ICT Hardware/Software report Essay

A Diagram to show the Structure of A Computer System A Diagram to show the System for Completing My Logo A Diagram to show the System for Completing My Spreadsheet A Diagram to show the System for Completing My Wage Slip A Diagram to show the System for Completing Mail Merge Storage Device Description Advantages Disadvantages Where did I use this device? How could I have used this device? Hard Disk Primary storage device of a computer. It has a large capacity of up to 1024 GB (160 GB on PC). Large capacity Reliable Durable Fragile Not infallible Not portable I used this device each time I needed to save my work. N/A Floppy Disk A 3. 5 inch disk quadrangular in shape. Obsolete form of data storage. Simple to use Compact Portable Small memory Easily damaged Unreliable N/A To take my data home Flash Drive (USB) A modern form of data storage. It connects via USB. Compact Portable Large memory (up to 2GB) Small-easily lost Not compatible with all computers Fragile To take work home N/A Output Device Description Advantages Disadvantages Where did I use this device? How could I have used this device? Ink Jet Printer These printers use cartridges which contain ink. Produce good quality printouts Fast Cheap to buy Laserjet Printer They print in the same way as photocopiers. Powdered ink, called ‘Toner’, is fused onto paper by heat and pressure. High quality printouts Cost per page low (cheaper than ink-jet or dot matrix printers) Most expensive printer to buy Large Expensive to repair Dot Matrix Printer First printer to be used in homes and schools. Cheap Low operating costs Can create carbon copies Noisy Cannot produce colour documents Very slow N/A I could have printed some of my work off with it. LCD Monitor Liquid crystal displays. Passes light through tiny crystals. Portable. High quality display More expensive than CRT monitors Screen is fragile To view my work N/A CRT Monitor Cathode ray tube. Coating of small phosphor dots glow when hit by electrons i. e. light. Cheap Simple Heavy (not portable therefore) Lower quality display N/A I could have used this to view my work rather than an LCD monitor Graphics Plotter Can produce large printouts e. g. 3†³x10†³ and of a high quality. The images are created by a pen controlled by the computer. High quality printouts Large printouts can be produced Slower than printers More expensive than printers Bad for printing text N/A. To print off large copies of my work. Will have improved quality of logo Input Device Description Advantages Disadvantages Where did I use this device? How could I have used this device? Keyboard It is the commonest and most widely used input device. The keys (buttons) are arranged alphabetically, numerically and there are computer specific keys (function-F1, F2 etc and: delete, page up home etc). Most computers have a keyboard packaged with them Simple to use Special keyboards available Mistakes are easy to make Keyboards are unsuitable for making graphs Handicapped people find them hard to use. All the way through the course every time I needed to enter data N/A Mouse Most common input device alongside the keyboard. Has 2-5 buttons. There are two types available: optical and roller; optical has a motion sensor under the mouse, and the roller operates with a ball. Perfect for desktop computers Simple to use Supplied with PC Need an even surface near the PC Overuse can lead to RSI (repetitive strain injury) Any time I needed to select a file, used for navigating the internet and programs Scanner Scanners convert physical data (text, image etc) into digital data. This allows the image to be edited. The most used scanner is the flatbed scanner which is used at home school etc. Higher quality than handheld scanners. Images can be edited/enhanced once digitised Very accurate and high quality Images can take up large amounts of memory The digital image loses some quality in the scanning process N/A I could have made my wage slip by hand and scanned it in Magnetic Stripe Reader A device which reads magnetic tape. Commonly used by bank machines and for security in buildings (acts as a key) Simple to operate Quick and easy to use Smudges on the magnetic stripe make it unable for the card to be read N/A N/A. Software Description Advantages Disadvantages Where did I use this program? How could I have used this program? Word Processing The method of creating documents on a computer. Also used to describe advanced shorthand techniques. Easy to edit Simple to correct mistakes Not all word processors allow the same formatting e. g. notepad doesn’t allow you to add images but Word does When I was mail merging, entering employee data and creating my wage slip N/A Spreadsheet Data is entered in rows and columns like a table. This is ideal for numerical data/registers etc, calculations can be carried out with ease. Formulae are easy to enter Cleary presented data Can use up a lot of memory Can be complicated at times When I entered the data for the employees N/A Database A collection of data. Files are fixed or variable length. Requires little memory Easy to get the hang of For it to work correctly you’ll need to design the files yourself. When mail merging. N/A Graphics There are programs used to create digital images e. g. Bryce 2 Dimensions of image can be altered (2D/3D) Many editing tools Takes time to create high quality graphics Can get complicated N/A To create my logo Internet Software Software on the internet e.g. search engines Simple to use Access to vast amounts of data Free to use Can be slow Filtering through the data can be very time consuming When I needed some help with the task To create my logo N/A Publishing General purpose software. Ideal for producing menus. Leaflets etc. Simple to operate Many tools Mistakes are hard to correct at times Files can take up a lot of memory N/A To design my logo Bespoke Software Programs that are tailor made to fit the customer’s needs. Customer gets exactly what they want More expensive to create Self maintained N/A Could have designed my own program to create a database.