Girl Geekette

In the previous article, we met John Hancock who had just bought a new Dell laptop from Circuit City. He also bought a wireless router and sat outside purchasing a new domain name from Godaddy.com. Enjoying the freedom of the wireless technology, John sat outside in his lounge chair and also purchased a place to host email and a new website he is going to build.

You might have noticed that John did look for the "HTTPS" instead of the "HTTP" when he made a secure transaction. This is a good thing! Kudos to John for remembering to do that. The extra "S" in the URL stands for "Secure" meaning he is making his transaction with a credit card over a secure site. This will prevent anyone else from seeing the credit card numbers on the website (Basically).

Wireless networks have SO many conveniences to them. No cords to tangle up and tie you down, no running unsightly cables through walls, stairs, basements, floors or ceilings, and the ease of being able to move around - but at what cost? And, I do not mean monetary costs - or do I? 

With so many reasons to want to go wireless with computers on a network, sometimes the most obvious reasons are overlooked. At what expense do people risk giving up the security of cables to go wireless? Sure, you can move around a room or floor, and you are not tied down by a cable, but the cable actually adds a layer of protection to your network.

The OSI model (Open Systems Interconnection defined by ISO 7498 ) model defines the idea interoperability between the network devices and software by dividing the functions of a protocol into different layers. This is useful for troubleshooting and teaching in network concepts. It brought together a common idea whereas before, it was vendor specific and proprietary. Layers 4-7 will deal with end to end communications between the data source and the destination where as the Layers 1-3 will deal with the communications between the devices found on the network.

A Straight-through or Patch Cable for networking (By standards) consists of both ends being the B Standard. 
A Crossover Cable consists of one end being the B standard and one end being the A standard. 
  

Related Links:
TIA-568A From Wikipedia
TIA-568B From Wikipedia
Electronic Industries Alliance
International Telecommunication Union