Data Protection Principles

A law designed to protect personal data stored on a computer or in a organised paper filing system.

The act contains eight “Data Protection Principles”. These specify that personal data must be:

1. Processed fairly and lawfully.

2. Obtained for specified and lawful purposes.

3. Adequate, relevant and not excessive.

4. Accurate and up to date.

5. Not kept any longer than necessary.

6. Processed in accordance with the “data subject’s” (the individual’s) rights.

7. Securely kept.

8. Not transferred to any other country without adequate protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data. 

Backing Storage

Backing storage (sometimes known as secondary storage) is the name for all other data storage devices in a computer: Hard drive, etc.

Backing storage is usually non-volatile, so it is generally used to store data for a long time.

Backing storage devices are slower to access, but can hold data permanently. Memory is fast to access, but only holds data temporarily. 

The Need For RAM

The Need For RAM

1. State what the initials RAM stand for:

Random Access Memory

2. Explain why this type of memory is called ‘random access’ and how this affects the
speed at which data can be retrieved from it.

You can read data that is stored in RAM and you can change/write data stored in RAM at any point-randomly without needing to start at the first memory location.

3. What is the main function of RAM in a computer?

It saves data by randomly saving it somewhere on the RAM and then clearing the space. This makes it able to save information quickly.

4. (a) In what form is data saved in RAM?

It is saved in binary
(b) How much data can be saved in each memory location?
It is in 1 byte or 1 bit

You can think of a bus as a highway on which data travels within a computer. When used in reference to personal computers, the term bus usually refers to internal bus. This is a bus that connects all the internal computer components to the CPU and main memory.

ROM

Read-only memory (ROM) is a class of storage medium used in computers and other electronic devices.
Short for Read-Only Memory, ROM is a type of "built-in" memory that is used with computers and other electronic devices. As the name indicates, data stored in ROM may only be read; it is either modified with extreme difficulty or not at all.

Enhancement day- My handout

Components in a computer:

Hard Drive

The hard drive’s job is to store everything you keep on your computer. Including documents, pictures, music, videos and even programs. Hard drives are very important and need to be kept safe. This is why most people have a backup system which is where they get another hard drive and copy all important files onto that. If a hard drive is damaged, everything is lost.

CPU/Processor

CPU stands for Central Processing Unit, which is also called a processor. It is located inside the computer case on the motherboard and its job is to carry out commands. Whenever you press a key, click the mouse or start and application you are sending instructions to the CPU. As the CPU carries put so many instructions so quickly it heats up. To make sure the CPU does not over heat, on top of it is a heat sink. This heat sink absorbs the heat from the CPU. A processor's speed is measured in megahertz (MHz), or millions of instructions per second; and gigahertz (GHz), or billions of instructions per second.

Motherboard

The motherboard is a computers main circuit board. It is a thin plate that holds the CPU, memory, connectors for the hard drive and optical drives, expansion cards to control the video and audio and connections to your computer ports, for example, USB ports. The motherboard connects directly or indirectly to every part of the computer.

RAM

RAM stand for Random Access Memory. RAM is your system's short-term memory. Whenever your computer performs calculations, it temporarily stores the data in the RAM until it is needed. The short-term memory disappears when the computer is turned off. In order to keep your document of file you need to save it. When you save a file the data is written to the hard drive as long-term memory. RAM is measured in megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB). The more RAM you have the more your computer can do, which is why people add extra RAM to improve performance.

Heat Sinks

Without heat sinks modern computers wouldn’t be able to run at the speed that they do. Heat sinks are very important as they stop the CPU from overheating. If they do over heat it can destroy the entire system which would cost a lot of money.  The heat sink cools down the processor after it runs multiple programs at once.

Enhancement Day Powerpoint

What is a character set?

What is a character set?

Character set is a group of unique symbols used for display and printing

 

What is ASCII? What do the initials stand for?

ASCII uses 8 bit. In an ASCII file, each alphabetic, numeric, or special character is represented with a 7-bit binary number.

American Standard Code For Information Interchange.

Explain how ASCII is used to represent text in a computer system.

ASCII is a code for representing English characters as numbers, with each letter assigned a number from 0 to 127.

ASCII was based on an earlier code from 1963. What was this?

ASCII developed from telegraphic codes. Its first commercial use was as a seven-bit teleprinter code promoted by Bell data services.

What is UNICODE?

Unicode uses 16 bits, which means that it can represent more than 65,000 unique characters.

Explain the difference between the character sets of Unicode and ASCII

Unicode is a 16 bit and ASCII is 8 bit, therefore more symbols can be shown using Unicode.