Communication and Network

Physical Connection
Data packets are transmitted between computers on the network either as electrical signals in electric wires, as light signals in fibre optic cables, or as electromagnetic waves through space. The physical connection determines the kind of cable used, the way the cable is configured and the way information is transmitted over the cable.

  • Twisted Pair refers to the use of cables that contain insulated copper wires twisted together in pairs for the physical layer of an Ethernet network—that is, a network in which the Ethernet protocol provides the data link layer. Twisted-pair cable is used by older telephone network and is the least expensive type of local area network(LAN) cable, most networks contain some twisted-pair cabling at some point along the network. Other types of cables used for LANs include coaxial cable and fiber optic cables.
  • Coaxial cable Coaxial cable is used as a transmission line for radio frequency signals, in applications such as connecting radio transmitter and receivers with their antennas, computer network (Internet) connections, and distributing cable television signals. One advantage of coax over other types of transmission line is that in an ideal coaxial cable the carrying of electromagnetic field signal exists only in the space between the inner and outer conductors . This allows coaxial cable runs to be installed next to metal objects such as gutters without the power losses that occur in other transmission lines, and provides protection of the signal from external electromagnetic interferences. Although it is more expensive than standard telephone wire, it is much less susceptible to interference and can carry much more data.
  • Fiber Optic Cable transmit information from one place to another by sending pulses of light through optical fiber. The light in optical fiber forms an electromagnetic carrier wave that is modulated to carry information. Involves the following basic steps: Creating the optical signal involving the use of a transmitter, relaying the signal along the fiber, ensuring that the signal does not become too distorted or weak, receiving the optical signal, and converting it into an electrical signal. Data can be transmitted digitally rather than analogically.

Network terms

  • node
  • client
  • server
  • hub
  • network interface card( NIC)
  • network operating system(NOS)
  • host computer
  • network manager

Secondary Storage


Disk Caching

A disk cache is a mechanism for improving the time it takes to read from or write to a hard disk and it is usually included as part of the hard disk. A disk cache can also be a specified portion of random access memory (RAM). Disk cache holds data that has recently been read and, in some cases, adjacent data areas that are likely to be accessed next. Write caching is also provided with some disk caches. Once the data is stored in the cache, it can be used in the future by accessing the cached copy rather than re-fetching or recomputing the original data. When a program needs to access new data, the operating system will first checks to see if the data is in the cache before reading it from the disk accessing data from RAM much faster than from a disk, disk caching can significantly increase performance.

Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive disks(RAID)

It's a technology that allowed computer users to achieve high levels of storage reliability from low-cost and less reliable PC-class disk-drive components,through the technique of arranging the devices into arrays for redundancy.Redundancy is achieved by either writing the same data to multiple drives or collecting data across the array, calculated such that the failure of one disks in the array will not result in loss of data. A failed disk may be replaced by a new one, and the lost data reconstructed from the remaining data and the parity data. There are three key concepts in RAID: mirroring, the copying of data to more than one disk; striping , the splitting of data across more than one disk; and error correction, where redundant data is stored to allow problems to be detected and possibly fixed. Different RAID levels use one or more of these techniques, depending on the system requirements. RAID's main aim is either to improve reliability and availability of data, ensuring that important data is available more often than not or merely to improve the access speed to files.

File compression and decompression

Input and Output

Magnetic Ink Character Recognition(MICR)

Magnetic Ink Character Recognition, or MICR, is a character recognition technology usually by the banking industry to facilitate the processing of cheques. The technology allows computers to read information off of printed documents such as account numbers. MICR codes can be easily read by humans unlike barcodes or similar technologies. MICR can be machine-read with much greater accuracy than human reading or other optical character recognition (OCR) systems so therefore it is ideal for marking and identifying the account and sort code numbers on cheques. These characters are printed in special typefaces with a magnetic ink or toner, usually containing iron oxide. As a machine decodes the MICR text, it first magnetizes the characters in the plane of the paper then the characters are then passed over a MICR read head, a device similar to the playback head of a tape recorder. As each character passes over the head it produces a unique waveform that can be easily identified by the system.


Optical-Character Recognition(OCR)


Optical character recognition, is the mechanical or electronic translation of images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-editable text.Before OCR can be used, the source material must be scanned using an optical scanner to read in the page as a bitmap where software to recognize the images is also required. The OCR software will then processes these scans to differentiate between images and text and determine what letters are represented in the light and dark areas. Multiple algorithms of neural network technology to analyze the light and dark along the side of stroke edge,the line of discontinuity between the text characters, matches to known characters and makes a best guess as to which character it is and the background is added into today's OCR. OCR software then averages or polls the results from all the algorithms to obtain a single reading.



Optical-Mark Recognition(OMR)


Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) is the technology of electronically extracting intended data from marked fields, such as checkboxes and fill-in fields, on printed forms.It requires the image to have high contrast and an easily-recognizable or irrelevant shape. OMR technology scans a printed form and reads predefined positions and records where marks like the bubbles that the applicant fills in to indicate their selections made on the form. This technology is useful for applications in which large numbers of hand-filled forms need to be OMR is usually used for variety of applications as it processed quickly and with great accuracy, such as surveys, reply cards, questionnaires and ballots. The optical mark reader will shines a light beam onto the input document and marks could be detected because less light is reflected back from them than from the paler, unmarked paper.

Dot-Matrix Printer



A dot matrix is a kind of printer with a print head that runs back and forth, or in an up and down motion, on the page and prints by impact, striking an ink-soaked cloth ribbon against the paper, much like a typewriter. Unlike a typewriter, the letters are drawn out of a dot matrix so different kind of fonts and arbitrary graphics can be produced. Each dot is produced by a tiny metal rod, also called a "wire" or "pin". Dot-matrix printers are relatively expensive yet does not produce high-quality output. However, carbon copies of multi-page can be produced which inkjet printers can't do so.


Plotter


It is a device which draws pictures on paper based on the commands from a computer. Plotters is different from printers because they draw lines using a pen, so continuous lines is produce. Whereas printers can only simulate lines by printing a closely spaced series of dots. That's why different-coloured pens are used to draw different colours. Plotters are way expensive than printers and it's usually used in engineering applications where precision and high resolution is mandatory.



Portable Printer


It is a small and lightweight portable printer. It is a miniature of a normal printer,and more likely reduce in power and features. With the introduction of the color printers and the latest photo printers, this has had an impact on the travel printers as well(portable priners).It is used as a tool to print holiday pictures while on vacation as the weight might not be an issue and you’re able to put it into your trolley or suitcase.


Fax Machine


Facsimile means make a copy, or make similiar.Fax machine is a telecommunications technology used to transfer copies of documents using affordable devices operating over the telephone network. It is also known as a telecopier in certain industries because faxes have obvious advantage over postal mail because it is nearly instantaneoussending documents to people at large distances. Yet its disadvantages in quality have relegated it to a position beneath email as the prevailing form of electronic document transfer except where the legal status of a sent fax and its accompanying sending report are desired. Fax machines digitize an image and divide it into a grid of dots where each dot is represented by a bit which has a value of 0 and 1. The fax machine translates a picture into a series of zeros and ones that can be transmitted like normal computer data and on the receiving side, the fax machine reads the incoming data and then translates the zeros and ones back into dots, and reprints the picture out.


Multi Functional Device


Multifunctional devices is one neat, efficient and cost-effective package which bring the worlds of copying, printing, finishing, and scanning together.multifunctional copier increases user productivity. It offer much greater functionality than local or work group printers and are much more cost effective from a total cost of ownership perspective.Users can print many documents over a period of time and then collect them all at once by inputting a PIN number at the multifunctional device and selecting the documents previously sent.


Internet Telephones


Internet telephone refers to communications services such as voice, facsimile, and/or voice-messaging applications which are transported via the Internet, rather than the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Steps involved is convert the analog voice signal to digital format and then translate the signal into Internet Prootocol for transmission and the process is vice versa at the receiving end. Just as with regular telephone service, you pick up the phone to get a dial tone and press numbers on the keypad to call the person you want to talk with.