Evolution of technology - the growth

Growing up in the early 90s, only a handful of our neighbors owned television boxes and 99% of these were black & white screens. It was always a normal habit to knock at your buddies house door at 8:30 pm just to catch up on the captivating local drama Tausi on television. We all had something to say about Rukia, a lead actress in it. Radio stations were 2 or 3 with two of those being KBC English service & KBC Swahili stations. This is when sun-downer  was the coolest music session. I must admit i used to listen to my neighbors every evening since they couldn't miss the show.

A black & white TV with a multicolored screen                

It is unbelievable how technology & gadgets have caught up with us in just a short period of less than 2 decades. We are now having approximately 2 Million television set owners are in the rural areas while 1.4 Million live in the urban centers. These gadgets are now easily available and not only that but the technology has improved so much that we subscribe for TV viewing. We are now seeing introduction of more and more computer training in schools starting at the lower level of primary. As for mobile phones that's a whole new revelation.

An IT teacher in session


A young students class being introduced to computers

Computer lessons in schools has grown in the recent past as more and more people take up computers to run their lives. The government & non-government institutions have increased their support tremendously in the supply of computers to schools to enable our young be tech savvy at an early age. I remember that it was just the other day 2004 that i opened my first email address, Yahoo! of course. With a funny name that would have been an embarrassment to keep to-date.

Yahoo email logo 

The combination of multiple solutions into one gadget like a smartphone has completely changed how we learn and communicate.This has also totally revolutionized how we receive and propagate information. Smartphones have combined the different technologies and services into one, we have radios, TV, music players, internet among others all in one.

As we continue to witness this revolution with more and more innovations, we can agree that we are now under the rule of the machines, the computers. We have a new culture connecting the whole world, we are now a digital people using machines to accomplish tasks faster & more efficiently than ever in all areas of our lives. 


Technology in our hands

The world at our finger tips today.

Wi-Fi vs Wired/Ethernet technology..

According to Janko Roettgers of Gigaon, Wi-Fi will reign supreme by 2015, for the first time causing more worldwide IP traffic than wired devices, according to new data from Cisco. However, mobile network operators aren't off the hook just yet: Their networks will see data consumption grow 26-fold from 2010 to 2015.

He was talking on a report released by Cisco & here are some other key findings of the report;      --Global IP traffic will reach 966 Exabytes per year in 2015, up from 242 Exabytes in             2010.

• --The biggest driver for the global traffic growth will be video, which will account for 62 percent of consumer Internet traffic in 2015 (up from 40 percent in 2010).

• --P2P growth will slow, and P2P traffic will only account for 16 percent of global consumer Internet traffic in 2015 (down from 40 percent in 2010).

• --The Asia-Pacific region will become the biggest source of IP traffic, consuming 24.1 Exabytes per month in 2015, compared to 22.3 Exabytes per month for North America. In 2010, North America was ahead with 7 Exabytes, with the Asia-Pacific region seeing 5.4 Exabytes per month.

• --Worldwide, the average Internet household will consume 61.8 GB of bandwidth per month in 2015. Last year, it consumed merely 17.1 GB per month. A growing chunk of this bandwidth will be caused by passive networking, e.g. a PC downloading a software update in the background.

Lets compare Wi-Fi & Wired networks..


Wi-Fi is the industry name for wireless local area network (WLAN) communication technology related to the IEEE 802.11 family of wireless networking standards. BTW Wi-fi is a not the short name for Wireless Fidelity as many think. It isn't a short form of anything (read more  http://boingboing.net/2005/11/08/wifi-isnt-short-for.html)

The 802.11 standard is defined through several specifications of WLANs. It defines an over-the-air interface between a wireless client and a base station or between two wireless clients.

WiFi standards include -- 

802.11: This pertains to wireless LANs and provides 1- or 2-Mbps transmission in the 2.4-GHz band using either frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) or direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS)

802.11a: This is an extension to 802.11, that pertains to wireless LANs and goes as fast as 54 Mbps in the 5-GHz band. 802.11a employs the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) encoding scheme as opposed to either FHSS or DSSS.

802.11b: The 802.11 high rate Wi-Fi is an extension to 802.11 that pertains to wireless LANs and yields a connection as fast as 11 Mbps transmission (with a fallback to 5.5, 2, and 1 Mbps depending on strength of signal) in the 2.4-GHz band. The 802.11b specification uses only DSSS. Note that 802.11b was actually an amendment to the original 802.11 standard added in 1999 to permit wireless functionality to be analogous to hard-wired Ethernet connections.

802.11g: This pertains to wireless LANs and provides 20+ Mbps in the 2.4-GHz band.

Five Reasons to Go Wireless

1. Increased mobility and collaboration

2. Better access to information

3. Easier network expansion

4. Enhanced guest access

5. Improved responsiveness

Wired Networks.. also known as Ethernet; Is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks (LANs). Its a system for connecting a number of computer systems to form a local area network, with protocols to control the passing of information and to avoid simultaneous transmission by two or more systems.

There are three basic systems people use to set up wired networks. An Ethernet system uses either a twisted copper-pair or coaxial-based transport system. The most commonly used cable for Ethernet is a category 5 unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable -- it's useful for businesses who want to connect several devices together, such as computers and printers, but it's bulky and expensive, making it less practical for home use.

Depending on how many computers you're working with, the office layout and other factors -- a wired network may make more sense than a wireless one.

Some of the major advantages of a wired network include;

Security

As wired networks are connected by physically plugging in a cable from one device to another, it is much more difficult to access them without authorization

Reliability

Wired networks bring with them a reliable, constant download and upload speed unaffected by the environment. As these networks are closed off and don't travel through the air, they aren't susceptible to fluctuations in speed or interference from other wireless devices. 

Distance

The fastest 802.11n Wi-Fi speed currently in widespread use can achieve a maximum range of 250 feet in the most ideal conditions, although substandard hardware, interference from other devices and physical obstacles such as walls and floors can substantially reduce this distance. Ethernet cabling, in contrast, can stretch up to 330 feet without any loss of quality. If you have a lot of floor space to cover, then a wired solution enables you to stretch your network further than a wireless one.

Ease of Use

The details depend on the computers and devices on your network, but broadly speaking, plugging an Ethernet cable into a laptop or printer is enough for it to recognize the network and get connected. There's no playing around with scanning for available networks, inputting security keys or trying to locate an area with a strong Wi-Fi signal.

There you have it. You now have a clue on the differences between the two types of networks. I personally prefer a wired connection when i need reliability & a wireless for its..wait for it..well for its "wirelessness"! 

We are going paperless!

There are many reasons why a company may decide to go paperless – to make documents easier to find and share, to free up valuable space in your office or to save a few trees. Whatever your reasons, there are many benefits to going paperless.

Zach  LeBar of tutsplus. dot com writes  "We're going paperless!" seems to be the statement of our time. Banks and phone companies remind us of that, while adding an extra fee for paper statements at the same time. Businesses post internal memos about going paperless, and you've likely decided to do so yourself when looking at the prices of file cabinets for your home office.

How true is this paperless thing?

I bet you have seen how of late the local banks, Kenya power, your college, your gas station are slowly turning you to a paperless customer. I must admit its just recently my local bank sent me a text informing me of their plans to ditch the monthly postal mail statement. For sure, i sometimes stay several months without collecting those mails and i bet its time they stopped wasting trees. 

Did you know that 30 million trees as the common estimate for the number of trees cut down annually for the production of books sold in the U.S. alone, that's according to ecolibris dot net.

Maybe it time we conserved our trees by going paperless. Me thinks its long overdue too.