Computer Software

If you have not decided already,you will soon want to network your two or more computers in your home. You want to be armed to the teach with knowledge of just what it takes to connect your computers to one another.

You first should decide which network is best your you. If your computers are in the same room,the Wireless network should not be considered.The wired by cable network should work just fine.

Computer that may be close to each other but cannot be seen may and have phone jacks close by can easily be networked with the HomePNA Network.While PCs that are far from each other can be connected with the powerline network,assuming wall outlets are nearby.

And when there are computers in different rooms and you want the convenience of moving the systems from room to room,the more expensive Wireless Network is the way to go.After you decide on the type of network that is best for you,knowing what components you’ll need to purchase will be a great help.Let’s take a look at each network and the components needed to get it up and running.

The WIRED ETHERNET NETWORK

If your computers are in the same room,the basic network kit can wire your systems together.Be sure to carefully open any kit or component you purchase and do not damage the box it came in.The purpose for this is to make it easy to return the component if needed.

Basic kits will have instructions and software for the network as seen as two NICs.Better known as Network Interface Cards,these NICs are installed in empty slots in the system unit.The PCI slot is where the card is installed and there are the USB adapters as well.The network will need cabling to connect the computers and the CAT 5 or Category 5 cable is the one to look for.

Ethernet networks come in two speeds,which are 10 and 100mbps or megabits per second.The wired network will also need a Hub or a Switch to direct traffic from each system.If you want fast traffic,and who don’t,you will want to connect a Switch instead of a Hub.If you want all PCs to connect to the Internet,most kits come with Special Bridging Software which links the systems together.

The WIRELESS HOME NETWORK

Wireless networks rely on radio frequency to transmit and receive data.Wireless network equipment will offer you the choice of both wired and wireless connections.

If your computers are in direct line of each other,the IR or Infrared frequency can be used.But most wireless networks now use the Radio Transceiver technology with computers being located just about anywhere.

You will need a Wireless Router to connect each PC to the network.Wireless NIC Cards must be installed in each computer in the network.When you purchase your wireless kit,take note of the indoor range.

As you can see when looking at the wireless Router,you have the option to wire your computers together should something go wrong with any wireless component.Take note of the difference between the wired nic and the wireless nic cards.

The POWERLINE NETWORK

The powerline network uses the electrical wiring in your home to transfer data to and from each computer.Present powerline networks run between 50kbps or Kilobits Per Second and 350kbps.

This network has a drawback in back it will have lots of electrical noise which will cause the network to lose speed.And other PC users can snoop in your computer if they know how.

This network will need a Router for data transfer and nic cards for each system.A Bridge will be needed for access to the internet.These Bridges can be used with your Router.

The PHONELINE NETWORK

The components you will need in the Home Network are close to that of the Wireless network.In most cases,the 10mbps speed network is fast enough for home users.

The computers are connected with a Switch,a gateway,or Router to share Internet access and to send data to each computer through the phone line network.This network is considered the easiest to setup.

Phoneline Network adapters are installed in each PC. The USB or Universal Seriel Bus port connection is the most commonly used adapter for Phoneline networks.To reduce line noise,a Phone Filter may be needed.If you plan to connect a phone and line in one phone jack.you will have to invest in a Line Splitter.Be sure each computer in the network are close to a phone jack.

The Phoneline Network is thought to be less expensive .more dependable and faster when compared with the Powerline network.

In a nutshell,all networks will need some type of adapter inserted in the computer.Each network will need a hub, switch,or router to transfer data.Windows 98,Me,and XP will have the needed software to make everything work together.Adapters and and other hardware will come with device driver software which enables the hardware to talk to the computer.

We have taken a brief look at the hardware needed to network two or more computers.Connecting the hardware was rather simple when we networked our computers using the wireless technology.Learn all you can about PC networking and you will be grateful in having this knowledge should you experience computer problems.

Since we have seen basic network components,its time to see how each component is installed and connected.Then we’re going to see how to move data from one machine to the other and share the internet using broadband with a DSL or a Cable modem.Remember to enjoy learning about your computer by performing as many tasks as you can without causing damage to your system.

As their IT consultant, your small business prospects and clients will need you to explain the different network cabling options available to them.

Traditional Wired Ethernet (Category 5)

Until very recently, Category 5 data cabling was the de facto standard for both enterprise and small business LANs. Today, you’ll find some enhancements available to Category 5 cabling, as well as booming interest in wireless Ethernet solutions.

If your computer consulting firm won’t be installing Category 5 network cabling for your small business clients’ networks, get an estimate from a local data cabling vendor that can install certified cabling runs to each office or desk.

Ensure the Network Cabling Job is Completed “To Spec”

Most reputable Category 5 cable installers will be able to provide you with hard copy reports of Category 5 certification tests, your assurance that the job was completed “to spec” — making for a much more reliable networking experience.

The Ethernet Hub and Network Card

To string together a traditional wired Ethernet network based on Category 5 network cabling, your clients will simply need to purchase a 10/100Mbps Ethernet hub or switch, and a 10/100Mbps network card for each PC.

These are very mature, inexpensive products and great for creating inexpensive, high performance small business networks.

Wireless Ethernet Based on 802.11b (11Mbps)

802.11b wireless is also a relatively mature standard that provides up to 11Mbps Ethernet service. Although wireless networking hardware is more expensive than comparable wired Ethernet equipment, your clients will save on the installation costs of Category 5 data network cabling.

It could very well be break-even cost-wise and there’s no need to drill holes in your clients’ office walls or in the baseboard.

Drawbacks to Wireless Ethernet

First, since the standards between different 802.11b-compatibile products are still relatively new, you can sometimes experience great difficulty in trying to connect 802.11b products from different vendors. If possible, stick with the same 802.11b hardware vendor across the board.

Second, security standards are still evolving. The wireless encryption protocol (WEP) that 802.11b products use is widely known to be “easily” hack-able. Just be sure that your clients are aware of the security limitations before they commit to wireless Ethernet.

The Bottom Line About Network Cabling

Even if your computer consulting firm doesn’t handle Category 5 and other kinds of network cabling work, you need to be involved in the design specifications and supervision of network cabling. For assistance working with data cabling companies, see Partnering with Other Computer Consultants and Subcontracting Success both available for immediate download.

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PC-based servers and LANs may be relatively mature technologies. However, small businesses need your firm’s expertise, more than ever. For these businesses, you’ll need to select, configure, customize, secure and maintain the right small business networking tools for their unique needs.

Real Small Business Networking Solutions Begin with Real Servers

How many times have you taken on a new small business client who insists that he or she is perfectly content with their peer-to-peer network? You know the peer-to-peer network is really causing a ton of problems.

Is Microsoft Windows peer-to-peer networking any way to run a small business? Perhaps it is for a two-or-three-person company, but those really tiny offices generally aren’t your most profitable client opportunities.

Convincing the Client They Need Small Business Networking

Clients come to you because they need a reliable, yet cost-effective small business networking solution. You know that their data, uptime, and security issues are important, and that there are some corners that aren’t worth cutting. Yet many small business networking prospects and clients still believe that they’re too small to need a dedicated or “real” server.

Cutting Corners Doesn’t Cut It

When you begin talking about a network upgrade, small business clients often dwell on out-of-pocket costs. They often neglect to consider the more substantial soft costs of investing shortsightedly in a small business network.

These include lost employee productivity when imprudent corners are cut, downtime when fault-tolerance is an afterthought, and support costs when difficult-to-support or “dead-end” solutions are selected solely because of their low price tag.

The Bottom Line about Small Business Networking

Often clients don’t recognize they have a small business networking problem until it’s too late. If you show your prospects and clients how a dedicated server can save them money by avoiding inevitable disasters (i.e. share some of your “before” and “after” client case studies), you’ll have a stronger chance of getting prospects and clients to see “the light.”

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Scenario: You work in a corporate environment in which you are, at least partially, responsible for network security. You have implemented a firewall, virus and spyware protection, and your computers are all up to date with patches and security fixes. You sit there and think about the lovely job you have done to make sure that you will not be hacked.

You have done, what most people think, are the major steps towards a secure network. This is partially correct. What about the other factors?

Have you thought about a social engineering attack? What about the users who use your network on a daily basis? Are you prepared in dealing with attacks by these people?

Believe it or not, the weakest link in your security plan is the people who use your network. For the most part, users are uneducated on the procedures to identify and neutralize a social engineering attack. What’s going to stop a user from finding a CD or DVD in the lunch room and taking it to their workstation and opening the files? This disk could contain a spreadsheet or word processor document that has a malicious macro embedded in it. The next thing you know, your network is compromised.

This problem exists particularly in an environment where a help desk staff reset passwords over the phone. There is nothing to stop a person intent on breaking into your network from calling the help desk, pretending to be an employee, and asking to have a password reset. Most organizations use a system to generate usernames, so it is not very difficult to figure them out.

Your organization should have strict policies in place to verify the identity of a user before a password reset can be done. One simple thing to do is to have the user go to the help desk in person. The other method, which works well if your offices are geographically far away, is to designate one contact in the office who can phone for a password reset. This way everyone who works on the help desk can recognize the voice of this person and know that he or she is who they say they are.

Why would an attacker go to your office or make a phone call to the help desk? Simple, it is usually the path of least resistance. There is no need to spend hours trying to break into an electronic system when the physical system is easier to exploit. The next time you see someone walk through the door behind you, and do not recognize them, stop and ask who they are and what they are there for. If you do this, and it happens to be someone who is not supposed to be there, most of the time he will get out as fast as possible. If the person is supposed to be there then he will most likely be able to produce the name of the person he is there to see.

I know you are saying that I am crazy, right? Well think of Kevin Mitnick. He is one of the most decorated hackers of all time. The US government thought he could whistle tones into a telephone and launch a nuclear attack. Most of his hacking was done through social engineering. Whether he did it through physical visits to offices or by making a phone call, he accomplished some of the greatest hacks to date. If you want to know more about him Google his name or read the two books he has written.

It’s beyond me why people try and dismiss these types of attacks. I guess some network engineers are just too proud of their network to admit that they could be breached so easily. Or is it the fact that people don’t feel they should be responsible for educating their employees? Most organizations don’t give their IT departments the jurisdiction to promote physical security. This is usually a problem for the building manager or facilities management. None the less, if you can educate your employees the slightest bit; you may be able to prevent a network breach from a physical or social engineering attack.

STEP 1 – Stripping
Start by pulling out about 12 feet of bulk network cable to making the process a little easier. Carefully remove the outer jacket of the cable exposing about 1 1/4″ of the twisted pairs. Be careful when stripping the jacket as to not nick or cut the internal wiring. After removing the outer case you will notice 8 wires twisted in pairs and a rip cord (white thread).

STEP 2 – Inspecting
Inspect the newly revealed wires for any cuts or scrapes that expose the copper wire inside. If you have breached the protective sheath of any wire you will need to cut the entire segment of wires off and start over at step one. Exposed copper wire will lead to cross-talk, poor performance or no connectivity at all. It is important that the jacket for all network cables remains intact.

STEP 3 – Preparation
To prepare the wires and to make them easier to work with, you can untwist the pairs so they will lay flat between your fingers. The white piece of thread can be cut off even with the jacket and disposed.

STEP 4 – Layout
Now based on the wiring specifications you are following you will need arrange the wires in a certain pattern. There are two methods set by the TIA, 568A and 568B. 568B is the most common network cables, widely used for computer networks and digital phone systems. So for our demonstration we will use that. Starting from the left-top side of the RJ-45 plug, the wiring should be in the order shown at the right.

STEP 5 – Jack Preparation
Again, press all the wires flat between your thumb and forefinger as shown in step three. Verify the colors have remained in the correct order. Using a pair of scissors, cut the top of the wires even with one another so that they are 1/2″ long from the base of the jacket. Ensure that the cut leaves the wires even and clean; failure to do so may cause the wire not to make contact inside the jack.

STEP 6 – Wire Insertion
Ensuring that the wires remain flat and in order, push them into the RJ-45 plug with the flat surface of the plug on top. The white / orange wire should be on the left looking down at the jack. You can tell if all the wires made it into the jack and maintain their positions by looking head-on at the plug. You should be able to see a wire located in each hole, as seen at the bottom right. You may have to use a little effort to push the pairs firmly into the plug. The cabling jacket should also enter the rear of the jack about 3/16″ to help secure the cable once the plug is crimped.

STEP 7 – Crimping
Now place the wired plug into the crimping tool. Give the handle a firm squeeze, you should hear a ratcheting noise as you continue. Once you have completed the crimp, the handle will reset to the open position.

STEP 8 – Testing
Once your new cable is completed, it is not a bad idea to test the cable to ensure that it will function in the field. It is vital that all eight wires have connectivity and are in the correct order. Mis-wired network cables could lead to headaches down the road. In addition, with power-over-ethernet making its way into the market place, crossed wire pairs could lead to physical damage of computers or phone system equipment; making it even more crucial that the pairs are in the correct order. A simple cable tester can quickly verify that information for you.

Today it is almost inconceivable for a business not to have computers, whether it is a construction company or a high technology firm. When a business has more than one computer, they are almost always connected together in a local area network. These networks may be more or less advanced and therefore more or less costly.

Companies invest so much (in terms of both money and time) in a local area networks because there are many advantages that a local area network brings to a business and how it is administered.

Some businesses use a local area network in such a way they are highly dependent on it always working. If the company’s network fails, then you may see all the employees chatting away in the corridors because they can’t do their work. This means big losses for the company and causes stresses on the employees. All companies must consider their local area networks a vital asset and downtime must be avoided. This imposes huge demands on the network staff to keep such networks running almost 100% of the time.

The advantages of Computer Network Management

One of the main advantages of installing and maintaining LANs is the opportunity they create for better communication and cooperation between employees and customers.

Security considerations: Local Area Network security can be both a help and hindrance. Comprehensive security is beneficial because it provides a central and safe strategy for data access and disaster recovery. All information is protected by the design and implementation of the network security solution. On the other hand, interconnecting computers in local area networks creates a security risk, since doing so makes it technically possible for intruders to access many machines on the network at once.

Cost considerations: Installing a local area network is a relatively expensive project. Servers, cabling, switches, routers and software can all be expensive and should never be purchased without expert advice. Keeping the network operating and secure also requires a lot of resources and can be costly.

Surprisingly, a local area network can bring a number of cost savings. Sharing resources avoids the need to purchase equipment for each individual. Even more important is the security that a local area network can provide. Data loss could cost a business a great deal of money and in some cases, cause the business to shutdown altogether. Computer Network Management should require a consistent routine for data backups with regular checkups of data quality – a practice that will save a company huge sums in the event of a mishap.

Computer Network Management: preliminary analysis phases

The first phase of computer network management is to determine the source of the problem (a preliminary study that looks into several options of differing scope may be useful here) and defining it in a specification of requirements. Examples of what should be evaluated are different network operating systems, mail systems, and other applications. The choice of hardware components should also be evaluated. This phase is generally aimed at establishing what the system should do, not how it should do it.

Computer Network Management: design phase

The purpose of design phase is to determine how the requirements of the specification are to be met. The current approach to large, complex projects is to break them down into smaller, more manageable subprojects.

Computer Network Management: implementation phase

This phase involves the physical installation of the local area network. Cables are run, software is installed, and computers and other hardware are put in place.

Computer Network Management: integration and system testing phase

In this phase, commissioning of the network begins, and routines are adapted to users and the operating personnel. The system must be tested, both to ensure that the network meets the requirements set out in the specification and that it is stable enough to perform the central function it has in the organization.

Computer Network Management: operation and maintenance

Local area networks have complex operating routines. This is because there may be serious consequences when faults occur or unauthorized persons gain access to the system. Many companies have employees devoted solely to take care of running and maintaining computer networks. These system administrators may deal with network issues such as performance, reliability and security of both hardware and software.

Computer Network Management: tools

Although an organization may have computer administrators on site, they must also monitor the network more than eight hours a day. In fact, some of the worst trouble that arises with networks can happen during the night hours when nobody is using the network. With the right computer network management tools, your organization can receive the security of knowing that problems will be foreseen, prevented, and taken care of – and that your network administrator can be notified at a moment’s notice, should anything go exceptionally wrong.

Fiber cables form one of the most important parts of the networking industry today. Fiber cables are composed of one or more transparent optical fibers enclosed in a protective covering and strength members. Fiber cables are used to transmit data by the mode of light. Various types of fiber cables available are multimode duplex fiber cables, single mode simplex fiber cables, single mode duplex fiber cables, and plastic optical fiber cables.

There are many fiber optic cable manufacturers who manufacture full line of fiber cables in both single mode and multi-mode, simples, duplex and multi-strand. Several manufacturers provide low cost, quick-turn, high volume fiber cables and fiber cable assembly solutions.

Cables with complete assembly of fibers, strength members and jacket refer to fiber cables. These fiber cables come in variety of forms depending upon their usability and place of use. It is important to identify the exact requirement of fiber cables whether they would be easy to install, splice or terminate, etc. This is necessary as it ultimately decides the cost of installing the fiber cables.

Fiber cables are required to protect fibers from external hazards. Thus before installing the fiber cables one should always assess the place of installation of fiber cables. Fiber cables required inside the house or a building are not exposed too much of hazardous condition thus simpler form and not-so-tough fiber cables can be used for installation. But if the fiber cables are to be installed for longer distances and outside premises then the cables should be robust. They should also be installed well beneath the ground to protect them not only from ground digging, water logging but also from prairie dogs.

Fiber cables comes in different types based on their usage patterns as well. The zip cord and simplex fiber cables refer to those used for desktop connections. Simplex fiber cables are one fiber, tight-buffered and jacketed. A zip cord is actually two simplex fiber cables joined by a thin web. On the other hand fiber cables made of several simplex cables are breakout fiber cables. This type of fiber cables is strong, rugged and larger. They are also a bit expensive but prove to be economic where distances are not too long and fiber count required is less.

Small fiber cables required for dry conduit run, riser or plenum are known as a distribution fiber cables that needs a breakout –box to be broken up or terminated in a panel box. They contain several tight-buffered fibers bundled under same jacket.

Aerial fiber cables are good enough for outside installation where as armored fiber cables are used for under-ground wiring where rodents are a problem. These fiber cables have metal armoring between two jackets to prevent rodents from tampering the cabling connections.

Loose tube fiber cables are perfect for plant trunk applications to prevent fibers from moisture or water. They can be buried directly in ground but must be handled carefully to prevent damage. Ribbon fiber cables have twelve or more fiber cables packed together laid in a rows. They are also a plant fiber cables which are gel-filled and are good for water blocking.

All fiber cable manufacturers manufacture different fiber cables but their product literatures should be carefully studied so as to assess which type of fiber cables they specialize in.