Week 3: Technology Guide 1

Technology Guide 1: Computer Hardware

1. Computer hardware refers to the physical equipment used for the input, processing, output, and storage activities of a computer system. The major hardware components are:

• Central processing unit - manipulates all data and control tasks performed by other components.


• Primary storage - internal CPU: temporarily stores data until it is processed.


• Secondary storage - external CPU: long term storage to store data for future usage.
  
Input technologies - accepts the data and instructions and encrypts to a form the computer understands.

• Output technologies - convert data and instructions in a form people can understand.
• Communication technologies - provides flow of information from external computer networks, Internet-to-CPU and the CPU-to-Internet
  
• 2. Moore’s Law predicted that microprocessor complexity would double approximately every two years.
  
  3. A Microprocessor is the Central Processing Unit (CPU), made up of millions of transistors embedded in a circuit on a silicon wafer or chip. It performs the calculations; the registers, which store minute amounts of data and instructions immediately before and after processing; and the control unit, which controls the flow of information on the microprocessor chip.
  
  4. The factors that determine the Microprocessors speed are:


• The bus width
• Clock speed
• Word length and;
• Number transistors on the chip
• Machine instruction
• Binary form

5. The four main types of Primary Storage are:

1. Registers
2. Random access memory (RAM)
3. Cache memory and;
4. Read-only memory (ROM).

6. Secondary storage include-

• Magnetic media (tapes, hard drives, and thumb, or flash, drives) and,
• Optical media (CD-ROM, DVD, and optical jukeboxes).
  

7. Primary storage has much less capacity than secondary storage, and it is much faster and more expensive per byte second. It is located much closer to the CPU than is secondary storage. Therefore, secondary storage carries unlimited data and has more speed.

8. An enterprise storage system is an independent, external system with intelligence that includes two or more storage devices.

There are three types of enterprise storage devices:
1. Redundant Arrays of independent Disks (RAID)
2. Storage Area Network (SAN)
3. Network Attached Storage (NAS)


9. Human data entry devices require a certain amount of human effort to input data. Examples include, keyboard, mouse and touch screen. Source data automation devices input data with minimal human intervention.

Source data offers the following:

• Speed up data collection
• Reduction of errors, and
• Gather data at the source of a transaction or other event.

10. A new technology that has changed the way we do things is Java. Java allows businesses to develop programs quicker, write less and better codes and easily accessible. It is an advanced form of coding that html and is appealing to customers on certain business websites and may involve flash videos etc.

Java's benefits are:
Get started quickly: Although the Java programming language is a powerful object-oriented language, it's easy to learn, especially for programmers already familiar with C or C++.

1. Write less code: Comparisons of program metrics (class counts, method counts, and so on) suggest that a program written in the Java programming language can be four times smaller than the same program written in C++.


2. Write better code: The Java programming language encourages good coding practices, and automatic garbage collection helps you avoid memory leaks. Its object orientation, its JavaBeansTM component architecture, and its wide-ranging, easily extendible API let you reuse existing, tested code and introduce fewer bugs.


3. Develop programs more quickly: The Java programming language is simpler than C++, and as such, your development time could be up to twice as fast when writing in it. Your programs will also require fewer lines of code.
   


4. Avoid platform dependencies: You can keep your program portable by avoiding the use of libraries written in other languages.


5. Write once, run anywhere: Because applications written in the Java programming language are compiled into machine-independent bytecodes, they run consistently on any Java platform.


6. Distribute software more easily: With Java Web Start software, users will be able to launch your applications with a single click of the mouse. An automatic version check at startup ensures that users are always up to date with the latest version of your software. If an update is available, the Java Web Start software will automatically update their installation.