Weekend

Ok it is the weekend before finals for all of my eight week courses and I find out that I will have to go Baton Rouge for a funeral. Imagine having to drive to Louisiana and back in one day while having to deal with family after a loved one has passed. It was an extremely long trip there even though it only took two hours it seemed like forever. When I got back I had to start studying and working on my final project. This was one of the longest days ever.

Finals

This week has started my finals in all of my eight week courses. These finals have started to really get annoying and I am glad that come Wednesday I will be done with these classes. Monday started with one final and my final project due and Wednesday I will take the second final for this class. This final is stressing me out because our teacher allowed us to look at the final because he figured it wouldn't make any difference weather or not we knew what was on this test.

Questions

1. Is the paper too technical.
2. What would be a good way to revise it.

Rough Draft

Reform of the Campus Network

The campus network has many problems and due to these problems it is plagued with down time. Some of the problems are due to the lack of equipment and some is due to the fact of outdated protocols and operating systems. The current network is established with multiple points of failure. The campus is also using the 2.4 Ghz frequency and this frequency can be used up by any piece of electronic equipment that uses this frequency.

The design of the network also has a lot to be desired. There are many points in the design that disperse the work load but at the point of the internet it has one point of failure. To resolve this problem there needs to be multiple exit points throughout the campus network. This allows for one piece of equipment to be brought down for maintenance while the other takes care of all routing of traffic. There should also be a backup to the backup this is because if during the maintenance there is a failure the backups backup can take over. This also goes to a good rule of thumb that most network engineers go by and that is for every link there should be two backups.

As for the lack of equipment the campus doesn’t have enough access points. It isn’t that they do not own enough of them it is that they do not use them efficiently. The campus should have an overlap of fifteen percent in the wireless range. They do have this but the downfall is where they got there information. The technical briefs for the equipment give a general range of use but does not account for line of sight issues. This could be fixed by the rearrangement of equipment and instead of using the technical briefs they use field studies and visually see what could be causing interference in the line of sight.

Another problem with the network is that the frequency used by wireless networks is 2.4 Ghz. This is only a problem because there is only eleven channels that this uses and they can be used up by the use of too many 2.4Ghz electronics. The solution for this is not easy and could be controversial. There is no way to change the wireless frequency so to fix this problem you have to remove as many 2.4Ghz electronic devices as possible. You could do this by prohibiting phones and other devices that work on this frequency.

One of my most dreaded problems is the outdated systems. The system that causes me the most grief is the ORCA accounts. This system is a Linux based system that seems to not have ever been updated. This is a very simple fix all that is required is an update of the operating system. This can be done at midnight if need be but it should be done.

The final problem that I have noticed is that there is no kind of authentication. This can cause a problem in that if students using the network are trying to buy stuff from any website their credit card and identity is out in the open. This means that anyone can grab their credit card number or social security number or any other vital information. This is the worse of the problems with the network because this can cause life long problems for students, such as bad credit.

Family

My view points on family may differ than some but to me there is a pretty simple way to describe family. Family will always be there for you regardless end of story and therefore you should always be there for your family. Don't let anyone disrespect your family or hurt your family because no matter how many friends you have chances are they won't be there for you in twenty years but you family will. Friends are great don't get me wrong but if they disrespect your family then they aren't true friends. Never put family aside for anyone no matter how important you think that someone is.

Eight Week Classes

I have two eight week courses this semester and they are extremely difficult. The courses are fast and there isn't much time to get all of your work done. Along with that at the end of these courses there is what is called a skills based assessment which if you don't pass you fail the entire course regardless of your test scores. I just finished up my first eight week and am starting on my second, but after this one I still have two more that I have to take to graduate.

A Soldiers Welcome Home

Well for those of you who don't know I have a twin brother in the military and he has been deployed over seas for about a year and a half now. He is fixing to come home now and honestly its about damn time. My brother and I have always been pretty close and now we are even closer. I can't wait to go home this weekend and see him for the first time in almost a year(because he got two weeks leave midway through his deployment). My dad, brother and I are all looking forward to sitting on our front porch and smoking a good cigar together along with a good cold beer.