In This Issue: Cisco 2960-X Series 48 Port LAN Base Switch | Understanding Wavelengths| News to Start Your Day
Today is get to know your customers day and we couldn’t be more excited! We love learning more about each and every one of you!! We’d love to hear from you today. What do you love about CK? What brings you back to CK? What products do you want to see? And while you’re at it, tells us your favorite candy! We can’t wait to get to know more about you and your love for CK!
The CK Daily – Learning How to Slow Down
I have had this unusual feeling like something has been off lately. You know one of those things where you can’t really put your finger on it, but you just feel like something is out of sorts or different. This has been going on with me for about a month or so.
I was driving down the road yesterday and hit me what was going on. I have been running non-stop for the past two years with stuff going on:
…work was crazy at the start of 2019
…one of my best friends unexpectedly passed away at the end of 2019
…while still processing his death a global pandemic started up in 2020
…then the world went into lockdown, and I had to learn a new way of working (WFH!)
…then I put my house on the market and had to take care of stuff with it (sold within 3 days)
…then I had to move out
…then I bought a new construction house and was dealing non-stop with that process
…moved in with my parents for 2 months (grateful for the place to stay, but thankful to be back out of there…haha!)
…got moved into the new house and got everything settled
…and now here I am taking a deep breath and wondering why I am not going 100+mph anymore like I have been for the last 2 years.
That weird feeling that I am experiencing right now that I mentioned above is the feeling of me getting to relax and not knowing how to anymore…haha! After going non-stop for so long, I have realized that I really don’t know what it feels like to relax – physically, emotionally, or mentally. I have been on the go and busy so much between work, church, family, the houses, and life that I forgot how to slow down or at least how to ENJOY life when it automatically slows down. I feel like Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights:
Does that make any sense? Anyone been in that same boat before – not knowing what to do or how to enjoy life/your time when things finally slow down a bit and you are not going 100mph in 50 different directions? Maybe I should try goat yoga or something like that??
Jason
Product Spotlights & Updates
Happy Friday-eve CK Family! We hope you’ve had a great week so far. Today we’re highlighting the Cisco 2960-X Series 48 Port LAN Base Switch, WS-C2960X-48TS-L.
Cisco has always done an amazing job with catering to small and medium businesses. The Cisco 2960-X series is another generation to the already popular 2960 series that will enable the typical small to medium business to function at an enterprise level without the enterprise budget. The 2960-X series switches offer a fixed configuration of Ethernet switches that are not only Gigabit but also stackable. The 2960-X was specifically designed for easy deployment and operational efficiency. These switches are also energy cautious and have a large range of IOS software features.
Jason B. left a pretty great review that really sums up the greatness of this switch better than we could. Jason wrote, “This switch is the GOLD STANDARD. More than likely, regardless of the complexity of the network, this switch, the 2960X, is in your company’s data closet. Why? It is because your network administrator is really smart 😉 “Does this port work?” – They remember the days of sticking pieces of paper into the ports that have gone bad. They are not interested in chasing network anomalies, on top of all of the other problematic possibilities, in the endless pursuit of end-user satisfaction. Don’t spend any more time looking for the best switch for your network or your customer’s network – you’ve found it. Congrats!”
Enjoy 20% off this week on this “Gold Standard” switch!
Understanding Wavelengths – CK Learning Center
No one ever accused fiber optics of being simple technology. Instead, we tend to acknowledge that this powerful technology is difficult to design and complicated in its application. Mastering those complications is often worth it because it enables us to build better networks and do a better job with those networks. We can tackle a brief tutorial on wavelengths and how they impact fiber optic designs in that endeavor.
What Is Wavelength?
The second word in “fiber optics” already tells us plenty about the nature of this technology. It deals with light — more specifically electromagnetic radiation — as the signaling medium. Wavelength is very simply a measure of the space between two photons in a solid beam of light. Conversely, we have frequency which measures the time between two signals. The two terms are opposite sides of the same coin. If you have a shorter wavelength, it takes less time between signals and a higher frequency.
With this in mind, the wavelength (or frequency) of any light source tells us the physical limitation of how we can use that light in signal processing. We can never send signals that are faster than the frequency of the beam, and we cannot use equipment that is smaller than the wavelength. This is a rough summary, but it paints a good enough picture.
Aside from the basics, the wavelength also tells us how light will interact with other objects. When it comes to designing fiber optics, those interactions are the most important pieces of information hiding within a wavelength.
Absorption
When fiber optics are engineered and tested, there are two issues that can impact their effectiveness. Absorption is one of them. Materials have a natural ability to absorb electromagnetic radiation. For any given substance, only radiation of certain wavelengths can actually interact and be absorbed. When we deal with fiber optic cables, the largest source of absorption actually comes from microscopic water droplets. That drives manufacturers to avoid wavelengths where that absorption is at its worst.
Scattering
Like absorption, scattering happens at different wavelengths for any given material. Also like absorption, the culprits of scattering within a fiber optic cable are small and easy to overlook. Particles of dust and even the air itself can cause scattering problems, so again, the design is to use wavelengths where these problems are smallest.
The term for signal loss related to absorption and scattering is attenuation. Engineers try to make attenuation numbers as small as possible, and when you account for both absorption and scattering at the same time, you find that very specific frequencies work best. The most common wavelengths in use today are 850, 1300, 1310, and 1500 nanometers. You’ll notice large gaps between each of those numbers. Those just happen to be the magic wavelengths where the attenuation values hit minima.
This is only the beginning. We can find that different types of fiber optic signals can further impact which wavelength is best for a function. Multimode and singlemode fiber, for instance, have different naturally occurring sources of interference. That’s why they tend to operate with noticeably separate wavelength ranges.
Putting it all together, it isn’t necessary to optimize wavelengths when you choose fiber optic systems. That’s baked into the design. Instead, it helps to understand why wavelength is an important identifier and how emerging, more advanced systems might play with wavelength in order to improve the technology.
Today’s News to Start Your Day:
- The Securities and Exchange Commission, the body that regulates securities in Brazil, has approved an exchange-traded investment fund that will be based on the cryptocurrency Ether. This Ether ETF, which will be dubbed QETH11, will be traded on the São Paulo B3 stock exchange.
- Microsoft officially launched Windows 365, which is essentially a computer you run in the cloud. The benefit to this would be the ability to run a fully powered Windows machine from even a low-level PC, phone, or tablet. This service is currently only open to businesses and the cost is currently unknown.
- It has been reported that Netflix will offer video games as part of its subscription beginning as early as next year. There is no plan for Netflix to charge any extra for the video game content, meaning that current subscribers would be able to access the games with no extra steps required.
- NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance has sent pictures back to Earth of a unique rock formation within what the space agency called an “ancient lakebed” in its latest reported discovery during its mission on the Red Planet. Check it out here!
- Facebook plans to pay out $1 billion now through 2022 to users who create content for its Facebook and Instagram social networks. As part of this initiative, it plans to roll out new bonus programs by the end of the year that will pay creators for hitting specific milestones. There will be dedicated spaces within its Instagram app this summer and the Facebook app this fall where creators can go to learn about bonuses they can work toward.