You will find details of what you need to know to pass various Microsoft and CompTIA professional qualifications, exercises, puzzles and Q&A. All to help you to become a better IT professional. Whether you are just starting out in support or progressing to a higher tier, perhaps back office functions, perhaps server installation and configuration. You may be involved in mass roll-outs. This area will help you in these and many other ways.

The information on this site is written by myself from lessons and experience I have gained over the years. You may well find things missing or incomplete at any time. This may be because I am updating the information, it may be that I have just not thought about a particular aspect. This site is going to be a fluid site, moving with the times and, hopefully, keeping up with them, however, I have a full-time IT job at a school, so can only update it occasionally. Please check back from time to time to check for updated information.

In the column on the right hand side, you will find links to various different topics. Each one is followed by a number. This is the number for the Microsoft Technology Associate Exam. This is the first rung on the ladder to becoming a Microsoft Engineer or expert in a particular specialism.

Although these sections will cover things that are specific to a particular topic and most topics have been covered, I will try to keep the content in these areas limited to the things needed to pass each exam. There is also a programming main page, with different languages covered. With all these areas of IT covered elsewhere, what can I put here!?

What I would like to put here is more in-depth technical discussions, perhaps about Server roles; features; directory services; DNS; Encryption techniques:

Codes & Ciphers

So, let's talk about something to do with IT, but think about it in a different way for a while. What are codes and ciphers? Where did they come from? who used them? who first used them?

Firstly, we should deal with the difference between a code and a cipher. A code comes from a plain text word or a phrase. If we replaced that with another word or numbers or even symbols. We could make these up, if we liked. Any of these methods of changing the original text is called a code. As an example, think about the military or the police. They use codewords to hide someone's identity. They swap the person's name with another. This is a code. The military use codes for attacks or exercises. I'm sure you have used codes when talking between friends, so that others near don't know what your saying. If you are a parent, then you know how you have to use different and increasingly complex codes when talking in front of the children. You start by just spelling it. They learn that pretty quickly, so you use a more sophisticated word. All you're doing is teaching your children a large vocabulary. This is good, but makes it hard to talk about the present you are buying them. You describe things in strange ways, so that they cannot work out what you are talking about. You might use a few words of a foriegn language. Of course, you will have built up a language of your own. Some way of talking about other people without them knowing. You can use this special, secret language to good effect in front of the off-spring as well.

All of these things are codes.

Now a cipher is concerned with replacing each letter with another. Of course, you could use symbols, so long as each symbol replaces one letter. Queen Mary of Scots used a mixture of cipher with codes for some complete words and also symbols when she was plotting to overthrow Queen Elizabeth the First. A good example of code-breaking or as it is more properly known 'Cryptanalysis'. Elizabeth's aids broke the code and Mary was beheaded for her treachery.

So, some terminology. A person whom translates code into plaintext is either a codebreaker or a cipherbreaker.

Plaintext is the term given to a message before it has been changed or encrypted and the word ciphertext is used to describe the text that has been encrypted.

Cryptography is the word used to cover the whole area of the science of secrecy. Cryptography comes from the Greek 'kryptos', meaning hidden.

Cryptanalysis, as mentioned earlier, is the act of breaking a piece of encrypted text.

So we have a basic understanding of the terminology of keeping things secret, but that is not the only way.

If you have any questions or would like to add something, contribute or suggest a correction about anything on this site or have any other related questions, you can e-Mail me at;

Questions To ask me general questions. I cannot guarantee to answer within a specified period of time or personally, but I will post your questions and answers to these on the contributions page from time to time.

Contributions If you have something you think would be useful to others and would like to share it here. Again I will post these, giving full credit to the author, on the contributions page