PC ProSchools – TechTalk

OK, it’s new and it’s shiny, that’s about all it takes. Well maybe not, I didn’t go and get Vista when it came out, so I guess I need to have a little more. The preliminary reaction to windows 7 though is a lot better than when Vista came out.

Driver issues that plagued Vista appear to be a non-issue with Windows 7 and by all accounts the latest version of Windows is faster, possibly faster than XP.  I have read one account that the user used a stopwatch to compare the three OS’s and it beat XP and Vista in almost every aspect.  Reliability is another thing that looks to be improved in 7 also, with easier power management and more accurate battery life indicator.  Desktop search though pretty much the same as in Vista is a lot better than its predecessors and includes an advanced query feature to help define your searches. There are Windows Management features that allow you to easily arrange the windows on your desktop or to momentarily show your desktop (nice if you have an embedded link in your desktop, will allow you a quick peek to keep you up to date). Windows 7 also features Resource Monitor, much improved from Vista and non-existent in XP.  It will allow you to track down all those resource hogs from 3^rd party apps.

I think there are plenty of reasons to get Windows 7 and no real reason not to; and its time for a new computer anyway.  Now, what motherboard do I get?  Intel or AMD? How big a power supply, need to have enough and still stay green? Well this can be figured out later, I have the operating system figured out.

So I’m sitting at the US-Canadian border, when my buddy makes a comment about it taking to long to get across.  I guess those three big cans of energy drink weren’t such a great idea after all.  We decided there has to be a better way to do this, and well, we weren’t the only ones.  I found out there have been a few changes since I was issued my passport in 2003.

It seems that all passports issued by the US government after 2006 have Radio Frequency Identifiers (RFID) imbedded in them.  These chips when sent a signal, broadcast personal information including the name, nationality, sex, date of birth, place of birth and digitized photograph of the passport holder.

Now let me give you a little idea of what an RFID is and what it can do.  Each tag is made up of an integrated circuit which stores information, processes radio transmissions, data transmission and other specialized functions also an antenna.  The technology is based on radar and was seen in early forms as World War II aircraft as “Friend or Foe” transponders.  A plane would be hit by radar transmission from Allied forces and the circuit would broadcast a specific answer back to the station to identify it as a “Friendly” aircraft so that Allied forces would not shoot it down.

Commercially it is used in anti-theft devices because of its size and cost.  It is also being used to track inventory as a replacement for UPC codes.  Imagine the time savings of scanning a pallet four hundred different boxes in a second versus breaking the entire pallet down to scan each box one at a time.  It is also used in the Express Toll System in Illinois.  The RFID can transmit any information about the product you would like.  On the other hand, the RFID can store any information you would like.  It could record other tags in proximity of it when pinged or its ping history (where it has been).

Fortunately the US government decided there should be some security measures in place on your personal information being broadcast willy-nilly.  They set the broadcast range to 10 centimeters, even though some sources have claimed to be able to read them from a distance of 10 meters.  Also the passbook or card needs to be swiped through the reader in order for it to send the correct PIN to your RFID.  Without this PIN, your RFID stays inert and will not broadcast.  This is referred to as Basic Access Control (BAC).  They have also lined the new passbooks with a foil and included a foil sleeve to store your card in, in order to add some security for when they are not exposed.

Now I’m not going to declare the “1984” Big Brother is in effect, but it does make you think about everything you now carry in your daily life that can transmit information about you and your habits.  Take a look at the bands in the money in your wallet.

Ok, well, maybe it is time to break out the tinfoil hats.

I have been hearing a lot of students talking about how to boost their home network speeds. With the abundance of Ethernet networking components reaching the 1 Gbps mark, it seems like an easy choice. But what I have noticed is that everything is not being taken into consideration. You must be conscious of your network’s throughput. Allow me to elaborate.

So let us say that you pick up a new 1000 Mbps (1 Gbps) Ethernet adapter, and pop it into your desktop PC. Awesome, right? You should be able to get blazing speeds, right? Well, not necessarily. What about the cable you are connecting to the Ethernet adapter? If it is still Category 5 (Cat 5) cable, then your cable speed will be at 100 Mbps; far lower than your adapter card. This means that you will be limited to the slowest component’s transfer speed. This would obviously be the cable, and thus why network throughput becomes a concern.

So let’s say that you addressed the cable issue and purchased Cat 6 cable, which is capable of achieving 1 Gbps. Now we’re talking! But what if all of your PC’s in your network plug into a switch or wireless router? What are the speed ratings on those devices? If it is not 1 Gbps, you are once again limited to the speed of the slowest device if you were to transfer files between two computers connected to that switch.

There is a bottleneck at the switch. If you are using wireless connections, then you will most definitely want to look into 802.11n wireless devices over the more common 802.11g. 802.11n achieves a smoking 300 Mbps wireless data transfer speed, far superior to the 54 Mbps you get out of 802.11g. Although I must say that you usually see 802.11n achieving around half of its maximum, but hey, 150 Mbps is still awesome.

Now of course you must remember that in the end, these are transfer speeds that you will achieve on your Local Area Network (LAN) only. It will not be carried out through to your Internet connection, unless you pay a lot of cash for your Internet connection speeds. You may only be looking at 5 to 13 Mbps download speeds, so once again, we will be limited somewhere.

In the end, you must take all devices on your internal network into consideration when determining if you are getting the throughput you desire. So, you might be looking at upgrading some of your equipment to get the better speeds. When purchasing components, if it says 10/100 Mbps, then it can transfer at speeds of either 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps. You will want to look for 100/1000 Mbps to get the faster speeds.

With careful choosing, you should be able to obtain much faster wired LAN speeds. To learn more about throughput, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throughput