What Is The Difference Between a Router and a Switch (or Hub)?

A network router is a more sophisticated network device compared to either a network switch or a network hub. Like hubs and switches, routers are typically small, box-like pieces of equipment that multiple computers can connect to. Each features a number of ports on the front or back of the unit that provide the connection points for these computers, a connection for electric power, and a number of LED lights to display device status. While routers, hubs and switches all share similar physical appearance, routers differ substantially in their inner workings.
Traditional routers are designed to join together multiple local area networks (LANs) with a wide area network (WAN). Routers serve as intermediate destinations for network traffic. They receive incoming network packets, look inside each packet to identify the source and target network addresses, then forward these packets where needed to ensure the data reaches its final destination.
Routers for home networks (often called broadband routers) are designed specifically to join the home (LAN) to the Internet (WAN) for the purpose of Internet connection sharing. In contrast, switches (and hubs) are not capable of joining multiple networks or sharing an Internet connection. A network with only switches (hubs) must instead designate one computer as the gateway to the Internet, and that device must possess two network adapters for sharing, one for the home LAN and one for the Internet WAN. With a router, all home computers connect to the router as peers, and the router performs all gateway functions.
Additionally, broadband routers contain several features beyond those of traditional routers such as integrated DHCP server and network firewall support. Most notably, though, broadband routers typically incorporate a built-in Ethernet switch. This allows several switches (hubs) to be connected to them, as a means to expand the local network to accommodate more Ethernet devices.

How Mashup works...

Brief History of Mashups

During the early days of mashups, programmers usually had to screen scrape websites just to obtain useful data. Today, major players such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have allowed users and mashup creators to utilize their maps for their applications in the hopes of getting more exposure for their products and to gain deeper market penetration and wider market distribution. This has opened the gates for the increasing rate of mashup site creation.

A mashup is anything that results from a combination of data from different sources. Mashups could be accessed and found across the World Wide Web. It is considered to be one of the new types of web content today – an indication of the Web 2.0 phenomenon.
A mashup usually refers to the merging of two or more sets of content from different sources using a web application. A good example of a mashup site is the www.chicagocrime.org. This website is a result of the merging or “mashup” of Google maps and Chicago’s crime database.
Mashups have also been applied in real estate. Maps from a certain website are merged with data from another source so that information about houses for sale in a certain area could be produced using a virtual map.

Mashups today could be classified according to their content and sources. The most common types of mashups are as follows:

• Mapping mashups
• News mashups
• Video and photo mashups
• Shopping and search mashups

How a Mashup Works

Mashups usually rely on the web applications that allow web pages to be updated real time without the need to refresh the entire page on every update.
The mashup succeeds if three components successfully connects and collaborates to be able to come up with a good mashup. The components are the client’s browser, the mashup website, and the online data sources or the API providers. Mashups work in different ways.
Mapping mashups requires a mapping source which could provide a visual presentation of the area or location that is involved in the process. The source for the type of data or information that the mashup will contain is also required. This data will then be plotted on the map in a graphical or visual manner by the application.
News mashups work on the concept of putting up a specific collection of news that a certain user or client wants or usually prefers and then presents them in one collective method.
Video and photo mashups rely on photo and video content providers together with another data source that could provide any information that could be related to such multimedia content. These could include the places or locations of photos and videos taken. These locations or addresses could then be used for geographical plotting for visual reference.
Shopping and search mashups works on the idea of comparing product prices and specifications using a search method. The search results from various online sources could then be compiled or mashed-up for the surfer’s convenience.

the birth of Windows 8...

Windows 8 is the next version of Microsoft Windows, a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablets, and home theater PCs. The release to manufacturing (RTM) is expected around July 2012 although Windows 8 will be available to users only after general availability is announced.^[2] Windows 8's server counterpart, Windows Server 2012, is in development concurrently with Windows 8. The most recent official pre-release version of Windows 8 is the Release Preview, which was released on May 31, 2012.
According to the Windows Design Team, Windows 8 has been "reimagined from the chipset to the user experience,"^[3] whereas Windows 7 was intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line.^[4] Windows 8 features a new user interface based on Microsoft's Metro design language, similar to that in Windows Phone. The new interface is designed to better suit touchscreen input, along with traditional mouse and keyboard input. A version of Windows 8, called Windows RT, also adds support for the ARM processor architecture in addition to the previously supported x86 microprocessors from Intel, AMD and VIA.^[5]

Metro UI
Windows 8 will employ a new user interface based on Microsoft's Metro design language. The Metro environment will feature a new tile-based Start screen similar to that of the Windows Phone operating system. Each tile will represent an application, and will be able to display relevant information such as the number of unread messages on the tile for an e-mail app or the current temperature on a weather application. Metro-style applications run in full-screen, and are able to share information between each other using "contracts".^[39] They will be available only through Windows Store.^[40] Metro-style apps are developed with the new Windows Runtime platform using various programming languages (or in the case of HTML, a mark-up language) including: C++, Visual Basic, C#, and HTML/JavaScript.
The traditional desktop environment for running desktop applications is treated as a Metro app. The Start button has been removed from the taskbar in favor of a Start button on the new charm bar, as well as a hotspot in the bottom-left corner. Both open the new Start screen, which replaces the Start menu.^[41]
The boot manager, which is used at startup to select the operating system now uses a graphical interface that allows touch and mouse input. It can also be expanded via the settings menu.^[42]

Passive and Active Matrix...

• An active matrix display has a thin film transistor that arranges a matrix (grid) of tiny capacitors and transistors on the display's glass. To activate a particular pixel, the appropriate row is turned on while a signal is transmitted along the correct column. The capacitor at that pixel can hold its charge for one screen refresh cycle.
• A passive matrix display, on the other hand, makes use of a grid of conductive metal to activate each pixel. These monitors are less expensive than active matrix displays, but they have slow response times and don't reproduce colors as accurately.

NSFnet...

The National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) was a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) beginning in 1985 to promote advanced research and education networking in the United States.^[1] NSFNET was also the name given to several nationwide backbone networks that were constructed to support NSF's networking initiatives from 1985-1995. Initially created to link researchers to the nation's NSF-funded supercomputing centers, through further public funding and private industry partnerships it developed into a major part of the Internet backbone.

History.
Following the deployment of the Computer Science Network (CSNET), a network that provided Internet services to academic computer science departments, in 1981, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) aimed to create an academic research network facilitating access by researchers to the supercomputing centers funded by NSF in the United States.^[2]
In 1985, NSF began funding the creation of five new supercomputing centers: the John von Neumann Computing Center at Princeton University, the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) on the campus of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Cornell Theory Center at Cornell University, and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), a joint effort of Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Westinghouse.

NSF's three tiered network architecture

Also in 1985, under the leadership of Dennis Jennings, the NSF established the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET). NSFNET was to be a general-purpose research network, a hub to connect the five supercomputing centers along with the NSF-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) to each other and to the regional research and education networks that would in turn connect campus networks. Using this three tier network architecture NSFNET would provide access between the supercomputer centers and other sites over the backbone network at no cost to the centers or to the regional networks using the open TCP/IP protocols initially deployed successfully on the ARPANET.

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