System Unit. (Error 666. Please run exorcism.exe immediately)

Expansion Card
It is a printed circuit board that is inserted into an expansion slot of a motherboard. The main function of a Expansion Card is to provide the function other than that a motherboard can offer. Below are a few examples of expansion cards.



i) Network card






ii) 3D Card







Network Interface card (NIC)
It is also known as the Network Card. It is a device that allows computers to be joined together via LAN. Using a given and specific protocol, the network computers are able to communicate together. For dial-up Internet user, the telephone line is usually plugged into the slot of the Network Interface Card. All the computers in the computer labs, and cyber cafes joined their computers in a network by using this device.



Plug&Play
It is a system capability developed by Microsoft initially for Windows95, or newer operating systems. It gives its user the ability to plug a device into the computer system and have the computer to recognize that the device is there without having to manually setting the device up. Before the invention of the Plug and Play, users are required to tell the operating system that a particular new device is installed.



Sockets
It is a piece of plastic or metal contacts made for each of the pins in the CPU. It is to physically protect the CPU. It also connects the electrical circuit between all the pins and sockets inside the CPU.

Image of a socket





Chips
It is a small electrical circuit, also known as the intergrated circuit. It is a kind of basic electronic component of all kinds of electronics, especially the computers. The computer chips are made of semiconductors that consist of silicons and other component including the transistors. Today, a computer chip can contain millions of transistors and that help the computer in becoming smaller and more powerful.



Slots
Slots are oftenly called Expansion Slots. They are basically the holes that are used as a place where external devices are plugged into the computer(sound card, video card, etc). These external devices are called expansion boards. The external features being installed can expand the capability of an original computer. Some examples are the USB slot.




Bus Lines
The Bus Lines are the communicating electronic lines that connect different parts of the CPU to various other parts as well as the system board of the computer. The data flows in the form of "Bit" in a bus line. The bus lines are the electronic pathway that decide the rate of transfer of data. The greater the bus lines, the better the efficiency of the computer.



Serial Port
A serial port is a port that can be used for serial communication, where only "1 bit" allowed to be transmitted at a time. A serial port can be used for almost any types of devices including the modem, mouse, and printers. The data is transmitted through the serial ports connected to the computer to the other devices and other various perispherals.

Image of a Serial Port





Parallel Port
It is also known as the Parallel Interface, initially for connecting External devices such as the printer, external hard disc, joystick, which relatively needs a higher bandwidth. The Parallel Port is already being replaced by the USB port and they are no longer needed for printers.



Universal Serial Bus
More oftenly known as the USB. It is an external bus standard that supports data transfer rate of 12Mbps. It is now commonly used for external devices like mouse, printers, laptop coolers,pendrives, etc.

Image of a USB slot and cable





Firewire Port
It is a kind of serial port that is used to transfer data rapidly from one electronic device to another. 1 example is to transfer files from the digital camera or camcorders to the computer. The transfer rate of a Firewire Port can reach up to 400Mbps. The data transfer rate is relatively fast and the quality is also excellent.

Image of a Firewire Port and the cable

5 products to be sold on eBay.

Guitar Poster(framed)






Guitar Amplifier






Heroes Necklace(rusted)






PS2 DvDs





Assorted Reading Meterials

Careers in IT

Webmaster
The webmaster is usually the main developer of a certain website. They are usually HTML experts who manage the operation and administration of the website. They are in charge of managing the website servers, layouts, content and so on. Some webmasters are also in charge of scripting and configurating.


Computer support specialist
A computer support specialist works mainly inside a company while they also provide in-house services to their customers. They help to take care of all the mechanical and technical problems. They are mostly asked to answer inquiries about certain softwares or hardwares. Therefore, a computer support specialist must have good communication and problem-solving skills.

Technical Writer
Technical writer composes and handles manuals and user-guides for their products. The documentation a technical writer produced must be accurate and comprehendible in order to aid their consumers to use the products correctly.

Software engineer
Software engineers are in charge of developing software system of the certain product. They also modify some of the existing programmes to maintain their working performances. The field of responsibilities of a software engineer is very vast - from testing and trouble-shooting new software programmes to operational documentation writting. It is one of the most popular careers in IT in terms of the numbers of employment.

Network administrator
The network admin is a profession that manages the networking system of a company. Their job targets mainly on the health and security issues of the network in the company, which also includes the routing of protocools and some network address configuration. Their main responsibility is to administrate LAN/WAN to ensure its well performance.

Database administrator
The job of a database admin is to ensure that the security and the performance of the existing data. They are to make sure that the data remains consistent, organized, and clearly defined. In certain cases, the database admin will be called upon to explain and analyze the stored databases to make recommendations relating to the performance efficiency.

System analyst
System analysts answer the enquiries of their customers by asking them what they need their computers to do, and then design a system that can fullfil their customers' need for the computer. They also suggest their customers on what to purchase as well as telling the software programmers how to make new softwares that are needed.

Programmer
Naturally, programmers usually deal with programmes. They code a series of instructions for the computer by using coding languguages such as COBOL, Prolog, Java, and so on. This leads to a wider extention of programmer's profession such as Java Programmers, based on the languguage they are familiar with. Other than that, a programmer also tests a programme by running it to ensure the desired outcome. If errors occur in between, then they begin the debugging process.