2013-04-03

CSC 104 Slog-Week Eleven (Mar 25th - Mar 31th)


CSC 104 Slog-Week Eleven (Mar 25th - Mar 31th)
Something new learned in the class:
[Network]
Network
Computer networksMessages must be passed to reveal information contained in one machine's memory to another, or to request that some action be taken on a remote machine.
Examples:
Token ring
There must be just one sender at a particular time. They pass a signal, a bit pattern called a token, around the ring. A machine that has messages to send retains the token until it can confirm that its messages have been received, and then passes it along. Machines that have no messages to send pass along the token as soon as they receive it.
Star configuration
Failure of the hub machine breaks the star. A disadvantage of the star configuration is that if the main machine goes down, they will all go down.
Bus (e.g. Ethernet) configuration
Able to transmit messages at any time. If a machine detects that another machine is transmitting at the same time (a collision), it waits for a random interval of time before re-transmitting. The success of the protocol depends on the random intervals being (on the average) different for different machines. Failure of a single machine doesn't break the network, although other machines may re-transmit many messages to it.
Internet
 By connecting two or more networks, an internet is created.
The address space for this network of networks is comprised of four bytes, the dotted quad, which divides into a portion to identify the network, and a portion to identify the particular machine (or host) on that network. These four bytes are to decide whether the recipient of a message is on the local network (in which case it sends the message directly to it) or whether it is on some other network (in which case it forwards the message to another router, and eventually it reaches the network hierarchy responsible for that network).
There is a translation between the dotted-quad and symbolic names. The symbolic names indicate the top-level domains (.org, .com, .net, .edu, and two-character country codes) that group many networks under them.
The hierarchy of domains and sub-domains in the symbolic name indicate the chain of responsibility for keeping track of the mapping between symbolic and numeric addresses, and (for example) which machines handle mail for other machines.
Capabilities of the Internet
Email
Execution of programs on a remote machine
Sharing of resources, such as disk drives and printers between dispersed machines
Transfer of files between dispersed machines
Online shopping
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
Web-pages containing files in HTML format are specified/located through a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
Programs ran by the browser are restricted by (a) the size of file that can reasonably be transmitted over the net, and (b) caution about allowing a program from a remote site to carry out certain functions --- for example accessing your hard drive.
Programs
[Computers and work]
On the one hand, the amount of textiles and metal goods that could be produced in a day increased dramatically during the Industrial Revolution, due to both the use of power (first steam, and later oil, and electricity), and division of labor. On the other hand, the land and resources used for older forms of production were taken over (in some cases by military force), first in Europe and then throughout the world. Increasing production required ever-expanding markets, and those who produced goods using older forms of production were thrown out of work. Some of them (for example, traditional weavers in the north of England) responded by smashing the machinery that deprived them of a livelihood. Those who did gain employment with the new machinery (often children) were often pushed to work 12, 14, or even longer shifts each day.

Measures of personal wealth (the number of square feet of housing, cars, or the amount of food, per capita) have similarly increased. Entirely new categories of jobs (e.g. webmaster) have been created, as well as new ways of working (telecommuting).
Early in the era of automation there were both dire and rosy predictions: some predicted overwhelming unemployment and social dislocation, while others predicted a utopia with plenty of wealth and leisure time. Neither has come to pass (yet). We have traded more stuff for less time: the average home has more floor space and more cars parked in front of it than half a century ago, and the price is that we have to work more hours, or perhaps a second job. On the other hand, unemployment rates seem to ebb and flow with the business cycle (cyclical recessions and recoveries) rather than showing a massi
ve increase as automation takes jobs from humans.
Telecommuting
Telecommuting
Benefits of telecommuting include flexible work hours (so work may be combined with other responsibilities, such as daycare), lower costs for office infrastructure, and a smaller social impact of commuting (good for the environment.
Drawbacks of telecommuting include intrusion into home life (flexible hours are often longer), reduced impact with co-workers, and less "visibility" to superiors.








Challenges I met this week
Understanding three types of networking and their characteristics is kind of difficult. However by looking it up on the internet and searching examples of photos of them, I got to well understand them.

The test/quiz/assignment
We had a test this week so we do not have any tutorial this week which is a good thing. However, I found some things that I did not command really well. For example, I made mistake in (list-ref n) function. I thought it represented the rest of the list but actually it means the stuff on the nth position of the list.

Feedback to the other’s slogs
I read Emily Zhang’s slog ths week. She mentioned the privacy problem in the lecture. And I left a message: “Indeed the privacy problem is really annoying :( ".
Internet and privacy

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