In the first lesson we learnt about the different parts of a computer, for example the CPU (Computer power use), the RAM (Random Access Memory) and the Motherboard. The CPU is like the brains of the computer. Because of the CPU you can run software and use your computer. The RAM makes the computer faster. Its task is to run things fast, but it can't remember anything, so when you Force Quit your computer all data that was temporarily in the RAM might be lost. The more RAM your computer has, the faster it will be. The Motherboard is like the name suggests the mother of all things in your computer. Everything in the case is connected to the motherboard in some way, for example with a wire or plug.
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| The motherboard |
Of course there are a lot of other things in a computer, the power supply, the HDD, the ODD, the ventilators, a whole lot of wires, a heat sink and of course the case. The power supply, like its name suggests, provides the power for the computer to run. When you press the button, it is the first thing to start working. The HDD (Hard Disk Drive) is the memory of the computer. It is slow, but it remembers every (saved) file when you turn off the computer. It is where all software and information is stored. The ODD (Optical Disk Drive, AKA DVD-drive) is where you put in a disk of some sort to access the things stored on that disk. There are normally two ventilators. They are to keep the power supply and the CPU cool, to prevent them from exploding. All the wires connect these main components to the motherboard. The heat sink is the thing that is supposed to prevent the computer from overheating. Without it the computer would get too hot and might possibly explode. There normally is a fan for the heat sink as well. The case is obviously the thing you see on the outside, with screws, flashy buttons and vent openings. The vents and heatsink are very important because without them the computer will overheat and destroy itself.
You can test the heatsink and other components of the computer by doing a smoke test. You do this by powering up the computer and check if there goes a light from green to another color (possibly yellow) and if it smells like smoke near the computer. If it does any of these then there is something wrong and you may have to disassemble the computer again.
In the second lesson we installed a software called Ubuntu on our computers. This took quite a long time and as we spend the beginning of the lesson on finishing off our computer we had to wait the rest of the lesson for the software to install.
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| A very small part of the Internet. This diagram shows the connections made between browsers. |
The third lesson I was sick, but I believe the group learnt about the Internet and how to operate the software.The next lesson my group and I made a role play about how the internet worked. We got chairs and tied them together with string to represent the connections between networks. We gave each of the chairs a name, like Google, Youtube and PCCW. A number of different people were a picture. We used one laptop with the Facebook logo on the screen. Somebody send the picture and the picture broke up in separate packets that hopped from network to network via the connections of string. They arrived in a random order at the end destination, Facebook. Each packet had a number so the recipient network would know what the picture would look like so it could put the picture together for viewing. In the real world this happens whenever you click 'Send'. And on the real internet, this whole process takes only a matter of seconds because the packets always try to find the shortest way possible.
The packets always need to hop from network to network by finding the IP adress of the hop destination. The internet is just like a big global spiderweb with all kinds of connections intersecting, crossing and overlapping each other. This gives it the name of a global network of networks. Each one of these networks has a IP address. The things you send break up in numbered packets and hop around the networks until they find the destination IP. It is like mail being delivered by a mailman who doesn't know the way around but still needs to find the destination of the letter.
Nowadays people don't know the origins of the internet. The truth is that the Internet originated as a military experiment to make an indestructible way of communicating. It was designed to be atomic bomb proof, because an atomic bomb couldn't possibly take out all networks at once. ARPA was the corporation that funded the experiment.
Casper
