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By Crawley Ashford
Information Technology (IT) has become a major part of our lives. Any business or office is almost completely dependent on computers today for their operation. Once an office is computerized it may tend to have problems with the hardware or may end up with some software related issue some time or the other. To take care that the functioning of the business is not affected due to these problems most companies hire the services of an IT services firm which would provide it with the necessary IT support that it needs from time to time. In case of any problem this firm would give the IT solutions that are required to overcome the problem.
IT experts do a wide variety of jobs which include designing and installation of computer networks, managing the system and various other tasks. Some IT support lending firms have such advanced technology that they identify a problem at a very early stage and that tends to work as a warning system. This works as an alarm and major problems can be avoided and huge expenses can be prevented. The IT services firm monitors the functioning of the system and being a continuous process, problems are identified and addressed at the earliest saving both time and money.
Hiring a competent IT services firm is of utmost importance as it would have all the IT solutions which would make the functioning of the business an absolutely smooth process. Over a period the systems tend to slow down and a firm which has the right expertise would help you deal with this issue by monitoring the system and providing effective maintenance at regular intervals. The most well equipped firms offer many of their services right from their office and this would help in saving a lot of time. They are even capable of identifying a failing hardware which would ensure that no data is lost as recovery measures can be setup at the earliest.
Security issues are a big concern as far as computer networking is concerned. A capable and proficient technology support partner would help in getting the very best out of your system. Most of the time companies install programs that are available locally but at times there is a requirement of programs which are to be made with certain specifications meeting the demands of the company. Such IT solutions can be brought about only with a well experienced team of an efficient IT services firm.
If the network is managed by an experienced hand then you can concentrate completely on the functioning of the business. There are such firms which look into the needs of small business enterprise alone. Such competent firms also have well experienced staff to attend to every problem at the earliest and offer the very best solution. One should conduct a thorough survey before hiring the services of any such firm. There are plenty of such IT services lending firms but an efficient one is of utmost importance as the functioning of your enterprise is largely dependent on their service and effectiveness.
Crawley Ashford consults for small business without an IT Department or with an IT Department in setting up computer networks, Hawaii IT Services & Support, IT Network Spam Filter, IT Network Firewall setup, IT Consulting, Small business computer network cabling, Product Sales, Programming.
Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com
By SAGAR
IntroductionIf you want to transfer some of your data files from one computer to another in your office what will you do? One option you have is to take a floppy or CD and copy the data into it from source computer and go to destination computer and download the file in it. This method is very much time consuming and also you can not copy the data more then 1.44MB in floppy and around 800MB in CD. What if you have more than 2GB or more data to transfer? Here we can use LAN. A LAN is a group of two or more computers that can share information and resources. You can have 1000’s of computer in your LAN depending on the size of your organization as long as the computers are kept in one building or location. Here I am going to tell you how to build a small Local Area Network of 5-10 computers. First of all we need to know the equipments that are required to setup a LAN.
Computers: - Obviously you need 2 or more computers to build a network because one computer can not make a Network
Cables: - Depending on your network size and utilization you can select the category of the cables. For a small network you can use CAT5 cable which supports 10/100Mbps speed. However you have option to purchase Cat 6 Cable also which support speed of up to 1Gbps. Here I will use CAT5 Cable. (Want to know more about CAT5 click here)
Hub / Switch: - This is a device the will be put in a central location and all the PCs will connect to it. These devices can be of 4, 8, 16, or 24 ports. They come with more ports also. These days switches are being used everywhere as they are more advance then HUB.
NIC: - Network Interface cards are required for you PCs. Here also you have option to get a card of 10/100 or 10/100/1000Gbps speed. Again it depends on your requirement and budget. One end of network cable will connect to NIC in your computer and another end will go to switch. Note: - Most of the computers these days comes with built in network card so you don’t really need to purchase NIC if you already have one on your computer’s motherboard.
RJ45 Connector: - These are small jacks that need to be punched at both ends of cables. You don’t need to buy these connectors separately because readymade cables are available in market but of course if the desired length cable is not available then you will have to get the RJ45 Connectors and punch them at both ends of cable as per the cabling standard.
Once you have all the equipments you are ready to do connectivity among your computers and some windows settings. Follow the steps below to get your network up and running.
Step1: - Open your computers one by one and install the NIC. As I mentioned above if you have built in network card on your computer’s motherboard then you don’t need to do this activity. Better you buy PC with built in network card this way you can save lots of time.Step2:- Connect all the computers one by one to your hub/switch. Once you connect all the computers just power on the switch.Step3: - Now you have you to do some settings in your PC. All the PCs should have a unique identification so that another computer on network can identify it. Just in human beings we know people with their names, in computers they identify each other with their unique IP Address. These are 32 bit octets in the form of 0 and 1. We write IP address in the decimal form like 192.168.1.1. You have two options to provide IP address one is manual by sitting on each computer and typing the IP address and another is through DHCP Server. You can say DHCP server as a service of Microsoft Windows 2000/2003 Server which automatically provide IP address to computers as soon as they boot. (Click on DHCP to know more about it.) For a small network of 10-20 PCs you don’t need DHCP server but for big network it would be very confusing and time consuming to provide IP address manually. In our scenario you can give IP address manually because we are setting up a network of just 10 PC. Now log in to PCs with administrative privilege and follow the steps below to give IP address to PCs.
a. Click on Start – Settings – Network Connection and then double click on Local Area Connection.b. From the new Window click on properties and on the new window scroll down to select internet protocol TCP/IP. Double click on it or click on properties to give IP address.c. On the opened window give an IP address in the space provided. Just below IP address there is an option of subnet mask. As soon as you will give the IP address the subnet mask will come automatically depending on the Network Class you have selected. (Click on Network Class to know more about it.)
Once you are done just save the settings by clicking on apply and OK. Repeat all 3 steps above on all your computers but remember to give unique IP address to each computer. You can check the connectivity among the computers by running a command called PING on each computer. Just go to command prompt and type ping IP ADDRESS (For example Ping 192.168.1.1) you should get reply from another computer which has the IP address 192.168.1.1, remember the PC you are trying to ping should be switch ON. If you get a message saying REQUEST TIME OUT that means the PC you are trying to ping is switch off or there is some problem in the connectivity. So you will have to check it.
These settings are enough to get your LAN up and running how ever in IP settings page you have some more options that you can define as long as you have installed these services in you network. For example DNS, Gateway or WINS, you can click on each of these words to know more about them.
Sukhsagar Prajapatihttp://www.techdatainfo.blogspot.comArticle Source: http://www.articlerich.com
By Jagdip Singh
Many people may not know what TCP/IP is, nor what its effect is on the Internet. The fact is, without TCP/IP there would be no Internet. And it is because of the American military that the Internet exists.
During the days of the cold war, the defense department was interested in developing a means of electronic communication which could survive an attack by being able to re-route itself around any failed section of the network.
They began a research project designed to connect many different networks, and many different types of hardware from various vendors. Thus was the birth of the Internet (sorta). In reality, they were forced to connect different types of hardware from various vendors because the different branches of the military used different hardware. Some used IBM, while others used Unisys or DEC.
TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and IP (Internet Protocol) were the protocols they developed. The first Internet was a success because it delivered a few basic services that everyone needed: file transfer, electronic mail, and remote login to name a few. A user could also use the “internet” across a very large number of client and server systems.
As with other communications protocols, TCP/IP is composed of layers. Each layer has its own responsibility:
IP is responsible for moving data from computer to computer. IP forwards each packet based on a four-byte destination address (the IP number). IP uses gateways to help move data from point “a” to point “b”. Early gateways were responsible for finding routes for IP to follow.
TCP is responsible for ensuring correct delivery of data from computer to computer. Because data can be lost in the network, TCP adds support to detect errors or lost data and to trigger retransmission until the data is correctly and completely received.
How TCP/IP works
Computers are first connected to their Local Area Network (LAN). TCP/IP shares the LAN with other systems such as file servers, web servers and so on. The hardware connects via a network connection that has its own hard coded unique address – called a MAC (Media Access Control) address. The client is either assigned an address, or requests one from a server. Once the client has an address they can communicate, via IP, to the other clients on the network. As mentioned above, IP is used to send the data, while TCP verifies that it is sent correctly.
When a client wishes to connect to another computer outside the LAN, they generally go through a computer called a Gateway (mentioned above). The gateway’s job is to find and store routes to destinations. It does this through a series of broadcast messages sent to other gateways and servers nearest to it. They in turn could broadcast for a route. This procedure continues until a computer somewhere says “Oh yeah, I know how to get there.” This information is then relayed to the first gateway that now has a route the client can use.
How does the system know the data is correct?
As mentioned above, IP is responsible for getting the data there. TCP then takes over to verify it.
Encoded in the data packets is other data that is used to verify the packet. This data (a checksum, or mathematical representation of the packet) is confirmed by TCP and a confirmation is sent back to the sender.
This process of sending, receiving and acknowledging happens for each individual packet sent over the Internet.
When the data is verified, it is reassembled on the receiving computer. If a package is not verified, the sending computer will re-send it and wait for confirmation. This way both computers – both sending and receiving – know which data is correct and which isn’t.
One nice thing about this protocol is that it doesn’t need to stick to just one route. Generally, when you are sending or receiving data it is taking multiple routes to get to its destination. This ensures data accuracy. Just the facts:
TCP/IP addresses are based on 4 octets of 8 bits each. Each octet represents a number between 0 and 255. So an IP address looks like: 111.222.333.444.
There are 3 classes of IP addresses:
ranges starting with “1” and ending with “126” (i.e.. 1.1.1.1 to 126.255.255.254) are Class A ranges starting with “128” and ending with 191 (i.e.. 128.1.1.1 to 191.255.255.254) are Class B ranges starting with 192 and ending with 254 (i.e.. 192.1.1.1 to 254.255.255.254) are Class C ( You will notice that there are no IP addresses starting with “127”. These are reserved addresses.)
Calculating an IP address
One of the things that always confused me was how to convert IP address to their Binary form. It is quite simple really. IP addresses use the Binary numbers (“1”s and “0”s) and are read from right to left.
Each position in the binary address corresponds to a number, from 1 to 128 and look like this:
128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
To calculate an address, simply add the numbers where a “1” appears. For example, the following: 00001010 works out to 10. Like this: 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
You can see that the “1”s line up with the 2 and 8 – when you add 2 plus 8 the answer is 10.
Since an IP address contains 4 of these octets, it can be displayed in binary like:
00001010.00001010.00001010.00001010
Therefore, IP Address 10.129.254.1 would be converted to:
00001010.10000001.11111110.00000001 (8+2) . (128+1) .(128+64+32+8+4+2).(1)
While it’s not important for the average person to know how to figure this stuff out, it is important for someone setting up a small network. That is because TCP/IP also uses what are called subnet masks to determine which addresses are valid. But I won’t get into those for now. And it’s also a neat trick that you can use at parties to show your non-techy friends just how much of a technology geek you are :)
So there you have it – a brief introduction into TCP/IP – the foundation of the Internet.
Did you find this article useful? For more useful tips and hints, points to ponder and keep in mind, techniques, and insights pertaining to computers, software, viruses and data recovery, do please browse for more information at our websites.
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