Hardware and Software

Question 1

What is Hardware?

Answer 1

All the physical components of a computer (internal &external)

Question 2

What is Software?

Answer 2

general term for all computer programmes.

Question 3

What two types of software are there?

Answer 3

System software

Application software

Question 4

What are two types of system software?

Answer 4

operating system

utility software

Question 5

What is operating system software?

Answer 5

It is essential for allowing applications to interface with your hardware/ provides a platform on which users can run programs (windows, Linux, iOS)

Question 6

What is utility software?

Answer 6

Keeps your computer running smoothly and safely. (anti-virus, defragmentation, back-up, compress)

Question 7

How do the hardware and application software communicate?

Answer 7

Through the operating system software

Question 8

What is multitasking?

Answer 8

running multiple applications at the same time by giving each application a small time-slice of processor time.

Question 9

What is memory management?

Answer 9

when programs are loaded, the operating system decides where they are held in memory. Over time the memory becomes fragmented. The OS must keep track of different program fragments. When the memory is full, the OS uses virtual memory.

Question 10

What does a device driver do?

Answer 10

translates operating system instructions into instructions that the hardware can understand. (sometimes built into OS)

Question 11

Describe User Management

Answer 11

providing for different users to log in to a computer. The OS will retain individual settings for each user ( icons ,desktop, colour scheme)

Question 12

Describee File Manangement

Answer 12

Data is stored in files. extensions can be added to the filename, this tells the OS which application to load the file into. (e.g. pptx= powerpoint)

the hard disk can become fragmented just like the memory.

The OS may present the files in a a specific order (most recent, alphabetic) but this is just for the user and doesn’t reflect the actual storage system

Question 13

What does encryption do?

Answer 13

it uses an algorithm to scramble plain text into a cipher text which can only be decoded and read with a key.

Question 14

What are defragmentation utilities?

Answer 14

They reorganise on a hard disk to put the fragments of files back together and free up space. This reduces the movement of the read/write head across the surface of the disk–speeds up file access.

Question 15

Why shouldn’t solid state drives be defragmented?

Answer 15

They have no moving parts and it reduces their life span.

Question 16

Why do compression utilities reduce the size of files?

Answer 16

So that it takes up less space and is quicker to download over the internet.

Question 17

What must happen to compressed files before they can be read?

Answer 17

They have to be extracted.

Question 18

During the compression process what can happen?

Answer 18

Either
1. data is lost (reducing quality of an image or sound)
or
2. it is represented in a different way using binary, retaining the original data in a new format (e,g zip files)

Question 19

What are backup utilities and what are the two types?

Answer 19

the take a copy of files to protect against data loss

two types : full backup and incremental backup

Question 20

What are the differences between a full backup and an incremental backup?

Answer 20

a full backup= every file copied,, slower

incremental backup= only files that have changed since the last back up copied,, faster