Arlon's CSUMB Intro to Computer Networks CST-311 Module 3 Learning Journal #3/#35 for the week Wed 09/15-Tues 09/21, year 2021

Arlon's CSUMB Intro to Computer Networks CST-311 Module 3 Learning Journal #3/#35 for the week Wed 09/15-Tues 09/21, year 2021

This week we got a new group assignment, threads waiting for ping responses in python, and immediately utilized excellent team work to nearly complete the project in half the time we were allotted. I don't usually say this but in this case we literally all helped reason through everything and got most of the spec completed more quickly as a team than I was going on my own. It's not completely done but we got super far, super quickly, and I personally was stumped on what I was trying to figure out until team members helped me reason through and figure it out.

We are trying out codeanywhere and it has some glitches, some bad glitches, but it's such useful software (like google docs but with code-capability) that we're basically overlooking it's flaws and quirks. I even overlooked them to the point where I gave them money - the smallest amount you could, I think it was like $3.70/month or something which is actually really nominal, so good for them for being one of the very few services I have ever found fair and useful enough to fork out cash for, being a humungous proponent freeware, myself.

I offer free variations of my software except for maybe the business appraisal form filling software since that business is all business, everyone pays money for everything in that realm. My accounting software, AccountBlaster has a free and widely useful variation for all to use, (google search accountblaster, first link, then click accountblaster free, blue link near the top) and my game, when it was live, was always free for everyone.

The problems presented in this class overall do a really good job of being extremely challenging until you figure them out, and realize they weren't as hard as they looked when you first saw them. Overall I find them pretty logical for the most part. I get a few wrong here and there, they try and make the answers dodgy by switching back and forth between JEDEC one second and SI another second just to keep us on our toes, but for the most part it all mostly makes sense.

One thing that was extremely cool this week was the network topology GUI-to-software-defined-network tool we used called miniedit! You drag-n-drop switches and routers and hosts, add various details like pretend delays and pretend packet losses, click run, and you get to do tests on that configuration and visually look at what a simplified diagram of that topology looks like. I'd put a screenshot but I'm not sure if blogger lets you put up images, the other ones I put up are hosted at my hosting account I'm pretty sure. MiniEdit - there's google screenshots of it, super cool software I'd never used, seen, or heard of before until this week. In fact I'd looked for network GUI simulators in the past and hadn't found any good ones. I was thinking more for like capturing what it thinks your home network looks like and drawing a picture of that just so you could wave it at your friends to impress them - so eventually I just drew mine out, it's complicated. I have a bunch of super cheap refurb Linksys e2400's and e1200s and e3500s all over the place, mostly in bridge mode, connected by an extensive ethernet wired network across around 10,000sf and 5+ structures, 9 or 10 if you include my front porch, backyard, sauna, and my vegetable garden. The garden has art pieces we made out of clay that we dug up from the garden and then fired in the garden and then ran ethernet cords through, just for fun. Before this class I just knew how to test cords by connecting and seeing if they were connected. Well, I knew basic stuff like traceroute and ping and arp -a and netcat and SSH and VNC and net stop spooler and krfb and stuff but my tools and knowledge were overall extremely limited, so it's nice to see all these exciting network testing methods.

What I'd also like to learn that I'm not sure if it's a part of this class or not, is, like, practical network-ology. How to know what you should get to do what. I learned what I knew before I got to this class by asking the AT&T DSL tech support questions, the Comcast Cable Internet tech support questions, and the Linksys Router tech support questions, and buying the cheapest barebones equipment I could ever find and seeing if that worked, and getting more of it, and at some point one of the Linksys tech support people told me about bridge mode and that made my network extremely easy to physically implement. That's how I got where I am today with my home/office network. (It's just one big giant computer project, to me, the whole thing, programming, building computers, building the network, and then making programs that use it all.) Also, I'd like to learn the simplest paradigm to add port forwarding to a hierarchically branched home/office network, like mine is. I don't know if I have to port forward just the front router and leave all the bridged ones alone, or, I'm just not sure, so that's one thing I'd like to know how to do.

Another thing I'd like to know about is, what is up with crossover cables, how do they work, do they really work, why are there some in my drawer right here, what I should try and do with them, etc. My best guess as to that answer I think is add a NIC card, then you can use them somehow, off your computer, using it as a router-ish-thing. Which leads me into my next question: what about ...all ...the ...settings...?

What about all the network settings all the network engineers seem to know all about, netmasks and gateways and VPNs and all that other stuff? The socket stuff is gold, though, especially getting to do it with python, it keeps the examples simple and widely useful and applicable! I'm just about to take this socket program and turn it into Slither or something - nah - Slither's great enough. CodeAnywhere maybe has a socket in it to keep the web page synced.

Well, thanks for reading!