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IT for Non-Techies

Brett Richard
Bob Davis
Idaho Department of Labor
IT for Non-Techies

 Intro/Bio
 The Basics
 Internet
 Telecommunications
 Telephony
 New Trends & Technologies
IT for Non-Techies

 My Background
 BSCS University of Idaho
 Idaho Dept of Labor – 8 years
 Mostly Software Development
 COBOL, RPG, Visual Basic, ASP
 Development Manager
 Our goal is to explain some terms and
answer some questions about technology
 Questions? – Go ahead and ask.
The Basics
 Mainframes
 Large computers
 Typically a centralized computing model
 Used “dumb” terminals
 Servers
 Provide services to other computers
 Database Servers, Web Servers
 Wait for a request, then respond quickly
 Personal Computers (PC)
 A computer designed for a single user
 Richer functionality – graphics, etc
The Basics
 Databases / Relational Databases
 An organized place to store your data
 Data stored in tables
 Each table has multiple rows/records
 Tables are related by keys – hence relational
The Basics

 Relational Databases
 Easier to:
 Get data in
 Get data out
 Expand and change data structures, types, and sizes
The Basics

 Data Warehousing (aka OLAP)


 Operate on top of a relational database
 Organize data to allow easier retrieval of data for
reporting
 Put data into cubes
 Good for analyzing data in ways you can’t (or
shouldn’t) with OLTP
 Not good for updating data
 Usually take a periodic snapshot from production data
 Normally housed on a separate server
The Basics

 Mainframe Terms
 COBOL, CICS, Assembler
 Mainframe programming languages
 Batch
 A job that runs without user interaction – often at night
 On-line
 A job that interacts directly with the user (often CICS)
 Viewing records, updating records…
Internet Basics
 What is the Internet?
 A worldwide system of computer networks
 Millions of computers
 Multiple servers and connections ensure stability
 No single point of failure
 World Wide Web
 The part of the Internet that uses HTTP/web pages
 Also e-mail & FTP
 TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)
 Set of rules that describe how information is transferred
on the network
 It’s the nuts & bolts of the internet, and probably the
network in your office as well.
Internet Basics
 HTML
 HyperText Markup Language
 Just a way to describe how to display text, and allow links
from one document to another
 Tags mixed with text to tell the browser how to display the
information
 Example: <b>This text is bold</b>
 Basically just pages of text & images
 HTTP
 HyperText Transfer Protocol
 Defined rules for transferring HTML pages
Internet Basics
 Intranet
 Private network that provides functionality similar to the Internet

 Limited to one enterprise or company

 Extranet
 An intranet that is shared with other entities

 Not publicly accessible

 Firewall
 Protects resources on a private network

 Often on dedicated hardware

 Internet Applications
 Need to be able to do more than just present a document

 ASP (Active Server Pages) & Java

 UI Technology Matrix
Internet – Domain Names

 Domain Names
 Meaningful and easy-to-remember "handle" for an
Internet address.
 www.mycompany.com
 Map to IP Addresses
 125.134.10.205
 .com, .org, .net, .us, .biz, .ws, etc, etc
 .gov is carefully controlled
 See www.internic.net or www.nic.gov
Internet – Domain Names

Taken from:
www.nic.gov
Internet – Domain Names

 Keep them short, descriptive, easy to


remember
 Anyone can register for +-$10/year
 Can have site hosted for as little as $1/month
Internet

 Portal
 A portal is a website that serves as a good
starting site for users
 Brings together a variety of information the user is
likely to be interested in
 Yahoo, Excite, AOL, etc
Internet Security
 The Internet is loosely connected, and loosely
secured.
 Need to make sure no-one can intercept data
between website and browser
 Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Encryption
 Even if they grab it, it’s very difficult to decrypt
 There should be a LOCKED PADLOCK image in the
lower right of the browser – that’s how you know your
data is encrypted
Internet Security
 Need to make sure that customers are who they
say they are
 PIN’s and Passwords
 Should you buy stuff from the Internet?
 Yes, if:
 It’s a site you trust
 It’s secured with SSL (See the padlock)
Internet & E-mail
 SPAM
 Unwanted e-mail, especially mass
e-mail marketing
 Name comes from a Monty Python
skit
 Spam spam spam spam spam and
eggs
 No matter what you ordered, you
got this spam with it…
 Hormel Spiced Ham
 One person’s spam is another
person’s ham
 Try SpamBayes or similar software
 Just delete them – best not to
respond
Internet Filtering
 Restricting Pages users can visit
 Keywords
 Known bad sites
 Can be done at an enterprise level or
for an individual machine
 IDOL uses WebSense
 PC packages
 Cybersitter, NetNanny, CyberPatrol, etc etc
 None of them block every bad site
Internet & Viruses
 What’s a virus?
 A program that
 Propagates itself (usually)
 Does something unwanted
 What can they do?
 Delete files – cause you to lose data
 Send annoying message
 May act immediately, may lay dormant
 Annoy your friends
 What can’t they do?
 Set you computer on fire
 Completely ruin your computer
Internet & Viruses
 How do I get one?
 Get and run a program that is infected
 Open e-mail attachment that is infected
 What should you do or not do?
 Don’t run programs you don’t trust
 Do consider using antivirus software.
 Will scan files periodically and e-mail attachments
 Keep the software updated (we update nightly)
 99% of what our AV software finds is in e-mail
 Virus Hoaxes
 If you get this e-mail, run screaming from the room
 Cost as much as actual viruses
 www.vmyths.com
Telecommunications
 Dial-Up
 Call Internet Service Provider (ISP) using standard modem
 28-56 Thousand Bits per Second (Kbps)
 Ties up your phone line
 DSL (Digital Subscriber Line)
 256-640 Thousand Bits per Second (Kbps)
 Shares existing phone lines. Can also use phone
 Cable Modems
 500K – 1Million Bits per Second
 Uses existing cable with Cable TV
Telecommunications
 T1
 1.544 Million Bits per Second
 Enough bandwidth for a medium sized office
 DS3
 44.7 Million Bits per Second
 Separate into multiple T1’s, Support very large
office, etc
 Switches, Routers & Hubs
 Hardware that manages/transfers data packets on
a network
IP Telephones
 Also known as Voice Over IP (VOIP)

 Standard phones work with an


analog signal

 IP Phones digitize the data and send


it as packets over a TCP/IP network.
(Like the Internet)
IP Telephones – How do they
work?
 Signal is sampled and digitized, then sent as
packets over the network
IP Telephones - Why?
 Manage calls like other data
 Coordinate Calls with Applications
 Manage who gets calls
 Track call information
 Virtual Call Center
 Manage phones as intelligent devices
 Just take it with you and plug it in
 Eliminate long distance charges
 Unified Messaging
 Voice messages in e-mail inbox
New Trends and Technologies
 Open Source
 The Open Source movement is a loose group
of volunteer programmers who build software
and give it away – Yes, for free
 Why would they do that?
 Because they enjoy it
 The sense of community and cooperation
 Who Knows?
New Trends and Technologies

 Open Source
 Can’t be any good for free, right?
 Linux
 Recognized as highly reliable and stable
 MySQL
 ASP.Net IBuySpy Portal/Rainbow Portal
 In use today at Idaho Dept of Labor
 OpenOffice (Similar to MS Office)
 Functionality can be somewhat limited
New Trends and Technologies

 XML
 eXtensible Markup Language
 A set of rules to define data as plain text rather
than in proprietary binary representations.*
 Data Exchange
 Human Readable
 Looks like HTML
 Example: <name>John Smith</name>
 Widely Supported by many Vendors
 Relational Databases Support XML *Computerworld, May 19, 2003
New Trends and Technologies

 Web Services
 Services (programs) available on the
Internet/Intranet for use by other programs
 Based on XML
 How would we use web services?
 A list of all jobs for a specific employer
 They send us a request with an employer number
 We return an xml document that contains the data
 They format the data to fit their site
New Trends and Technologies
 Peer to Peer File Sharing
 Allow users to share data between each other
 Napster
 Had some central coordination
 Kazaa
 Truer Peer to Peer
 Optimized to share and copy files across the Internet
 eDonkey, Gnutella, BitTorrent
 Not just sharing music
 Deploying Software (Linux Red Hat)
 Reduced dependence on single source
 Many legitimate uses
New Trends and Technologies
 Wireless Networks (Wi-Fi)
 User can connect PC to the network through a
wireless connection
 Wireless network card is required
 PC or Laptops
 10 Mbps or faster
 802.11(a,b,g) – Wireless LAN Standard
 WarChalking
 Drive around with an active wireless card
 Identify and mark open wireless access points
New Trends and Technologies

 Telecommuting
 Using telecommunications to be able to work from
home instead of the workplace
 Broadband (DSL & Cable Modems) enables this
 Similar concerns as people working on site
 How do I know if they’re doing the right things?
New Trends and Technologies
 Hardware - Monitors
 CRT – Cathode Ray Tube
 The same technology as your TV set
 Flat Panel Displays
 LCD – Liquid Crystal Display
 Thin, flat screens
 Use less energy, generate less heat
 Still more expensive, but they’re cheaper
every day
 Also LED and Gas Plasma – but these less
common
New Trends and Technologies

 Hardware – Devices
 A device can be just about any piece of hardware
 Laptops
 Personal Digital Assistants (PDA)
 Palm Computers
 Combined Devices
 Phone/PDA/Internet Browser/e-mail
Other Acronyms & Terms
 WAN – Wide Area Network  CICS – Customer
 LAN – Local Area Network Information Control System
 VSAM – Virtual Storage
 DNS – Domain Name Access Method
System  SQL – Structured Query
 ATM – Asynchronous Language
Transfer Mode  SAN – Storage Area
 Cluster – 2 or more servers Network
configured to fail over in  Web Farm – Multiple web
case one breaks servers linked together to
service web requests
Where to Find More Info…
www.WhatIs.com
www.google.com


 Good definitions of IS terms
 www.internic.net  Google has it all
 Information about Internet  www.howstuffworks.com
Domain Names  Just like it says…
 www.nic.gov  www.vmyths.com
 Information about .gov
registration and domain names
 Virus Hoax site
 www.w3.org
 World Wide Web Consortium
(w3c)
 Web Standards Setting Body
 Good background info on html,
xml

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