Microcomputer Systems 810:023 Spring 2003

CLASS in CEEE lab again Wednesday, April 30th BRING YOUR PASSWORD with you!!! :-)

  1. Friday, May 2nd handout: Letter that is informally written describing what you learned in 023 class and how it will help you for the job or graduate school program that you are applying for? Assumption: The interviewers know the Ghostbusters problem solving and troubleshooting metaphor.

  2. This letter is due anytime AFTER the final exam period on Tuesday, and before the end of finals week, which is Friday afternoon by 5 p.m. on Friday, May 9th. You can do it ahead of time, if you wish, but it will make more sense after the Tuesday final exam period.

  3. Two documents to read over related to Ghostbusters and computer programming, problem solving and troubleshooting are:

  4. Study guide outline and resources for the Tuesday, May 6th 1 p.m. final exam session is ready now.


  1. Animated GIFs using gifmerge command on cowboy.cns.uni.edu.

    Animating GIFs and other photoshop techniques, such as the Filter menu, Other, Offset command used to make Text look 3 dimensional, for Shadow or Color effects.


  2. Unix and Linux commands and shell concepts exercise. Still in progress.

  3. Assignments: Postlab assignment (followup to Photoshop lab class) is explained here, as well as more details on Chapter 15: Network Security assignment. You received this as an email note on Friday 04/11/2003.

  4. The Network Security chapter is chapter 15 of the textbook. The review questions from the end of that chapter are due on Friday, April 18th. I believe that chapter starts of page 757 and the questions begin on page 797, but this is just a guess, since chapter 15 is somehow missing from my CD-ROM with the textbook on it.

  5. There is a good chance we will have a couple classes in CEEE before the semester is over. CEEE is the Center for Energy and Environmental Education. It is a strange looking building on the south east edge of campus right by the walking route from campus to Married Student Housing and ROTH dorms. The UNI computer science department has two lab/classrooms in that building, and they are separated from the rest of the campus network by a firewall. Thus we can do experiments and use software that is not allowed in the general campus-wide network.

  6. Here are some resources and links to security related resources and information.

  7. Review for the quiz E F E R A : Bridges, routing tables, binary, input/output redirection, pipes, etc. Review of the March 5th class. (This is a March 6th email note).

  8. Email note about QUIZ TWO, which is to be held on Friday, March 7th. Check back again later today (Thursday, March 6th).

  9. Will something about Scanners be on quiz two? You can count on it! Scanners PowerPoint presentation published to the web is a nice example. One of the assignments this semester will probably involve creating a PowerPoint presentation and publishing it to the web.

  10. CHAPTER FOUR HOMEWORK review questions are due on Monday, March 3rd.

  11. Quiz two on Friday, March 7th.

    Next hands on class will be on Friday, March 14th.

  12. Quiz One results and percentages.

  13. Friday, February 14th subnet masks handout (Group Exercise).

  14. Here is the solution to the categorizing of the different MiddleEarth.com computers into their specific subnet groups.

    Question 4 solution results in FIVE subnets. See which Lord of the Rings characters are on the same subnets.

  15. Clarification on the HELP SORT command homework question, and the Windows NT Wright Hall output for HELP SORT. Clarification on the meaning of [ ] symbols when doing HELP SORT on Windows NT or SORT /? in other versions of Windows.

  16. Feb 12th email note and Quiz One study guidelines and topics.

  17. Feb 12th email note and Quiz One study guidelines from ONE YEAR ago - including an interactive, self-grading practice quiz.

  18. Handed out on 02/10/Monday: Assignment using DOS command prompt, and ipconfig, assoc, pipes, tracert, sort, etc. >Due on Monday, February 17th. You may have to do some of this assignment in Wright Hall, using Start menu, Run, cmd (or cmd.exe).

  19. Quiz ONE will be on Wednesday, February 19th in class. Each of the four in-class quizzes will take about 25 minutes. It is NOT an exam, it is a quiz.

  20. Followup to first February class. You got this as an email note already. Repeaters, attenuation, bridges, segments.

  21. TCP/IP and subnet masks - group exercise handout. What are the legal values in a subnet mask? 0, 128, 192, 224, 240, 248, 252, 254 and 255 are the only legal values. What do these 9 numbers all have in common? Look at them in binary to see the answer!
    00000000 = 0           
    10000000 = 128         255 - 127 = 128   127 = 1111111
    11000000 = 192         255 -  63 = 192    63 =  111111
    11100000 = 224         255 -  31 = 224    31 =   11111
    11110000 = 240         255 -  15 = 240    15 =    1111
    11111000 = 248         255 -   7 = 248     7 =     111
    11111100 = 252         255 -   3 = 252     3 =      11
    11111110 = 254         255 -   1 = 254     1 =       1
    11111111 = 255 
    

  22. Monday's and Wednesday's classes will cover attenuation, repeaters, bridges and talk more about the OSI 7 layer model and IP addressing and routers. During the first week in February, we'll also discuss Hamming codewords as an approach to the error detection and correction problem.

  23. Hamming codewords are like parity - they are a protocol technique for handling errors. If you want to look at that ahead of time, click on Hamming Error Detect and Correct, but don't worry about understanding it till class presentations and exercises later on.

The Spring 1999 web page, the Spring 2000 web page, Spring 2001 810:023 web page and the Spring 2002 810:023 web page all are useful to see what kinds of topics are covered in this class. Keep in mind, the rate of change for networks, PCs and operating systems means the class will change quite a bit in response.


Networking terms and concepts - This LAN is your LAN. Link to this for definitions you need to look up for your 1st assignment. We will have a hands-on class on Friday, January 17th in Wright 339 lab.

Spring 2003 course outline

  1. Read chapters one and two of the textbook.


    Assignment #1: Answer Review Questions for chapter one on pages 27-30 (questions 1-20) and
    for chapter two on pages 58-62 (questions 1-30). Due date: Monday, January 27th.

    Please WRITE the question (rephrased in your own words) and WRITE out the answer to the question, to increase your learning and retention. 1.c. in NOT acceptable for a multiple choice question, and 22. True is NOT acceptable for a True/False question. For a True or False question, explain why the statement is true or why it is false.

    Your questions can be word processed or hand-written. Either way is okay for the hard-copy printout you turn in.
    Due date: Monday, January 27th.


  2. Hands-on classes on Friday, January 17th and January 24th in Wright 112 lab.

There are 5 issues to consider when connecting two nodes or computers with some media like cable. They are EFERA.
Encoding, Framing, Errors, Reliability and Access are E, F, E, R, A.
Encoding
Encoding the digital data on the signals that the analog media can transmit, and decoding it back to the digital binary pattern when received.
Framing
Sentinel approach and byte count approach to know the end of a frame. Detecting the exact start of a frame is the other issue. "Not me" and "Mine" example.
Error detection
Even and odd parity. Hamming codewords.
Reliable delivery
Sliding windows. Timers and ACKs. Automatic resend after timer goes off if no ACK from destination host.
Access control
CSMA/CD and CSMA/CA and token passing we have already studied.