Lilleys blog of the day

Bandwidth is the ammount of data that can go through media at one time. For example, a water pipe would the media and the water is the data. If the pipe were to be bigger there would be more water (data) going through it. If it were smaller, there would be less data going through it. The problem is that you can’t send the whole thing at once because it would be too big. So what happens is that the data splits down into chunks called packets and then is transferred through to it’s destination. To test your bandwidth visit this web page : http://www.bandwidthplace.com/

Scanner Type Description Use All – in – one scanner This scanner combines the funcionality from many devices into one product Home/small office Flatbed Scanner Used to scan books, it’s portable, it’s cheap and used at home. Home/small office Handheld Scanner Very portable and can scan bar codes Supermarket Drum Scanner This produces high-quality images, it is used for achiving pictures for musuems. Museum

• Make sure you have bought the printer or have optained it from someone or somewhere.
• Go on to the Lexmark website and then click on drivers and downloads.

• Search for Lexmark x3350 in the search box underneath the list of products.

• Then click on the link at the bottom of search to begin the download. If you have Windows, then click Microsoft at the top of the links to access the Microsoft download links.

• Once it is downloaded, click on the file to begin installation.

• When the install wizard comes up, follow the instructions provided. Make sure that you do not have the USB wire plugged in to the computer until the installation wizard tells you to do so.

• When the installation is complete, test it by going on word, the internet etc. And print something off. If it works, then the printer is working fine and it has become your default printer. If it hasn’t printed off, then read on.

• If the printer failed the test, then it may not have become your default printer. To make sure it is or isn’t, go onto the control pannel, click printers and devices and then see if the x3350 has a green tick by it’s icon. If it does then it is the default printer. If it isn’t then to make it your default browser you must choose it on the print options screen.

• Once that is done, then test it again and it should be just fine.

There are many different types of printers and scanners. They can be in different shapes and sizes and cost different amounts depending on the quality. Some of the types of printers are:

• Inkjet printer
• Laser printers
• Dot matrix printers

Inkjet printers are the most common printers at home. The use electrostatic spray technology which means that an ink cartridge goes forwards and backwards, spraying on the letters and pushing out the paper. It can print black and white or colour. The inkjet printer prints out 2 – 6 PPM( Pages Per Minute)

Laser printers are more commonly used in offices or other work places. They are a lot faster than the inkjet printers. They print out 8 – 200 PPM. Only one laser printer can print black and white and another printer can only print colour, there is no laser printer that holds both colour and black and white inside because the ink cartridge is too big.

The dot matrix printer has the most annoying sound any printer can make! It is an old version of a printer and the way it prints onto the is that a pin pushes onto a ribbon which pushes onto the paper and that’s what makes the words. The dot matrix printer can only print black and white, it cannot print colour.

6.1

Laptops are portable devices, they can be used for many things such as job presentations. They are mainly used for business people who want to acess data while away from the office. Early laptops were heavy and very expensive, but now they are light and cheaper and has a lot more gadgets on them such as built in webcams. The significant feature of a laptop is it’s size, apart from the early laptops. They are portable,  light weight and some have gained great achievements such as the macbook air for being the world’s thinnest laptop.

PDA’s and Smartphones are portable hand held devices. The PDA contains games, email, web surfing and instant messaging, adress book and alarm clock. Smartphones are basically a mobile phone with PDA capabilities but also Built-in camera, Document access, E-mail, Abbreviated note-taking, Television. An example of a smartphone is the Apple iPhone, and an example of a PDA is a Palm Treo.

6.2

Like computers, laptops have ports and they can be found in the back and sides of the laptop. Laptops need a port to charge the battery (the only component a computer doesn’t have) by using external power. Laptop ports contain vents, Jacks, bays, slots and a keyhole on the exterior part. There are LED icons on top of the laptop which indicate whether the bluetooth is switched on, how much battery there is left and an icon saying if the laptop was on standby. LED positions can be different depending on the specified laptop. There are 3 ports in the back of the laptop, parallel port, AC power connector and the battery bay. On the left side of the laptop you get a lot more ports and connectors, the security keyhole, USB, s-video connector, modem, Ethernet, network LEDs, stereo headphone Jack, microphone Jack, ventelation and PC combo expansion slot. On the front of the laptop, there is the ventilation, speakers, Infrared port and the laptop latch. On the right hand side of the laptop, there is the VGA port, Drive bay status indicator, Optical drive activity indicator and the Optical drive. On the bottom there is the Docking station connector, Battery latches, RAM access panel and the Hard drive access panel.

The laptop has a ‘Clamshell’ design, typically, the laptop will be shut when not in use. When it is opened, you can acess a variety of input devices such as LEDs and the display screen. There are several devices available to you when you open the lid. These are, Keyboard, Input devices, Fingerprint reader, Volume controls and the Power button. The keyboard allows you to type in words and commands. The input devices such as the touch pad allows you to move the pinter on the screen. The fingerprint reader is a security device for when you log on the laptop, if it is the right fingerprint it will automatically log you on. At the bottom of the screen, there is a row of LED icons which indicate; wireless, bluetooth, Num lock, caps lock, hard drive activity, power on, battery status and standby. The screen on a laptop is the same LCD screen as a computer but on a laptop, you can configure the brightness and resolution by using the button controls.

The docking station is an almost extinct device. In it’s time it allowed laptops to be plugged in and start charging them up. On the top view of the docking station, there is the power button, the eject button and the docking connector. On the back of the docking station there is Exhaust vent, AC power connector, PC Card/ExpressCard slot, bVGA port ,DVI port, Line In connector, Headphone connector, USB port, Mouse port, Keyboard port, External-diskette-drive connector, Parallel port, Serial port, Modem port and the Ethernet port.

6.3

This chapter is mainly about the components in a laptop. To start, is the motherboard. It is tiny compared to the desktop computer and it is different shape to it aswell. When you repair a laptop, it is recommended that you get a replacement motherboard from the manufactures that created it.

The CPU’s in the laptop are smaller and use less power to prevent the laptop from over heating. By that the laptop processors do not need a cooling device. A downside to the low power is that the performance will be decreased.

6.4

This chapter talks about how to configure power. There are 6 standards of ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) and these are:

• SO = The computer is on and the CPU is running
• S1 = The computer is off while the CPU and RAM are still getting power.
• S2 = The CPU is off but the RAM is refreshed. The computer is lower mode than S1
• S3 = The CPU is off but the RAM is put to a slow refresh state. This mode it’s called ‘save to RAM’ or ‘standby mode’
• S4 =  Both the CPU and the RAM are off. The saved contents on the RAM are sent to a temporary file on the HDD.
• S5 = The computer is off and nothing is saved.

6.5

This chapter is all about mobile phones. They are all set up to a variety of generations, these are:

• 1G = Released in 1980, the 1G got rid of the old cable on a phone but was only sold in certain places.
• 2G = Now released world-wide the 2G enabled you to call someone anywhere and it aslo had push-to-talk abilities as well.
• 2.5G = This was just an upgrade to the 2G with all the capabilities better.
• 3G = Famously known for the iPhone 3G, this is an advanced phone system with internet access, email, photos and videos.
• 4G = This is an upgrade to the 3G and it enables internet speed to go faster. It has not yet been releasd but it will be soon.

6.6

This chapter introduces you on how to clean the laptop. To clean the keyboard simply:

1. Turn off the laptop.
2. Disconnect all attached devices.
3. Disconnect laptop from the electrical outlet.
4. Remove all installed batteries.
5. Wipe laptop and keyboard with a soft, lint-free cloth that is lightly moistened with water or computer-screen cleaner.

To clean the LCD screen, you must:

1. Turn off the laptop.
2. Disconnect all attached devices.
3. Disconnect laptop from the electrical outlet.
4. Remove all installed batteries.
5. Wipe display with a soft, lint-free cloth that is lightly moistened with a mild cleaning solution.

As you can see, The cleaning procedures are very similiar to each other. But if you wanted more battery life, clean your laptop at least every month.

6.7

This chapter is all about troubleshooting. When a computer goes wrong you ask  yourself questions to try and get the reason why it broke down. Well for laptops it is a similiar thing because one of the questions asked is “what programmes have you installed recently?” It’s like a puzzle, you get asked questions and they all lead to one answer. All this is the first stage out of 6. The second, is to verify the obvious issues such as the battery or the LEDs. After that you may have to try a quick solution such as rebooting the laptop. Then you gather the data from the computer by system properties or beep sequences. After all that you can fix the problem. If you are a technician and your fixing someone’s laptop, always say what was wrong and how to fix it, and then say how they can prevent it.

What is 4g?

The 4G (fourth generation) is basically an upgrade to the 3G. It will allow users to download things such as music and videos. It will have a faster broadband so downloading will be quicker and web surfing will also be faster.

Why do we need the 4g?

We don’t need the 4g but we could use it for quicker internet access. For example, if someone has a rubbish internet connection, then they could use the 4g to speed things up.

Pros/Cons

Some of the pros for the 4g is that it’s faster and more data transfer

Some of the cons is that it may not overtake the 3g since it is just an upgrade to it though it really depends on people’s opinions.

When will it be released?

It will be released in in the mid year of 2010.

My opinions to it

I think the 4G will be good if you mostly go on the internet on you phones but for anything else i would go for the 3G.

The components in a laptop are similar to the components in a desktop computer. They both have a RAM, HDD, CPU, Motherboard etc.One of the differences between them is that a laptop has a battery while a computer does not. There are many other differencies and similarities such as:

• A laptop can have an integrated keyboard while a pc does not.
• They both have an ethernet NIC and a wireless NIC
• They both have intergrated drive controllers except the pc has one with the adapter card as well

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