Unit 2 M1

Function	Windows		Mac
Machine and peripheral management	The operating system controls all the functions and the whole machine. Operating system also controls the peripherals. For example windows control a multifunction printer by showing options for printing and scanning or, a monitor by changing the resolution.		MacOS control of computer components is pretty much the same as windows, but most of the programs have to be bought, especially for Macs. For example when the device is plugged in to Mac, drivers are downloaded automatically.
Security	Operating system must be sure that there is no unauthorised access to computer. Windows has many security functions like user accounts, anti-viruses or firewalls which are not too great as it is easy to bypassed by going into safe mode.		One of the MacOS security features is blocking the ports that might contain virus or any type of danger that might have a bad effect on the operating system. It also got security features that checks if the downloaded content is safe or not.
File management	Without file management operating system could not show files, create them, delete, copy etc. Windows process for file management is called explorer.exe.		For MacOS file management is called Finder and it is pretty much the same as Windows explorer.exe as it has appropriate icons and tree navigation system.
Device drivers	Drivers are programs that tell the operating system what and how to do with this particular device. For example when you buy new graphic card, to make it work properly with all of its power and efficiency you need to install drivers provided with the card.		Same as Windows’, the drivers are programs that controls the devices. In MacOS case, when the system is closed and you can’t really upgrade anything, every needed driver to run the computer is included in system.
Ability to customize	Windows has many abilities to customize the operating system such as changing border glass colour/type, account picture, system sounds, taskbar etc.		Mac OS has slightly less abilities to customize the operating system, but of course it has some like CandyBar makes all the icons prettier or Mirage which makes the dock look epic

 

Unit 2 P3

For my P3 I am going to explain the purpose of different software utilities and also I will include screen shots or images to cover security virus protection and/or firewalls, clean up tools for removal and cookies and/or internet history and/or fragmentation and drive formating.

Security software utilities contain virus protection and firewalls.Virus protection scans and prevents computer system from getting a virus, worms and trojans that might infect the system. Viruses make the job easier for hackers as the software protection is much lower, this might cause that hackers will take over the system or steal any data or personal detail. Anti virus is very important as it protects the software and scans regularly to check any viruses. Virus protection require regular update to make sure the viruses are stopped as new viruses are being created constantly by hackers. Firewall is a software utility that monitors the traffic on a computer system connected to a network. Before going on to certain page on internet, firewalls job is to check if the source is trusted and also blocks the traffic from unwanted source, this prevents the system from getting any virus or trojans installed.

Clean up tools are used to make sure that useless/unwanted files are deleted, the system is working properly and to make sure hard drive is organised to optimal performances. Most of the operating systems usually have built in clean up tool such as Windows Disk Cleanup or Omnidisksweeper. Clean up tools remove cookies which are downloaded when accessing websites and can also improve system performance. Clearing internet history and free up disk space are also ways to improve your system performance.

Drive formatting is used to completely wipe the data from a system. When company is selling a computer/ laptop to a customer, they would need to upload the files needed and install operating system. There are different levels of drive formatting, as mentioned before one level of drive formatting is to wipe the whole computer. Another level might be just to wipe one hard drive than all of them. Before formatting, it is best to move all the files like videos, images, games etc. on one hard drive, to be able to wipe the rest of computer.

Unit 2 P2

An operating system is software that manages computer hardware and software resources and provides common services for computer programs. The operating system is absolutely necessary for the system software in a computer system. External peripheral are mouses, keyboards, printers, monitors etc. Whereas internal peripherals are graphic card, RAM, CPU etc.

Machine and Peripheral Management- Peripheral management controls peripheral devices by sending them commands in their own computer language. When a new peripheral is added, it is installed into the operating system. Also operating system communicates via software drivers for the devices and it controls the whole machine and all the components. Operating system also controls peripherals such as mouses, keyboard or speakers.

Security- When a computer program is ran by an unknown user, this might cause serious damage to a computer or data stored in it, this is why a computer system should be/ is protected against unknown user’s proposed attack. Operating system has responsibility to create protection system that has the ability to scan the user who is running a certain program. Authentications means to identify each user and associating active programs with those users. Usually operating system identifies if the user is authorized or not. Ways the operating system can identify the user are username and password, a user card/key, signature or a fingerprint.

File Management- A file management system, also known as a file system is a system that the operating system or a program uses to organize and keep track of files. File management enables to edit the files and folders in any way such as rename, edit, copy, paste, cut, send to, etc.

Device Drivers- These are small pieces of software that provide system with easier access to the hardware. Every device on the computer has drivers installed. Main devices such as processor, chipset on the motherboard and disk drives are connected with the operating system, without them the operating system wouldn’t work. However, other drives must be installed straight after the installation of a new device.

Unit 2 P1

Unit 2 P1

Internal system unit components:

• Processor- Processor is something like a brain, it processes all the data and interprets all the functions of the computer.

• Motherboard- Motherboard is a board that connects all the parts of computer together. Video card, sound card, memory, CPU, hard drives, optical drives and other accessories like keyboard, mouse and speakers. All of the parts can be connected directly to the motherboard or via cables.

• BIOS- BIOS is a set of computer instructions which controls the operations of a computer, and makes sure that ports, hard drives, CPU and all the other chips function together.

• Power supply- Power Supply converts the alternating current line from home to the direct current needed by the computer. The typical voltages supplied are 3.3 volts, 5 volts and 12 volts.The 3.3 and 5 volts and used by digital circuit, where as 12 volts are used to run motors in fans and disk drives.

• Fan and heatsink or cooling- Heatsink keeps the CPU (Central Processing Unit) cool and preventing computer from overheating. With only heatsink as the only resource of cooling the computer, this might just not be enough, that’s why it is always good to have fan and heatsink together. It takes pretty much the same space as only heatsink, and it helps a lot. There are different methods of cooling the computer such as water cooling or wire cooling, but this is more advanced and it takes a lot of space.

• Hard drive configuration and controllers SATA or IDE or EIDE-  SATA stands for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment. They are used for connecting host bus adapter, for example the computer to mass storage devices such as hard drives. SATA cables are thin, long and they are now being used on most new computers.

• Ports USB and/or parallel and/or serial- USB drive is the most widely used attaching hardware, which is inserted in the USB  port. Usually there are more than two USB ports in laptop and four in desktop computer.

• Internal memory RAM, ROM and cache- There are different types of Internal memory, RAM (Random Access Memory) is one of the types, which is responsible for the speed of your computer and how many programs you can have opened at once. ROM (Read-only Memory) is another type of memory, which computer can only read, but not modify. Cache memory is very fast memory, but also very expensive. There are three levels of cache memory.  Level 1 cache, which is extremely fast but relatively small, is located close to the processor. Level 2 cache is located halfway between the process and the system bus; it is fairly fast and medium-sized. Level 3 cache is relatively large and close to RAM.

• Specialized cards network and/or graphic cards- Network cards are the part of a computer that allows you to use internet. You can also use USB wireless adapter which is pretty much the same thing, but you just connect it to USB port instead of plugging it into Motherboard. Graphic card is responsible for generating outputs of the image on monitor. Graphic card is also one of the most important parts if you are a gamer. If the Graphic card gets damaged, different parts of the computer might get damaged too as the image on the monitor starts to change constantly, which turns of the computer itself or the monitor might even go “blue screen” which resets the computer.

Peripherals:

• Printer- Printer is a device that accept text and graphic from a computer, and transfer the information to paper. Most interested qualities of the printer are colour, speed, resolution and memory. There are two different types of ink, black n white and colour. Black and white ink is much cheaper and it is used most of a time at school/work as there is no need to print the work in colour. The work can be printed just like you want, but most of the settings are set on the computer such as sheet size, colour and the size of image/text.

• Scanner- Scanner is very similar to the printer, but it is just opposite. Instead of sending the information from computer to the paper, the scanner converts the information from paper to digital data.

• Twisted pair cabling- Twisted pair cabling is a cable that consists of two independently insulated wires twisted around one another. The use of two wires twisted together helps to reduce the risk of damaging the machine as there are less wires, so it helps to stop the electromagnetic induction.

Backing Storage:

• Pen drive- Pen drives are one of the best and  main backup resources you can use in your computer. A pen drive allows you to store anything, but of course they do have limit. Nowadays there are pen drives that can storage even up to 512GB if not more. They are very small so you can take it anywhere. If that’s not enough space for all the documents, it is better to use bigger device like hard drive.

• Hard drive- Hard drive capacity starts from 20GB and there are hard drives that have 2TB Capacity. They are a bit bigger than pen drives, but they have much bigger capacity.

Communication between components

The computer system board is made up of many unified buses which is basically controlled by two bridges called as north bridge and south bridge. In computer architecture, a bus is a subsystem that transfers data between computer components inside a computer or between computers. The north bridge contains RAM, CPU and Graphics whereas south bridge contains everything else via system buses.

Unlike a point-to-point connection, a bus can logically connect several peripherals over the same set of wires.