9 A stand-alone computer The computer you are using for your studies is called a personal computer or PC. Although you have an internet connection for use in this course, your computer can probably also be used as a stand-alone computer. Your PC may be a desktop computer or a notebook computer (sometimes known as a laptop computer). Usually a desktop computer comes with separate devices such as a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse and speakers and it runs on mains electricity. Notebook computers
4.1.3 The receiver The receiver receives data from the network and manipulates it into a message to send to User 2. Sometimes the receiver may also store or retrieve data. In the mobile phone communication system, the data received from the network must be manipulated back into sound before being sent to the user. In addition, some mobile phones can store and retrieve data about the user's contacts, so that when a call is received they can translate the phone number of the caller into a name which is then
3.1 Introduction Generally, when we talk about communication between humans, we mean one person conveying information to another person. Figure 6 shows a basic model, or representation, of a communication system for getting a message from the sender to the recipient. The diagram shows the sender (User
2.2.2 Drawing the boundary Deciding where to place the system boundary is an important consideration in that we have to think about what to include and exclude. This isn't always an easy decision to make and it often depends on the perspective of the person viewing the system. The system maps in Figures 1
2.2.1 Subsystems An important aspect of systems is that each component can be considered as a subsystem. In the health centre appointments system, the ‘computerised booking system’ may be a complex system in its own right involving a number of computers networked together. Figure 2 shows
Introduction This unit is from our archive and it is an adapted extract from Networked living: exploring information and communication technologies
(T175) which is no longer in presentation. If you wish to study formally at The Open University, you may wish to explore the courses we offer in this curriculum area. This unit will introduce you to some ideas about how information and
3.6 Viewing the data Reverting to the relational database we constructed in Section 3.3, you might wonder what, from the user's point of view, has been gained by creating separate tables for the students and courses. With Table 1 you could see at a glance who was studying what. In the relational database it was har
3.5 Other kinds of data All the data we have had so far in the database has been text or numbers. I have mentioned that another type of data might be dates. Modern databases, however, can store other kinds of data than text, numbers and dates. They can also store graphics, moving pictures and sounds. 1 E-government In many countries, e-government has become part of government policy. The UK government has a large e-government project under way, as do the governments of the USA, Australia and Japan, to name just a few. The ‘e’ at the start of ‘e-government’ stands for ‘electronic’, and e-government usually refers to the use by governments of ICTs. In many ways e-government is not a single activity but many activities. However, in the UK and many other countries, there is a degree of central c Introduction This unit is from our archive and it is an adapted extract from Networked living: exploring information and communication technologies (T175) which is no longer in presentation. If you wish to study formally at The Open University, you may wish to explore the courses we offer in this curriculum area. Many governments across the world are moving towards the use of infor 1.6.2 Different types of sound Sounds come in four categories.
Sound effects. Many UIs contain a range of warning beeps and reassuring sounds confirming that operations have been completed. These can include naturalistic sounds, such as the sound of a piece of screwed-up paper dropping into a waste paper basket.
Music. Many composers use computer systems to compose music, and programs such as games make extensive use of music. Short sequences of mus 1.3.4 How to use colour to good effect The effective use of colour is a complex and technical area. In Table 2 we have listed some general guidelines. References 6.2.2 Threats and vulnerabilities A hacker who threatens your organisation's information assets is taking advantage of vulnerabilities in the media and systems which handle them. Vulnerabilities and threats clearly go hand-in-hand: each threat is directed at a vulnerability. The relationship between information assets, threats, vulnerabilities and existing defences is illustrated in Author(s): 6.1 Introduction Section 5 discussed the ISMS planning and documentation process in general and also went into the details of Stages 1, 2 and 8 of the ISMS documentation task. In this section, we shall discuss Stage 3 of the ISMS documentation task and see how to define a systematic approach to risk assessment. We shall also look at the asset identification task. The remaining two tasks, risk assessment and risk treatment, are outside the scope of this unit. 7.3 ADV: Some spam mail includes ‘ADV:’ in the title. This indicates that it is part of the system used in the US to allow spam mail but to highlight that it is an advertisement. You can then make an informed choice as to whether to read or delete the message. ADV: also allows users of email systems that have filtering facilities, such as Outlook, Eudora or Pegasus, to set a rule that will automatically remove the message. The way this works is that some email systems allow you to define a s 3.2.1 Obtaining patches and updates Start Internet Explorer. Choose Tools > Windows update from the drop-down menu at the top of the browser screen. (Note: if you are using a computer at work that is controlled by an IT group this option may be missing, as it can be disabled in a corporate environment.) If you are unable to find the ‘update’ option, you could try the Microsoft update site. Follow the on-screen option to scan your computer and see the number of updates that are available to you. 3.2 What do we mean by patches? Microsoft Windows is an example of an operating system (OS). These operating systems contain millions of lines of code, and inevitably there will be some errors in that code. Some malware writers set out to find these errors, or holes, in the code and exploit them to their own benefit. Whenever holes are found (by IT security people or groups, malware writers or the software developer) the operating system manufacturer will issue a fix for the particular problem. These fixes are referred to a 1.1 The growth of malware The figures below show how the problem of malware has increased over the last 30 years.
Activity 12 (exploratory)
Table 2: Making e
