PC ProSchools – TechTalk

Ninety percent of the fish are in ten percent of the water.  Any fisherman worth his salt knows that to be true.  So how do we eliminate that ninety percent of unproductive water?  You might think this is going to be an article about fishing.  In reality, it is an article about how computer technology has enhanced every aspect of our lives…even our hobbies.  Years ago, eliminating that unproductive water was done by chance or by having an intimate knowledge of a body of water after years of fishing it.  Many fishermen simply used a long rope with a weight, then tied a knot every foot, dropped it to the bottom and counted the knots as they fed the rope over the side of the boat.

Then, technology stepped in with the invention of sonar in 1906.  Originally intended to detect icebergs, it was eventually adopted for military use…looking for mines and submarines.  In the 1980’s flash locators, using “active” sonar, began to appear as options on new sport fishing boats.  By the early 1990’s “flash” locators, showing just a series of bars to indicate the bottom and possible fish echoes produced by the returning sound waves of the active sonar of the locator, were replaced by a CRT screen which actually started to show what the sonar was “pinging” off of…so fishermen could get a better “look” at what was in the water.  Early units showed an image that was grainy and not very detailed.  If a fish was hiding inside some downed timber, good luck seeing it, but it was a start….and the technology race in fish locators was on.

How far has it come?  Well, the locator on my boat, a Lowrance LCX-17M features not only sophisticated sonar, but an incredible Global Positioning System (GPS).  With my unit, which is now five years old, I not only get a detailed look at the bottom, including structure and any fish that might be hiding there, but it also gives me the water temperature, depth, and will even show me if the bottom is rocks, sand, weeds or a combination of those.  The screen is a 7 inch wide VGA monitor with a resolution of 640 x 480.  With the built-in GPS I get a reading of my speed and my location on the planet.  Not only that, but I have an MMC (its also SD compatible) memory chip in my locator that will superimpose a map of the lake I’m on, including depths, structure, obstructions, navigational markers, boat launches, bait shops and just about anything else in the area.  And at any time, I am able to split the screen between the sonar image and the GPS.  The mapping feature shows me known “hot spots” on the lake or river, but I can also mark a location I might find on my own.  The unit will store up to 1,000 of these “waypoints” for decades.  All I have to do is call up the waypoint from a menu, hit a button and the unit will guide me to within 2 feet of the target.  This is easily more computing power than our Apollo astronauts took to the moon!!  I can even set a feature that will alert me if I’ve drifted as little as 3 feet while I’m anchored.  Oh yeah…and it will do it in 10 different languages.  I even have the ability to create my own custom maps of any body of water, put it on a memory card and import it to my desktop where I can do some really fancy map creation.  Haven’t quite figured that one out yet…lol.  The GPS unit uses over a dozen satellites circling the earth to give me the details on my position and it does it with a transmitter about the size of a smokeless tobacco tin mounted on the rear gunwale of my boat.

Just in case you think the rush to newer technology has slowed down, the new units are now full color HD with screens as large as 10.5 inches and resolutions of 800 x 600.  The images are unbelievable!  They also come with satellite radio and weather channels built in…greatly enhancing safety on the water.  The newest units by Humminbird now feature something called side imaging sonar.  Traditional sonar sends it’s sound waves straight at the bottom.  Now it will also send waves to the sides producing a nearly three dimensional image of what is underneath your boat.  Truly amazing technology, but at a price.  The best units now run close to $3,000.  Unfortunately, that is way out of my price range.

At this point you might say it’s an unfair advantage…why do you need all that just to go fishing?  Well, I don’t “just go fishing”.  I really enjoy every aspect of being outdoors doing something I love.  This technology allows me to find that ten percent of productive water much quicker.  Since I fish with artificial baits 95 percent of the time, I still have to pick the right lure, the right color based on cloud cover, water clarity and my guess about what “mood” the fish are in, then present the lure so it looks like something they might want to eat.  While I’m a pretty fair fisherman, trust me, the fish are winning.  That’s why, no matter how much technology we have, they still call it “fishing” and not “catching”.

Ultimately the answer will be yes, how soon may depend on your pocketbook.

Although netbooks and some notebooks use solid state drives, currently flash memory (what makes up a SSD, Solid State Drive) is still much more expensive than magnetic media (which makes up a conventional HDD, Hard Disk Drive).  As more manufacturers enter the SSD market the prices will continue to come down as they have with RAM.

            Solid state drives do have their benefits. Their construction is much simpler than a magnetic hard drive, they contain a SATA interface, a controller that allocates reads/writes, and a collection of flash modules that your data is stored on. Since flash modules don’t have to wait for the read head to find the appropriate sector of the disk to find your data, the random access times are very fast as are the read times. Solid state drives are also impervious to vibration, jarring, magnets, and dust; all which could do damage to disk and read/write head in a magnetic drive. Finally these drives will use less power and run noise free as opposed to your conventional hard drive.

            The amount of storage is another thing to consider before you make the leap to buy a SSD. Currently the largest SSD’s are relatively small compared to the offerings available on a HDD, this too will change as time progresses. Although read times a very fast on a SSD, write times are slower than a typical hard drive, because the block of memory your data will be written to has to be erased prior to being written.

            The last thing to consider is that flash memory is rated for a specific number of read/write cycles, around 10,000 for a consumer SSD and 100,000 for a high end model. There is a wear leveling algorithm included in the drive that disperses read/writes across the drive evenly to maximize the life span. When your drive reaches its limit, it doesn’t crash, it just becomes read only so you still have access to your data. Now if 10,000 cycles concerns you, don’t worry, they figure that will be about 5 years of near constant usage, and the high end drives will last forever, well at least for a few decades.

            So if you want to be at the start of the next big thing you can upgrade to a solid state drive now, otherwise have patience and you will join in. Soon all the major drive manufacturers will have solid state offerings as well as the flash memory makers. Experts think possibly by 2014 the magnetic drive will be well on its way to extinction. 

Plus they can do this ;

Question: Is a switch / hub the same as a router?

Answer: No, they are different.  A router is designed to connect two networks (or subnets) with completely different network IDs together, and route traffic between them.  Routers can offer many other features, such as performing Network Address Translation (NAT) and packet filtering.  They operate at Layer 3 of the OSI model.

Switches typically operate at Layer 2 of the OSI model.  They are typically designed to connect multiple devices together within a subnet.  These devices, for example, would be all of the computers in your classroom.  Switches are efficient in data transfer as well, and some have very cool features, like being Virtual-LAN (or V-LAN) capable.

Hubs are the most simplistic of the three.  They operate at Layer 1 of the OSI model and don’t really offer much for features.  They are an inexpensive way to connect multiple devices together on one subnet.  They are also not as efficient when transferring network data packets as switches, even though they look similar and perform the same basic functions.

Now some devices combine these technologies.  Wireless routers, for example offer routing capabilities, as well as act as switches for connecting a limited number of devices (4 or 5 usually) together.

Certification exams like Network+, offered by CompTIA, test you in these concepts.  However, they are excellent to research and learn about for any network administration role.  Google is your friend…