Little Red Riding Hood goes to Computer Class

Once there was a little village maiden, the most charming ever seen, who wished to learn about computer networks, in order to to understand how collections of computers and other hardware devices that are interconnected, can communicate electronically with one another to share information and resources. She told her mom that she saw an advertisement for a first-rate computer-related program in the Management Information System (MIS) department at a school several villages away which provided courses on how decision makers use preselected information to make good management decisions from data systems involving computers. The young girl’s mother, who was foolishly fond of her, advised the young maiden to try a distance learning program, wherein the learning environment is physically located away from the instructor and other students; instruction and communications take place via the Internet, thus the young damsel could spend her days learning from home and spend more time with her loving mother. Her mother also expounded that she was telecommuting with her own career, where her use of computers and electronic devices enable her to work from home. By using a virtual private network (VPN), the little girl’s mother could access her company’s private computer network resources via a secure path over the Internet. Red’s mother described how videoconferencing allows her to use her computer and a webcam, in conjunction with communications software, to conduct face-to-face meetings over the Internet. If she just wanted to talk to someone by voice, then Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) allowed her to place telephone calls via the Internet. Breathlessly, she persisted that with virtual reality (VR), a person can use a human-like avatar to interact with others on the Internet in a virtualized three-dimensional environment, almost emulating the real world. However, the young lass wanted to attend a traditional school, similar to a brick-and-mortar store, where the learning center, just like the conventional store, had a physical presence instead of just a virtual one. Therefore, the damsel, pulling on the red cloak her grandmother made her, bid farewell to her adoring mother and headed off to the school which taught computer classes.

On her way to the class, the girl with the red cloak encountered a telecomunications expert working on the side of the road. Brimming with curiosity, little red stopped to see what the technician was working on. After some observation, the young girl could clearly see the technician was installing some type of cabling under the street. The technician, upon seeing little red riding hood’s interest, explained that he was pulling fiber-optic cable, a communications medium that utilizes hundreds of thin transparent fibers over which lasers trasmit data as light. Each wavelength of light in the fiber transmits its data via serial transmission where data travels down the same path one after the other, bit by bit. However, with all the separate wavelengths and fibers working in sync, the communication works more in a parallel transmission manner where bytes are data are transmitted simultaneously with each bit taking its own separate path. Thus, the worker explained that the bandwidth, or the amount of data that can be trasmitted over a communications medium at any one time, on the fiber-optic cables was unbelievably faster than any other transfer medium available. The man continued on by explaining that he was here to replace the traditional communications medium consisting of a center wire inside a grounded, cylindrical shield, known as coaxial cable, which would eventually be completely supplanted by fiber lines. Furthermore, the technician showed little red riding hood a box he called an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) which would sit at the terminal stations of the fiber optic lines to provide continuous battery power to the terminal devices in the event of power outages.

After this short diversion, little red riding hood bid adieu to the technician and continued on her journey to school. Just as she crossed over the hill to the next village, she spotted a man working on the roof of someone’s home. She walked closer to spy what was happening when unexpectedly, the man came down to his work van to grab some supplies. At that moment, little red inquired the man what the circular dish he was installing on the roof was for. The man looked at the little girl and said, “My dear child, I was installing a satellite Internet access system for that home. It permits fast, direct Internet access via the airwaves using a satellite dish and modem. The modem is a communications device that enables computers to communicate over analog media, such as the satellite wireless transmissions, to connect to the Internet.” Little red stared at the man in awe as he continued, “A communication satellite which sits in orbit around the Earth relays communication signals over long distances to this satellite dish and other ones like it which I have installed all around the neighborhood.” The helpful expert also described to little red riding hood about other types of wireless technologies. He told her that there are also microwave stations which are earth-based and can send and receive high-frequency, high-speed radio signals for information transmission. In addition, he explained to the young girl that her cell phone has mobile wireless Internet access which allows Internet access via the celluar phone wireless communications network. He stated that most often, the mobile wireless connections utilize wireless application protocol (WAP) as the standard method for delivering content, such as Web pages to mobile devices. In conjunction with WAP, Wireless Markup Language (WML) is the language used on WAP-enabled devices to display and format web pages. He persisted on that however, some smartphones such as the iPhone, use Wi-Fi (802.11), or the widely used communications standard for regular computer wireless networks, to connect to the Internet. Before little red could absorb all of this information, the satellite man made a final remark that Wi-MAX, an up-and-coming wireless networking standard, will eventually replace Wi-Fi because of its greater speed and longer range. With so much to take in, little red riding hood hastily thanked the stranger and went on her jolly way.

After about an hour of trekking through the forest, the young girl finally reached the secluded meadows where the school was located. As she approached the impressive building, she heard a strange alarm sound. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a robot, a electronic device, in this case controlled by computer, that reacted to her movement through sensory inputs. The robot was apparently developed by a team of highly innovative robotics engineers who must have studied a full range robot technologies avidly. The way the robot interacted in its environment, and with little red, showed it utilized a sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) system which performs action that are characteristic of human intelligence. The AI system must have made use of a neural network which uses a computer system to expertly emulate a human brain’s pattern-recognition process. After some time, the robot, in a terrible voice exclaimed, “Proximity card not detected, please state password.” Little red remembered that a proximity card was like a identification card with a build-in smart card or RFID technology which could be used to remotely access things. Since she didn’t have one, her only option was to state the password, a secret combination of characters or word(s) used to gain access to a computer or entrance to something. Unfortunately, the young girl had none of the items requested. A bit wary and frightened, little red tried to slowly back away from the robot and back into the forest. After taking only one step, little red halted because the robot leaped to her side. A small panel opened and the robot declared, “Insert smart card or hand.” The young lass shook her head with a frown as she knew she did not have a smart card, a credit card-sized piece of plastic containing a chip and other circuits which data can be stored, and had to comply with the other choice. Fearful to disobey, little red riding hood slid her hand into a designated slot in the robot’s torso. After two seconds, the robot swiftly shifted away and its voiced affirmed, “Biometric scan passed.” After thinking a bit, little red decided that there must have been some type of biometric access system in the robot which allowed a unique physical characteristic of hers to allow her to pass.

Carefully walking on, little red riding hood entered the majestic school of computer technologies. Inside its wide halls, the little girl saw a middle-aged, slender man working with a clump of wires and cables in the corner. As she approached, the man took notice of little red and with a big smile, advanced to greet her. The man introduced himself as professor Zed and apologized for the robot guard in the front courtyard. “We have a wolf problem in the forest surrounding the school, you see, so we had to take some precautionary measures to prevent those tricky animals from disguising themselves and entering our establishment,” said the professor. Little red laughed, thinking that the professor’s reasoning must be flawed; the error in reasoning similar to a logic error, where a calculated result or behavior is incorrect because of some type of programming error. After catching her breath, little red asked the professor, “Is it possible for me to take some computer classes here?” With a sigh, the professor explained to little red that the school had financial difficulties and had to fire most of the staff. Now only he remained to take care of the premises while instruction delivered via the web, or web-based training, was still being offered from the school’s website. Little red exclaimed, “Then who teaches the online courses?!” Professor Zed clarified to little red that today’s businesses have embraced outsourcing, or the turning over of certain tasks and jobs to an outside vendor which has lower labor costs, and that the online teachers were in fact located in India or China.

Wide-eyed and not believing what she was hearing, little red riding hood started to cry. The professor gently comforted the little girl and said to her, “How about it, while you are here, let me teach you a thing or two about computers.” Filled with delight, little red readily accepted. The professor decided he would start with the basics of networking, as he was working on pulling network cabling when little red had entered the school. They both walked over to the mess of cables in the corner and he began to lecture. “First of all, these cables are to be used in an local area network (LAN), a network that connects devices located in a small geographical area, such as within this building. The network can be set up as intranet, or a private network that is similar to the Internet and accessed via a Web browser. Sometimes we require authorized outsider to partially access our internal network, and that type of set up is known as an extranet. The predecessor of the Internet was called ARPANET because of the Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (ARPA) help in the development stages. In terms of physical layout, the network can be one of four varieties. The original networks were set up in a bus network where all the devices connect to each other through a central cable in a linear fashion. Token ring networks are similar to bus but instead of a central cable , the devices in this network connect to each other one to the next, in a loop. The third variety involves the star network where devices connect to each other using a central device, such as a switch or hub. Although the star network is the most common of topologies, the fourth mesh network is also a network layout which uses a combination of the previous topologies, with redundant connections, to provide a more enduring network for emergency situations. What is important to remember is that the all devices on any of the networks require a network adapter, such as a network interface, expansion card to allow a connection. The network interface card (NIC) is the physical expansion card through which a computer can connect to a network.” Little red absorbed all of the lesson, but was curious to learn more. So the professor continued, “Once a network is too large, and must be divided into separate networks, you need a router to efficiently route the data travelling in the line to the various specific locations. If you are connected to the Internet, a firewall is used to protect the network from unauthorized acccess. A firewall can also help in the prevention of computer worms, malicious programs designed to spread rapidly to large numbers of computer through system vulnerabilities, and denial of service (DOS) attacks, where an act of sabotage attempts to flood a network server or workstation with so much activity that it is unable to function.”

After the computer lesson, little red head was filled with a host of new and wonderful information she had to process in her mind. She daydreamed that she could be a systems analyst where she could evaluate the development of a computer or network system and determine which problems should be resolved. Or she pictured herself a programmer, a person whose job it was to write, test, and maintain computer programs. Or she could be a web designer and use web site authoring software such as Dreamweaver or Microsoft Frontpage to develop amazing websites for the world to see. Whatever it was she was going to be when she grew, she knew one thing for certain. Little red riding hood had a most tiring and adventureous day today and she knew it was time to go home. She thanked professor Zed for his time and tutoring lesson and decisively called it a day.