, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

What is an Apprentice called Alf? What is SOL? --Curious Cat On Her Last Life (talk) 04:28, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

The apprentice is https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/ and is referring to DeDRM Tools. I've never used them so can't verify their usefulness. SOL means Sh** out of luck.-gadfium 04:51, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Note that I specifically avoided linking to the site to reduce the risk of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act since there was no mention of a need for assistive technologies [2] which seems to be the only relevant exemption. More to the point, while it isn't that hard, I believe it will be difficult for someone who doesn't even know the basics of an internet (Google etc) search to actual use the Calibre plugins. Also I realised I forgot to mention something earlier, besides the fact the DRM is only partially broken, I'm not sure you can even get the books if you can't get the program to download them which probably won't happen unless it thinks you're allowed them. So actually DRM being partly broken is largely moot in this case. So yes, if you can see the books on your computer with the Kindle program it isn't that hard but you probably won't get far if your level of competence is so low it doesn't include how to conduct a rudimentary internet search. If you can't read them, you're SOL. Nil Einne (talk) 04:44, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Nil Einne you so mean. I Google SOL but so many answers and not sure what. I send the Calibre and Apprentice pages to my friend with good English who help me read and show me how to do with my computer. The books now on my iPad. Thanks and sorry I use your time. --Curious Cat On Her Last Life (talk) 19:08, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not referring to SOL. I'm referring to the fact that both 'apprentice called alf' and 'apprentice alf' will find the necessary page. Heck even 'apprentice call alf' will find it. Both those 2 words together are rare enough and the page itself popular enough that I suspect it's difficult to come up with a logical search term from what I said that doesn't find the relevant page. Whether or not you understand SOL is largely besides the point, but if you can't even find the apprentice alf page from the big hints given in my first post, I stick by my point, it's unlikely you'll be able to actually use the tools even if they aren't that hard to use. Nil Einne (talk) 10:48, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Smartphone memory problem

Whenever I try to download and install some small apps from Google Play on Samsung Galaxy Gio, there's a message about insufficient memory, even though the internal phone memory has 24 MB of free space and SD card has 1,84 GB (running on Android 2.3.4). For instance, today I was unable to install one 8,10-MB app. How is that possible? Brandmeister^talk 10:49, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Not all apps can be installed on a SD card and the remaining internal memory seems to be very small so there may be some issues even if technically it is not used up completely. Ruslik_Zero 17:52, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

You could try moving some other apps or their data storage to the SD card. Dbfirs 18:57, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

My phone has a setting that allows me to control what type of data gets stored where (internal memory or SD card). (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 19:25, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Not quite computing, but it's at least electronics...

Cable box is a disambiguation page for cable box (outside) and cable box (electronics); the latter is a redirect to Cable converter box, the thing that sits on your TV and enables it to process the cable signals. Meanwhile, Commons:Category:Cable television has a subcategory for Commons:Category:Set-top boxes, and hmm, is there a Set-top box article? Yes, and "A set-top box (STB) or set-top unit (STU), also colloquially known as a cable box is an information appliance device..." that lets your TV convert cable signals, satellite signals, and normal television.

So are a cable converter box and a set-top box the same thing or different? They seem to me to cover the same topic, but they've been around since January 2008 and the undated UseModWiki era respectively, and it would be rather unusual if we'd had parallel articles on the same type of object for just almost nine years with nobody getting around to merging them. Nyttend (talk) 12:01, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

"Set top box" is a much broader term that includes cable converter box, digital television adapter, satellite decoder and several other types. Dbfirs 13:01, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

data into PC

If I wanted to transfer data into a PC (from an MCU), FAST, what are the options? RS-232--USB bridges only work up to 115200 baud, which is ~11 kBytes/s. LPT port, ~1 MByte/s, basically dead, no software support whatsoever. USB, too complicated for bitbang. Asmrulz (talk) 15:53, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

What does MCU mean? Ruslik_Zero 17:50, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

It means Microcontroller, and most microcontrollers can't do much better than 115200 baud RS-232/RS-422/RS-485 using an internal UART. I says "most" because you can get an ARM Cortex with gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, SATA 2.0, and PCI Express.[3] Other common microcontroller protocols are I2C, SPI, and occasionally you might see CAN. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:08, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

You could try something like this? I have used SPI to get 4MB/s (using 2 parallel channels), but that was from a PIC32 to a bank of TI LED controllers. Vespine (talk) 22:36, 2 January 2017 (UTC)