How to Convert a .BAT file or .VBS file into .EXE to Enable Pinning to XP Start Menu

Windows XP will not allow you to pin a shortcut to the start menu that points to a network drive. For this reason it can be necessary to write a batch file to launch a program. The issue is that a shortcut pointed to a .bat file also contains no “Pin to Start Menu” option. While it can be dragged onto the start menu, this leaves no option for scripting these shortcuts. The simple solution is to convert the .bat file to an .exe file and lucky for us Windows XP includes a tool that can do it…

  
Step 1
Navigate to C:\Windows\System32 and locate the file named IEXPRESS.EXE

Step 2
Double Click to launch IEXPRESS.EXE

Step 3
You will be presented with the initial welcome screen and be given two choices. Select “Create new Self Extraction Directive file.” Click Next.

Step 4
Next you will be presented with the Package Purpose screen. For our purposes select “Extract Files and run an installation command” and click the Next button.

Step 5
You will be presented with the Package Title screen, which will give you the opportunity to give your project a name. If you are so inclined give it a meaningful name. If like me you are never going to come back to this, name it whatever you want.

Step 6
You will next be presented with the Confirmation Prompt Screen. We would like the batch file to just be extracted and run so just choose “No Prompt” and click the Next Button.

Step 7
You are presented with the License Agreement window. If you don’t want your users to have to answer a prompt select “Do not display a license.”

Step 8
The Packaged Files window is where you will select your batch file (or .vbs). Click the Add button and browse to your desired file. Then click next.

Step 9
Here you are presented with a window titled Install Program to Launch. Use the drop down control next to “Install Program and choose the only option that will be present, the .bat or .vbs file that you chose in the previous window.

Step 10
The Show Window screen is next. I didn’t want my users to be prompted in any way so I chose Hidden. Click Next.

Step 11
No Finished Message for my users. Select “No message” and choose Next.

Step 12
The Package Name and Options window is where the new .exe specified. Type in a path or browse to the folder you would like your .exe in, type a name in the file name box and click save. Also check the box that says “Hide File Extraction Progress Animation from User.” If you’re worried about long file names go ahead and click the other box as well.

Step 13
Since we really aren’t installing anything we probably want to tell the Configure Restart window to not restart. So choose the option that says “No restart” and hit Next.

Step 14
This window is where you have a chance to save all of the options you have chosen into a project file so that if necessary you may later return and make modifications. I have no need to retain the file, but if you would like to be able to come back to it, by all means choose “Save Self Extraction Directive (SED) file” and tell it where to put it. As always, click Next.

Step 15
Here’s where you’re new .exe is born, on the Create Package screen. Explore to the directory you told it to put the file in, click Next and then watch your little .exe’s first moments as it pops into the big digital world.

Step 16
You’re done! Click finish and go try it out. Pin it directly to the start menu. Point a shortcut to it and pin that to the start menu. Most importantly, script it and see how slick it is. If you’re not familiar with how to script start menu pinning the scripting guys will tell you how. Check it out here!

IP addresses and Commands to get network information

• What is an IP?
  
  An IP is an abbreviation of Internet Protocol IP serves a role of a digital computer identification number that is assigned by a network it's connected to Without an IP address networking and IP tracking would not be possible.
  
  
• Why does a computer's IP address change from time to time?
  
Every time people establish a new connection with their Internet Service Provider account either using a wired home / business connection or a wireless connection, the ISP's network assigns an individual IP number to your computer in order to provide you with the data your computer requests from web servers This is not associated with an account privacy matters but rather a technical aspect of user account digital id distribution .


• How is IPv4 different from IPv6?
  
  IPv6 IP address format is the successor to IPv4 which is the initial IP address format standard The main difference with IPv6 address is its availability It also contains additional features, such as simplified IP address assignment, network renumbering and IP announcements for the router nodes While the 32bit IPv4 address pool is virtually exhausted and allowed somewhere around 43 billion addresses to be assigned, IPv6 is 128bits and can produce 34W1038 unique IP addresses .
  
  Currently, most of the web servers are not configured to handle IPv6 connections, meaning an IPv6 client cannot connect to an IPv4 server Thus, an implementation called IPv4-6 tunneling is created mostly on an ISP level to allow an IPv6 client to connect to an IPv4 host .
  
  
• Who can see and track my IP address?
  
When you send emails, post on web forums, use instant messengers or access any online accounts - your computer's IP is logged by the network receiving communication requests This is an essential step that cannot be avoided and contributes to various technical, security and privacy aspects .


• What can be done to protect my IP's security and privacy?
  
  
It is possible to hide an IP address by using a private Proxy server This helps to conceal your private IP information to a certain extent, however it is not considered a good practice Read below .


• What is a Proxy Server?

A Proxy server is a network service which utilizes a dedicated computer on a remote network allowing internet users such as yourself to make indirect connections to other computers / websites using its own network connection When using a proxy server, the recipient of your communications will see an IP address of the proxy server and not yours There are plenty of proxy servers establishments on the world wide web that offer free online user accounts to hide your online identity This, however, is not a bullet-proof method .


• Is there a risk using a Proxy Server?
  
Definitely ,Using an anonymous proxy server computer to hide your IP actually presents a more serious threat that contributes to the digital information leak Since the digital data has to pass through a third party proxy server, any information you transmit through that server can be intercepted and searched, including messsages you sent, your account login and password information that you may utilize for any online services In attempt to search a better privacy on Internet, people search and find the tools like the proxy servers, not realizing that the danger is actually greater using the proxy servers Furthermore, in order to trace and check on people's illegal activity, some governments setup free proxy servers to monitor activity of those people who are most likely to have something to hide . Never access any of your digitally stored financial account information, including online credit card banking systems, initiate transfer of funds, pay your bills or mortgages online or register any online banking accounts that contain secure information while using a free proxy server As a matter of fact, most of the electronic identity theft cases targeted at financial sectors and being investigated worldwide are the direct result of digital information theft via utilization of so called free proxy servers that offer free online user accounts.


• If someone possesses my private IP information, what type of security risk does it present?
First of all, every single Internet user has an IP number, therefore a chance of you becoming a victim of a malicious attack is minimized by the overwhelming pool of IP addresses available to those who exercise this type of activity Second of all, to protect your privacy, the Internet Service Providers do not release any digitally stored legal or financial bank information to anyone but legal authorities Therefore your private information connected to your ISP provider generally remains very secure.
There is still a chance though that you may become a target of an internet hacker attack The IP address attack spoofs your local Internet connection by trying to forge your computer's IP via software vulnerabilities If have your computer connected directly to a DSL or Cable Modem without a router or a firewall, a hacker may be able to access the private data on your computer, especially if you use file sharing In this situation, it would not be a bad idea to get a good Firewall software along with an Antivirus software commonly used by people such as AVG or QuickHeal!, or a hardware router with a built in digital firewall There is a definite advantage of having a hardware firewall built-in into a router While a software firewall is good and gives you full control, it may be susceptible to viruses, mis-configurations and crashes, while a hardware firewall always runs in the background, allowing only outgoing traffic, giving you somewhat a limited control of your inbound traffic while providing you with the best possible protection from a dangerous inbound traffic.

Below, you'll find a list of the most common IP commands for Windows and DOS You can trace many information about your IP and network through these commands:-

Display Connection Configuration: ipconfig /all

Display DNS Cache Info: ipconfig /displaydns

Clear DNS Cache: ipconfig /flushdns

Release All IP Address Connections: ipconfig /release

Renew All IP Address Connections: ipconfig /renew

Re-Register the DNS connections: ipconfig /registerdns

Change/Modify DHCP Class ID: ipconfig /setclassid

Network Connections: control netconnections

Network Setup Wizard: netsetupcpl

Test Connectivity: ping googlecom

Trace Route: tracert

Displays the TCP/IP protocol sessions: netstat

Display Local Route: route

Display Resolved MAC Addresses: arp

Display Name of Computer Currently on: hostname

Display DHCP Class Information: ipconfig /showclassid

NameServer Lookup: nslookup googlecom

I want to be a Java developer, What skills do I need ???

"I want to be a java developer, What are the all skills that I need to have. I have learned the core java in college but what now?"

Does this sound a familiar question! You too may have a similar question in your mind. Don't worry, This article explains what are all the skills that you will need to be a Java web developer, and what are the skills that you are expected to have when you appear for an interview for a Java/J2EE web developer.

 

Java developer ! But what kind of ? 

Let me clarify, this article is about the Java web development. As most of the time, when beginner say, 'I want to be a java developer', he actually means he wants to be a java web developer and wants to get involved in developing web applications. Otherwise, Java development in general is a vast field, today Java is used in many types of platforms, that includes Personal computers, Main frames, Hand held portable devices, Mobiles, Smart cards, Games and many more thing. But the biggest stream of java development that creates more jobs than any other stream is the JavaEE platform. The JavaEE platform is used to create the enterprise applications (It includes web applications as well).

So be clear in your mind, This article is about java web development or enterprise application development. Most of the time when you read a job classified for skills, “Spring, Spring MVC, Struts, Hibernate, EJB” they are for java web development.

So, now it’s clear that you want to be a Java web developer and looking for a jump start. So here are the skills that will get you going.

Step 1 : First thing first, Know the basics, Learn core Java

The first thing you must learn is Core Java. Having a solid foundation in core java will help you when you jump into the advanced java. No matter what Java technologies you plan to work on, you will need to use the core java every day. So it is absolutely must to have a good understanding of the core concepts. Learn the basic programming concepts like variables, branching and looping, logical conditions, data types etc.

Good understanding of core java library is a must

Learn core java library, especially collection framework, Threads, java.lang, java.io packages. If you are targeting the web development, you may not want to waste time on the swing.
Get yourself a good core java book that covers the latest java edition JDK 1.6.

Step 2 : Learn to use an IDE (integrated development environment)

While working as a professional, you won’t use the plain text editors to write the code, you will have to know how to use IDE. IDE A.K.A code editor will greatly improve your productivity, and make your life easier. Code editors are used to write, compile, run and debug code. They provide features like syntax highlighting, auto completion, can identify the problems in code even before compiling. These are some of the most common features, but there are many more than just these. I will recommend you to learn eclipse which is one of the most popular IDE amongst java developer, and its free.

Step 3 : your first step toward web development, HTML, CSS and JavaScript

I will not explain what HTML or CSS is, there are plenty of resources available on the internet. But understand, this is the most important parts of any web application. Second most important thing to learn is JavaScript, let me clarify, the JavaScript is not java, the similarity in name is for historical reasons. Get yourself into the world of web applications with this three skills, learn some tutorials on the internet or get some good book.

Step 4 : The java web components, Servlet API and JSP

Almost every web application running on internet or intranet which is developed in Java has their roots in Servlet API. So next thing to learn is servlets. Servlet API is the only standard API for java web application development. JSP is also based on the servlet API. Almost all the web frameworks, like Spring MVC, Struts, Wicket uses the servlet API under the hood. Get yourself a good book like “head first servlet”. Having the solid understanding of the Servlet API is quite important. Understand the core concepts like, life cycle, request, response, filters, session, config, context etc.

Step 5 : Learn a web container

Web container is a run time environment or server that is used to deploy and run the web applications or more specifically Web components (Eg servlets or JSP)
Web containers does not know how to run struts or Spring MVC, they just understand the servlet API, but still you can run them on a web container, because ultimately they are based on the Servlet API. You can learn the tomcat, that would be sufficient initially.

Step 6 : Learn JDBC

Almost every web application will need to connect to a database for storing and retrieving persistent data. JDBC is the standard API for database connectivity. So it is quite important that you understand the JDBC well.

Step 7 : Learn a web application framework and an ORM framework

A web application framework is actually a set of libraries that makes developing web applications easier. Struts and Spring MVC are good choices. If you are just starting, I would recommend going with Spring MVC.

ORM stands for object to relational mapping, they are based on JDBC and used for storing and querying the database. But unlike JDBC, ORM frameworks operates on objects and provides ways for storing and retrieving objects. (But be clear, they are ultimately using JDBC under the hood). ORM frameworks reduces lots of boilerplate code, improves productivity and makes developers life easier. Hibernate is the best choice. If you are just starting, read and understand JPA (Java persistence API) which is the standard java ORM API. You can use hibernate for running your JPA code.

Step 8 : What next!

Once you are familiar with the things mentioned above, The next step would be to learn the JavaEE (Java enterprise edition). Learn EJB (Enterprise java beans), JSF (Java server faces) and other APIs that are part of the JavaEE. Get a good book that covers the latest JavaEE edition 1.6

Resources

• Official JDK download
• Installing JDK
• Servlet 3.0 Specification
• Apache Tomcat official site
• Eclipse IDE official site
• Spring framework documentation
• JavaRanch forums

15 GREAT THOUGHTS BY CHANAKYA

1) "Learn from the mistakes of others... you can...'t live long enough to make them all yourselves!!"


2)"A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and Honest people are screwed first."


3)"Even if a snake is not poisonous, it should pretend to be venomous."


4)"There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth."


5)" Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead."


6)"As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it."


7)"The world's biggest power is the youth and beauty of a woman."


8)"Once you start a working on something, don't be afraid of failure and don't abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest."


9)"The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind. But the goodness of a person spreads in all direction."


10)"God is not present in idols. Your feelings are your god. The soul is your temple."


11) "A man is great by deeds, not by birth."


12) "Never make friends with people who are above or below you in status. Such friendships will never give you any happiness."


13) "Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends."


14) "Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person."


15) "Education is the Best Friend. An Educated Person is Respected Everywhere. Education beats the Beauty and the Youth."

Choose your BOSS carefully

There was once a washer man who had a donkey and a dog. One night when the whole world was sleeping, a thief broke into the house, the washer man was fast asleep too but the donkey and the dog were awake. The dog decided not to bark since the master did not take good care of him and wanted to teach him a lesson. The donkey got worried and said to the dog that if he doesn't bark, the donkey will have to do something himself. The dog did not change his mind and the donkey started braying loudly. Hearing the donkey bray, the thief ran away, the master woke up and started beating the donkey for braying in the middle of the night for no reason. Moral of the story “One must not engage in duties other than his own"

Now take a new look at the same story... The washer man was a well educated man from a premier management institute. He had the fundas of looking at the bigger picture and thinking out of the box. He was convinced that there must be some reason for the donkey to bray in the night.. He walked outside a little and did some fact finding, applied a bottom up approach, figured out from the ground realities that there was a thief who broke in and the donkey only wanted to alert him about it. Looking at the donkey's extra initiative and going beyond the call of the duty, he rewarded him with lot of hay and other perks and became his favorite pet. The dog's life didn't change much, except that now the donkey was more motivated in doing the dog's duties as well. In the annual appraisal the dog managed "ME" (Met Expectations) . Soon the dog realized that the donkey is taking care of his duties and he can enjoy his life sleeping and lazing around. The donkey was rated as “star performer". The donkey had to live up to his already high performance standards. Soon he was over burdened with work and always under pressure and now is looking for a NEW JOB ... !!!!

Tunneling

Handling the general case of making two different networks interwork is exceedingly difficult. However, there is a common special case that is manageable. This case is where the source and destination hosts are on the same type of network, but there is a different network in between. As an example, think of an international bank with a TCP/IP-based Ethernet in Paris, a TCP/IP-based Ethernet in London, and a non-IP wide area network (e.g., ATM) in between, as shown in Fig. given below

Tunneling a packet from Paris to London.













The solution to this problem is a technique called tunneling. To send an IP packet to host 2, host 1 constructs the packet containing the IP address of host 2, inserts it into an Ethernet frame addressed to the Paris multiprotocol router, and puts it on the Ethernet. When the multiprotocol router gets the frame, it removes the IP packet, inserts it in the payload field of the WAN network layer packet, and addresses the latter to the WAN address of the London multiprotocol router. When it gets there, the London router removes the IP packet and sends it to host 2 inside an Ethernet frame.
The WAN can be seen as a big tunnel extending from one multiprotocol router to the other. The IP packet just travels from one end of the tunnel to the other, snug in its nice box. It does not have to worry about dealing with the WAN at all. Neither do the hosts on either Ethernet. Only the multiprotocol router has to understand IP and WAN packets. In effect, the entire distance from the middle of one multiprotocol router to the middle of the other acts like a serial line.
An analogy may make tunneling clearer. Consider a person driving her car from Paris to London. Within France, the car moves under its own power, but when it hits the English Channel, it is loaded into a high-speed train and transported to England through the Chunnel (cars are not permitted to drive through the Chunnel). Effectively, the car is being carried as freight, as depicted in Fig. given below. At the far end, the car is let loose on the English roads and once again continues to move under its own power. Tunneling of packets through a foreign network works the same way.


Tunneling a car from France to England.











(Courtesy:-A.S.Tanenbaum)

Asynchronous Transfer Mode(ATM)

Introduction:-
ATM is a cell-switching and multiplexing technology that combines the benefits of circuit switching (guaranteed capacity and constant transmission delay) with those of packet switching (flexibility and efficiency for intermittent traffic). It provides scalable bandwidth from a few megabits per second (Mbps) to many gigabits per second (Gbps). Because of its asynchronous nature, ATM is more efficient than synchronous technologies, such as time-division multiplexing (T.D.M.). With TDM, each user is assigned to a time slot, and no other station can send in that time slot. If a station has a lot of data to send, it can send only when its time slot comes up, even if all other time slots are empty. If, however, a station has nothing to transmit when its time slot comes up, the time slot is sent empty and is wasted. Because ATM is asynchronous, time slots are available on demand with information identifying the source of the transmission contained in the header of each ATM cell.

Evolution:-
Asynchronous transfer mode has not been on the market for a long time in comparison to other technologies . How ever credit is due to researchers of bell laboratories for their work in this this area long before it came to forefront of the media attention in late 1980's. ATM actually began to take shape in the late 1980's and the driving force behind the development was a need for a fast switching technology that supports data ,voice, video and multimedia in general.Now various types of ATM implementation can be done

Architecture
We can consider in ATM architecture following 3 points :-
1)ATM virtual connection
2)Cell Structure
3)ATM Reference Model

ATM Virtual Connections
ATM networks are fundamentally connection oriented, which means that a virtual channel (VC) must be set up across the ATM network prior to any data transfer. (A virtual channel is roughly equivalent to a virtual circuit.)
Two types of ATM connections exist: virtual paths, which are identified by virtual path identifiers, and virtual channels, which are identified by the combination of a VPI and a virtual channel identifier (VCI).
A virtual path is a bundle of virtual channels, all of which are switched transparently across the ATM network on the basis of the common VPI. All VCIs and VPIs, however, have only local significance across a particular link and are remapped, as appropriate, at each switch.
A transmission path is a bundle of VPs as shown below:







CELL Architecture
ATM is based on the switching of 53-byte cells, in which each cell consists of a 5-byte header and a payload of 48 bytes of information. Figure 14.1 illustrates the format of the ATM cell, including the explosion of its 5-byte header to indicate the fields carried in the header.



















Figure : The 53-byte ATM cell.
The 4-bit Generic Flow Control (GFC) field is used as a mechanism to regulate the flow of traffic in an ATM network between the network and the user. The use of this field is currently under development. As we will shortly note, ATM supports two major types of interfaces: Network-to-User (UNI) and Network-to-Network (NNI). When a cell flows from the user to the network or from the network to the user, it will carry a GFC bit value. However, when it flows within a network or between networks, the GFC field is not used. Instead of being wasted, its space can be used to expand the length of the Virtual Path Identifier field.
The 8-bit Virtual Path Identifier (VPI) field represents one half of a two-part connection identifier used by ATM. This field identifies a virtual path that can represent a group of virtual circuits transported along the same route. Although the VPI is eight bits long in a UNI cell, the field expands to 12-bit positions to fill the Generic Flow Control field in an NNI cell. It is described in more detail later in this chapter.
The Virtual Channel Identifier (VCI) is the second half of the two-part connection identifier carried in the ATM header. The 16-bit VCI field identifies a connection between two ATM stations communicating with one another for a specific type of application. Multiple virtual channels (VCs) can be transported within one virtual path. For example, one VC could be used to transport a disk backup operation, while a second VC is used to transport a TCP/IP-based application. The virtual channel represents a one-way cell transport facility. Thus, for each of the previously described operations, another series of VCIs is established from the opposite direction. You can view a virtual channel as an individual one-way end-to-end circuit, whereas a virtual path that can represent a collection of virtual channels can be viewed as a network trunk line. After data is within an ATM network, the VPI is used to route a common group of virtual channels between switches by enabling ATM switches to simply examine the value of the VPI. Later in this chapter, you will examine the use of the VCI.
The Payload Type Identifier (PTI) field indicates the type of information carried in the 48-byte data portion of the ATM cell. Currently, this 3-bit field indicates whether payload data represents management information or user data. Additional PTI field designators have been reserved for future use.
The 1-bit Cell Loss Priority (CLP) field indicates the relative importance of the cell. If this field bit is set to 1, the cell can be discarded by a switch experiencing congestion. If the cell cannot be discarded, the CLP field bit is set to 0.
The last field in the ATM cell header is the 8-bit Header Error Control field. This field represents the result of an 8-bit Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) code, computed only over the ATM cell header. This field provides the capability for detecting all single-bit errors and certain multiple-bit errors that occur in the 40-bit ATM cell header.

The ATM Protocol Reference Model
Three layers in the ATM architecture form the basis for the ATM Protocol Reference model, illustrated in Figure 14.5. Those layers are the Physical layer, the ATM layer, and the ATM Adaptation layer.









Figure : The ATM protocol suite.
The Physical Layer
As indicated in Figure 14.5, the lowest layer in the ATM protocol is the Physical layer. This layer describes the physical transmission of information through an ATM network. It is not actually defined with respect to this new technology. The absence of a Physical layer definition results from the design goal of ATM to operate on various physical interfaces or media types. Thus, instead of defining a specific Physical layer, ATM depends on the Physical layers defined in other networking protocols. Types of physical media specified for ATM include shielded and unshielded twisted-pair, coaxial cable, and fiber-optic cable, which provide cell transport capabilities ranging from a T1 rate of 1.544Mbps to a SONET range of 622Mbps.
The ATM Layer
The ATM layer represents the physical interface between the ATM Adaptation layer (AAL) and the Physical layer. Thus, the ATM layer is responsible for relaying cells from the AAL to the Physical layer for transmission, and in the opposite direction from the Physical layer to the AAL for use in an endpoint. When transporting cells to the Physical layer, the ATM layer is responsible for generating the five-byte cell header for each cell. When receiving cells from the Physical layer, the ATM layer performs a reverse operation, extracting the five-byte header from each cell.
The actual manner by which the ATM layer performs its relaying function depends on the location of the layer at a switch or at an endpoint. If the ATM layer is located in an endpoint, it receives a stream of cells from the Physical layer and transmits either cells with new data or empty cells if there is no data to send to the AAL. When located in a switch, the ATM layer is responsible for determining where incoming cells are routed and for multiplexing cells by placing cells from individual connections into a single-cell stream.
The ATM Adaptation Layer
The ATM Adaptation layer (AAL) represents the top layer in the ATM Protocol model. This layer is responsible for providing an interface between higher-layer protocols and the ATM layer. Because this interface normally occurs based on a voice, data, or video application accessing an ATM network, the operations performed by the AAL occur at endpoints and not at ATM switches. Thus, the AAL is shown in Figure 14.5 to reside at ATM endpoints.

ATM services in Market
When purchasing ATM service, you generally have a choice of four different types of service:
constant bit rate (CBR): specifies a fixed bit rate so that data is sent in a steady stream. This is analogous to a leased line.
variable bit rate (VBR): provides a specified throughput capacity but data is not sent evenly. This is a popular choice for voice and videoconferencing data.
available bit rate (ABR): provides a guaranteed minimum capacity but allows data to be bursted at higher capacities when the network is free.
unspecified bit rate (UBR): does not guarantee any throughput levels. This is used for applications, such as file transfer, that can tolerate delays.

Advantages of the ATM
ATM supports voice, video and data allowing multimedia and mixed services over a
single network.
High evolution potential, works with existing, legacy technologies
Provides the best multiple service support
Supports delay close to that of dedicated services
Supports the broadest range of burstiness, delay tolerance and loss performance through the implementation of multiple QoS classes
Provides the capability to support both connection-oriented and connectionless traffic using AALs
Able to use all common physical transmission paths like SONET.
Cable can be twisted-pair, coaxial or fiber-optic
Ability to connect LAN to WAN
Legacy LAN emulation
Efficient bandwidth use by statistical multiplexing
Scalability
Higher aggregate bandwidth
High speed Mbps and possibly Gbps

Disadvantages of the ATM
Flexible to efficiency’s expense, at present, for any one application it is usually possible to find a more optimized technology
Cost, although it will decrease with time
New customer premises hardware and software are required
Competition from other technologies -100 Mbps FDDI, 100 Mbps Ethernet and fast Ethernet
Presently the applications that can benefit from ATM such as multimedia are rare
The wait, with all the promise of ATM’s capabilities many details are still in the standards process