IT STARTS WITH HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Computers, like any other electronic device, need regular maintenance. Just like your annual medical check-up program, your computer also needs scheduled maintenance of computer hardware to ensure that you extend its lifespan. This is what many people call preventative maintenance.

Before we dive into the purpose of preventative maintenance let us first consider the basic question of what is computer hardware and what is in the preventative maintenance program.

All the physical components of the computer are hardware. This will include your keyboard, hard drives, internal CD or DVD drive, fans, etc. All of these components are included in computer hardware maintenance.

Most people believe that preventative maintenance programs are only for the visible components of the computer. That is not true. Computer hardware maintenance also includes the not-so-visible components of the computer.

Typically, you perform preventative maintenance at the system level and physical level.

This is where you clean the physical components of the computer. Clean the keyboard to ensure that you remove the dust sitting between the keys. It’s important to remove and clean the fans that help maintain CPU temperature. Also, wipe off the monitor and blow out the dust sitting inside the CPU.

System-level maintenance ensures that your operating system runs in an optimized manner. Check your hardware drivers and download and install their latest versions. If you’re using any software, then it is best to have the upgraded and latest versions. There are also a lot of programs in your system that you do not use. Remove these programs and clean up the disk space so you can install more useful programs.

Most of the computers today have antivirus and anti-malware protection installed. However, these are often outdated and do not have the updated security patches. This can pose a substantial threat to your operating system. Hence, they are also updated to the latest versions.

A lot of people make the mistake of not fragmenting their hard drive. This can cause a major data loss in adverse situations and even cause system slowdown. So, defragment your hard disk and create multiple drives.

Why Computer Hardware is important: 

Now that we have seen how to take care of your computer, let us see why it important to have a periodic maintenance program.

Computer hardware is any physical device used in or with your machine, whereas computer software is a collection of code installed onto your computer’s hard drive.

All computer software utilizes at least one hardware device to operate. For example, a video game, which is software, uses the computer processor (CPU), memory (RAM), hard drive, and video card to run. Word processing software uses the computer processor, memory, and hard drive to create and save documents.

Computer software is a program that enables a computer to perform a specific task, as opposed to the physical components of the system (hardware). A specific task can include an application software such as a word processor which enables a user to perform a task, and system software such as an operating system, which enables other software to run properly, by interfacing with hardware and with other software.

1. System Software, 
2. Programming Software
3. Application software

1. Computer software has to be “loaded” into the computer’s storage (such as a hard drive, memory, or RAM).
2. Once the software is loaded, the computer is able to execute the software.
3. Computers operate by executing the computer program. This involves passing instructions from the application software, through the system software, to the hardware which ultimately receives the instruction as machine code.

Each instruction causes the computer to carry out an operation — moving data, carrying out a computation, or altering the control flow of instructions

The system software also called the operating system (OS) actually runs the computer. This software controls all the operations of the computer and its devices. All computers use system software and without the system software the application software will not work. The most common OS on a PC is the Windows operating system. 

Computer Programming software usually provides tools to assist a programmer in writing computer programs and software using different programming languages in a more convenient way. The tools include text editors, compilers, interpreters, linkers, debuggers, and so on. An Integrated development environment (IDE) merges those tools into a software bundle, and a programmer may not need to type multiple commands for compiling, interpreter, debugging, tracing, and etc., because the IDE usually has an advanced graphical user interface (GUI)

Application software is a program that allows users to do a specific task on the computer. There are a number of different types of application software available to do many of the tasks we do daily. Typical applications include industrial automation, business software, educational software, medical software, databases, and computer games. Businesses are probably the biggest users of application software, but almost every field of human activity now uses some form of application software. It is used to automate all sorts of functions.

Four examples of common application software and what they are used for are:

Internet Application: Internet Explorer is a program that allows you to get connected to the Internet and look at Web sites like the one you are reading now.

It is important to note that when you buy a computer the computer comes with the operating system and some software already installed. You may have to buy more software and install them on the computer. Install means to load the software onto the hard disk of the computer so that you can run or use the software.

At Skysail Technologies we provide and maintain the following Personal and business Computer Hardware and Software Solutions.