Tag Archives: computer
Types of Computer Hardware
Types of Computer Hardware
Computer hardware is a physical part of a computer that executes within the hardware. It is unlike computer software or data that can be frequently changed, modified or erased on a computer. Computer hardware is not frequently changed and so is stored in hardware devices such as read only memory (ROM) where it is not readily changed.
Most computer hardware is embedded and so is not visible to normal users. Below are the different types of hardware’s found in a computer.
Motherboard: It is the central or primary circuit board making up a complex electronic system such as a computer. A motherboard is also known as a main board, logic board or system board.
Central processing Unit: A CPU is the main component of a digital computer that interprets instructions and process data in computer programs.
Random Access Memory: A RAM allows the stored data to be accessed in any order. RAM is considered as the main memory of the computer where the working area is used for displaying and manipulating data.
Basic Input Output System: BIOS prepares the software programs to load, execute and control the computer.
Power Supply: Power Supply supplies electrical energy to an output load or group of loads.
Video Display Controller: It converts the logical representation of visual information into a signal that can be used as input for a display medium.
Computer Bus: It is used to transfer data or power between computer components inside a computer or between computers.
CD-ROM drive: It contains data accessible by a computer
Floppy disk: It is a data storage device
Zip Drive: It is a medium capacity removable disk storage system.
Hard Disk: It is a non-volatile data storage system that stores data on a magnetic surface layered unto hard disk platters.
Computer Courses: Do We Really Need Them?
Computer Courses: Do We Really Need Them?
For Seniors This Does Compute
Probably the most prevalent, and perhaps least costly of any training anywhere are computer courses. In fact, computer courses are about the most important courses offered, as they provide skills needed for personal as well as business acumen.
Community colleges, senior centers, community centers, non-profit organizations, high schools, colleges, universities and private for-profit firms all offer computer courses. Many retails and office supply stores, as well as e-merchants, offer computer courses by e-book, POD (print on demand), Web-based training and CD or DVD.
For seniors especially the choice in computer courses is diverse, plentiful and generally low cost. One of the perks of growing old is the right to become part of what is fast becoming a commonplace college affiliated organization – Creative Retirement centers. These are typically cropping up on the campuses of community colleges and state universities and offer computer courses, discounts on standard college courses, senior computer centers, events, trips and get togethers such as meetings, dances and dinners.
The impetus behind these creative retirement facilities and organizations and their computer centers and computer courses was the University of North Carolina and its Asheville campus. The home of the Center for Creative Retirement, UNC Ashville each Memorial Weekend hosts a weekend get-together for seniors or about-to-be-retirees, with a look at the various facilities and housing available locally, the various courses including computer courses offered at the UNC campus club, and a tour of the local area.
The College for Seniors is a program of the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement, established in 1988. With full access to the resources of the University of North Carolina at Asheville, College for Seniors members keep mentally and physically fit through participation in classes and possibly even teaching a class or two.
College for Seniors draws from members’ experiences and professional expertise as well as from the UNCA faculty to offer four terms each year. Courses range from Chaucer to computers, foreign affairs to opera, yoga to history. Held on the UNCA campus and at community locations, courses are non-credit, with no tests or grades, open to all interested adults. Members collaborate with staff to teach, learn, design curricula and arrange special events. Educational travel opportunities are available. Term-renewable registration entitles members to as many courses as schedules permit.
All College for Seniors students are required to be members of the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement. This membership allows participation in all Center for Creative Retirement programs and provides a UNCA parking permit, a UNCA identification card, and UNCA library privileges. There are no age limits for College for Seniors courses or Center for Creative Retirement membership.
Examples of computer courses offered as part of College for Seniors include a basic Getting Started with Computers course, Advanced Home Computer, Basic e-mail and Internet access, MS Word training, Excel Spreadsheet basics, and Power Point basics. The only prerequisites for the more advanced of these computer courses are knowledge of the keyboard and mouse, and comfort with the use of both. A basic knowledge of either Windows or Macintosh jargon and menu bar items such as filing, editing, viewing and inserting functions. You should also know commands such as copying, cutting and pasting, and standard and formatting toolbars.
For the beginning computer courses, you don’t even need these rudimentary understandings, though. The computer starter course assumed you’ve never used a computer before, and teaches the senior student how to navigate around the Internet, and how to conduct searches. Windows applications are taught as well in these basic courses. Here the retirees learn how to use word processing to save files, and to create folders. They also learn the basics of sending and receiving e-mail.
How Computer Forensics Analysts Work
How Computer Forensics Analysts Work
Thanks to television shows most of us already have an idea of what forensics is. Although some scenes are not depicted correctly (examining specimens are more exhausting and mentally draining due to the constant demand for paying attention to details, they don’t look as easy as they are in television with swooping camera angles) they have given us an idea on what they do in collecting evidence.
Computer forensics is part of this investigation. Due to the higher incidence of cyber crimes they are now an essential part of the legal process.
We already have an idea on what they do. However a computer forensics job entails a lot of procedures and expertise. Like any other evidence electronic data can also be fragile and damaged. There are certain steps to be followed to ensure that the data will be collected without being tampered.
A day in the work of a computer forensic analyst
The first thing that an analyst will do is to secure the data and the machine. The data can never be analyzed in the same system that it came from so exact copies are made. Usually the data in a hard drive is duplicated to extract the information needed.
The collection process starts when the analyst examines the surroundings of the machine. Other physical evidence such as notes, disks and printouts are also taken. Photographs of the surroundings are also taken. The area is also examined for portable storage devices.
If the computer system is still operating the information will be collected by examining its applications. Computers that are used for illegal communications may not have all of the data stored in the hard drive. Information stored in Random Access Memory will be lost if the computer is shut down so this step is important.
Open source tools are used to analyze on live computers. Analysts can also obtain an image of mapped drives and encrypted containers while they are on. The data from network connections are captured first, then running applications, and lastly from the Random Access Memory.
The computer is then shut off carefully in a way that it will not loose any data. The method used will depend in the computer and the operating system it uses. If proper shut down is made volatile data can be lost. Pulling the plug is not advisable either because it may corrupt the file system and loose important data.
The analyst then inspects for trap and photographs the configuration of the system. A diagram will also be made including serial number and markings.
The analyst then makes an exact duplicate of the hard drive called Imaging. They often use hard drive duplicators or software imaging tools. This is done in sector levels to make bit-stream copies of ever part that is accessible to the user which can store data.
The original hard drive is then installed with a hardware write protection and sent to a secure storage. After making a complete and accurate copy the duplicated data can now be analyzed for evidence. Analysts use algorithm to make sure that the imaging process is verified. Two algorithms are generally used in this process.
The analyst then renders his opinion then documents everything that was done. A report is made that contains all the findings of the analyst and whether or not it has been used in an illegal activity or criminal act.
Knowing Basic Computer Terminology Helps Support Staff Help You
Knowing Basic Computer Terminology Helps Support Staff Help You
When you know and understand the correct terms to use, getting assistance for your computer software is much easier. Not knowing how to describe the problem correctly to technical support is one of the biggest problems for new computer users. Below, you will find the correct terminology for the common components of software.
1. User Interface
This is the programs outward visual design. It can contain buttons, icons, boxes, words and squares. If your PC experiences insufficient memory, there may be black rectangles that appear across the user interface of your software programs.
2. Menu Bar
This will display menu items or options. The most common parts of a menu bar will grant access to File commands, Save commands, Open commands and Print commands. An error in this part of the interface will produce a missing option or one that is of a lighter color.
3. Title Bar
This is the area at the top of the program, where its name is displayed as well as where there may be a description of the contents displayed on part of the interface. An incorrectly coded program may produce a wrong description in this part of its interface.
4. Status Bar
This is located at the bottom of the interface, generally displaying small messages, indicating the progress of a command or task. Incorrectly programmed programs may display the wrong information in this area.
5. Tool Bar
This will display small icons on the top of the screen as representing tools. Clicking, an icon opens a tool or processes a command that might also exist on the menu bar. Problems in this part of an interface are uncommon.
6. Minimize, Restore, and Exit buttons
These three buttons are normally located on the right upper part of a program interface, each allows you to minimize the screen, restore it to original size, or shut the program down.
7. Context Menu
Right clicking on something will display the context menu. It displays in much the same way as a Help menu.
8. Scroll Bar
This tool allows a user to move the displayed part of the user interface up and down on the computer screen.
9. Buttons
Buttons perform commands with the click of a mouse. Problems may exist when the text button is grayed out or if it does not seem to sink into a screen when clicked.
10. Input Box
These normally small rectangles allow for entering data into a web page interface. If you cannot use one of these boxes, it may indicate that the program is faulty or that communication with the external network has been compromised.
11. Check Box
This small box displays several choices. When clicked a small x displays inside a box, it allows you to choose between many options displayed on the user interface. Inability to enter an x may indicate that the program has stopped functioning and must be restarted.
Your Computer Is Your Enemy
Your Computer Is Your Enemy
The old cliché, “If you want a friend, get a dog” still stands in the 21st Century. It is well established in the medical community that animals can do much to extend the human life span as well as improve the quality of life. Don’t live on or vicariously through your computer.
A pastor once said his job was to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Thus we have the difference between a real live pet and an inanimate electro-mechanical object – in this case the personal computer. The pet comforts while the computer, improperly used and/or over used, is a thief and a murderer.
Besides, the computer, especially if you run a Microsoft Operating System and Microsoft production software, requires much more maintenance than does a pet. This alone is enough to drive most users’ blood pressure through the roof. How many times do you suspect that needs to happen before it begins to take a toll on the human body? It is even more aggravating than the days when we only received three (3) snowy channels on a small black and white television and each channel required another trip outside in the
rain, in the cold, in the snow, in the heat to adjust the huge antenna attached to a corner of the house which spilled the rain directly into your face as you looked up to see in which direction the antenna was pointing. If you were lucky someone was in the house calling to you when you got the best picture.
You know what I am talking about… like when your computer locks up with a box popping up on the monitor’s screen saying it needs to restart now, and won’t let you do anything else until you acquiesce and reboot. There goes your last few minutes of work. Another blood pressure jump! It sure is for the Tennessee Mountain Man!
Father may know best, but mother knows even better and she always made the children set across the room from the TV concerned about it ruining their vision. Now that same mom allows the children and grandchildren to set on top of a twenty-one (21) inch monitor, even closer to a laptop, and play games ad infinitum. The result being more and more of our children are wearing glasses and contact lenses at younger and younger ages.
Mom also insisted that little ones spend much more time outside playing in the yard than obsessing over the magic box in the corner, and the children were healthier. There were fewer cases of childhood diabetes and hardly any childhood obesity.
Children learned skills greater than cheating x-box and PSP, and mom and pop never heard of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The computer man and everyone else is seemingly required to work on or at computer consoles to some extent these days. As a result, the entire family now either suffers from a computer related ailment or is at real risk of developing one.
With the advent and prevalence of the personal computer and gaming gizmos, the heart, which is a muscle, gets little or no exercise. As if the TV did not create enough couch potatoes resulting in what amounts to atrophy of the heart muscle, the PC seems to have claimed the remainder of man.
A computer cannot hold you on cold nights or enjoy a walk hand-n-hand with you in the moonlight. It cannot comfort you when you are sick or improve your mood when you are sad. It cannot feed you when you are hungry nor give you a drink when you are thirsty… at least not yet. The PC cannot yet carry on a civil or reasoned conversation. Irrespective of one’s addictions and all the attractions on the internet, it is not true social interaction and it certainly cannot satisfy the libido try as some may.
Used improperly it can and does drive wedges between husbands and wives, and between children and parents. Like a drug, once addicted, and it is addictive, it can cost one his job and it has. Like a nosy gossiping neighbor or ticked off lover, it has the propensity to tell the world (friend and foe alike) everything it knows (both good and bad) about you. And, in case you didn’t know, there are hackers from people with malicious intentions, to your employer, to Microsoft, to insurance companies, to financial institutions, to the government who have the ability to ask your computer what it knows about you whenever they wish. And, your computer… your friend in whom you confide everything, like a spurned lover is more than willing to betray her paramour and spill her guts literally.
My computer… my friend? With such friends who needs enemies?
If you don’t know how to protect yourself from a gabby computer you might want to seek the help of professionals like the folks at Remote Helpdesk 1. Now shut the glib computer down, and go outside and play.