| [MobiPocket
Installation]
 Over
the past few years I've written a few essays which you might find
interesting. Most of them relate to technical material, and I've
tried to keep them as readable as possible. The newest essay is:
 Mobile
Devices . ... What is the future of computing? The computing
industry has gone through five generations. First was the large
and bulky mainframe computer, where users connected through terminals
to large and centralize data processing units. Next came the minicomputers,
which were smaller and less expensive and even could be contained
with a room.
Pocket PC/PDA versions: [MS Reader]
If you're interested the other essays are:
Me
and the Internet. ... My first essay is on the Internet, as
it is possibly one of the most important developments that has occurred
in the history of mankind. So why is the Internet so important to
me?
Pocket PC/PDA versions: [MS Reader][Pocket
Adobe][MobiPocket]
Electronics
is boring? . ... In my previous essay touched on electronics,
so I thought that my second essay should maybe discuss some of the
issues that relate to electronics and education.
Pocket PC/PDA versions: [MS Reader][Pocket
Adobe][MobiPocket]
Art
of E-mail! ... Electronic mail is my favorite application of
the Internet. My favorite question to a new set of students used
to be: 'What's the difference between the World Wide Web and the
Internet?'
Pocket PC/PDA versions: [MS Reader][Pocket
Adobe][MobiPocket]
Jargon
and TLAs ... Jargon is one of the biggest drawbacks in the presentation
of a technical subject to ordinary people. Why is it that you hardly
ever seem someone with a Computing/engineering background being
interviewed on the TV about their attitude on current or future
trends.
Pocket PC/PDA versions: [MS Reader][Pocket
Adobe][MobiPocket]
Marking
and things ... Well last week I spent many days and nights marking
exam papers and courseworks. In academia there seems to be an increasing
amount of work to do, and often lecturers will work many more hours
per week than they are meant to.
Pocket PC/PDA versions: [MS Reader][Pocket
Adobe][MobiPocket]
Ode
to Dr TCP ... So what really makes the Internet work? Why does
the WWW work so well? How can we run so many applications over the
Internet at the same time? How do we know that our data has been
received?
Pocket PC/PDA versions: [MS Reader][Pocket
Adobe][MobiPocket]
Three
Generations ... I think it's amazing the way that WWW pages
have changed over such a short period of time. We can all remember
the gray pages of the page (see the window on the right-hand side),
with basic text layout, and pages full of hypertext links.
Pocket PC/PDA versions: [MS Reader][Pocket
Adobe][MobiPocket]
Teckie
... It’s amazing to think that UNIX has survived over the
years, even after it was tipped to takeover the operating system
market from DOS in the mid-1980s. So what happened?
Networking
King ... TCP and IP have made the interconnection of the world
possible, but Ethernet must be given a silver medal for building
up the network from the ground up. Without Ethernet we would have
never evolved organizational networks and the Internet so quickly.
Worms
of the Word... So what’s the big problem with the Internet?
Well it’s a totally open system which connects computers around
the world. At one time it was relatively easy to secure networks
from external attack as the networks did not have any public connection.
Saint
or Sinner? ... So, what is it that differentiates one PC system
from another? It is difficult to say, but basically it’s all
about how well the systems is bolted together, how compatible the
parts are with the loaded software, how they organize the peripherals,
and so on.
Friend
or Foe? ... So what benefit will agents bring, and are they
worth the trouble? Well they’re worth it as they allow us
to migrate processing away from busy servers towards the client.
The allow tend to carry out their tasks quietly and can turn raw
data into a form that the server can quickly use.
Computer
Graveyard... In these days a computer has a typical useable
age of just one or two years, before it is either cascaded onto
someone who doesn't quite require the most modern computer, or,
as is more typical in modern industry they are retired to the great
computer graveyard in the sky, who are well looked after by some
of the great, but departed innovators of the computer,
Red
flag, green flag... Imagine that you are an army scout who's
job it is to sit on a hill and watch for an attacking army. You
have been given a red flag and a green flag, from which you could
represent two different conditions.
Threads...
The logical extension to multitasking programs is to split a program
into a number of parts (threads) and run each of these on the multitasking
system (multi-threading).
Shortest
first... Multitasking operating systems can run many programs
at the same time, but these must be organized in some way. This
is the task of the process scheduler, which must allow each process
some time on the processor.
Booking
holidays... An important concept in Computing is the differentiation
between a peer-to-peer connection and a client-server connection.
With a client-server connection, servers provide services to clients,
and must wait for clients to connect to these services.
To
distribute, or not... With the advent of networking and the
Internet it is now possible to distribute processing over a network.
An extreme example of this involves The National Foundation for
Cancer Research (NFCR) Centre for Drug Discovery in the Department
of Chemistry at the University of Oxford, England
Trains...
Flags are simple variables which take on a binary state (0 or a
1), and are used to identify that an event has occurred, or to pass
binary information. Semaphores are positive integer values which
can take on any range of values, but can also be binary values (for
mutual exclusion applications).
Deadly
embrace... We've all seen deadlock occurring in real-life, special
with automobiles. Figure 1 illustrates a typical case of deadlock.
In this case two cars are blocking the junction (at A and D), and
do not allow any of the other cars behind them to move.
From
60 upwards... The communications industry has moved from transmitting
a single character every second, to transmission many billions of
characters every second. The great breakthrough has to communicate
faster than someone could type.
History
of Comms... Communication has always been important to mankind,
and a lack of communication in the past has resulted in terrible
wars and tragedies.
Sports
match... Most transmission channels have a restricted bandwidth,
either because of the limitations of the channel or because the
bandwidth is shared between many users.
Sports
match (pt2)...
Sports
match (pt3)...
Dear
Comp. Agent... This is a special edition of the Compression
Agent, and presents some of the most asked questions relating to
data compression.
Dear
Net. Agent...
Dear
Ether. Agent...
Dear
Jargon Buster!...
Dear
Internet Agent...
Dear
Internet Agent II...
Is
HTML dead?... Anyone who says that HTML is dead, and that no-one
really needs to teach it any more, is missing the point. HTML is
as dead as C++ is. Why is it that programming languages, such as
Java, Visual Basic and C++ are still so dominant, even with all
the powerful graphics development tools?
Humans
v. Computers... In 1950, Alan Turing declared that one day computers
have the same intelligence as humans, and proved it with a special
test.
Warehouses
and Cookies... Databases store information in an easy-to-access
format, and they have an increasing role in virtually every area
of computing. Many WWW pages are now generated from a database,
where content is added to the database, and the WWW page reads it
to generate the WWW page.
Programming...
Some programs provide a framework for a user to manipulate data
without the user having to produce their own program. Examples of
this include word processors, spreadsheet programs. and so on.
Programming
II...
Integrating
HTML... HTML is the standard language which is used to present
WWW pages, and is interpreted by the WWW browser.
Multimedia
I... Human history has developed through the storage and distribution
of information. Initially this involved writing and distributing
material in a printed form such as with books, news-papers, leaflets
and posters.
Multimedia
II...
Multimedia
III...
Multimedia
IV...
Hello
XP... I've just upgraded from Microsoft Windows Me (Microsoft
Yuk!) to Microsoft XP Home, and I am totally impressed. In fact
I haven't felt this pleased about an upgrade since Windows 95 transformed
itself from the non pre-emptive, non multi-tasking, Windows 3.1.
Designing:
Packages v. Paper... I used to teach in engineering, and I observed
that computer packages were reducing the amount of actual creative
design, as many system were designed using a package. This was unfortunate
as design should start with abstraction of ideas, and the best place
for abstraction is on paper.
Pencil
first, package later...I get asked many times what package I
use, and my answer is typically the same: anything I can get my
hands on. The key to design is not the package, but the content.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) there has never been a computer package
that can properly encapsulate design ideas.
My
favouriate art... The WWW has created new design techniques,
especially in the layout and presentation of information. For the
first time designers can properly use color, text, images, and all
sorts of content to produce the required effect.
How
to avoid plagerism... Plagiarism is increasing, mainly because
of the WWW. It is so easy to find a relevant site and download whole
pages of material, and then publish it as your own. With a trained
eye you can easily spot it.
WAP...
WAP is a great technology, which has failed to be adopted for several
reasons. The main one is that it has not been promoted properly,
and also that it is still relatively difficult to find useful WAP
sites.
Delphi
and the rest... As an experienced author of several software
development books, and also someone who has had a successful career
in software development, I would like to recommend Delphi as the
language that is the most useful of all.
Towards
a reusable WWW... Reuse and component design have extensively
been applied to software engineering, but reuse and formal design
methods in WWW-based system is still in its infancy. Most WWW developers
currently design WWW content for the most efficient delivery and
do not focus on these factors.
Wireless
networks... Wireless networks use high-frequency radio waves
to transmit from node to node. The 11Mbps IEEE 802.11b standard
has been designed so that nodes can connect using a peer-to-peer
connection (known as an ad-hoc connection) or connect to a wireless
hub (known as an infrastructure connection).
Internet
of the Future... How will the Internet evolve into the future?
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