Unit 1 - Communications and Employability Skills for ICT

The aims of this following unit are:

Understand the personal attributes valued by employers.

Understand the principles of effective communication.

Be able to use ICT to communicate effectively.

Be able to address personal development needs.

Part A- you have to create a Gantt chart preferably on Excel, which shows how I have planned and time managed the interview requirements.

Part B- create a blog which outines the knowledge I have gained in Unit 1, Unit 2 and Unit 29 of the Btec National Extended Diploma. Must have 3 separate blogs in good descriptive detail.

Part C- Write a report on why you feel the ICT department values and needs the attributes mentioned in the advert. You should detail why each attribute is important to the company.

Part D- Create a sound file using Audacity which records a speech you have made recently. (Save the file as a .wav). Looking for confident and enthusiastic voice projection. Also a short demonstration using Cam Studio on how to do something.

Part E- Ensure all the evidence is reviewed and proofread effectively to produce final versions as they are looking for good individuals with good communication skills.

So in this Unit I learnt all about attributes and working towards goals. Attributes are things that make you unique about yourself. For example, confident, enthusiastic and hard-working. We learnt about hard skills and soft skills also.

Unit 2- Computer Systems

Here are the aims for unit 2 -
 

1      Understand the components of computer systems.

2      Be able to recommend computer systems for a business purpose.

3      Be able to setup and maintain computer systems.

In task one of this Unit I created a Powerpoint on the different components of a computer. The internal system components are the objects like, processor, motherboard, power supply, RAM, Graphic Card and a Network Card. 
The peripherals of the computer are components like, printer, scanner and other input/output devices.
The backing storage I wrote about is hardware like disks, USBs, CDRW's and  DVDRW's.


Task two I gave an explanation of the purpose of operating systems including the functions they carry out. The functions I wrote about was machine functions, peripheral management, security and file management. Also I had to compare the features of different operating systems high-lighting the strengths and weaknesses of each. The features I wrote about was the ability to customise, connectivity of portable media, stability and reliability and the ease of management which includes the cost and user support.


For task three I had to recommend a computer for the Lincolnshire County Council from the range that are available. The computer is needed for administration purposes so needs all software aswell.I had to justify my selection by giving reasons for my choice. Highlighting parts of the components which meets the Councils requirements. For example I chose Norton Internet Security as it protects the computer against viruses. Also I chose a high range printer as the council work with photos. Adobe Photoshop was recommended because then the council can view and edit all images needed.


Task four I explained the purpose of some computer utilities. I wrote about Virus Protection, Firewalls, Clean up Tools and Drive Formatting.
Virus protection- This protects you from getting a virus on your computer. Also it can protect you from spyware, infected websites, hacker attacks, spam prevention and identity theft. You also get email protection, parental control and recovery tools with the software. 
Firewalls- A firewall is used to stop unauthorized internet users accessing other people’s/companies private networks which are connected to the internet. If the messages that go to the firewall do not meet the security criteria, then it will not pass through the firewall. 
Cleanup Tools- The tool shows the files you can safely delete. The tool asks if you want to delete some of the files or maybe all of them. The clean up can remove temporary internet files, remove downloaded program files, empty the recycle bin, remove windows temporary files such as error reports, remove optional windows components that you don’t use, remove installed programmes that you no longer use and remove unused restore points and shadow copies from System Restore.  
Drive Formatting- This is where you prepare a storage medium for reading and writing, usually a hard drive.  When the hard drive is formatted it erases all book marking information on the hard drive, tests the hard drive to make sure all parts are reliable, marks the bad parts and created internal address tables that it uses to locate information later on. Usually you format a hard drive to remove errors from hard drive. 
Also I had to explain how these utilities can improve the computers performance. 
 

Unit 29 - Installing and Upgrading Software

The first task in Unit 29 is about prompts for change. This means why would people want to install or upgrade software. So here are some of the reasons; compatibility issues - not compatible with a new piece of hardware you have bought. They may have a bug on the current software, for example (a bug is an error within a computer programme that causes unexpected outcomes). A bug can be an error like files not saving properly or files going missing. They may just want to upgrade to get the latest software with new features for example going from Windows Vista to Windows 7. Another reason why someone might want to install and upgrade a new piece of software is external prompts for new software. For Example, (when you open a programme you get a pop up asking if you would like the latest version).This is called an external prompt. Another reason why someone might install new software is because of the company policy. For Example, (where a company may need to renew their software after a certain amount of years). Security problems may make you want to install or upgrade new software. For Example, (for instance just say you have Norton Internet Security 2009 and its due to run out you may want to upgrade to Norton Internet Security 2010.This is what task 1 is all about.


The second task in Unit 29 is all about the potential risks of installing and uprgrading software. So a potential risk of installing and upgrading software is the software might not be compatible; therefore it will not work on your computer. So make sure you can run the software first. Also by installing and upgrading software there is a chance of corrupting data. Also data may be lost while installing and upgrading as files might over write other files. So you should make a back up of all files when possible. This can happen because when installing a new software your computer can shut down in mid installation then files may get corrupted or lost. There is also a risk of potential loss of service. For example, (if a company installs or upgrades software in office times then all the servers will be down so they may looses service. Like taking a bank for example there upgrading the system so no one can access there bank accounts in normal hours to get cash out so people will complain). This would also result in downtime so loss of pay. If you upgrade your old software to try get rid of bugs then the new software might contain the same bugs or even different bugs. So upgrading the software isn’t always the easy way out to try cover up bugs.

The third task in Unit 29 is about how to minimise the risks of installing and upgrading software. So this would be stuff like before installing or upgrading software make back ups of all important files then if anything goes wrong the risk of loosing data will be minimised. Also if a company was installing and upgrading software in office times then all the servers will be down so they will loose loss of service. So to minimise this risk the company could have a schedueled time to install and upgrade the software so it's out of office hours.