BTT 1O/2O

Class Notes

File Management

File management is the activity we perform to manage our workspace to ensure that we can find the necessary data or information when we need it.

Typical file management tasks include: Creating and saving files Creating folders (also called directories) Renaming folders and files Copying or moving folders and files Deleting folders and files Completing the above tasks between different

drives (i.e. creating a back-up on a diskette) Creating read only files Keyboard Shortcuts can be used in all

Microsoft programs Ctrl-C “Copy”, Ctrl-V “Paste”, Ctrl-X “Cut”,

Ctrl-Z “Undo”, Ctrl-A “Select all”

File Management (cont'd)

When you start to organize your workspace you need to determine the type of information you will be creating and saving (i.e. Science notes, history projects, personal letters) and creating your folders or directories accordingly.

Type of Information Suggested Folder Name

Eg: Science notes and labsscience

History notes and reportshistory

Personal letterspersonal

Rules for Naming files and folders: Files and folders can have names up

to 255 characters including spaces. Special characters such as \ / : * ? ”

< > | are not allowed.

File Management (cont'd)

File Management (cont'd)

File Naming Files have 2 parts in their name:

Name indicating content (up to 255 characters long)

Extension: characters after the “.” The extension determines the type of

file, and which program will best open the file

i.e. .docx indicates an MS Word file

.mp3 indicates an audio file

.html indicates a web page* Most programs automatically add the

extension for you when you save the file.

COPYING AND MOVING FILES AND FOLDERS (2 METHODS) Using Windows Explorer

RIGHT mouse button Using the right mouse button, drag the file/folder

to the new destination and release and click MOVE HERE or COPY HERE.

Drag & Drop (Left mouse button) Within The Same Drive: To MOVE: Drag the

file/folder to the new destination and release (drop it). Only works when you are moving within the same drive. To COPY: Hold down the Ctrl- key to copy it when dragging to the other folder.

Across Drives: To COPY: Drag the file/folder to the new destination and release (drop it). Automatically works when you are copying from one drive to the other (g: to removable). To MOVE: Use Ctrl-X and Ctrl-V or right mouse button technique

File Management (cont'd)

Issues in Information Technology

Ergonomics/Health & Safety Security Ethics Legal Issues Environmental Issues

ErgonomicsThe term ergonomics refers to the

relationship between workers and their working environment.

To ensure a suitable working environment, consider the following: adequate lighting adequate ventilation monitors with screens free from flicker,

interference and glare an adjustable chair suitably positioned keyboard provision for frequent breaks away from

the computer

Ergonomics (cont'd)

Why worry about ergonomics?Modifying your:

technique and your work environment

can be helpful in reducing Repetitive Stress Injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome—which is a wrist or hand injury caused by extended periods of keyboarding—and Eye Strain.

Ergonomics: Proper Keyboarding Technique:

Eyes stay focused on copy material not on keyboard or screen.

Correct fingering used consistently on alphabetic keys. Fingers rest lightly on home row

Wrists are elevated, not resting on anything

Steady rhythm Good posture: sitting back in chair, back

straight, feet flat on floor Chair height: allows you to create a 90º

angle with your forearm and upper arm when fingers are placed over the home row

Ergonomics: Good Ergonomic StrategiesChoose a good chair and computer

desk. Chair should have adjustable height,

lower back support, and arm rests. Desk should have a keyboard shelf at the

proper height - this will avoid reaching up for the keyboard.

Position your monitor correctly. The monitor should be 2 to 2½ feet away,

and a little below eye level. Position your monitor so that bright

lights/sunlight do not reflect off of the screen.

Tilt the monitor face upwards (approx. 10°)

Keep your screen clean.

Sit up straight and keep your feet flat on the floor in front of you.

Forearms and thighs are parallel to the floor.

Keep your wrists straight. Hands should be in a straight line with

your forearms as you type. Do not rest your wrists on anything as

you type. Resting the wrist puts excessive strain

on the hands and fingers.

Rest your eyes occasionally to avoid eyestrain.

Avoid pounding the keys or gripping the mouse.

Ergonomics (cont'd)

An example of an ergonomically correct computer setup:

The forearms and thighs are parallel to the floor,

the keyboard is in easy reach without bending or flexing the wrists,

the monitor is positioned to reduce eye and neck strain.

Ergonomics (cont'd)

Set your GUI for healthy viewing. Use quiet color settings (neutral or

cool shades). Avoid staring at bright colours for long periods of time.

Choose the large icon setting if it is easier for you to see the interface.

Take a break when sitting for long periods of time

10 minutes after every 50 minutes

Ergonomics (cont'd)

Security Issues

Saving Save frequently, a PC’s memory is

temporary Even saved files can be vulnerable to

destruction from hardware failure or fire

Essential that organizations keep back-ups of valuable information, in another physical location if possible

Security Issues (cont'd)

Passwords & User IDs Used to gain access to the computer

system in an organization Chosen by user and never divulged Changed frequently Not too obvious

Security Issues (cont'd)Firewall The purpose of a firewall:

Track and restrict unauthorized outside user

Control access to authorized network users

Security Issues (cont'd)

Anti-Virus program A virus is a program or piece of code that is loaded onto

your computer without your knowledge and runs against your wishes.

Use McAfee, Norton Security or AVG to scan and eliminate viruses. AVG is free to download and use.

Virus Characteristics All computer viruses are manmade A simple virus that copies itself over and over again is

relatively easy to produce. Quickly uses all available memory and brings the system to a

halt An even more dangerous type of virus is one capable of

transmitting itself by attaching to a legitimate program Through e-mails or executable files on web sites

A virus can be harmless or it can destroy data files, erase an entire hard disk or even make your computer inoperable

Ethical Issues

Ethical Use of ComputersEthics are the standards of honesty,

morality and fairness. These standards relate to using computers. It is your responsibly to respect the property, rights and privacy of others in the way you use computers at home and at school.

Acceptable Use AgreementsA good policy guides the desirable use

of the computer system by: protecting school resources, limiting liability, Promoting safe behaviour by

clarifying rights and expectations of both students and staff members.

Ethical Issues (cont'd)

Ethical Issues (cont'd)Pick 5 points to record in your notes:

Acceptable Use Agreement at St. Benedict Do NOT share your login, password, or workspace with anyone. Do NOT use another person’s account. Login and Logoff appropriately. Virus scan all media before use on the school network. You will be held

responsible for any viruses introduced to the network through your workspace. Do NOT install personal software in your workspace or on the network. This

specifically includes graphic files, games or other executable files unless you have written permission from the school’s software technician, information systems facilitator, or from the teacher of the course where these files have been created.

Name the files you have created appropriately. Profanity or rude comments are not acceptable filenames.

Do NOT access, distribute or post offensive material on the network. Do NOT use the computer to annoy or harass another person. The school has purchased various software to use on the network. This software

is protected by copyright and therefore cannot be copied in any form by anyone. Unauthorized access to either system files or other student files is not

permitted. Report any damage or problems to the teacher immediately. Abuse of the

hardware or software is called vandalism and will be dealt with appropriately. Failure to report any damages or problems may result in the student using the computer being held responsible for the damage.

No food or drink is permitted near the computers or in the computer rooms. Internet access will be available at St. Benedict based on course requirements,

students need, and the system availability. Use of the Internet involves increased responsibilities and expectations. A separate Internet agreement is provided.

Students using a computer in individual classrooms must be supervised by a teacher at all times.

Spam is generally e-mail advertising for some product sent to a mailing list or newsgroup.

In addition to wasting people's time with unwanted e-mail, spam also eats up a lot of network bandwidth

Ethical Issues (cont'd)

Ethical Issues (cont'd)

Hate & Discrimination PromotionThe evolution of the Internet into the World Wide Web, with its easily accessible and inviting graphic interface, has provided people, including extremists, with new ways to communicate with each other and with a vast new potential audience, using not only words, but also pictures, graphics, sound, and animation.

Ethical Issues (cont'd)Technology Access and Equity access to technology and being proficient in

its use is an important key to one's economic status

Digital divide refers to the gap between those with regular, effective access to digital and information technology, and those without this access

It encompasses both physical access to technology hardware and, more broadly, skills and resources which allow for its use

Groups of people who are divided by this issue are (rich/poor), (white/minority), (able/disabled) or (urban/rural)

And now for a little fun! Go to the internet, use a stock

information site: finance.google.ca tmxmoney.com ca.finance.yahoo.com

Pick up to three stocks “buy” up to $10,000 in stocks track in Word document

(Mr. M will demonstrate)

Intellectual Property is a product someone creates based upon his or her thought or ideas. Some examples:● a picture or clip art collection ● computer animations● computer games ● software ● music

Plagiarism is stealing and passing off the ideas or words of another as your

own using another's production without crediting the source Copyright laws exist to protect those who create an idea or

product. Most copyrighted material may not be copied without consent of the owner.

If you copy software without permission and then distribute it, you’re committing software piracy. Some programs have built-in security codes to protect against illegal use.

Legal Issues

Software Agreements have been established to protect copyrighted material. When you purchase software you are subject to the terms of the agreement established by the owner.

You are legally bound to honour software license agreements

Types of agreements: Freeware, shareware, single

machine, site and network licenses

Legal Issues (cont'd)

Hacking is the unauthorized use of a computer system or program.

Hackers may breaking into a system just for fun, others may be trying to unlawfully access a computer program to change or steal data.

Hacking is an invasion of privacy which is against the law and is punishable by the law

Legal Issues (cont'd)

Environmental Issues

Digital Dumping: Disposal of Obsolete Equipment

What to do with old electronic equipment?

Most charitable groups won’t take it – it’s too old.

The city dump won’t take it –your old machine is full of toxic substances.

You don’t want it sitting in the closet for eternity.

If you’re lucky, you may have an program in your area that will take it for “ecycling,” removing toxic chemicals for proper disposal and valuable metals for reuse.

Environmental Issues (cont'd)

What really happens to your old computer or broken printer or fried cell phone?

tons of these and other electronic items are loaded onto barges and shipped off to developing countries, where the recycling processes are so substandard that they actually contribute to air and water pollution.

Whatever isn’t salvageable ends up in their landfills.

North American recyclers say it’s not cost efficient to fix broken items, so they often donate these goods to developing nations to help “bridge the digital divide.”

Many countries, though, report that up to 75% of this equipment is not usable, nor do they have the technology to repair or recycle it properly.

Digital Literacy

What is a computer? What is a computer system? Software Data Hardware & PowerPoint

presentation Networking

Software

Software is the set of electronic instructions that tells the computer what to do. It is also referred to as a program.

Two General Types: Application Software System Software

Application software and system software work together to provide useful output.

Application Software

Software tells the computer how to accomplish specific tasks selected by the user.

Examples of Application Software: Word Processing Spreadsheets Databases Desktop Publishing Graphics Entertainment (games) Educational Communication Presentation

System Software

Includes:Operating SystemSystem Tools

Operating System Software

The operating system tells the computer how to: interact with the user use all the attached devices (disk

drive, keyboard, mouse, monitor, USB devices, camera, etc.)

run other software, and manage all the files/folders. Examples: Windows 7, Blackberry

OS, Apple/Mac OS

System Tools

File Defragmentation: Re-organizes files on a disk to speed up processing

Data Clean up: Compresses (and cleans up) data

System Restore: Undo harmful changes to your computer and restore settings and performance it to an earlier version before the trouble began

Data Recovery: Recover erased files

Virus Protection and Firewall protection

Hardware

See hardware notes (separate presentation)

Internet

The significance of the Internet and particularly the World Wide Web cannot be underestimated!

Information is available instantly to the masses

Communication has few physical barriers (anytime, anywhere)

Billions of users Knowledge is POWER and now that is

widely available to those that want it No one organization owns the Internet

and so what is available is not controlled or limited

That provides opportunities for everyone: Business, Governments, Education & Research, Personal

Internet BackgroundThe INTERNET is a worldwide network of

computers. Created for the U.S. Department of

Defense as a tool for military communications, command, and control, and exchanges of data with defense contractors.

1969 Advanced Research Projects Agency of US Dept. of Defense (ARPA) connected computers at universities to create network that would survive nuclear disaster. Network called ARPANET.

National Science Foundation (NSF) created NSFnet (higher capacity network) and linked it to ARPANET

Internet Background (cont’d)

The Internet came about through combination of ARPANET, NSFnet, and other networks.

Internet timeline:

* backbones = main communication pipelines

How the Internet Works

Computer equipment on the internet consists of SERVERS, CLIENTS or ROUTERS

The SERVERS are like electronic filing cabinets that simply store information and pass it on when requested. They can be file servers; mail servers; or Web servers. There are something like 20 million servers on

the Internet. The CLIENTS connect to the servers

through an ISP (Internet Service Provider) so you can read your messages, look at a web site or download information There are far more clients on the Internet

than servers—probably reaching a billion by now!

How the Internet Works (cont’d)

When two computers on the Internet swap information back and forth on a more-or-less equal basis, they are known as peers. If you use an instant messaging program to chat to a friend, and you start swapping files, you’re taking part in what’s called peer-to-peer (P2P) communication.

How the Internet Works (cont’d)

Apart from clients and servers, the Internet is also made up of ROUTERS, whose job is really just to make connections between different systems.

The router is like a switchboard that directs your request to the worldwide network

It starts, stop and directs traffic(bits) over the internet.

How the Internet Works (cont’d)

Telephone lines orCable lines

ISP like Rogers &

Bell

Some Key Internet Terms

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) Rules & procedures (software) to control

timing & data format so computers can communicate.

IP Address (Internet Protocol Address) Every computer on Internet has unique 4 part

numeric address (ex. 205.46.117.104). Address contains routing information that identifies location

DNS Address (Domain Name System Address) is the IP address using words. 2 parts: individual name + domain & sub-

domains ex. microsoft.com

Common Internet Domains

.com commercial business (for profit)

.edu education

.gov government

.mil military

.net gateway or host

.org other organization (usually non-profit)

.on.ca Ontario, Canada

.fr France

.us United States

Major Features Of The Internet

E-Mail WWW (web pages) News Chat FTP (file transfer protocol) Bulletin Boards Entertainment (gaming)

World Wide Web (WWW or The Web)

The WWW is not the same as the Internet. The Internet is a world-wide computer network. The WWW is just one software system running on the Internet.

To view a web page you need: Browser: Software that displays

graphics and text of a specified site (IE/Firefox).

Uniform Resource Locator (URL): Special address that tells the browser where to go.

Example of a URL

http://www.cnn.com/feedback/comments.html

http Protocol or rules used to transfer this type of data over the internet. (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)

www Address is found on WWW

cnn Domain name

com Type of Domain

feedback Directory or folder name

comments.html Filename

World Wide Web (WWW or The Web)

Web Sites are divided into pages with one page (usually the first) of the site designated as the Home Page.

Web pages contain internal and/or external hyperlinks. These links allow the reader to click on the highlighted word/phrase/image and jump to another location in the document or another file located anywhere on Internet.

Connecting to the Internet

To access the Internet your browser sends a request to the SERVER, usually an Internet Service Provider like Rogers or Bell using your computer’s MODEM

Communication occurs over phone lines or cables or satelllites

Your information is not sent all at once but broken up into smaller packets

Each packet contains some information PLUS the sender’s and receiver’s address or IP address

The router determines how the packets are sent (the quickest route)

E-Mail

Most common use of the Internet E-mail programs send text +

attachments (graphics, sound, video, etc.) Offline: Pegasus, MS Outlook,

Thunderbird Online: Gmail, HotMail, YahooMail

E-mail normally involves communication between two people, but can also be sent to multiple users (distribution list)

Can send to people without others knowing (BCC: blind carbon copy)

E-Mail Etiquette

Keep messages short and to the point.

Always include a subject with your message that briefly indicates its content.

Do not send abusive messages to others.

Be careful what you say about others, as your messages reflects upon you.

Use humour and sarcasm where appropriate, but be sure your intent is understood.

E-Mail Etiquette

Do not be critical of others’ spelling or grammatical errors, you’ll make them too.

DO NOT USE CAPITAL LETTERS as this is the Internet equivalent of shouting.

You can’t take it back: after email is sent, it’s gone, and it’s a permanent record of what you said.

Evaluating an Information

WebsiteConsider the following

criteria:

Authority and Accuracy

What do you know about the author? What indicates they are an expert

Can you contact him/her? Email?

Why check? Anyone can publish anything!

Can you check the information? Links to other sites?

Why check? no web standards exist to ensure accuracy

Advocacy and Objectivity

What is the purpose of the website? Educate, entertain, persuade?

Does the website try to persuade you to one side of an issue? Is it opinion or is it strictly facts?

Why check? People could be trying to persuade you to do things that might not be right! You’re not hearing both sides of the story.

Currency and Coverage

Is the information current? When was it last updated?

Does it cover the topic in enough depth? Are links relevant and appropriate?

Why check? Older information may not still be accurate. You may not be getting the full picture.

Style and Functionality

Is the site organized in a clear and logical manner? Is it easy to read and find things? Are you able to search or use menues

easily?

Why check? Your time is valuable, don’t waste it on a website that takes too long to find things.

Try this:

Go to:http://dhmo.org

Try this:

Go to:http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalexpl.html

Click on:Secondhand Smoke: The Big Lie

Evaluation:Give an opinion and back it up with evidence from the

website

Authority & Accuracy: Advocacy and Objectivity Currency and Coverage Style and Functionality

Networking

A stand-alone computer system works well for normal use on an individual basis. This refers to regular student use, common household requirements, and perhaps even home office or low-end business needs. However, as tasks become more complex and more users are involved, connecting PCs to create a network is frequently used as a solution to improve efficiency.

Network

A network is a system of interconnected computers that communicate with each other and share: Applications Data Hardware Components

Advantages of a Network

Simultaneous (all at the same time) access to programs and data

Sharing of peripherals (i.e. printers and scanners)

Easy communication with others using e-mail

Easy back-up of important data

Disadvantages of a Network

Need for increased security to protect the network (Users must login using unique ID and password)

Higher maintenance due to larger number of users

Possible loss of privacy through hacking

More complex – need network administrator

Vandalism

Parts of a Network Server: computer that has large

storage capacity that holds all shared storage and programs

Shared peripherals: printer, scanner PCs Specialized

Network Software - programs that manage the resources on the network

All joined through wired or wireless connections

Network Setup

A network can be setup as: LAN (Local Area Network) – A

network of computers located relatively near each other and connected by a cable or wireless.

WAN (Wide Area Network) – Two or more LANs connected together, generally across a wide geographical area using high-speed or dedicated phone lines. A router is necessary to join the LANs

within a WAN

Most Common Network Layout

Star – Places a hub (server) in the center of the network nodes. Groups of data

are routed through the central hub to their destination.

Broken path affects only one device. Network goes down only if hub is lost.