Cambio de paradigma respecto a la industria cultural

Case Study 1: MacPherson International Knitwear Read the following

MacPherson International are a Scottish knitwear manufacturer employing thirty knitters, two designers, an office staff of three, a marketing manager and a managing director. The company uses yarn to produce high quality hand knitted garments. Their yarn supplier used to publish details of all the yarns they supply in a large paper catalogue. Last year, they decided to change to a CDROM based catalogue. This is supplied freely to all knitwear manufacturers in Europe.

The yarn supplier is based in Italy, and the textual descriptions of the yarns can be viewed in English, Italian, German and French.

The designers and the office staff at MacPherson International, both need access to the

information on the CDROM. The designers require to find information on colours, textures and weights of yarns and the office staff need to know the prices.

There are six PCs in the premises, one on each of the designers desks, two in the general office, one in the stock room and one on the managing director's desk. Only two of the PCs have CDROM drives fitted - the one in the director's office which is a brand new multimedia PC and one of the systems in the designers' office.

All the computers are fitted with Ethernet network interfaces and are linked by a 10Base2 network. The operating system in the PCs is Windows 95. The network is used to share a laser and dot matrix printer. The payroll, stock control and invoicing system also use the network.

There is no file server and files on the PC's hard disks are shared across the network. The CDROM containing the information on the yarn is placed in the CD drive in the computer in the designers' office and shared across the network.

Discussion

This is an example of a contemporary use of a computer network. Discuss the following aspects of the network used in this case study:

• characteristics: including hardware, software, topology, speed, operating system, protocols, network mode, security, standards

• application of the network

• benefits of using the network.

Case Study 2 : Seawell College Read the following

Seawell College is a large further education college. The Physics department carry out a number of end-of-unit tests as part of the assessment of the courses they run. These test are in the form of multiple choice questions.

The questions are presented and answered electronically using the college intranet. To sit a test the student must log in to the college network and launch a web browser. Access to a particular test is obtained when the lecturer supervising the test issues a password to all the students in the room. The student will then select their lecturer’s name from a list presented in the browser window. All the student's answers are typed into the page. When the test is completed the student is informed of their test score and a record of the test is posted to their lecturer.

There are computer labs in several buildings on the college campus and the Physics department can use any of these labs for running a test. There are a number of LANs in the buildings around the campus interconnected by fibre optic links. There is a central intranet server in the administration block.

The LANs consist of networks of different types of computers. There are Apple, SUN, PC and Acorn computer all of which are connected to the internetwork. The protocol running on all the systems is TCP/IP. The tests are created using HTML and Java.

Discussion

This is an example of a contemporary use of an internetwork. Discuss the following aspects of the internetwork used in this case study:

• characteristics: including hardware, software, topology, speed, operating system, protocols, network mode, security, standards

• application of the network

• benefits of using the network.

Case Study 3 : Wilma the medical representative Read the following

Wilma works for Softrox, a large multinational medical company which produce a range of pharmaceutical drugs. These drugs are prescribed by doctors. Wilma visits all the doctors' surgeries in her sales area and discusses Softrox's products with the doctors. Her job is to persuade the doctors to prescribe Softrox drugs to their patients. The doctors may request further detailed information about the drugs or ask for trial samples as a result of the meetings.

For safety reasons, Wilma is not allowed to carry samples of drugs, so they are sent to the doctors directly from Softrox head office. Detailed information about the drugs is constantly updated in the research and development division of the company and they are responsible for supplying the doctors with this information.

Wilma uses her laptop computer to make notes of the doctor's requests during the meetings.

She also makes notes of the time spent with the doctor and the names of the contacts she has made.

Wilma's sales area includes the Western Isles, so she often has to stay overnight in a hotel. At the end of each day, she attaches the modem in her laptop to a phone socket and uses software to establish a connection to the main fileserver computer at head office. Because of the sensitive nature of the data transmitted, the software uses an encryption system.

She transmits details of the day's meetings together with the requests for literature and samples to the fileserver. The laptop then receives any messages and a list of appointments she has to keep the next day. She can also use this system to check her external e-mail which is held at head office on a mail server which is connected to the Internet.

Discussion

This is an example of a contemporary use of a private WAN. Discuss the following aspects of the WAN used in this case study:

• characteristics: including hardware, software, topology, speed, operating system, protocols, network mode, security, standards

• application of the network

• benefits of using the network.

Case Study 4 : Dali on the Internet Read the following

Claude is an art student with a particular passion for the surrealistic Catalonian painter Salvador Dali. He decides to set up a Web site dedicated to his favour artist.

As a student he is allowed to create Web pages which will be stored on the university's Web server which is on the Internet. He is allocated 10 Mb of space for his Web site. He wishes to include on his Web pages - text, images, sound clips and links to other Daliesque sites. He has found the URLs of some other sites about Dali using search engines.

He has found a 3000 word essay on Dali in a Word for Windows file. He intends to use most of this text in his Web pages. He has scanned some of his favourite Dali pictures from postcards and textbooks using a 600dpi scanner in 256 colours. He has a video recording of the last interview Dali gave before his untimely death from which he wants to include a 5 second sound clip on the site.

After he had created the site he gets some fellow students to browse through his pages using the university intranet. They are impressed with the layout and graphical content of the pages.

However he receives e-mail from his brother at Seawell College complaining about how slow the site is.

Discussion

This is an example of a contemporary use of the Internet. Discuss the following aspects of the Internet used in this case study:

• characteristics: including hardware, software, topology, speed, operating system, protocols, network mode, security, standards

• application of the network

• benefits of using the network.

Section 5 Appendices

APPENDIX A