Yahoo is a search engine and personal account management service in one user profile. Although one can use the Yahoo search engine without signing into one’s personal account, signing in allows one to use a variety of additional services such as Yahoo Mail, GeoCities, FreeCycle, Yahoo Answers, and personalized information regarding one’s local weather forecasts, stock portfolios, and news. Although Yahoo has lost quite a bit of support over recent years, it is still considered one of the most popular search engine companies in the world.   What is Yahoo Read More

A routing protocol is the implementation of a routing algorithm in software or hardware. A routing protocol uses metrics to determine which path to utilize to transmit a packet across an internetwork. The metrics that routing protocols use include: Number of network layer devices along the path (hop count) Bandwidth Delay Load MTU Cost Routing protocols store the results of these metrics in a routing table. A router connects different networks with each other to share packets of data. To route a packet, a router needs to know: Destination IP Read More

The AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) developed and maintains the SAS 70 (Statement on Auditing Standard 70). Specifically, SAS 70 is a “Report on the Processing of Transactions by Service Organizations” where professional standards are set up for a service auditor that audits and assesses a service organization’s internal controls. At the end of the audit, the service auditor issues an important report called the “Service Auditor’s Report.” A service organization can be defined as a business or entity that provides outsourcing services. These outsourcing services can, and Read More

OBEX (Object Exchange) is primarily a communications protocol. The Infrared Data Association maintains the protocol standard and is sometimes referred to as Infrared OBEX or IrOBEX. The protocol’s primary purpose is to exchange binary objects between two devices. As a result, the OBEX protocol acts similar to the HTTP protocol and lets the user’s computer make requests from the server or send pictures, calendar entries, files, business/vCards to the server. What Type of Networks Use the OBEX Protocol? The OBEX protocol is normally used with ad hoc wireless networks. Prior Read More

The term polyphonic has several related, but different, meanings. Merriam-Webster defines polyphony as "a style of musical composition employing two or more simultaneous but relatively independent melodic lines." Wikipeda defines polyphony as "a musical texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony)." A second meaning was added to the term polyphony with the introduction of music synthesizers. Early synthesizers were only able to sound one note at a time. Read More

Scan Disk is one of the most common maintenance tools bundled with an operating system such as Windows. This is an application that checks the computer’s hard drive for errors and bad sectors. Once Scan Disk finds an error in the hard drive, it will attempt to fix it. There are a number of reasons for the errors found inside a hard drive. These include: frequent system crashes critical system applications that have been improperly closed the existence of harmful programs such as viruses, trojans, etc. What Does Scan Disk Read More

A smart card is a mini computer which requires programming to run. A smart card doesn’t contain an interface-like display or keyboard, so smart card readers are used to read or update the data tofrom smart cards. Smart cards contain an operating system which provides a platform to run applications. Smart card operating systems can be divided into two categories. The first kind of operating system is based on the Disk Drive approach. This operating system contains an active memory manager which can load any file or application in the Read More

The Recycle Bin icon is one that sits on the desktop of most Windows based operating systems. The Recycle Bin’s purpose is to offer simple access to items that were deleted to either: A. Free up space so that new information can be saved on the hard disk, or B. Restore items that were accidentally deleted. Sometimes a Recycle Bin can be deleted accidentally or removed by malicious software. Access to the Recycle Bin functions is not entirely disabled when this happens, but it takes additional steps to get to Read More

A transponder is an automatic electronic monitoring or control device that receives, cross-examines, amplifies and retransmits the arriving signal. It is primarily implemented in wireless communication. The word ‘Transponder’ itself is a combination of two words; transmitter and responder (occasionally abbreviated to TPDR, TR, XPNDR, and XPDR). A transponder works by receiving a signal on a component called “interrogator” since it effectively inquires for information, then automatically transmitting a radio wave signal at a predestined frequency. In order to broadcast a signal on a dissimilar frequency than the one received, Read More

An Overview on Authentication and Smart Cards Administrators have to secure the network from attacks launched by hackers, spies, terrorists, thieves and criminals. Security encompasses numerous technologies, protocols, standards, policies, passwords, and secret keys. All these mechanisms typically focus on the following: Authentication Access Control Data Protection Auditing/Accountability Authentication is the process by which an entity identifies itself, before network logon is permitted. After a user is authenticated, access control defines what resources can be accessed, what actions can be performed on the resource, and whether these actions are audited Read More