Tech Fact

It is easy to think of Web 2.0 as a technology but it would be more appropriate to describe it as a collection of technologies (and ideas) that cover areas as diverse as:

Some people believe O’Reilly and MediaLive came up with the term “Web 2.0” whilst others do not (“O’Reilly & MediaLive Didn’t Coin the Term - Web 2.0”) and if you read Wiki it will tell you that Web 2.0 means different things to different people, but I believe that the general consensus it that Web 2.0 is about people and putting people in the information driving seat.

You can read more about Web 2.0 in 42 things about Web 2.0 in 2008, part 1 of 3

Not really a mile but typically the piece of cable between your house and the local telephone exchange; it can also be generalised to mean the final connection between supplier equipment and a customer connection.

In current Broadband terms the further away from the telephone exchange you aware the poorer your broadband signal may be (and the slower the speed of downloading files). The type and quality of cabling for the last mile varies wildly as much of it was originally only expected to run voice calls - but many newer builds use better cable. Fibre would be the optimum solution but it is very expensive to install.

This definition has been bought to you by: Jason Slater Weblog Tech Fact.

When using wireless networking (sometimes referred to as 802.x networks) you may have seen the term SSID, or Service Set IDentifier, referred to. This is sometimes also known as the wireless network address and contains a unique identifier (up to 32 case sensitive characters) for your network - which may be preset if you have bought a home broadband device (although you can often change it). When you click on the View Wireless Networks option to connect to a network all of the SSID values that are in range are listed and you often need to click on one then use Connect to join that network.

It is possible to switch this broadcasting facility off (and thus hide your network address) however it only offers a small level of security as someone with the right software can pick up the SSID value when a connection attempt is made. An additional way of securing your network is to use MAC authorisation which allows devices to connect only if they have an allowed MAC address (which all networking devices have).

This defintion has been bought to you by: Jason Slater Weblog Tech Fact.