The difference between copper and fiber optic systems is that fiber optics use light pulses down fiber lines, rather than electronic pulses down copper lines. With fiber optic systems, a transmitter generates the information at the end of the line. The transmitter will accept coded electronic pulses, translating them into the equivalent light pulse.

To generate light pulses, you can use an injection laser diode (ILD) or a light emitting diode (LED). The reason light travels so easily and quickly with these fiber optic systems is because of total internal reflection. Because of the angles, light cannot get out of the glass, but will bounce back inside. By altering the material used for the core, you can vary the wavelengths of infrared applications. Some of the more common materials include silica, fluorozirconate, fluoroaluminate and chalcogenide glasses, which you would typically use for longer wavelength needs. For these materials to work, the core has to be very clear, and the light is typically infrared.

Fiber optic systems can operate at a higher speed than copper networks, even reaching speeds into the gigabits. When you combine that with the fact that fiber optic systems have a large carrying capacity, it is not hard to see why many users are switching from copper.

Unlike copper systems, fiber optics signals travel greater distances. This is because signals do not need refreshing or strengthening with fiber optics. Signals have the power to keep going continuously, similar to the light bent around the mirror inside a paper towel. Even if there are corners, fiber optics can travel great distances.

Fiber optic systems also have a greater resistance to electromagnetic noise than copper systems. Whether you have nearby cables, motors or radios, you will not need to worry about the resistance with fiber optics. While there is still some interference to the noise, fiber optic systems have a greater resistance than copper.

Perhaps the biggest decisive factor when choosing systems for you to consider is cost. Overall, fiber optic systems typically cost less to maintain. When you combine this low maintenance cost with all of the other advantages over copper, it is no wonder why so many individuals are using fiber optics.

With so many things in the favor of fiber optic systems, such as speed, bandwidth, distance, resistance and maintenance costs, it is easy to see where the future of cabling is. When planning your cable management and cable tray needs, consider fiber optic systems to see if they will meet your needs.

June Leuizamo is an author with special interests in Wire Management

In computing, the name of the game is speed. Internet speed and network speed are areas of particular concern. The router is the main component that affects Internet and network performance and most people opt for the convenience of a wireless network.  Therefore, everyone wants to know what the fastest wireless router is.

What are the Limitations?

Most people want the best router speed that they can get so they can get the fastest Internet downloads and uploads. Internet download speeds are much higher than upload speeds. Linksys has indicated that the highest download speeds that ISPs (Internet Service Providers) offer is less than transfer rate provided by some of the slowest routers.

Routers are manufactured according to 802.11 protocols which specify how the data is to be handled and what frequency (something like a TV channel) it should transmit at. The following table indicates the frequencies and the transfer speeds of the commonly used protocols.

Even the slowest one here, b, has an 11 Mbps transfer rate which is higher than the maximum internet speed that most ISPs provide. Verizon Fios is the fastest Internet service and its pricey highest level provides 50 mbps which 3 of the 4 standard protocols beat.

The bottom line is that paying extra for a super fast wireless router for downloading movies or the like won’t buy you any speed improvement for a single computer.

The Uses of Router Speed

If you have a number of people playing high intensity games or you routinely copy huge files between different computers on the network, the speed will help you.

However, VRBones of vrbones.blogspot.com states that latency (transmission start up time) is also an issue. He says that wireless adds a delay to your network traffic as it needs to encode to analog (radio frequency) and then decode back to network packets. Wifi hotspots can add as much as 100ms to latency, which will make FPS (first person shooter) games feel like playing over a modem. Most will add at least 10ms although a perfect environment can reduce it to approximately 1ms.

Added to that it is MUCH more likely that you will have dropped packets over wireless. If you are playing a game that is using TCP rather than UDP for packet delivery you will regularly see the game freeze as it waits for a lost packet (up to 2 seconds). This once again can ruin your timing and overall game play. You will need a very strong signal to combat packet loss which can be achieved through reducing the distance to the hub, having direct line of sight to the hub, or boosting the signal.

Getting solid equipment will help in both the latency from transferring to Wifi as well as the signal strength, but it you are serious about gaming (especially FPS gaming), avoid wireless altogether. A wired connection is also cheaper though more inconvenient to set up.

The Fastest Wireless Routers

The actual fastest wireless router in the world at this time is an experimental model developed in a University in Pisa, Italy. It transmits data at an awesome 1.2Tbps over a short distance. It is based on blinking laser optical technology which means it requires line of sight so no physical object can come between the transmitter and receiver line of sight. It’s not really a practical solution any time soon. If you want to find out more about it, Engadget discusses it.

The fastest commercial router that has been reviewed by significant web sites and forums is the
D-Link DIR-655. You can get it at a discount using coupon code 650 from The Nerds

D-Link Xtreme N DIR-655 Gigabit Router

It is top rated by Consumer Search . It also received a favorable review from Geek with a Laptop

Cnet  also reviewed it . Their main knock on it was that it was made according to the unfinished 802.11 N spec. However, all the better routers today are designed according to this spec so this is not really an issue.

Another interesting router is the Sitecom WL-308 Wireless 300N XR Gigabit Gaming Router which touts 300 mbps speed.

In order to support this speed, you would need a Gigabit capable network. Even wired home networks max out at 100 mbps and don’t generally reach 1,000 mbps. I haven’t been able to find a wireless adapter that will accept over 100 mbps so the only way this router could be used would be split up its bandwidth among multiple computers.

The Sitecom site has details of the innovative technology

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People put things up on the web in order to publicize information for one reason or another. SEO (search engine optimization) is the process of doing things to make the search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo etc.) promote you since the way people find things on the web is via the search engines.

The 3 things that need to be done to get traffic to any site, including blogs, is to use popular keywords in the proper way, generate links to your sites and induce the search engine spiders to pay attention to your site. All of these things will cause the search engines to give your site a higher ranking.

SEO software can help in this process. My SEO Software article and my SEO Software review article describes this in detail.

SEO Blogging Software

What software or aids are available to get your blog up there?

General SEO software helps blogs. However, there are certain SEO books, utilities and programs created specifically for blogs. There are packages that will set up a blog for you to do the right things. The eBooks provide crucial information for getting the most from your blog. There are programs that take advantage of the trackback feature to gain valuable links to your blog while collecting useful posts from other blogs to let you easily generate new articles rapidly.

Jeff Johnson has released a package of free SEO blogging software that sets up a new WordPress blog with various options and settings that can be done fairly easily manually but his package automates all the drudge work. It makes sure that the naming of the blog entries is search engine friendly (the blog name contains the keywords that the article is about) by setting the permalink format (the way your blog post’s URL is built) properly. So if your blog is about happy songs, the URL of your blog about the songs of the 80’s would look like www.happysongs.com/happy-songs-of -the-80s. It also provides you with useful plugins that are commonly used to improve blog SEO such as the AntiSocial plugin which promotes your blog in the social networking sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon. It also fills in the ping list of servers to be notified when a new post is added. Andy Beard has reviewed the product and the Davinator has also reviewed this package.

The automatic features are very helpful and the package offers a large number of free videos that offer a wealth of data that can really help you to soup up your blogs SEO. It’s free so there is no downside in getting it and installing it on a new site.

Although this package is helpful in setting up your blog and will save you some time, in my opinion it’s better to understand the principles behind what he is doing and do them yourself. Josh Spaulding has an excellent eBook on this called The Ultimate Blogging Blueprint which is excellent for the beginner and has some great SEO tips for the more experienced bloggers.

Jack Humphries has released 2 powerful programs that solve 2 problems at once. The main problem that bloggers face is the need to produce quality content on a consistent basis. Creating fresh and interesting content is a challenge. Bloggers also need links to rate in the search engines.

Jack Humphries programs solve these problems in an elegant fashion. Both of them search blogs for articles related to keywords that you provide. They then allow you to easily integrate these articles into your blog and set up trackbacks for you so that if the blog that you referred to accepts your trackback you will get a link back to your site. Jack has provided informative videos that describe their operation in detail.

Jack has incorporated these 2 programs into a powerful new program for creating highly profitable blogs very quickly. He offers a great tool called Blog Talk Monitor that allows you to get the latest buzz about your topic of interest and keep on top of your niche. Find out about Blogsuccess and visit Trackboost and Utility Poster to see these programs in action.