Week Six

Local area network

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LAN – Local Area Network

Is a computer network that interconnects computers in a certain area.

LAN is different from WAN (wide area networks) because they have higher data transfer rates, smaller geographic areas and do not need phone lines!

Ethernet and Wi-Fi are the most common to build LANs.

Interconnections between computers grew from an increasing demand for computers in universities and research labs.

Ethernet was developed at Xerox in 1973 and ARCNET was developed by Datapoint in 1976

The initial purpose was to share printing and storage because both were expensive at the time.

Novell NetWare  appeared as a solution to the incompatiable physical layer and the network protocol implementations

Windows NT advanced servers took the place of NetWare in the mid 1990’s

Coaxial cable was used in the beginning of LAN cabling.

Shielded twisted pair was used in IBM’s Token Ring, untwisted was used in StarLAN

Wi-Fi is more common now.

LANs connect with other LANs through leased lines, leased services and tunneling across the internet through virtual private network.

Management of RFID in Libraries

RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identifier.

A metaphor to explain it is that “it is like a barcode but is read with an electromagnetic field rather than a laser.”

RFID’s can carry more information than a barcode because they have a chip inside them that can carry more bytes of information.

RFID is available in many different forms but varies in its frequency of its radio waves, its physical size, and cost.

The identifying portion of the RFID is mainly for inventory purposes.

RFID is practical for the library because it can be used many times. 

It is also used for security reasons like an alarm.

In the future it can be used to help organize the library more efficiently, by doing things like automatically sorting returned books so they can be reshelved.

It can allow more books to be shelved.

The ROI can be shown by how many more books are being checked out, but the cost of reshelving still needs to be considered.

Some believe greatest investment is allowing patrons to check in for themselves- cutting circulation people.

Libraries have to decide if they need to put tags on magazines, pamphlets and other things / have to decide if they want to spend the cost on it.

It is hard to tag odd shaped items.

Cost over a long period of time needs to be considered. 

Computer network

A computer network (or just network) is a group of computers connected through communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information.

Anytime more than one computer is connected through a communication medium and exchanges information, it is called a computer network.

Transportation mediums, scale, topology, protocol and organizational scope are used to classified networks.

Computer networking can be considered a sub-discipline of the following fields: electrical engineering, telecommunications, computer science, information technology and/or computer engineering

Muddiest Point-

I was unsure when we needed to use the "one to many" feature in the database project.