Topic 1

Topic 1

1. Standrads

   • legal
     • Legal issues are designed by law. More and More laws are being passed concerning computer use
     • 1. It must be collected and used fairly and inside the law. 2. It must only be held and used for the reasons given to the Information Commissioner 3. It can only be used for those registered purposes and only be disclosed to those people mentioned in the register entry. You cannot give it away or sell it unless you said you would to begin with. 4. The information held must be adequate, relevant and not excessive when compared with the purpose stated in the register. So you must have enough detail but not too much for the job that you are doing with the data. 5. It must be accurate and be kept up to date. There is a duty to keep it up to date, for example to change an address when people move. 6. It must not be kept longer than is necessary for the registered purpose. It is alright to keep information for certain lengths of time but not indefinitely. This rule means that it would be wrong to keep information about past customers longer than a few years at most. 7. The information mu
   • ethics
     • Like any other tools computers can be used for good or bad. Making choices between the two is a matter of ethics.
     • The BCS have some fairly typical ethical standards that it believed computer professionals should adhere to. These include: • Not undertaking work that is beyond your capability • Not bringing the profession into disrepute • Avoid injuring others • Do not take bribes
   • Types
     • defacto
       • De facto standards are standards which just develop over time through common usage until they become the accepted way to make or do things.
     • industry
       • Industry standards are those that have been agreed across the computing industry
     • open
       • Open standards refer to standards which are publicly available; to an extent the software developed under them can be modified by the user.

2. Computer system

   • A computer system is an integrated collection of parts which work together for a common purpose.

3. reliaibiltty

   • MTTF
     • Stands for “Mean Time To Failure”.
   • AVAIL
     • AVAIL This is the percentage of time the system is available to the user or customer but taking out any planned downtime perhaps for maintenance.
   • Alpha testing is first carried out in-house by developers of the system. A system is tested against two key areas 1. To identify weaknesses with the system in meeting specification 2. To identify errors when coding.

4. enviroment

   • Technology has had an impact on the environment that is both positive and negative.
   • advantages of technology
     • Remote working recycling Speed ups stuff Makes stuff easy to do Work from home so no commute Some powered by sun Helps with weather Less printing Less power
     • disadvantages
       • Energy use E-Waste Uses a lot of rescores to make Hard to recycle Other things need to be made to produce them Mining to make components. Expensive
   • Computer systems use a lot of raw material. For example, the electronic hardware contains precious metals such as gold and silver as well as a large amount of copper and lead. Many components also make use of rare minerals such as tantalum that are becoming harder to find on Earth. All this points to a need to recycle, both for the benefit of the environment and to save money.