cheesy4ever

Please (Physical)

Do (Data Link)

Not (Network)

Throw (Transport)

Soggy (Session)

Pizza (Presentation)

Away (Application)

Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred through a cable at any one period of time. You can compare it to the motorway. For example, the number of lanes is the bandwidth,the signs and maps are the network connections, and all of the vehicles on the road at that period in time is the transferring data. On the right is data traveling along a data cable.

You can monitor bandwidth and this video tells you more about Bandwidth monitoring.

As data is sent over a network, it is broken up into smaller chunks. These chunks are called packets. The size of the bandwidth determines how fast the data is transmitted.

This link can tell you your Download speed.

LAN (Local Area Network)

LAN is a kind of network that a group of computers all under the same administrative control can connect to. It covers a small area. It is used in businesses and small offices.

WAN (Wide Area Network)

A WAN network is a kind of network that connects LANs together. It covers a much larger area than LAN. An example of this is the internet.

In chapter 7 I learnt about different models and types of printers and scanners and how they work. For example, som types of printers and scanners are daisy wheel, dot matrix, laser, inkjet, all-in-one, flatbed, and handheld. I have also learnt about cartridges and what colours typically come with them – cyan, magenta, yellow and black (shortened to CMYK. The K stands for Key Black, not just Black). The Laser Printer works by a laser hitting the drum many times per second, and then it is fused onto the paper. I learnt that a printer gets extremely hot while in use so you should never attempt to repair it yourself; get a printer engineer. Another thing that I learnt during this chapter was what quality of a printis measured in (dpi, or dots per inch), and what printing speed is measured in (ppm, or pages per minute). A laser printer can print from 8 – 200 pages per minute, while an inkjet printer can print 2 – 6 pages per minute. I have done a blog post on the steps I took on how to install a printer, different interface speeds, and the Lexmark x3350, which is a make of printer.

While I was studying for this chapter, I felt ok, but I didn’t feel that it was interesting as the previous chapters that I have worked on. My favourite chapter so far is probably Chapter 3, because it was all about how everything fitted together and what everything’s jobs were, and I prefer to be hands on. The practical of installing a printer was quite fun, and I remember most of that, and also I didn’t know how to screenshot before that. I think that doing blog posts is a lot more interesting than reading and copying off of the curriculum and the chapter 7 powerpoint.

Overall, I think that I have taken in quite a lot of this chapter, and am hoping to get a fairly high score on the next assessment. I have found this chapter fairly interesting, although as I have said before not as interesting as previous chapters.

I think that the main points in this chapter are how to install a printer, the main types of printer, how a printer works, how a scanner works, main types of scanner, and what to do if they stop working.

I would rate this chapter 7 out of ten, because, although not the most interesting chapter, I can remember most of what I have done. In Chapter 8, I think that I could improve by  revising more frequently, testing myself on parts of the chapter that I am not so confident on, and taking the Chapter 8 quiz.

The following steps are the steps that need to be done to install a printer.

1. Plug the printer into an AC power source
2. Plug the USB cable into the back of the printer and the back of the computer
3. Turn the printer on
4. Go into the start menu and type in Lexmark (or the name of the printer that you are using)
5. Right-click on the printer icon and click ‘install’
6. It should come up with a window that looks like this.
7. Click on ‘click to download the new driver from the Lexmark International Inc website.
8. This should take you to a website that looks like this.
9. In the search bar, type in ‘driver for Windows 7′
10. It should send you to a page that looks like this.
11. Click on Microsoft
12. Click on the first icon there is
13. It should come up with a window that looks like this.
14. You should click on save
15. It should give you another window that looks like this
16. Once the bar at the bottom is full, click ok (on another window that should come up)
17. It should come up with window from the lexmark website that looks like this.
18. Click on install
19. On the next window, click I agree
20. This is what the next window should look like.
21. After clicking I agree, it should take you to a window that looks like this.
22. After this, it should install.
23. This is what the window should look like.
24. Your device should now be ready to use.
25. You should print a test page to ensure that the printer works.

There are four kinds of printers in the world at the moment, and they are:

• Laser Printers
• Inkjet Printers
• Dot Matrix Printers
• Daisy Wheel Printers

Laser Printers have one large cartridge for black ink alone. Inkjet printers have four different cartridges: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, known simply as CMYK. It is CMYK instead of CMYB because the K is based on Key Black, instead of just black.

Different printers have different PPMs (Pages per minute). A laser printer can print 2 – 6 pages per minute, an inkjet printer can print about 8 – 200 pages per minute, when you think about it that is about 3 pages per second. Dot Matrix printers and daisy wheel printers take over a minute to print one page.

Dot Matrix and Daisy Wheel printers are also very noisy, while inkjet and laser printers, while printing more pages, are still more quiet. The quality of a printed piece is measured in dpm (dots per minute). The higher the dpm, the more resolution there will be.

The image on the right is a HP laser printer.

Some common factors of reliability are:

• warranty
• scheduled servicing
• MTBF (Mean Time between failures).

Chapter 6 summary

Chapter 6 basically describes the components of laptops, and compares them with those of a desktop computers, it talks about the uses of smartphones and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) and what features are common in them. For example: in Laptops, some features are the screen integrated inside the lid, and the keyboard integrated inside the base. For PDAs, you can play games, surf the internet, and instant messaging, and smartphones are cell phones that can do everything that a PDA can do.

Also, in 6.1, it talks about different uses for laptops. It emphasises that the most important things about its appearance are its size ,portablilty and the fact that it doesn’t always need to be plugged into an AC power source, as it has a rechargable battery in its base.

A PDA has an address book, a calculator, an alarm clock, Internet access, E-mail, and global positioning. A smartphone can do all of these things, but also has a built-in camera, document access, abbreviated note-taking and television.

In 6.2, it examines docking stations and port replicators. from 6.2.1 to 6.3, it covers all of the components and LED lights on the inside, the top, the sides, and the base of laptops and docking stations. Somecomponents on the outside of a laptop are a parallel port, an AC power connector, and a battery bay. Some on the inside are a keyboard, a touchpad, a fingerprint reader and a power button. Some LEDs are bluetooth, wireless, number lock and caps lock. Some components found on the docking st

This is a laptop RAM. It shorter and wider than a standard desktop RAM

ation are the Power Button, the eject button and the docking connector. Some cables that can plug into the docking station are Parallel, USB, Ethernet, Video and Audio.

6.3 is about comparing and contrasting different components of that of a laptop, and those of a desktop computer. Laptop and desktops have different shaped motherboards. The form factor of a laptop motherboard is Propietry,whereas desktop computers have ATX, BTX, LPX, AT, and NLX. The expansion slot on a laptop is a Mini-PCI, whereas an expansion slot on a desktop computer can be PCI, PCIe, ISA, and AGP. Finally, the laptop’s RAM slot is SODIMM, whereas a desktop computer can have SIMM, RIMM, and DIMM.

Laptop CPUs don’t use as much power as desktop computers, and so they produce less heat. This means that they don’t need as big a fan as a desktop computer. Because there is not as much power, it does lead to a slight performance decrease. However, the less power is, the longer the other components will live, so effectively, the laptop willkeep working longer than a desktop computer, assuming that you do not replace any components.

Power management controls the flow of electricity to the components of a computer. Desktop computers are always plugged into an AC power source, whereas laptops are small and portable, and have rechargable batteries and can run on their own, until they need to be recharged. The two methods of Power Management are Advanced power  management (APM), and Advanced Configuration and Power interface (ACPI). APM is the earliest version of power management. The BIOS is used to control this. ACPI is the newer one. It has more power management features. It is run by the OS.

These external components can be used on both desktop computers and laptops: External drives, modems, network cards, wireless adapters, printers and other peripherals. USB and Firewire ports can be used to connect Printers, scanners, FDDs, Mice, Cameras, keyboards, HDDs, flash drives, optical drives and MP3 players. Desktop computers have enough space to allow 3.5 inch and 5.5 inch drives into it, but Laptops have limited space because they are designed to be small, that many different kinds of drives can fit into one bay.

In 6.4, it talks about configuring laptops and how you do it. The power management states are:

• S0 – the computer is on and the CPU is running
• S1 – the computer is not running, but the CPU and RAM are still getting power.
• S2 – the CPU is off, but the RAM is still refreshed. This is a lower mode of S1.
• S3 – the CPU is off, and the RAM is on a low refresh rate.
• S4 – the CPU and RAM are off. The contents of the RAM are saved to a temporary file on the HDD.
• S5 – The computer is off and nothing has been saved.

Laptop batteries at the moment can last about 2-10 hours before they need to be recharged. You use power management so that you can use this power efficiently. The most important components to replace in a laptop are the battery, optical drive, hard drive, memory, and PC cards. In 6.4, it tells you in detail just how to replace them. On some laptops though, PC cards, optical drives and USB devices are hot-swappable.

6.5 describes and compares different mobile phone standards. There are 5 different generations of phone so far, and they are 1G, 2G, 2.5G, 3G, and the latest one, 4G. Currently, 1Gs are used in Saudi Arabia, Scandinavia, USA and New Zealand. These are the oldest phones. 2Gs are used mostly worldwide. 2.5Gs are also used mostly worldwide. 3G phones are fairly new to the market, however, they are sold worldwide. 4G are the newest generation of phone and are sold worldwide.

6.6 covers the two topics: Identify cleaning procedures and identify optimal operating environments. To clean the keyboard, you must:

• Turn off the laptop
• Disconnect all devices
• Disconnect laptop from power
• Remove all batteries
• Wipe the laptop with clean lint-free cloth

For cleaning the ventilation, you must do steps 1-4, and then use compressed air to clean out the dust and use tweezers to remove any debris.

For cleaning LCDs, do exactly the same as if you were cleaning a keyboard. These are just three of the components this chapter describes how to clean.

The best conditions to keep your laptop are from 10 – 80% humidity and 45 – 90 degrees Fahrenheit. An ideal place to keep your laptop would be a place which is clean, and which won’t get contaminated. Places like an office desk, or a smooth table. When transporting and shipping laptops, use either a padded laptop bag or an approved computer bag.

6.7 is about troubleshooting. It covers two topics: Reviewing the troubleshooting process and identify the common problems and solutions.

I would like to point out that the photo in my blog post is only a concept, and also, I meant to post 1 photo not 2

What are 4G networks?

4G is an abbreviation of the 4th generation. It is an upgrade from 3G, which not very long ago was a big step in modern technology. The 4G transfers data at a speed of 100 megabits per second. Because it is faster, you will be able to listen to music and watch videos at very high qualities.

Why do we need them?

We need 4G networks so that we can access data much, much faster, which will mean that we can get more done. Also, because we can watch more videos and have better internet access, we can get more information to put into our files, which means we will get better grades.

Pros

Frequency band – 2-8GHz

Band width – 5-20 MHz

Data transfer – 100 megabits per second (100mbps)

Cons

It might be considered only temporary

very high power consumption

When will it be released?

The 4G network will be released about halfway through 2010.

What is my opinion?

I think that 4G technology will be a major step forward in terms of phones, just because it is so fast. But if I was to buy a phone, I think I would buy the 3G, despite that it isn’t as fast.