Router Comparison :: essays research papers

Connecting remote offices or home PC’s to the Internet and corporate networks can be troublesome, requiring a balance of bandwidth limitations, security concerns and firewall functionality. Simple setup is also a necessity, so less-experienced users can easily get these fairly complex systems up and running. In addition, the cost of communication hardware and software must be kept to a minimum to meet tight budgets. The routers also offer firewall protection for security, productivity and operational purposes. Though these aren't heavy-duty firewalls like those that cost upwards of $10,000, they do offer the most common protocol-filtering mechanisms. All three routers offer browser-based installation and management, and operate as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers. This feature automatically supplies the workstation with an IP address and gateway setup information upon booting-eliminating the arduous task of manually assigning IP parameters to workstations during setup. Most of the devices support the same protocols: TCP/IP; Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP); HTTP; Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP); Password Authentication Protocol (PAP) and Network Address Translator (NAT). These protocols allow users to connect to any standards-compliant ISP (via PPP) and authenticate using either CHAP or PAP authentication protocols. Once connected, these routers can share a single IP address among many workstations using the NAT protocol, saving the cost of extra IP addresses. However, each router was different in very important ways that you must consider before buying. Ramp Networks WebRamp 310i I had this router up and running within minutes, and configuring five workstations took little more effort than simply powering them up. It allowed me to easily configure all attributes, from ISP information to security, using a Web browser. The WebRamp offers NAT, Virtual Private Network (VPN) tunneling via Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP), and packet filtering based on protocol and port number. It was the only router to support the IPX protocol, allowing the workgroup to access NetWare servers when connecting directly to the corporate office. Another unique feature is the WebRamp 310i's POTS interface, which allows data calls to be pre-empted on incoming or outgoing telephone voice calls. This enables workgroup members to use the same phone lines as the router and save on the cost of extra phone lines. The router is equipped with two built-in 56K V.90 modems and has an external 230Kb per second RS-232 port. The WebRamp 310i's 47.59Kbps performance put it slightly behind the ProxyServer's 49.83Kbps throughput. The router has a built-in four-port 10BaseT hub for building an instant Ethernet network.

Education Systems Around the World Essay

The United States excels in the creative aspect of schooling whereas Chinese students are much better at receiving direct instruction. Japanese students have very high test scores and a very high university attendance, but in Australia more students go into vocational schools or the workforce after high school. (Noel 99,102,103)The differences of education systems in the United States, China, Japan and Australia have created testable strengths and weaknesses. No country has found a perfect balance but each system has evolved to create workers suited to its respective nation. The United States is predominantly influenced by creativity but not as strongly in math and science. Expansions upon creative thought have brought in new products introduced to the market. (Noel, 36) In U. S. President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address, Obama emphasizes the importance of specialized creative schools and additional funding of the arts in K-12 public schools, which was spelled out in his the â€Å"Reinvestment of Arts Education† Plan. Obama states, â€Å"The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation. None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be or where the new jobs will come from. Thirty years ago, we couldn’t know that something called the internet would lead to an economic revolution. What we can do –– what America does better than anyone else –– is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. But if we want to win the future then we also have to win the race to educate our kids†¦ And so the question is whether all of us –– as citizens, and as parents –– are willing to do what’s necessary to give every child a chance to succeed. † (Noel, 65) The U.S. President sees the specialization, the pronounced freedom of creativity that America has been able to maintain for many years and how they have benefitted from it. The promotion of this frame of mind will allow ideas to surge and new technologies continue to be made. Although America is pleased with all this innovation, the United States consistently test low in both math and science compared to other nations. Notable author, Douglas Noel reports that the average scores of American students in international comparisons have â€Å"†¦often been below the average of developed countries. It the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment 2003, 15 year olds ranked 24th of 38 in mathematics, 19th of 38 in science, 12th of 38 in reading, and 26th of 38 in problem solving. † (Noel 80, 81, 82) With the majority of American students so far behind it is cause for concern as to whether the U. S. will continue to falter and what impact it will have on the future. Part of the problem with high schools is that with such a large country it is going to be that much more difficult to maintain a moderate academic curriculum. This problem was attempted to be solved with the â€Å"No Child Left Behind† Act but it is still inconclusive whether it is effective or not. (Noel, pp. 70) Dr. Schmidt, who oversees the research effort into the TIMSS results, says the actual cause for the failures appears to be weak math and science curricula in U. S. middle schools. He explains, â€Å"The public schools lack focus; instead of concentrating on education, they dabble in social re-engineering†. Not only are public schools the general blame but so are the curricula, the teacher and even the textbooks. But there is some good news; despite the â€Å"bad grades† in comparison to the world the United States makes up for their low-testing high schools with 19 of the top 25 universities in the world. People from around the world come to American Universities to become some of the most influential thinkers in the world. The immigration of intelligent people in the form of students from various other countries is, said by Bill Gates, to be â€Å"†¦our most powerful import. † (Noel 4, 5, 10, 77, 80) Although the United States lacks in math and science it is gung-ho in innovative fields, we see the complete opposite pros and cons experienced in China. The education foundation in China has been reformed since the rise of Deng Xiaoping (1978-89) and made significant progress; however, the large population of China produces great promise as well as great concern. (Chinese Education & Society) Since the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), the education system in China has been geared toward economic modernization. The Great Leap Forward (1958–60) and the Socialist Education Movement (1962–65) sought to end deeply rooted academic elitism, to narrow social and cultural gaps between workers and peasants and between urban and rural populations, and to â€Å"rectify† the tendency of scholars and intellectuals to disdain manual labor. During the Cultural Revolution, universal fostering of social equality was an overriding priority. The post-Mao Zedong Chinese Communist Party leadership viewed education as the foundation of China. The reorientation of educational priorities paralleled Deng Xiaoping’s strategy for economic development. For this reason the Central Government has prioritized basic education as a key field of infrastructure construction and educational development. (Zhang) The Chinese government’s aim for the development of China’s basic education system was to approach or attain the level of moderately-developed countries by 2010, of which has been accomplished. Chinese higher education has continued to evolve. Since the late 1980s, tremendous economic development in China has stimulated reforms in higher education that have resulted in remarkable improvements. (Chinese Education and Society) The UNESCO world higher education report of June 2003 pointed out that the student population of China’s schools of higher learning had doubled in a very short period of time and had become the world’s largest. (Agelasto) In the beginning of the Enlightenment period, European science began to explode with new inventions and ideas. By this time, China had already invented the first compass, printing press and use of gunpowder (which were used for fireworks). (Chinese Education & Society) Today, there is not much to be said in terms of new technology in China. Much of the new tech now comes from the United States and Japan. (Noel, 3) Nonetheless, China does have the advantage (and disadvantage) of an enormous population. Innovative ideas and technology have not been prominent in China’s recent years. (Agelasto) With a population of over one billion people, China needs to find a way to bridge the productivity gap between emerging markets and the developed world; to truly transform themselves into innovative, energetic economies. Professor Xu Jialu, director of the College of Chinese. Language and Culture at Beijing University, told a meeting of university presidents in Hong Kong that China had achieved great success over the past 30 years. Jialu states, â€Å"Our overall economic output, which is fundamental to social advancement, is already ranked third in the world,† he said, â€Å"However, to sustain this extraordinary economic growth, China needs to nurture huge additional numbers of creative and talented people to maintain economic proficiency. † (Xue) China’s history and economy are what have shaped their education systems. China has transcended itself from a richly inventive, educated society to a Communist standard of economic modernization. Now that they have achieved an ideal economy, education will most likely be reformed again to the forefront; just as the tiny island to their East has done – Japan. Japan marvels its education prowess but has Japanese students stressing to meet high standards. Without including the devastating effects of the recent Earthquake-Tsunami incident that occurred in the spring of 2011, Japan has maintained extraordinarily high test results while enjoying a technologically advanced society. Japan continuously ranks the top 5 in international test scores. (Noel, 88) The test scores remain high because their primary and secondary schooling is decidedly efficient. As of 2005, more than 2. 8 million students were enrolled in 726 universities. (Gainey) The influx of students is explained through the emphasis on the importance of University level instruction. The Japanese workforce is now better equipped to manage career-related problems that require higher thought. As with all good things, the advancements have come at a great cost. In Japan, suicide is the leading cause of death among men aged 20-44 and women 15-34. Suicide in Japan is also somewhat romanticized as a traditional way of preserving one’s honor and avoiding shame. (Noel, 76) The National Police Agency informs that suicides in Japan topped 30,000 for the ninth consecutive year in 2006. In their suicide notes, 91 of them mentioned problems at school, an increase of 28. 2 percent from 2005 — the largest number since 1998 when the survey of this category began. (Gainey) With or without suicide notes, police attributed school-related problems to 242 suicides, nine more than in 2005. (Gainey) For many children, school has become a stressful environment to survive in. The social pressures to succeed help many students to succeed but the pressure is too much for others. Many countries strive for educational excellence whereas countries such as Australia are of a more relaxed nature. The educational system in Australia is a radical contrast to its Asian counterparts. Rather than attending a university, vocational training has become the beacon of education for students in Australia. Schooling beyond vocational training is difficult, costly and highly ostracized. (Horin) The training for vocational jobs requires less education than four year degree programs. They are also significantly less expensive – less than half of the cost of any of their Universities. Aussie student enrollment in a bachelor’s degree program spiked at 27% in 2010 while vocational enrollment maintains a continuous rise from 31% in 2000 to 35% in 2010. (Australia’s Guide to Education) This continuous incline of vocational training communicates the direction of progression of Australia’s youth, where the requirement of a bachelor’s degree appears to be unneeded in their society. Unfortunately, reports of low standards of education are on par with uneducated societies. 25% of Australian students do not complete grade 12 in Australia compared to 20 percent in the other 18 comparable countries such as Canada, Ireland, Austria, and Iceland. Scholastic apathy is hurting their workforce because considering the frequency in the number of high school drop outs every year they will see the rise of a serious problem emerging. The students that leave go to find jobs only to find more and more being taken by their fellow dropout colleagues. (Horin)Whether or not Australia is moving to make changes is unclear but once the dip shows itself evermore significant there will likely be public intervention which would be either expand the Australian job market or find a way to keep their students in the classrooms. We see that each country holds its own scholastic emphasis. The United States imports some of the best thinkers in the entire world. As China’s economy rises, its large population of workers stays busy generating revenue to invest more into education for the future. Japan has ranked the elite in scores by making education top priority. Australia currently enjoys significantly fewer educational burdens without much consequence in getting a job. Whether it is the progression of creative thought or early-on vocational training all these countries have their own specific sets of academic values specifically designed to best suit their current endeavors. Works Cited Agelasto, Michael. Higher Education in Post-Mao China. Hong Kong University Press, 1998. ISBN 9622094503. Print. 1 October, 2011. The quality of Chinese education and its advantages and disadvantages in economic prowess and student development. 2. â€Å"Educational Systems in Australia. † Australia’s Guide to Education. Nov. 2006. Web. 25 Sept. 2011. . Includes primary and secondary education in Australia and comparative statistics in contrast to other countries such as the United States. Also talks about vocational training programs. 3. Gainey, Peter. â€Å"The Japanese Education System: Globalisation and International Education. † Advanced Placement Source. EBSCO, Sept. 2002. Publication. 1 Oct. 2011. An overview of Japan’s education system and the impact on its students. Specifies the difficulties of secondary education and above. Horin, Adele. â€Å"Must try harder: Australia’s inequitable education system. † Sydney Morning Herald, The 02 Dec. 2006: 31. Newspaper Source Plus. EBSCO. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. An investigation of Australia’s education system which focuses on the lack of quality of education, including vocational school and international education/vocational training quality. 5. Noel, Douglas. Impact of Social Reform and Education on Sociological Development: a Comparison Of Education Systems Around the World. [S. l. ]: Xlibris, 2010. Print. 25 Sept. 2011. Compares education systems in every major country. Gives insight to literacy statistics, test scores and controversy. Asserts the notion of â€Å"better† or â€Å"needs improvement† comparisons against some countries, the United States, being one of low ratings. 6. â€Å"Various Documents Related to Chinese Education. † Chinese Education & Society 39, no. 6 (November 2006): 45-66. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. Database. 25 Sept. 2011. The history of education in China. Over the years, China has had to reform its education system many times due to emperor dynasties, the Japanese invasion of Nanjing and the Communist Revolution. Even in the present many changes are being made. 7. Xue, Xing Hua Da. â€Å"Chinese Education & Society. † Education Research Complete. EBSCO, Nov. 2006. Article publication. 25 Sept. 2011. Chinese education and how it statistically compares to other countries such as the United States and Japan. It also relates to Chinese student frustrations in academic curriculum. Zhang, Yu. â€Å"Private Education in China: Issues and Prospects† Perspectives, Volume 4, No. 4, Dec. 31, 2003. Print. 25, Sept. 2011. The history of China and their education system from Communist China to present day and informs readers its current position in the world economy as a reliable result of Deng Xiopeng’s reformation.

What Was the Long March

Imagine leading your troops on a retreat through territory so deadly that it kills 90% of them.  Imagine climbing through some of the highest mountain ranges on Earth, fording flooded rivers without any boats or safety equipment, and crossing rickety rope bridges while under enemy fire.  Imagine being one of the soldiers on this retreat, perhaps a pregnant female soldier, possibly even with bound feet. This is the myth and to some extent the reality, of the Chinese Red Armys Long March of 1934 and 1935. The Long March was an epic retreat by the three Red Armies of China that took place in 1934 and 1935, during the Chinese Civil War.  It was a key moment in the civil war, and also in the development of communism in China.  A leader of the communist forces emerged from the horrors of the march—Mao Zedong, who would go on to lead them to victory over the Nationalists. Background Early in 1934, the communist Red Army of China was on its heels, outnumbered and outgunned by the Nationalists or Kuomintang (KMT), led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.  Chiangs troops had spent the previous year deploying a tactic called the Encirclement Campaigns, in which his larger armies encircled communist strongholds and then crushed them.   The Red Armys strength and morale were seriously undermined as it faced defeat after defeat, and suffered numerous casualties. Threatened with extermination by the better-led and more numerous Kuomintang, about 85% of the Communist troops fled west and north.  They left a rearguard to defend their retreat; interestingly, the rearguard suffered far fewer casualties than the Long March participants. The March From their base in Jiangxi Province, southern China, the Red Armies set out in October of 1934, and according to Mao, marched some 12,500 kilometers (about 8,000 miles). More recent estimates put the distance at a much shorter but still impressive 6,000 km (3,700 miles). This estimate is based on measurements two British trekkers made while retracing the route—a large arc that ended in Shaanxi Province. Mao himself had been demoted before the march and was also sick with malaria.  He had to be carried for the first several weeks in a litter, borne by two soldiers.  Maos wife, He Zizhen, was very pregnant when the Long March began.  She gave birth to a daughter along the way and gave the child to a local family. As they made their way west and north, the communist forces stole food from local villagers.  If the locals refused to feed them, the Red Armies might take people hostage and ransom them for food, or even force them to join the march.  In later Party mythology, however, the local villagers welcomed the Red Armies as liberators and were grateful for being rescued from the rule of local warlords. One of the first incidents that would become a communist legend was the Battle for Luding Bridge on May 29, 1935.  Luding is a chain suspension bridge over the Dadu River in Sichuan Province, on the border with Tibet.  According to the official history of the Long March, 22 brave communist soldiers seized the bridge from a larger group of Nationalist forces armed with machine guns.  Because their foes had removed the cross-boards from the bridge, the communists crossed by hanging from the underside of the chains and shimmying across under enemy fire. In reality, their opponents were a small group of soldiers belonging to a local warlords army.  The warlords troops were armed with antique muskets; it was Maos forces that had machine guns.  The communists forced several local villagers to cross the bridge before them—and the warlords troops shot them all down.  However, once the Red Army soldiers engaged them in battle, the local militia pulled back very quickly.  It was in their best interest to get the communist army through their territory as fast as possible.  Their commander was more concerned about his supposed allies, the Nationalists, who might pursue the Red Army into his lands, and then take direct control of the area. The First Red Army wanted to avoid confronting either the Tibetans to the west or the Nationalist army to the east, so they crossed the 14,000-foot (4,270-meter) Jiajinshan Pass in the Snowy Mountains in June.  The troops carried packs weighing between 25 and 80 pounds on their backs as they climbed.  At that time of year, snow was still heavy on the ground, and many soldiers died of hunger or exposure. Later in June, Maos First Red Army met up with the Fourth Red Army, led by Zhang Guotao, an old rival of Maos.  Zhang had 84,000 well-fed troops, while Maos remaining 10,000 were weary and starving.  Nonetheless, Zhang was supposed to defer to Mao, who held a higher rank in the Communist Party.   This union of the two armies is called the Great Joining.  To meld their forces, the two commanders switched subcommanders; Maos officers marched with Zhang and Zhangs with Mao.  The two armies were divided evenly so that each commander had 42,000 of Zhangs soldiers and 5,000 of Maos.  Nonetheless, tensions between the two commanders soon doomed the Great Joining. Late in July, the Red Armies ran into an impassable flooded river.  Mao was determined to continue northward because he was counting on getting resupplied by the Soviet Union through Inner Mongolia.  Zhang wanted to travel back to the southwest, where his power base was located.  Zhang sent a coded message to one of his subcommanders, who was in Maos camp, ordering him to seize Mao and take control of the First Army.  However, the sub commander was very busy, so handed the message to a lower ranking officer to decode.  The lower officer happened to be a Mao loyalist, who did not give Zhangs orders to the subcommander.  When his planned coup failed to materialize, Zhang simply took all of his troops and headed south.  Ã‚  He soon ran into the Nationalists, who essentially destroyed his Fourth Army the following month. Maos First Army struggled north, in late August of 1935 running into the Great Grasslands or Great Morass. This area is a treacherous swamp where the Yangtze and Yellow River drainages divide at 10,000 feet in elevation.  The region is beautiful, covered with wildflowers in the summer, but the ground is so spongy that the exhausted soldiers were sinking into the mire and could not free themselves. There was no firewood to be found, so soldiers burned grass to toast grain instead of boiling it. Hundreds died of hunger and exposure, worn out with the effort of digging themselves and their comrades out of the muck.  Survivors later reported that the Great Morass was the worst part of the entire Long March. The First Army, now down to 6,000 soldiers, faced one additional obstacle.  To cross into Gansu Province, they needed to get through the Lazikou Pass.  This mountain passage narrows down to a mere 12 feet (4 meters) in places, making it highly defensible.  Nationalist forces had built blockhouses near the top of the pass and armed the defenders with machine guns.  Mao sent fifty of his soldiers who had mountaineering experience up the cliff face above the blockhouses.  The communists threw grenades down on the Nationalists position, sending them running. By October of 1935, Maos First Army was down to 4,000 soldiers.  His survivors joined forces in Shaanxi Province, their final destination, with the few remaining troops from Zhangs Fourth Army, as well as the remnants of the Second Red Army. Once it was ensconced in the relative safety of the north, the combined Red Army was able to recover and rebuild itself, finally defeating the Nationalist forces more than a decade later, in 1949.  However, the retreat was disastrous in terms of human losses and suffering. The Red Armies left Jiangxi with an estimated 100,000 troops and recruited more along the way. A mere 7,000 made it to Shaanxi—fewer than one in 10. (Some unknown amount of the reduction in forces was due to desertions, rather than deaths.) Maos reputation as the most successful of the Red Armys commanders seems odd, given the enormous casualty rate his troops suffered.  However, the humiliated Zhang was never able to challenge Maos leadership again after his own completely catastrophic defeat at the hands of the Nationalists. The Myth Modern Chinese Communist mythology celebrates the Long March as a great victory, and it did preserve the Red Armies from complete annihilation (barely). The Long March also solidified Maos position as the leader of the Communist forces. It plays such an important role in the Communist Partys history of itself that for decades, the Chinese government forbade historians from researching the event, or talking with survivors.  The government rewrote history, painting the armies as liberators of the peasants, and exaggerating incidents like the Battle for Luding Bridge. Much of the communist propaganda surrounding the Long March is hype rather than history.  Interestingly, this is also true in Taiwan, where the defeated KMT leadership fled at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.  The KMT version of the Long March held that the communist troops were little better than barbarians, wild men (and women) who came down out of the mountains to fight the civilized Nationalists. Sources A Military History of China, David A. Graff Robin Higham, eds. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2012.Russon, Mary-Ann. Today in History: The Long March of the Red Army in China, International Business Times, Oct. 16, 2014.Salisbury, Harrison. The Long March: The Untold Story, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987.Snow, Edgar. Red Star over China: The Classic Account of the Birth of Chinese Communism, Grove / Atlantic, Inc., 2007.Sun Shuyun. The Long March: The True History of Communist Chinas Founding Myth, New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing, 2010.Watkins, Thayer. The Long March of the Communist Party of China, 1934-35, San Jose State University, Department of Economics, accessed June 10, 2015.