M1 Compare the features and functions of different operating systems.

M1 Compare the features and functions of different operating systems.

In this piece of work I am going to find features and functions that both operating systems have and explain the similarities and differences between the two different operating systems.

Windows 7 and Mac OS X

Similarities	Differences
v Ability to Customise There are many similarities between Windows 7 and Mac OS x, some of these similarities are that both operating systems is the ability to customize them for example on  windows operating system you can customize the background and general colour scheme on your desktop. On a Mac OS x operating system you can customize your theme which is the image that will appear in the background and you can customize your menu bar at the top of the screen so that it is a different colour.	v Ability to Customise On a MAC OS X under files you can colour code them to make things easier for you to find, for example if you were working on a certain document you could colour code it a different colour from all the other files so that you know what you are working on, you cannot do this on Windows 7.
v Support for Connectivity of Portable Media Windows operating systems support connectivity for many different types of portable media such as USBs, CD/DVDs, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Apple operating systems have the same support for connectivity of portable media in the way that it supports USBs, CD/DVDS and Wi-Fi.	v Support for Connectivity of Portable Media On Windows 7 once a media product is connected to a computer, Microsoft Windows will recognise it and will bring up a little box which contains options for example, open files, play music, and sync. On a MAC OS X If the device has removable storage like a flash drive or SD card, then the device will show a new icon on the Desktop that when double clicked, will display the contents of the device in the Finder
v Security Windows 7 has an administrative user account that can make changes to the computer. To make these changes you will need the administrators’ password to make any changes if you are on another users profile, this is to ensure that not just anyone changes all of your settings. If you are on the administrative users profile you will not need the password and you will be able to change whatever you want. Windows 7 also includes a number of different security measures such as: ·         Windows 7 Action Centre – Its job is to help you make sure that your firewall is on, your antivirus software is up to date, and your computer is set to install updates. ·         Bit Locker Drive Encryption – Its job is to encrypt your windows hard disk to help keep documents, passwords and other important data safe. On Mac OS X they also have an administrative user and it does the same job as windows does, it is to ensure that not just anyone can change the settings on your computer. Mac OS X  also has a number of different security measures such as: ·         Execute Disable – Its job is to protect the memory in your Mac from attacks. ·         Library randomisation – This prevents malicious commands from finding their targets.	·        Security Most attacks happen on PCs. Malware like Trojans, which trick users into installing them by pretending to be something desirable, like antivirus programs, and botnets, which quietly enlist computers into a zombie like mode that are designed to distribute spam or advertise fraud, are now common threats to PCs. These attacks rarely happen on Macs and usually rarely harm Macs. Another security measure used by Macs is sand boxing which can limit the amount of actions that an application can do at any given time.
v Features Windows 7 and Mac OS X have some similarities when it comes to features such as: ·         Connectivity of Portable Media- Macs and Windows PCs can share the same printers, scanners, digital cameras, mice, keyboards, and other peripherals. ·         Media Player - Versions of Windows Media Player, QuickTime Player, and RealPlayer work on a Mac.	v Features Another difference between Windows 7 and Mac OS X is the features. Windows 7 has many different features such as: ·         Home group – Which pretty much makes sharing files and printers on a home network much easier. ·         Snap – Snap is a quick way to resize and compare windows on your desktop. ·         More personal – Pretty much all this does is allow you to redecorate your desktop with new themes, slide shows or handy gadgets.  Mac OS X also has a lot of features such as: ·         Continuity – Using a Mac or IOS device you are able to do many different things such as make phone calls, start an email, edit a document or even surf the web. ·         Multi – Touch, Mac Style – This allows users to be able to use multi touch gestures to a computer by using a track pad, making navigating your Mac much easier.

v Cost and support for the user  Both operating systems come with user guides which are there to help the user out if they encounter any problems, they also come with warranties for incase the users computer where to break down so they can get a new one or a refund	v Cost and support for the user One difference between a Windows 7 operating system and a Mac OS XX operating system is the cost. For example it costs £124.99 for a Windows 7 operating system and it costs £146.94 for a Mac OS X operating system.

P2 Computer Systems

What is an Operating system?

An operating system is a piece of software or a program that controls all of the hardware that is in the computer such as keyboards, mouse’s, printers. An operating system is also used to navigate a page so that you can do whatever it is that you are looking to do on that page. when clicking on buttons on your screen, it is the operating system is that allows you to gain access to it for example if you were on the internet and you wanted to visit a page by clicking on the hyperlink to the page, it is the operating system that allows you to go on the page and navigate the page.  There are many operating system manufacture; some of the most popular ones would be Microsoft who created windows, Apple who created mac OSX and Linux who created open source verison.

·        Windows – Windows is the operating system that is used on all Microsoft computers it is the most common and most used operating system but it is the most hated because it comes with a lot of bugs and glitches.

·        Mac OSX – Mac OSX is the operating system that is used on Apple IMacs and is much different from Microsoft’s operating system in the way that there is no start button, instead all of the applications that would be under the start menu are now found in folders.  

·        Open source –Open source is the operating system that is used with Linux based machines and it allows the user to write modify the coding behind the operating system and allows them to put it online for other open source users to download and use.  

Why is an Operating system needed?

An operating system is needed because without an operating system the hardware can do nothing, in order for everything to work it needs software. An operating system is used to tell all the hardware what to do and without it your computer would just be a box doing nothing.  The operating system is needed so that you can do everything that you want to do on the computer such as play games, use the internet for websites such as face book and YouTube, to use word docs for work and for people who want to do programming.

 

How does it enable machine and peripheral management?

An operating system enables machine and peripheral management by sending instructions to external devices such as printers. External devices are controlled by the operating system so they must follow any instructions that they are given for example if someone wanted to print a piece of work the operating system is what sends that command to the printer. Whenever you get a new device you will need to install a driver onto your computer so that the operating system will be able to send it instructions in the future.

 

How does it enable security?

An operating system enables security because whenever you start the computer you will be brought to a password screen where you will be asked to enter a password, this is done to ensure that all of your files are safe and no one but you can gain access to the computer. Some operating systems come with built in security measures which are there to help prevent your machine from getting viruses from the internet or faulty software, and then there are third party companies such as AVG who you can buy their security software  from so that can help keep your machine safe from and problems that could occur. 

 

How does it enable file management?

An operating system sorts out your file management by naming all of your files and saving them in the correct folders, and makes sure that everything is saved away safely so that nothing goes missing and you are able to find it all easy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jobs of an operating system:

·        Play games

·        Facebook/YouTube/internet

·        Programming

·        Photoshop

·        Word docs

·        Phone call

·        Transfer music/movies

·        Watch movies

·        Create animations

·        Login security

·        Monitor machine

·        Tells time

·        Monitor external connections

·        Create backups

·        Establish networks

·        Config OS

·        Control h/w

·        Control device drivers

·        File manage/ organised

Promps for change P1

Introduction:

I will discuss reasons as to why you need to install or upgrade to new software once the old software becomes outdated.

Problems with existing systems:

No matter how good your system is overtime it will begin to run slower and encounter a lot of problems, when this begins to happen it is usually a good idea to upgrade to new software.  The old system can start to face problems that can affect the use of the system. If there were any problems with the system such as it begging to run slowly or keeps crashing then it would usually be a good idea to upgrade to a newer better system that won’t face any of these problems, many people upgrade to new systems because of many of these problems. Also with older systems they are more open to attacks because of security flaws because the software is outdated and not as protective which would mean if you were to upgrade to a new system you would have better security and know that all your work is safer from becoming corrupted and deleting itself. Upgrading to a new system can also come with new features which could make the system run more smooth and faster making things easier for you.

 

New hardware requiring new or upgraded software:

When you install a new piece of hardware you are going to need device driver to be able to control the piece of hardware. A driver is a piece of software that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer; sometimes an existing driver may need to be replaced when you install new hardware because the old driver may not work with the hardware. For example If you bought a new camera and wanted to use it to insert all your images onto your computer but it would not let you because the software you had was not able to be used with the camera you have, you would have to upgrade your software in order to make sure that it works correctly.

 

External prompts for software bug fixes:

Most new software once installed may have some bugs which need fixed in order to fix these bugs patches will be released for the software to solve any problems you may be occurring when using the software. You may need carry out updates which fix these bugs on regular basics to insure that the software runs fine and that there are not any more problems once all the updates have completed you can then use the new software without any problems meaning you can get things done faster.  However if it is a server fault you will need to get an upgrade dealt with as soon as you can.

Additional functionality required:

Software is needed for a purpose most times a user or an organisation has many reasons for needing to change their software such as the software being outdated and running very slow, or other reasons such as the software no longer does what they need. The reasons for having software changed. These people or organisations feel that in order to fix all of these problems it is best to just upgrade to better and more up to date software and sometimes this may fix their problems but other times it may not. Instead they have to buy new software.

 

Company policy:

A lot of companies have polices for what software could be installed in their company because of potential risks such as viruses, illegal software or any other risks that the software could encounter.  The company policy is there so that the company can control what software is being used in their company. Only legal software is allowed to be installed as illegal software could get the company into a lot of trouble. Companies always want to keep up to date with the latest software so that their programs have the most available features and they look good to clinents.  The only people that are able to install new software in the company are staff members with the proper authority such as computer technicians it is up to them to make sure that the software is safe to use.   

 

M1 Work

M1 - Explain the advantages and potential disadvantages of installation or upgrade of new software

 

 

 

In this piece of work I will be explaining the advantage and the disadvantages of installing or upgrading to new software and will give some example.

 

Advantages:

New Features:

When upgrading new software it will come with new features that will make your computer faster and much easier to use which allows you to get work done faster. An example of some new features you may have when you upgrade to new software would be if you were upgrading to windows 8 from windows 7 you would get some new features such as touchscreen like a tablet and cloud storage where you could save a piece of work onto your cloud profile and then continue working on that piece of work from a different computer at work or at some one else house using your cloud storage.

Fixes Bugs:

When you upgrade to new software it will fix any bugs you had when you were using your old software making things easier on you and you won’t have to stress yourself in case a bug occurs and none of your work is saved. The impact this will have on your computer will be that it now runs much faster than it did before and you will not encounter the bug anymore because you have fixed it. This means your computer is safer from encountering bugs.

 

 

 

 

 

Improves PC Performance:

Your PC performance will improve once you have upgraded to new software because you are no longer using an older version, which means you PC will run more smooth and faster. Before you upgraded to newer software your computer could have been running really slow and crashing a lot and you may not have known the reason behind this but once you upgraded to a new software all of this could have stopped for you.

New GUI:

You will get a new GUI when you upgrade your software making things easier to find if you couldn’t find them before and it will also make you PC look better and run better.

Saves Storage:

Upgrading to new software takes up less storage, which leaves you with more memory for all your work. Before you could have had not that much room o you where always storing things onto backup drives or deleting things you do no need anymore, but when you upgrade to a new software you may get a better storage device which can save more work than before and then you would not have to save stuff on to a backup drive or even delete stuff anymore.

Better quality work:

When you have upgraded to new software the quality of your work may get better because of new features and programs on the system that makes it easier for you to work which will allow you to produce better quality for work.

Easier to use:

The new system that you have upgraded to might be a whole lot easier to use than the older system you were using before and this will benefit you because you will know how to use it without getting any help and will make work less stressful for you.   

 

 

Disadvantages:

Cost to buy:

It can be very expensive to upgrade to a new system so if you don’t have the money and your old system starts to face errors and crashes a lot and you need a piece of work done by a certain time then you will be facing problems and may end up late with the work. 

Older h/w or s/w:

You may upgrade to a new system but not get any new hardware and software because you don’t think you have to but then you will be using the same old hardware and software as before which may face a lot of bugs. Older hardware and software can be outdated and face a lot of problems down the road which could be very bad for you because one day everything could be working fine and the next your computers encounters a problem and deletes everything on it meaning you just lost all of your work. Therefor it is better to upgrading o new hardware or software.

Bugs:

Sometimes upgrading to a new system can be good and may work fine without any problems for you, but other times when upgrading to a new system you may encounter bugs that have not been fixed yet and you may have to wait until a patch is realised to fix these bugs meaning you may not be able to use any of the new features to their full. 

Installation time:

It can take a very long time to install new software which is a disadvantage because while you are waiting on the software to install you are missing out on time that could be used to do work that you may need done.  

Worse than the original, may not be what you thought:

The new software that you have just upgraded to could be worse than the older one that you were using, there may be a lot of bugs that need fixed and it could run a whole lot slower and you may find out that you wasted money on it.