Task 3- install and configure the printer supplied but not attached

Step.1. Check the contents of the box, ensuring all leads and parts are there.
Step .2. Remove all packaging and un-necessary parts.
Step 3. Make space for where you want your printer to go, check that the printer will not over heat in the place you have chosen.
Step.4. Install the paper trays to the printer before positioning it.
Step 5. Insert the paper into the correct sized paper tray.
Step.6. Read the instruction manual carefully following the steps it gives you.
Step.7. you now need to connect your printer to either or both, the computer, network, print server or/and an electrical plug socket.
Step.8. Now depending on the type of ports you are working with depends on the cables your computer has. Select the suitable data cable and connect it to the communication port on the back or side of the printer; if the printer has a parallel port connect the correct lead to the printer port, do this with usb and fire wire as well.
Step.9. connect the other end of the cable to the other port which will generally be at the back of the computer monitor.
Step.10. Now connect the remaining cable which should be to connect to a plug socket, connect this power cable to both the printer and connect insert the plug into the electric socket.
Step.11. Check all parts are connected securely and switch all on/off switches and buttons to on.
Step.12. You may have been given a CD rom, if so insert this and follow the instructions on the screen.
Step.13. your printer shall now be ready to print with.
Step.14. To ensure the computer is installed correctly and securely, print a test page

Comparison between two different operating systems

There are varied things that an operating system does; one being that is manages both all hardware and software resources. It manages such things as programmes (software) and memory, disk space and the processor etc. For this comparison I have chosen Microsoft’s windows and Linux.

There are many types of Linux operating systems but unlike windows, Linux is produced by many different companies for example; Xandros, SuSE, Linspire.
There are many types of ‘windows’, such as Windows 95, 98, ME and many more. These are the older types of operating systems known as Win9x where as the newer versions are known as NT class. The NT class consists of windows 2000, windows XP, windows Vista amongst others.
Linux can be modified in many ways in which windows can not be changed. The detail varies from the many types of ‘distributions’ of the Linux family.
Windows generally improves their support for gaming, digital photography, wireless networking and instant messaging. The styles of the task bar, start menu and control panels vary within each single Microsoft operating system. Microsoft windows have many editions for both personal use (home) and communal use (business). Both Windows and Linux share many of the same types of software but software specifically made for windows will not work on a Linux operating system vice versa.
Linux can be modified by the user, a Linux operation system is best for users that wish to create, change and extend to help with the development to your computer which suits and benefits you (the user) People can add programmes and change the codes for a more personal touch. Windows however is not as flexible with self control and personal changes within programmes and other things. For home use windows is rather costly when compared to prices of Linux as Linux is low-cost. A Microsoft windows package can be used on one computer and one computer only where as a Linux package can be used on many computers and there is no need to buy another package, this helps with the cost of operating systems; especially in a business.
The main differences between the two operating systems are basically all the small things such as the price, and the difference between how they do it. They differ in all philosophy, stability and versatility. Both improve in their apparent fragile areas when creating the next operating system as comparing both Linux and windows with their most recent package to their first will have a magnificent difference.
Microsoft XP is concentrated on technology, an example being the sharpness on LCD screens and also enhancements within the internet and 64 bit version is provided and the internet enhancement includes internet explorer 6.
Linux is an open sourced operating system where as Microsoft windows is not, this means that you are more likely to violate many kinds of license agreements when using an operating system of Microsoft’s.

Dear Mr Tchaikondi,
I am writing to inform you of the research I have undertaken and found. During the past fourteen days I have been researching Computer systems and their components, I have found many interesting things. For the last past two weeks I have found four computers systems and components in which are both suitable and appropriate for your British office. The budget I was given of 2,500 is a lot of money for a decent computer but each component needed that I add increases the total cost but I have managed to stick to the financial plan intended.
The following computer systems I have found all meet the specification details and targets proposed.

System 1-
Intel® Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor
(2.4GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 8MB Cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
4GB DDR2 667MHz memory
640GB SATA hard drive (7200rpm)
NVIDIA® GeForce® 7050 onboard graphics
Dual Layer DVD Rewriter
18-in-1 media card reader
6x USB ports (2x front, 4x rear)
19" Packard Bell Viseo TFT display
CD/DVD disk drives for the children and teachers in Tanzania
Microsoft works
£599.99
System 2-
Commodore G9555 with Blue Portal CKin
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
(2.4GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 8MB Cache)
Genuine Windows Vista (R) Home Premium
320MB nVidia GeForce 8800GTS
4GB Corsair 800MHz memory
500GB hard drive
Multi-Format Dual Layer DVD Re-Writer
15-in-1 Media Card Reader
6 No of USB connections
£849.99
Norton 360 All-In-One Security Version 2.0 added for free
Microsoft - Suite Includes• Microsoft Office Excel 2007• Microsoft Office Excel 2007• Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager• Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007• Microsoft Office Publisher 2007• Microsoft Office Word 2007• Microsoft Office Excel 2007
New task based menus & toolbars
New Live Preview
New library of predefined QuickFormats
Quickly preview changes with LivePreview
New features help filter & find email
Improved junk mail technology
Advanced instant search capabilities
Category colouring
New To-Do Bar
Improved task & calendar integration
£199.00

System 3- Apple imac
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
(2.6 GHz, 800 MHz, 6 MB L2 Cache)
2 GB Memory
320 GB Hard Drive
20'' Glossy Widescreen Display
Wireless & Bluetooth 2.1 Networking
iLife 08 Software
iSight Camera
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO Graphics Card
Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard
Software titles included as standard with the iMac are iLife' 08, Front Row and Photo Booth, all pre-installed and operated via Apples Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard operating system.
£949.99
Mac OS X v10.5 leopard –
· safari- (internet)
· mail- (emails)
· address book
· ical- (Calender)
· time machine (backing up your system etc)
· boot camp( when you need to open up software from other operating systems)
· ichat (instant messenger)
· iphoto (photo editing, sharing)
· imovie (movie maker, editor)
· iweb
· Iwork ( word processors, spreadsheets, presentations etc)

System 4-
Philips HEPC9602 with 22" display
Intel® Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor
(2.4GHz, 1066MHZ FSB, 8MB Cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
2GB DDR2 667MHz memory
500GB SATA hard drive (7200rpm)
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce 8400GS graphics
Dual Layer DVD Rewriter
Digital TV Tuner
Built-in wireless (802.11b/g)
Integrated 1.3 million pixel webcam
£899.99
Norton 360 All-In-One Security Version 2.0 added for free

Microsoft - Suite Includes• Microsoft Office Excel 2007• Microsoft Office Excel 2007• Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager• Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007• Microsoft Office Publisher 2007• Microsoft Office Word 2007• Microsoft Office Excel 2007
£199.00

Out of these four computers I have come to a conclusion based on the facts I have above. I have chosen System four. I have chosen this computer system as it has all the properties needed that is listed and more. It comes with a virus protection programme which is really good seen as children may use the computer. The four computer systems above are all suitable as they are all similar in many ways. System 1 is near enough everything system four is but system four has a lot more to offer, for instance system four had a digital TV tuner, which would be useful to teachers and children. It features wireless network which is a plus due to not having as many leads and wires around.
I have picked this computer mainly due to these features-
2GB DDR2 667MHz memory
500GB SATA hard drive (7200rpm)
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce 8400GS graphics
Built-in wireless (802.11b/g)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
22” display

System three is close behind system four in my opinion as it has many unique features and functions but the leopard operating system can be very tricky to get used too if you didn’t have that operating system before hand. System two again has many decent features for instance it had a 500 GB hard drive which would be excellent as you can store lots of the computer system.
The total price of computer system four and the Microsoft package totals into

899.99+ 199.00 = 1108.99

This means there is still money left for components and extras. The total amount of money left over will be

2500- 1108.99= 1391.01

Install and run a Firewall.
To begin with Emily clicked the start button in the Left hand corner of the screen and then opened up the control panel. Turning on the firewall was both easy to find and turn on. After selecting the windows firewall button all she did was select the setting to turn the firewall on.

Virus Protection-
Again starting from the Start menu, emily scrolled down the list of programmes until she found AVG anti virus protection software. After opening the software Emily run a full computer scan. When the scan was complete she then clicked on Change scan settings. Emily then scheduled a weekly scan for 10 am for every Friday morning. Particulary in a business environment a daily scan at about half 6 in the evening would be more appropriate due to the impact it may have on the user as this may slow your computer down. Also a daily scan will decrease the likelyness of you getting a virus or spy on your computer.

Install Service Pack 2 patches for windows XP
Emily Started by opening up the internet explorer and searched in Google, Service pack 2 download. When the results came up Emily clicked on the following link http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/xpsp2.html
At this website address she downloaded the software she wanted.

Defragment hard drive-
Emily opened up my computer on the desk top screen and Right clicked and scrolled down to properties. After the Screen opened Emily clicked on the tools sub heading and pressed the button which says Defragment now. Emily Also had the choice to Schedule the Defragmenter like she did with the virus protection.

Drive Formatting-
Emily seemed to find this task easy as all she did was click on my computer and highlight the drive she wanted to format. Then she right clicked her mouse and selected format.

Create Folders.
Emily did this task in no time. Emily Right clicked her mouse on the desk top and scrolled down to new, then folder and then she named the folder. There were many different choices Emily looked at; as such she could have changed the icon for her folder. Although she didnt change any settings for her folder, she did have a quick scan through of her options.

Copy and delete files-
Emily copied a file from my documents and moved it into Emily’s files. After moving the file she then went back to my documents and deleted the file. Emily found this task simple, as she didn’t take long to do this task.

Virus protection-

Virus protection- Virus protection is a type of software, which detects and removes viruses and spy ware, a virus is a code or programme loaded onto your computer without your permission and viruses can also replicate themselves. Some viruses can be very malicious. For instance it may cause all your files to be deleted, some are more subtle and backgrounds and pictures change also if a virus builds up it slows down the computer and can even cause it too stop completely because the memory is up too its max in memory. Virus protection works very fast and its effective. If It does not get rid of the virus the Virus protection will help neutralize the virus. Full system scan- A full system scan has many benefits in comparison to scans that are not for the full system, for instance you can choose what time you have your computer scanned whether that will be morning afternoon or evening and you can even make it start at a specific minute such as 10:28 am also you have options for how often your computer is scanned as you may have it daily, weekly or monthly. Its best to have your computer set up to be scanned instantly instead of manually as you may forget to run the full system scan which may lead to getting viruses.
virus protection usually


Installing service pact 2 patches for windows xp-

Service pact 2 – Service pact 2 helps protect against viruses and worms which do not need the user online to be able to pass on, Also provides protection from hackers. Not only does it provides this but also better security information to help users, which are faced000 with theses sorts of security decisions. Service pact fixes an existing problem. Windows XP also adds extra-improved security configuration settings and options.

Clean up tools-

Defragment hard drive- Data is stored on the hard drive on the operating system when files and data is stored it tries to store that file in one section of adjoining contiguous locations that are connecting without a space in between. After you have created and deleted lots of files your hard drive has small pockets of space where there was once a file, which has been deleted, these small files are called fragmentation. When you have lots of small pockets and no space left for new files and new data if you were to add software it would be spread between all the little pockets, which slows down the whole software packages. Defragmenter is software that moves all your data and files in contiguous space, instead of being spread out. The main benefit of the defragmentation is that all your programs, files and data run far more efficiently and quickly, as the files will be together.

Drive formatting- Drive formatting is basically where you delete every file and folder off the hard drive and you completely start again with the build up of your files and folders. Too make sure your drive recovers you need to back up as much personal data, files and folders that you want. In some circumstances if a virus has caused serious damage to the computer it might not be possible to back up your files but if you plan ahead it will be possible to back up your data and can copy and archive your hard drive before you start the format process.

Install and run a firewall- a firewall is a device that permits, denies, encrypt, decrypt or proxy anything trying to enter the computer system based on a set of rules. You may come across hardware firewalls and software firewalls. A hardware firewall in basic terms is a box that’s sits between you and the Internet that performs a filtering function. Stuff that is filtered out never reaches your computer. Broadband routers performs perform the function of a firewall but unlike filtering on the way in, it will not filter “traffic” on the way out. A software firewall however allows all traffic through too the computer but prevents it from getting through to the operating system. The benefits of a firewall are that no it prevents viruses and hackers entering the operating system.

Create Folders- There is one main benefit of creating folders and that is for the option to keep all your files that relate to each other together for example having English files and science files instead of having it mixed up with technology files.

Back up to CD using compression software- Compression software allows you to compact your files to make them smaller. Many videos and images are a large file, which may slow down your computer. So compression software compacts the file so it smaller and helps your computer system run more efficiently.

Computer utilities Definition
Disk Defragmenters Disk defragmentersDetects computer files whose contents have been stored on the hard disk in disjointed fragments and move them together to increase efficiency.
System profilers Provides detailed information about the software installed and hardware attached to the computer and restores entire computer systems or selected files.
Virus scanners A virus scanner scans either the whole computer or certain parts for viruses and infections on the system.
Binary hex/text editor Directly modify text or data of a file.
Archive Archive is the output of a single file or streak of files; these files do not usually include encryption on compression abilities.

Compression Compact files and folders into one compressed file.
Encryption

When provided with a key or code and plain text it produces an encrypted file.
Access point Gives an access point for an application software programmes
Registry cleaners Cleans/ gets rid of windows registry by removing past registry keys that do not work anymore.
Network managers Checks Log events, data transfers and checks network.
System utilities Provides a way of performing routine data management tasks such as renaming, uncatolouging, cataloguing, deleting, copying pasting, moving, merging, generating and changing dater sets mainly on the mainframe.

Master Slave

Is a model for communication protocal in which a device or process (master) controls one or more other devices or processes (slave). When the master/slave relationship is established the direction of control is always from the master to slave.

System unit and components:

Processors and options;

Motherboard- The motherboard is the underlying board in a computer. There are many interfaces plugged into the motherboard such as CPU (central processing unit), RAM (random access memory), hard drives, optical drives and disk drives. There are optional interfaces that can be built in the motherboard such as a video interface or a sound card. Most motherboards come with two IDE interfaces (primary and secondary)

BIOS- (basic input output system) the BIOS makes sure all the other chips, ports and hard drives, CPUs function together. Bios is the most common uses of flash memory. BIOS is the third type of software a computer needs to run successfully. its most important role is loading the operating system. Other tasks the bios carries out are, a power on self-test (post) activating other BIOS chips as many other components such as graphic cards often have there own. It also manages many things like the keyboard and the screen etc

Power supply- For a computer system to work you need a power supply. The power supply converts alternating current(AC) into direct current (DC)

Fan and heat sink- A Fan and heat sink is a part in the computer which controls its temperature by disperses heat into the surrounding air. All modern CPUs require a heat sink not all central processing units need a fan with the heat sink. A heat sink without a fan is called a passive heat sink.

Hard drive configuration controllers;
IDE- integrated drive electronics, is a hard drive interface for personal computers. Its used between a motherboard data paths and the computers disk drive storage devices.
EIDE- Enhanced integrated drive electronics, is a standard electronic interface between the pc and its mass storage drives and provides faster access to the hard drive. It suports many other parts such as Direct memory access and support for many additional drives including CD-Rom.
Master-
Slave-

Ports; a communication channel for computers and networks
USB: A USB port is a standard cable connection interface.USB ports allow stand-alone electronic devices to be connected via cables to a computer. a personal computer is provided with one or more serial ports and usually one paralel port. The serial port supports one bit-at-a-time transmission to devices such as scanners and the parallel port supports multiple-bit-at-a-time transmission to devices such as printers.

Plotter is similar to a printer in ways as instead of drawing dots to form a picture it uses lines.

Internal memory- refers to both ram and maybe rom and flash memory. Internal memory usually refers to chips rather than disks and/or tapes.
Ram (random access memory) is all internal workspace of the computer which is lost when the computer is turned off.

Specialized cards-
Network cards- a network card is something that lets your pc connect to a local network. Network cards can be USBs or cards that use a slot in the PCI bus. Many motherboards now days have network interfaces
Graphic cards- the computer has to order each pixel to form a picture and to do this is needs to be translated from binary data from the cpu and into a image. The translation takes place on a graphics card.

What is an operating system?
What is the purpose? What are the features and functions?

An operating system is software components which is responsible for the management and co-ordination of actions and the sharing of properties of the computer. A main purpose of a operating system is too manage the hardware. All Computers need an operating system, The most common operating system is produced by Microsoft which is the windows family. Microsoft’s first operating system was created in November 1985 (Windows 1.01). In any gadget that has an operating system, there is a way to make changes to how the device works. They can be changed or customized without having to affect the other devices or procedures. This is because it is made out of a portable code rather than permanent physical circuits. Operating systems offer a number of services to application programs and users. Applications access these services through application programmes interfaces (APIs) or sysyem calls

There are two main functions of what an operating system does one being that is manages both all the hardware resources and the software resources such as the processor, memory, disk space, programmes etc.
The second main reason is that it provides a stable way to deal with all the hardware without the need too know every small little detail about the hardware.

Two types of different operating systems are-
Microsoft’s windows and apples Mac OS (operating system) are both examples of single user but multi tasking operating systems. This lets one user use several different programmes at one time. For example if the user wanted to write a document and research it using the internet at the same time as writing the document in word, the user could do this at one time. Where as the Palm Os for a handheld palm is a modern single user, single task operating system. This Allows the user to use only one programme/operation at one time, this user would not be able to use the internet and write a document at once.