Improvements that can be made to a computer system, costs and potential benefits – D2

There are many things that you could do and change to the system, in order to improve it, some of them being software changes and some of them being hardware changes, below is some examples of things that you could do in order to improve your computer systems hardware features.

RAM

You can change the amount of RAM that is in your computer in order to make your system run faster, and your computer will be able to load up faster. Now this can bring you many benefits to you, it will make the following things faster:

-       System start up.

-       Will make programs run faster.

-       Will allow you to install software packages that require more RAM.

There are all of the potential benefits that an upgrade in RAM can bring to your system.

Now I shall explain about the costs of upgrading the RAM.  For instance if your computer uses DDR3 RAM and it currently holds 2GB of RAM and you want to double that to 4GB of RAM, then a 2GB stick of RAM for DDR3 costs around £15-£30 for this piece of hardware. One of the benefits that you will gain from doing this upgrade is that your computer will run twice as fast as it does now, and it won’t cost you a lot of money, and since your computer system will run twice as fast you won’t have to be waiting as long for things to load up, which will give you a lot more time to do other things.

CPU

The CPU is a very hard thing to be able to improve, as there are many types and only certain CPUs fit in certain systems, so it is best when you buy a computer system initially to find a system that has a fast CPU processing speed.

The benefits that a high CPU processing speed will bring you is as follows:

-       The system can do more calculations per second, meaning that the system will run and function faster.

-       You will be able to run games that require a faster processing speed, EG games that have high amount of detail in them.

-       The screen will be able to produce better detail as it can process more pixels.

Getting a new CPU in the same machine can cost a lot of money, more than £150, although, if you buy a brand new machine it won’t cost a lot more and you will be able to get everything replaced and upgraded at the same time, I think this is the best thing to do if you want an upgrade on your CPU.

Hard drive

Another Improvement that you could make to a computer system is the hard drive. You could extend the amount of space that there is on the hard drive for storing information, by doing so you will have more space for important things like:

-       Software Programmes

-       Music

-       Videos

-       Pictures

-       And more!

So this is the possible benefits you can get from having more space on your hard drive, say for instance, if you have the standard 40GB hard drive that is in old computers and you have filled this space, then you will not be able to save any more information, by getting a hard drive with more space, like a 2TB hard drive, which costs £55-£200, you will have plenty of space for all of the information you need to save, so the benefits you can get from having a bigger hard drive outweigh the costs of upgrading.

Graphics Card

Another way that you could improve your computer system is by installing a Graphics card into of your available slots on your motherboard, by doing so you are taking a load off of the RAM space and the CPU, as the graphics card will do all of the processing that is to do with the graphics, you will be able to render the graphics a lot faster as well as the display having more detail.

Installing a graphics card will speed up your overall performance of your computer as the graphics do not need to be loaded onto the RAM, and the CPU doesn’t need to process as much data, the price of a 1GB graphics card costs around £35-£100, and for all of the benefits that this will give you, it is worth every penny.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would say the benefits of upgrading the following hardware are as follows:

-       Hard Drive

-       Graphics card

-       RAM

By doing these combined you will be able to make your system 10 times better, and it won’t cost you a lot to do so!

How the configurations in P6 made the system more appropriate for a specific purpose – M3

There are many things that I have done in order to make this system more appropriate for a specific purpose, or a specific person. Some of these are as follows:

Left and right mouse buttons

By swapping the right and left mouse buttons over, I have made this system usable by people who are left handed, or for the people who are disabled and do not have the use of their right hand, by doing so I have made it easier for left handed people to use a computer system, as they would have to use their mouse in their left hand.

You change this setting back easily, by going back to where the settings for the mouse are and un-checking the box, it will then revert back so you can use the mouse in the right hand again.

Power saving options

By changing the power options I can make this system more appropriate for a specific purpose or for a specific person. Say for instance someone needs there computer monitor to stay on for less time to save power, then they can change how long it stays on, you can change it from 15 minutes to 5 minutes for instance.

Another thing that you can do in the power saving options is to make the system go to sleep or hibernate earlier, for instance if you are leave you computer for a certain amount of time and you forget to switch it off, then the computer will turn itself off, or hibernate or it will go to sleep. By using this feature you could be saving yourself some money as your computer won’t be left on by accident.

Screen resolution

You can adjust the screen resolution, in order to fit your display monitor, obviously, the bigger your computer screen is the more pixels you will need to fill the screen with. And if your display monitor is smaller you will need less pixels to fill the screen, and for the most possible details you want the most possible pixels to be displayed on the screen.

This can also be altered if your resolution setting is too high and not all the pixels are shown on screen then you can reduce the resolution in order to make everything fit, it can also be used to change the pixel settings for different output methods, EG if it connects to a TV it will need to produce more pixels, than if it has to connect to an ordinary computer monitor, this can be altered at any time to suit anyone’s needs.

Undertake routine maintenance tasks on a computer system - P8

For this task I am going to show you how to undertake routine maintenance tasks in order to keep your computer system running at its best, and the two things I have chosen to show you how to do is:
- Defragmentation
- Deleting Temporary Files

By doing these tasks on a regular basis you will be speeding up how fast your system runs as it will not need to have to search the whole disk for one file in the system as it has been having a regular defrag, and it will no longer have unnecessary Temporary files therefore giving you more Hard Drive space to save things that you actually might need.

First I will show you how to do a Disk Defragmentation, and first you will need to find this which can be located by going Start > All Programs > Accessories > System tools > Disk Defrag, an image that shows you how to get there is as follows:

Once you have clicked this you will get the following screen:

Now you will have to click 'analyse' for the computer to check and see how much of your hard drive is fragmented, after it has finished this you can now click on the button next to it that says 'defrag' and then the following screen will come up and your disk will be defragmenting:

Once you have done this and the computer has finished your hard drive will be successfully defraged.

Next I will show you how to do a disk cleanup in order to delete any unwanted temporary files you may have saved on your computer.
First you will need to go start > all programs > accessories > system tools > disk cleanup, a picture of this is as follows:

After you have clicked this the system will analyse the possible files that are not needed on your computer and can be removed to free up hard drive space, a screenshot is shown below:

After the computer has finished checking what can be deleted you will get the following screen, this will give you options to what things you want to delete and the things that you want to keep:

Since I want to delete any temporary files that I don't need, I have only ticked the boxes for 'temporary Internet files' and 'temporary files, and when I click next, the following screen will appear:

The system is now deleting the temporary files that I do not need, and by doing so, clearing up hard drive space.

These are just 2 of the many maintenance tasks that you can do in order to keep your system running at its full potential.

Testing a computer system for functionality - P7

There are many ways in which you can test your computer system for its functionality, and some of them that i have done are as follows:

Software applications open and work as intended

In order for me to test that software applications open and they work how i want them to, i will have to test the functionality of them, so i have picked the following two software applications to test:
- Microsoft Word
- Microsoft Paint

First of all i shall explain how i tested that Microsoft Word opened and functioned as intended, below is an explanation of how i tested it, and after that there are screen shots that show that the software works.

What i did to test Microsoft Word's functionality and if the software opened is i found the program on my system, i opened the program and i wrote a short sentence showing you that the software works as it is supposed to, below are a few questions that i have made before hand to answer about the functionality of the software:
Did the application open?
Yes.
How long approximately did it take upon opening?
Around 20 seconds.
Can i write a sentence without any problems?
Yes, i can write a sentence without any interruptions EG software crashes etc..

All of these tests passed so i know that Microsoft Word works perfectly fine, like the software utility was designed to. Below are some images as evidence that this software works.

This image shows me opening Microsoft word, the next image shown is an image of Microsoft word with a sentence written in it.

Now I know that Microsoft Word works exactly how it is intended to work.

Now i shall explain how i tested Microsoft Paint for functionality and if the program works exactly how it was intended to work, first there will be a text write-up explaining what i did and then there will be some images as evidence that the systems software does as intended.

First of all i opened Microsoft Paint, and i drew a cube, to make sure that the software works, following are some questions that i made before hand and i have answered them after testing the software.

Did the application open?
Yes.
How long did it take to open?
About 5 seconds.
Did the software allow you to draw without any problems? (EG crashing)
Yes, the software allowed me to draw the cube without any interruptions.

Now there will be some images that shows evidence that the softwares utility does work as intended and a picture that shows the cube that i drew on Microsoft Paint.

This is an image of me opening Microsoft paint.

This is the image of the cube that i drew on Microsoft Paint in order to show that the program works as intended to.

Desktop shortcuts go to the right place

Now i will show you how two of the shortcuts that are on my desktop open and they go to the right place. first i will show you that the 'mouse' shortcut works and it takes you to the mouse settings. Below is an image that shows the shortcut on my desktop.

I have opened this shortcut and it has taken me to the following screen:

This shows that the shortcut works as intended and takes me to the right place that it should.

Next I am going to show you that the next shortcut for the date and time works and takes me to where it is supposed to.
Here is an image that shows the shortcut on my desktop background.

Next i will show you the screen that comes up once i open up this shortcut:

Now i can see that this shortcut works as when i open this the date and time comes up as intended.

The correct date a time are set

Before i changed the settings of the time it was wrong, as you can see in the following image the time was 3 minutes slow, saying the time was 12:19, when the time was supposed to say 12:22.

So i simply changed the time by clicked where the digits are in the right and added 3 minutes on, and i got the following result:


















This shows that I can alter the date and time to suit me, if the clocks move forward or back I know how to change the time.

All of the above proves that the system is completely function-able and the system will do anything that you want it to do.

Configuring your Computer System - P6

There are many things that you can do to configure your system to meet your needs, some of these are as follows:

Left and right mouse buttons

I am now going show you some screenshots on how to change your mouse buttons over, for people who are left handed.

First of all, you have to find the mouse settings, if you go to the control panel, which is found here:
Start > Control Panel

Once you have opened up the control panel, you need to find the one that is named 'mouse', like follows:

Open this up and you will be in the mouse settings, like follows:

Now, at the top of this window you will see a box that you can check, that says 'Swich Primary and Secondary buttons', once you have done this and clicked 'ok' your computer will be ready for someone who is left handed to use.

Power saving options

Next i am going to guide you through changing the power saving options, in order to save yourself energy, or make the screen turn of earlier.

First of all you have to find the power settings, which can also be found from Start > Control panel, a image below shows you where to find it.

Once you are in the control panel, you will have to look for the once that says 'power options', open this up and the following screen will apear:

Now I am going to change the time that it takes for the computer monitor to turn off from 15 minutes to after 5 minutes of non-movement, a sceen shot shows this as follows:

If you follow all of these steps, you will successfully be able to change you power settings to suit your needs.

Changing the settings for screen resolution

Now I am going to show you how to change the settings for the screen resolution, the first thing that you need to do is go to your desktop and right click, and click Properties.

After you have done this the following screen will come up:

Now if you click settings, on the right hand side, then you can change the resolution that your monitor displays at, the lower the resolution, the less pixels that are displayed on the screen and it will make images less seem bigger, Below is an image that shows you where the resolution is on the screen:

The red box highlights where the resolution settings are, and if you adjust this bar, you can make there be less pixels displayed on screen or more pixels.

By doing any of the above you will will be able to customize your computer system to meet your desired needs.

Installing the software for a printer - P5

In this post I will show you how you can install the software for your printer, to be able to print.

First, you will need to make sure that the printer is all plugged in and connected to the computer, like so:

One you have done this you need to insert the CD into the computer, like so:

Once you have inserted the CD, the next step should pop up on your computer screen:

Click quick install and it will then take you onto the next page, which is as follows:

Agree to their terms and conditions after you have read through them, and click 'next', you will then get this screen:

It will now ask you what components you want to install, choose the ones that you want a click 'next', the following screen will appear:

The Printer software is now installing onto your system, it will take a few minutes, and then you will end up with the following screen:

You will now need to register your printer, if you are connected to the Internet, if not you don't have to do this, now i will show you that the printer works:

I have now printed something off of Microsoft word in order to show you that the printer works, an image is as follows:

If you follow all of the previous steps then you will successfully install your printer software.

Removing and reinserting a peice of hardware - P5

I am going to show you how to remove and reinsert the graphics card, next is some images that will show you step by step how to do this.

First of all, you need to make sure that you have all of the safety equiptment set up, as you can see from the above image that i have already done so.

Make sure that any cables that are attached to the graphics card are removed before removing the graphics card itself.

Now you need to unscrew any screws that are holding the graphics card in place.

Now all you will have to do is pull the graphics card out, when you pull it make sure you are gentle and don't be too aggressive with it, as you would not want to damage the card. a gentle tug should do the trick.

This is picture of the graphics card away from the motherboard, now i am going to show you how to put the graphics card back in.

To put the graphics card back in you have to align the slot with the graphics card and give it a push in the center of the graphics card, and it should just pop back into place. like so:

Then you will have to re-screw the screws back into place, like so:

And then when you have done this, reinsert the VGA cable in to the back, like so:

Once this is done, stand the computer back up, turn the switches back on at the wall and turn the computer on, and the monitor should now be working as it did before, like so:

If you follow all of these steps you will successfully be able to remove and re-insert your graphics card.

How will these utilities speed up my system? D1

How can software utilities speed up your computer?

Anti-virus

Anti-virus software speeds up your system by eliminating the following problems:

-          Viruses, that cause the following issues:

o   Messing around with the settings of your computer so it is more difficult to use.

o   Someone planting a virus on your computer and causing it to run slowly, because the software is using up all of your RAM space.

o   Someone planting a virus onto your computer and using it to take over your computer.

o   If someone plants any sort of virus on your computer that needs to run in order for them to use it, this will take up your RAM space and make your computer slower.

These things are the reason why you should always have some sort of software that protects you against viruses, so it will keep your computer running at its fastest.

Firewall

Having a firewall will speed up your system because it will stop any unauthorised connections from connecting to your computer, by the use of ports. What this does is it blocks any connections that you don’t want, say for instance, if someone tried to hack into your computer they wouldn’t be able to do it because there are only certain ports that will be open, these ports will allow you to use the applications that you want to. Not to be hacked, and if they hack you it can slow down the performance of your computer. This is why you should always have a firewall.

Software Utilities - P3

Software utilities – P3

There are many different software utilities, they have many different functions but the two main ones that I am going to write about is virus protection software and firewalls, as these both have an important function in keeping your computer safe and sometimes you can get a programme that has both pieces of software in one.

First I am going to explain what virus protection software does, this piece of software has a vital to any computer, since it stops any infections from getting into your computer, although no anti-virus will protect you 100% from viruses, it can protect you 97% of the time, simply because new viruses are made every day, doing different things to harm your computer.

So what is a virus?

A Virus is a piece of software or malware that gets into your computer system and it can severely damage it, doing things that can stop you from loading your computer, to using it as a key logger to find out personal information, like credit card details ECT.. and this is why it is vital to have anti-virus software to make it almost impossible for this to happen.

There are many different companies who offer many different anti-virus software, a few of them are AVG, Norton Anti-virus and Mcafee anti-virus. Some of these are free, but some of them you have to pay for.

So what might happen if you don’t have anti-virus software?

If you don’t have a good piece of anti-virus software, then if someone hacks into your system and plants a virus on it, then you could face things like: your computer is unable to boot up, fraud, constant pop-ups advertising and more things that you wouldn’t wish for on your computer and that is why having anti-virus is vital.

  

The other utility I am going to talk about that is for your computer system is a firewall, windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7 and some MAC Operating Systems have a firewall that is already installed into the operating system. A firewall is a piece of software that filters any unwanted traffic coming in through the internet, the firewall opens ‘ports’ for certain connections you are using, and connections that are unwanted are automatically blocked by your firewall, stopping any unwanted trespassers from getting into your computer system.

So what would happen if you don’t have a firewall?

If you don’t have a firewall, it will allow trespassers access to your system, giving them access to all of your personal details, including your bank account details, and possibly more, anything that you have stored on your computer, it can also allow people to ‘plant’ a virus into your computer. So both a firewall and anti-virus is vital for your computer.

Sometimes people switch the firewall off as it speeds up the connection to the internet because it doesn’t have to pass through the firewall first, but this is unadvisable, as it will leave your computer open to hackers, who will hack into your computer and steal your personal information. So keeping a firewall on at all times when using the internet is what you should do, as it will keep any unwanted traffic away from the compter.

What is an operating system? - P1

What is an operating system – P1

An operating system is a piece of software that is stored on the hard drive, which the computer uses when you switch the computer on. This piece of software creates an interface between the user and the computer, which you can run programmes on your operating system, all of the different operating systems differ in some shape or form, that’s why depending on what operating system you are running depends on what software you can run and can’t run. Without an operating system you wouldn’t be able to use a computer, as this is the main piece of software.  A operating system also has control over all of the hardware inside of the computer, like the HDD and the motherboard, so the operating system is the most important thing. There are a few different types of operating system out there, which are mentioned in this post.

Health and Safety - CS1 - P1

First before you read on any further into this blog you must know health and safety, by this I mean whenever you need to change something inside of a computer you must have an anti-static mat, an anti-static wristband and the cables to interconnect them. The reason for having this part of equipment is to prevent damage to your computer. The reason your computer may get damaged if you do not use this equipment is because you could have a slight positive or negative charge, and then when your touch the computer it could send that charge through the part of the computer and cause damage.

                                             

To use the equipment you must first lay the mat on a table or on the ground, it doesn’t matter. Then lay the computer on the mat, making sure you don’t touch anything inside until you’ve done the required steps. Then put on the wristband and attach the wristband to the mat, there should be somewhere on the mat where the clip attaches to. Then get the wire with the crocodile clip on, clip it to the mat the same way you did the wristband, then attach the crocodile clip anywhere on the casing of the computer. Then there should be one more wire, the last one will plug into the power supply in the wall and also into the mat. Once you have done all of these steps you are ready to start working on your computer.

Also, when you remove equipment from the computer you should always place them inside an anti-static bag, to prevent them from getting damaged.