Table (P7)

Test	Expected Outcome	Actual Outcome	Action Required
software applications open and work as intended	After i have loaded up software, it should open on my desktop and work as it is supposed to, giving me all of the start options e.g internet, office etc.	The loaded software opens onto the desktop and works normally providing all of the options at the start menu.	n/a
default folder settings are correct	The default folder settings should be set correctly automatically, and easy to access. It should allow you to create new folders, open existing folders, delete chosen folders etc.	Automatically, the folder setting will be correct and ready to use,allowing you to customize your folders  therefore requiring no further action. However, if you desire to customize the settings of the folders on your computer, you can. You can change the layout, structure etc.	n/a
desktop shortcuts go to the right place	After creating a desktop shortcut and choosing where to place it, it should appear on your desktop exactly where you placed it, it should be clear and easy to find.	Sometimes desktop shortcuts can appear in the wrong place when created.	The desktop shortcut will have to be moved into the position you want it to be, using click and drop to place the shortcut icon into the right place on the desktop.
the correct device drivers are installed	The device driver that you install should be compatible with the computer system and should run as normal. The device driver should allow the computer system to operate as normal and allow you to access hardware functions.	The device driver may not be correctly installed, and the hardware connected to the computer may not operate as it should.	The hardware would have to be reconnected and the device driver would have to be installed manually and correctly. The device driver that you install will have to be compatible with your computer system, and should be a simple and easy procedure.
the correct paper sizes are set for printing	The paper in the printer should be the correct size to fit in the printer, and to print off documents onto the paper.	Sometimes the printer paper size can be set on the wrong size for printing documents.	You will have to go onto printer settings and manually change the paper sizes that are set for the printer. You will have to change the setting to A4 in order to print documents onto the paper.The printer file can be opened, you then click on "printer properties" and click on "paper", which is displayed at the top. From there you can click on "print on" box which then allows you to changes the paper sizes.
menu options work as intended	The menu should show all of the options at the start when opened, for example the internet icon, office etc. All options that are available on the computer should be able to be identified on the menu when opened.	Some menu options may not be installed onto the computer when started up for the first time.	You would have to manually install the menu options that you desire to have which aren't there to begin with.
the correct date and time are set	The date and time on the computer should be set correctly. It should be displayed in the bottom right corner of the computer monitor screen.	The date and time on the computer will not be correct automatically, it won't be set yet. You will have to set it manually.	To set the correct time and date on the computer, click in the bottom right corner of the screen where the time and date is displayed, a calendar should appear, simply click the day that matches the date you are at. A clock will also appear so that you can manually change the time. After setting the date and time on the computer, there will be no action required as the procedure should be a success.The correct date and time should be displayed in the left bottom corner on the screen of the monitor.

Witness Statement (P6)

Witness statement
Learner name
Qualification		BTEC National 1st certificate in IT
Unit number and title		Unit 2.2 computer systems.
Assignment		Set up and maintain a computer system
Description of activity undertaken (please be as specific as possible)
Task 2 (P6) Using the computer system provided: Change the icon size to large Change the font size to large colour/background to red
Assessment and grading criteria
P6.configure a computer system to meet user needs For P6, learners must configure some basic system settings, such as left and right mouse buttons, powersaving options, screen resolution, desktop theme, font size, default language setting, default folder locations etc.
How the activity meets the requirements of the assessment and grading criteria, including how and where the activity took place
I witnessed Robbie complete all of the activities listed above in IV5, an ICT room in school. I witnessed him then change the icon size to large. Secondly, he changed the font size to large successfully. Robbie then changed the background colour to red on the computer home screen.
Witness name	George Blackie		Job role	Student
Witness signature			Date
Assessor name	Phil Wilkinson
Assessor signature			Date

Witness Statement (P5)

Witness statement
Learner name		Robbie Latta
Qualification		BTEC National 1st certificate in IT
Unit number and title		Unit 2.2 computer systems.
Assignment		P5 set up a standalone computer system, installing hardware and software components [SM3]
Description of activity undertaken (please be as specific as possible)
After making a successful start in your role as an IT trainer for the IT Support Department of RS Components, you have been have been asked to prepare training material of a more advanced and practical kind. Before you are allowed to do this you are required to prove your abilities in hardware and software upgrades. Task Achieved Date achieved Connect a monitor to a computer Yes 01/10/2014 Connect a keyboard to a computer Yes 01/10/2014 Connect a mouse to a computer Yes 01/10/2014 Demonstrate where the graphics card is installed Yes 02/10/2014 Install MS Office 2003 Yes 03/10/2014 Install MS security essentials Yes 04/10/2014 Create a user account Yes 05/10/2014 Configure system software, application software and documents Yes 06/10/2014
Assessment and grading criteria
P5 set up a standalone computer system, installing hardware and software components [SM3] For P5, learners must install at least one hardware and one software component in a stand-alone system. This is best evidenced with a witness statement or observation record and screen shots. Learners must use suitable safety equipment/tools and pay due regard to health and safety issues.
How the activity meets the requirements of the assessment and grading criteria, including how and where the activity took place
To begin with, Robbie connected a monitor to the computer system, after that he then connected the mouse and the keyboard. He showed me where the graphics card is installed and then installed MS office 2003, followed by MS security essentials. After that he created an account and then configured system software, application software and documents. He showed no trouble in completing all of the above tasks.
Witness name	George Blackie		Job role	Student
Witness signature			Date	06/10/2014
Assessor name	Phil Wilkinson
Assessor signature			Date

Task 5 (D1)

Task 5 (D1)

In this task I am going to expand on my notes for task 3, explaining the purpose of different software utilities to explain how each can improve a computer system. I will cover:

• Security virus protection and/or firewalls.

Clean up tools for removal of cookies and/or internet history and/or defragmentation.

Drive formatting.

Security Virus Protection:

The purpose of security virus protection is to essentially prevent your computer from becoming infected by a virus or other malicious software. Anti virus software doesn't essentially improve the performance of your computer system, instead it blocks out software looking to slow it down to keep it running smoothly and without any interruptions.

Clean Up Tools:

The main reason clean up tools are used is to remove software added by websites and other sources, and to remove things such as saved passwords and other information. This improves the overall performance of your computer because it removes any background applications and programs that may be running without you realising, this gives your computer less things to do which means it will run much quicker.

Drive Formatting:

Computer systems that are purchased from retailers contain hard drives that are pre-formatted, which means they are ready to go straight out of the box. To format a hard drive is to prepare the storage medium for reading and writng. This includes establishing an empty file system for the new data. This improves the performance of your computer system because it clears hard drive space, cleans system files and deletes harmful processes.

Task 4 (M1)

Task 1 (M1)

Functions	Mac OS	Windows XP
Machine and Peripheral Management	The Mac operating system is quite similar to Windows XP, but all of the devices that connect to the machine have to specialised for Macs. Mac OS controls the keyboard by changing the input coding into coding that the Mac can interpret. Dashboard: This is an application for Mac OS X operating systems. It is used as a secondary desktop for hosting mini-applications known as widgets. Widgets are simple applications which means they should not take much time to launch. Mac’s using OS X come with a stock ticker, calculator, weather report and notepad. System Preferences: This is an application installed in computers which run off OS X. It allows users to alter different system settings which are divided into separate preference panes. This was first introduced in the very first version of Mac OS X. This was to replace the control panel that was included in previous versions of Mac.	Windows XP controls all of the components and essentially all of the machine, as well as other things such as the mouse, printer and keyboard. The monitor is controlled by Windows, it does this by changing the resolution.
Security	Mac uses OS X Mavericks — which has all the latest security features and updates — is free. When new updates are available, OS X sends you a notification. Just accept the updates with a click and they download automatically. OS X checks for new updates every day, so it’s easy to always have the latest and safest version. Gatekeeper makes it safer to download apps by protecting you from inadvertently installing malicious software on your Mac. The safest place to download apps for your Mac is the Mac App Store. Apple reviews each app before it’s accepted by the store, and if there’s ever a problem with an app, Apple can quickly remove it from the store. Time Machine: This is an application that automatically backs up the entire Mac system. Everything from emails to music. The thing that makes Time Machine stand out from other backup applications is that it remembers how your system was exactly on any given day. Making it able to revisit your Mac as it was in the past. Time machine keeps hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups until you drive is full.	Windows XP uses ‘Microsoft Essentials’. This is to help guard against things such as viruses. spyware and many other malicious software. It provides protection for your home PC or other PC’s. Microsoft Essentials is free and is suppose to be  simple to install and use. It also runs in the background so it won’t disturb you. You also don’t have to make any updates as it does it all itself.
File Management	The Mac uses formation to convert the data and make folder and files. Formatting is the process of applying logic to storage in the form of partitions and volumes. Partitions are used to define boundaries on a storage device. You can define multiple partitions if you want the physical storage to appear as multiple separate storage destinations. Even if you want to use the entire space available on a device as a single contiguous storage location, the area must still be defined by a partition. Once partitions have been established, the system can create usable volumes inside the partition areas. Volumes define how the files and folders are actually stored on the hardware. In fact, it’s the volume that is ultimately mounted by the file system and then represented as a usable storage icon in the Finder. Dock: The Dock is the bar of icons that sits at the bottom or side of your screen. It provides easy access to many of the apps that come with your Mac (like Mail, Safari, and Messages). You can add your own apps, documents and folders to the Dock too.	Every Windows folder provides easy access to common file and folder management tasks. When you open any folder on your computer, a list of hyperlinked tasks is displayed next to the folder contents. You can select a file or folder, and then click a task to rename, copy, move, or delete it. You can also send a file in e-mail or publish it to the Web. In addition to the basic file and folder tasks provided in all Windows folders, there are several folders that provide links to specialized tasks. My Pictures and My Music folders provide task links that can help you manage your picture and music files. In the My Computer folder, you can view and select the drives on your computer, the devices with removable storage, and the files stored on your computer. You can use the task links in this folder to view information about your computer, change system settings using Control Panel, and perform other system management tasks.
Device Drivers	OS X supports a trio of different device drivers. I/O Kit Kernel Extensions and Network Kernel Extensions run within the Mac OS X kernel xnu and have direct access to hardware devices as well as privileged microprocessor instructions. " Userspace drivers" run outside the kernel alongside regular applications while accessing hardware through the user clients that most device drivers provide within the kernel.Most modern operating systems are divided between kernel and userspace programs. The programs you see on the screen when you work at your computer are in userspace. Also in userspace are servers and background daemons that perform essential operating system functions in an invisible way. The kernel contains privileged code that can directly access hardware, operate in real time, or execute privileged machine instructions such as virtual memory management. The Mac OS X kernel is based on the FreeBSD Open Source UNIX kernel, but is modified to include the Mach microkernel at its core. Mach was originally developed to run in its own protected memory space, with the other kernel functions running in separate spaces. Microkernel architectures never really caught on because of the time overhead of context switches between the different kernel components. On Mac OS X, Mach is directly linked into the FreeBSD kernel; they run in the same space.	Device Manager provides a graphical view of the hardware that is installed on the computer, as well as the device drivers and resources associated with that hardware. Using Device Manager provides a central point to change the way the hardware is configured and interacts with the computer's microprocessor. Using Device Manager to manage devices and their drivers require the following permissions, all of which are granted to Administrators: The Load\Unload Drivers privilege. The permissions needed to copy files to the system32\drivers directory. The permissions needed to write settings to the registry. Device Manager allows the following functionality: Determine if the hardware on your computer is working properly. Change hardware configuration settings. Identify the device drivers that are loaded for each device and obtain information about each device driver. Change advanced settings and properties for devices. Install updated device drivers. Disable, enable, and uninstall devices. Reinstall the previous version of a driver. Identify device conflicts and manually configure resource settings. Print a summary of the devices that are installed on your computer. Typically, Device Manager is used to check the status of computer hardware and update device drivers on the computer.

Features	Mac OS	Windows XP
Ease of Management	Consistency: The whole OS and almost every application looks and feels the same, as if a single team developed the whole thing, thanks to Apple HI Guidelines. Official guidelines for user interface design made it possible for users to actually use most Mac-applications in a very same way, creating a seamless and comfortable experience in the end. Users are able to anticipate how system behaves and what to expect from its applications. In fact, consistency dramatically improves learnability and usability of interacting with the system. Intuitiveness: Installing and uninstalling applications is simply drag-and-drop. It can’t get much simpler and more intuitive than that. In fact, it’s hard to make any errors here, e.g. selecting some wrong option in a drop-down menu or clicking occasionally on the cancel-button. Quick and simple. Effective and appropriate metaphors: Mac effectively uses the power of unambiguous metaphors. The different overviews in the OS just work. Exposé does the right thing, Time Machine uses a 3D view where appropriate (none of that 3D-flip ‘just for the sake of it’-nonsense of Vista). Depth in Time Machine represents the location in time and therefore uses a neat metaphor helping the user, and browsing your albums with Cover Flow in iTunes (and Finder) feels almost like the real thing. Informative error reporting on-demand: Contrary to other user interfaces, Mac-applications display user notifications only when something goes wrong, not permanent balloons when some process is being started or finished. Think of it, do we really need someone to tell us when something goes the way it should? Hiding the technical details: Manually having to defragment a hard drive? Hmm, not here. On Mac users use technical tools by communicating with simple and memorable metaphors. Most users are not savvy and they have no clue how to take care of technical details so why should a user interface prompt them to do this? Fitts’ Law: The famous Fitts’ Law says that users are more productive with the mouse when they have less distance to travel and a larger target to click on to do their tasks. Mac’s design engineers have incorporated this rule in their design: almost all application menus are attached to the top of the screen, rather than to the applications’ windows. It improves the usability and reduces screen clutter. Compared to other user interfaces, regarding Fitts’ Law Mac performs better. User input feedback: Mac applications have no useless “OK” and “Apply”-buttons and changes are applied immediately and on the fly. Thus the system seems to be more responsive and requires less input from the users, making user feedback as effective as possible. User support and navigation: Remember Clippy? Mac has its own (OS wide) version as well, called Spotlight. The only difference is that it’s actually a lot more helpful and versatile. And damn speedy too! Really, navigating an OS hasn’t ever been that straightforward. It does calculations as well and launching applications is as easy as typing in its name and hitting Enter (see screenshot below). Workflow: Mac doesn’t force you to focus on a single window, but keeps them all visible in the background ensuring a more efficient workflow. However this might be a thing of taste and getting used to.	Use the computer without a display: Windows comes with a basic screen reader called Narrator that will read aloud text that appears on the screen. Windows also has settings for providing audio descriptions for videos and controlling how dialog boxes appear. Additionally, many other programs and hardware are compatible with Windows and available to help individuals who are blind, including screen readers, Braille output devices, and other useful products. Make the computer easier to see: Several settings are available to help make the information on the screen easier to see. For example, the display can be magnified, colors can be adjusted to make the screen easier to see and read, and unnecessary animations and background images can be removed. Use the computer without a mouse or keyboard: Windows includes an on-screen keyboard that you can use to type. You can also use Speech Recognition to control your computer with voice commands, and dictate text into programs. Make the mouse easier to use: You can change the size and color of the mouse pointer, and use the keyboard to control the mouse. Make the keyboard easier to use: You can adjust the way Windows responds to mouse or keyboard input so that key combinations are easier to press, typing is easier, and inadvertent key presses are ignored. Use text and visual alternatives for sounds: Windows can replace two types of audio information with visual equivalents. You can replace system sounds with visual alerts and you can display text captions for spoken dialog in multimedia programs. Make it easier to focus on reading and typing tasks: A number of settings can help make it easier to focus on reading and typing. You can have Narrator read information on the screen, adjust how the keyboard responds to certain keystrokes, and control whether certain visual elements are displayed.