Unit 1 Practice

1. As a web master she will need the most up to date products and the fastest computer in order to do multiple things at once. The first problem with the computer is the amount of memory. The RAM only has 512 MB available. The lower amount of RAM available the slower the computer will process requests. The second problem is the Processor. This computer uses Intel Pentium 4. This processor is not very fast because it cannot multitask. It has to jump back and forth between programs. More up to date processors like the Intel Core2 Duo can do many things at once speeding up the time it takes to load web pages, open programs, etc. The third problem with the computer is the operating system. Microsoft XP is the old operating system and some products don't work on it. Within a few years it will be virtually non-existent and she will run into many problems trying to maintain her websites. One way she could upgrade the machine's capabilities would be to install a new processor like Vista. Another way would be to install more RAM. High speed computers have 2-3GB of Ram; she could also upgrade her processor to the Core 2Duo or higher.

2.
a. A computer worm differs from a computer virus in that a computer worm can run itself. A virus needs a host program to run, and the virus code runs as part of the host program. A computer worm can spread without a host program, although some modern computer worms also use files to hide inside.
b. The first action an employee could do to increase the risk of a virus infecting their company's computers is downloading music and videos via limewire and frostwire. Many files that people download onto computers contain viruses because its an easy way for hackers to transfer viruses computer to computer. The second way employees can increase the risk of infection is not updating the virus protection on the computers and running programs without virus protection or firewalls.
c. Computer viruses can limit the use of programs, copy programs and send them to other computers and cause system failure.
d. The first procedure is to backup all files regularly onto an external hard drive. This ensures that whenever a virus attack happens only information being used at the moment of intrusion is lost.

3.
a. Spam is a disruptive, esp. commercial message posted on a computer network or sent as e-mail.
b. If an organization spams its employees all at once with an email containing a video or just a popup on their computers, it will slow down the internet speed because all the employees will be trying to a watch a video at the same time. Some spam emails contain viruses and when opened can destroy computers. If an email is spammed to a company’s employees under the guise of an email from the boss, but is actually a virus, once opened the email could do serious damage to these computers and shutdown a company for a considerable period of time.
c. One step that a government can take to reduce spam is to make it illegal for companies to give out and for spammers to gain access to people’s emails. An ISP can provide email addresses to its customers that provides a spam blocker. This way any customer can mark certain emails and senders as spam which allows these emails to be sent to a separate section.

Reliability Article

http://blogs.computerworld.com/macbook_air_reccomendation_wait

This article explains the problems with the new MacBook Air. One problem is that the motherboard was created to have a 45nm chip, however; Intel is late in delivering this chip. For now the Rev 1 MacBook Airs will have the wrong chip. The difference between chips is battery life, power usage and porcessor speed.