ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY IN UGANDA

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER FACULTY OF SCIENCE

AN INTERNSHIP REPORT CARRIED

OUT AT CYNTAX COMPUTER

SOLUTIONS MBALE

3RD June – 12th July 2019

(6 weeks)

BY

SOLIMO RAJAB
Reg No: 118-063061-19072
Tel: 0703593534
Email: srajab007@gmail.com

AN INTERNSHIP REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF SCIENCE

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE IN PARTIAL
FULLFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS LEADING
TO THE AWARD OF A BACHELORS DEGREE
OF SCIENCE IN COMPUTER SCIENCE
AT ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY
IN UGANDA

SUPERVISOR: MR KALINAKI KASSIM

 DECLARATION

I SOLIMO RAJAB Regno: 118-063061-19072 hereby declare that this report is written in
partial fulfilment of the requirements of the award of a Bachelor of Science in Computer
Science at Islamic University in Uganda, is my very own work experienced, learnt and faced
during my internship at CYNTAX COMPUTER SOLUTIONS Mbale from 3 th/June/2019 to
12th/July/2019. This content is my original work and has never been submitted to any
institution.

Signature ……………………………………. Date ………………………….

i
 APPROVAL

This is to certify that Solimo Rajab RegNo:118-063061-19072 successfully carried out his
internship at CYNTAX COMPUTER SOLUTIONS, under my supervision and is now ready
for submission to the department of computer science Islamic University in Uganda.

INTERNAL SUPERVISOR

NAME.................................................

DATE: .............................. SIGNATURE: ..........................................................................

WORK SUPERVISOR

NAME: .........................................................................................................

DATE: .............................. SIGNATURE: ..........................................................................

ii
 DEDICATION

Efforts, dedications, and commitment were fundamental elements for the completion of my
internship, more important was the support by my family members and friends. To my
Mother in particular, Mrs Cherotich Siyada, My Father Mr Bushendich Sadick, Brothers,
Sister, and Friends, today I dedicate this very important report to them because without their
presence, support, love, and understanding I would have never have been able to achieve my
goal.

Last but not the least, I would also like to also dedicate this internship report to Mr. Kalinaki
Kassim my agency supervisor and Mr. Yasin Ramazan my work place supervisor.

iii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I humbly offer my glory and honour to the Almighty ALLAH for the gift
of life and giving me strength to perform my responsibilities as an Internee and complete the
report within the stipulated time.

I am deeply indebted to my Agency supervisor Mr. Kalinaki Kassim, for his whole-hearted
supervision during my organisational attachment, senior lecturers of the computer science
department, and to the entire staff of Islamic university in Uganda for extending their support
towards the success of my Organisational attachment (internship). I am also grateful to
Mr.Yassin Ramazan for giving me opportunity to carry out my Internship from their
company (Cyntax computer Solutions) and also for being my work place supervisor. It
would have been very difficult to prepare this report without their guidance.

My gratitude goes also to the entire computer science department of Islamic University in
Uganda for arranging Organisational attachment (Internship-program) that facilitates
integration of theoretical knowledge with real life situation.

Last but not least of all, I owe so much to my whole family for their undying support, their
unwavering belief that I can achieve so much unfortunately, I cannot thank everyone by name
because it would take a lifetime but, I just want you all to know that you count so much, had
it not been for all your prayers, love and help, I would never have completed this report. So,
thank you all.

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TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION........................................................................................................................i
APPROVAL..............................................................................................................................ii
DEDICATION..........................................................................................................................iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT........................................................................................................iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATION/ ACRONYMS..........................................................................viii
LIST OF FIGURES..................................................................................................................ix
ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................................x
CHAPTER ONE

1.0 Introduction........................................................................................................................11

1.2. Background of the field attachment..................................................................................11

1.2.1. Definition of Field Attachment......................................................................................11

1.2.2. Intentions / purpose of field attachment.........................................................................11

1.3 Objectives of Cyntax Computer solutions.........................................................................12

1.4 Vision, Mission, Goals and objectives...............................................................................14

1.4.1 Vision..............................................................................................................................14

1.4.2 Mission............................................................................................................................14

1.5 Size and Structure..............................................................................................................14

1.6 Geographical Location.......................................................................................................15

1.7 Core Values of the Company.............................................................................................15

1.8 Company Roles..................................................................................................................16

1.9 My position at Cyntax Computer Solutions.......................................................................16

1.10 My Basic Computing Area...............................................................................................16

1.11 Main activities of the Organization..................................................................................16

CHAPTER TWO

DESCRIPTION OF INTERNSHIP

2.0 Introduction......................................................................................................................18

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2.1 Internship..........................................................................................................................18

2.2 Internship department.....................................................................................................18

2.3 Size and structure of department...................................................................................18

2.4 Roles of the department in co-activities.........................................................................18

2.5 Nature of work/tasks carried..........................................................................................18

2.5.1 Week One.......................................................................................................................18

Orientation..............................................................................................................................19

Field work...............................................................................................................................19

Environment setup (software installation)...........................................................................19

System Study and setup.........................................................................................................19

2.5.2 Week Two......................................................................................................................20

Software Development...........................................................................................................20

2.5.3 Week Three....................................................................................................................20

Software Development...........................................................................................................20

Database Programming.........................................................................................................20

2.5.4 Week Four......................................................................................................................21

System Login interfaces.........................................................................................................21

Computer Graphics Designs.................................................................................................22

Report Writing and Documentation.....................................................................................22

2.5.5 Week Five.......................................................................................................................22

System report creation...........................................................................................................22

Computer Care and Maintenance........................................................................................22

Website development.............................................................................................................23

2.5.6 Week Six.........................................................................................................................23

Networking..............................................................................................................................23

Cross-Over..............................................................................................................................24

Publishing a system................................................................................................................24

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System Backup.......................................................................................................................24

CHAPTER THREE

ANALYSIS

3.0 Introduction......................................................................................................................25

3.1 Internship Work experience............................................................................................25

3.2 Examples I did during internship...................................................................................25

3.3 Technical experience........................................................................................................25

3.4 Non-technical experience.................................................................................................27

3.5 Analysis of individual performance................................................................................27

3.5.1. Interaction with experienced people in the field.......................................................27

3.5.2. Learning IT area of interest........................................................................................28

3.3.3. Working with experienced and more skilled individuals.........................................28

3.6 Attributes acquired..........................................................................................................28

CHAPTER FOUR

CHALLENGES, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION.

4.0 Introduction......................................................................................................................29

4.1. Benefits derived from field attachment.........................................................................29

4.2 Challenges.........................................................................................................................29

4.2.1 Personal Challenges......................................................................................................29

4.2.2 Company Challenges....................................................................................................30

4.3 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................30

4.4 Recommendations............................................................................................................30

4.4.1 Recommendation for future interns............................................................................31

4.4.2 Recommendation for the company..............................................................................31

4.4.3 Recommendation for the University............................................................................31

REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................33

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 LIST OF ABBREVIATION/ ACRONYMS

ICT Information Communication Technology

C.E.O Chief Executive Officer

MS Microsoft

ERP Enterprise Resource Planning

RSD Requirements Specification Document

SDLC System Development Life Cycle

ERD Entity Relationship Diagram

IEEE Institute of Electrical Engineering

RAM Random Access Memory

viii
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Showing the size and structure of Cyntax Computer Solutions...............................12

ix
 ABSTRACT
This report is in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of a Bachelor’s degree of
Science in computer Science of Islamic University in Uganda.

This piece of report presents the company where I carried out my attachment training namely,
Cyntax Computer Solutions. My training was carried out under ICT Department where I
exercised my roles as an intern. This report presents four chapters which have different
activities and issues discussed from the field including the following.

Chapter one contains the historical background of Cyntax Computer Solution, Location, The
key operations of the company, main areas of activities, organization role in the region,
strategy, mission, goals and objectives, size and structure of organization.

Chapter two contains the description of the internship department, department name, size and
the structure of the department, role of the department of the organization activities.

Chapter three contains the skills, attitudes and performance during the internship.

Chapter four contains conclusive remarks, Recommendation and challenges.

Appendix contains acceptance letter, evaluation documents and activity logs.

x
 CHAPTER ONE

1.0 Introduction.

This document reports about the field attachment period the student underwent at Cyntax
Computer Solutions, including the working experiences, challenges encountered during the
filed attachment period, analysis and evaluation of the field attachment program, its
benefits and relevance. In the final chapter, there is a conclusion and recommendations for
the betterment of field attachment programs to be carried out in future by other students
under IT at such organizations.

This introductory chapter starts by giving a background of Field Attachment in the

perspective of Islamic University in Uganda, followed by the objectives of the company,
mission, vision and goals of Cyntax Computer Solutions. It also presents the organizational
and activities carried out by the organization.

1.2. Background of the field attachment

Several studies done elsewhere have indicated and concluded that a gap really exists
between the quality of graduates produced and what the market demands (Mpairwe &
Bukaliya, 2012). For this and other reasons, training institutions and employers have
accepted the need to seek mitigation steps to bridge the gap. Among other steps,
institutions of learning have introduced internship programs also referred to as field
attachment in some of their degree and non-degree programs. There has also been the
realization that imparting the relevant practical skills is a partnership between the training
institution and the prospective employers through student internships.

1.2.1. Definition of Field Attachment

Field attachment is a field-based practical training experience that prepares trainees for the
tasks they are expected to perform on completion of their programs. The main intention is to
produce practically oriented graduates that meet the required job-related competences of their
future employers

1.2.2. Intentions / purpose of field attachment

The purpose of field attachment at Islamic University in Uganda is to produce practically

oriented graduates that meet the required job-related competences of their future

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employers. Additionally, it serves as a linkage between the University and various partners
who consume services and/or products of the University. The specific objectives of the
field attachment program are as follows:-
• To enable students get hands-on/real life experience they are expected to work in when
they graduate.
• To provide an opportunity for students to apply the principles and techniques
theoretically learnt into real-life problem solving situations.
• To provide an opportunity for students and academic staff to interact with the
stakeholders and potential employers and thus appreciate field situations that will also
generate information for curricula review and improvement
• To develop student understanding of work ethics, employment demands,
responsibilities and opportunities.
• To enhance and strengthen linkages between Islamic University and various
stakeholders.

1.3 Objectives of Cyntax Computer solutions.

The objects for which the company is established are:

a) To carry on the business as designers, developers, buyers, sellers, importers,
exporters and dealers in all kinds of computer software, computer technology and
information technology products including cloud hosted business platforms and
computer application products, systems, peripherals and materials, and to undertake
the business of system and network integration and development, product application
and development, computer maintenance and technical support services, internet
access, networking and electronic media, Tele-communication and web commerce
application services .

b) To carry on the business of consultancy and advise in designing, developing,

installing, implementing and operating all kinds of software/information technology
projects and rendering technical services, business transformation projects and
assistance for start-up, commencement and expansion programme and to act as
technical and software development consultants in India and abroad.

c) To undertake information technology project consultancy and services and to enter

into any arrangements for providing turnkey project, including supply of technical,

12
 civil, financial, administrative, commercial services and technical knowhow, transfer
of technology, information, knowledge, expertise and experience and as such to
undertake for and on behalf of the clients to setup works, projects and all kinds of
software development facility in or outside India and undertake market research and
service, feasibility studies and reports.

d) To undertake research and development in the field of information technology and to

establish, provide, maintain and operate research laboratories, workshops, projects and
programmes.

e) To undertake and execute contracts for works involving the supply of use of any
computer hardware and to carry out any auxiliary or other works comprised in such
contracts.

f) To provide internship programs for IT and computer science students to do internship

as part of field work and to practically put class knowledge into use.

g) To undertake and execute contracts for works involving the supply of use of any
computer hard ware, and to carry out any auxiliary or other works comprised in such
contracts

h) To require, own, sell, exchange, or otherwise deal in or dispose off, let on hire or
lease, repair and assemble all kinds of plant and machinery, equipment, computers,
peripherals, networking equipment, internet connectivity products, accessories,
apparatus, spare parts, tools, implements, inputs required and as are necessary, useful,
convenient or desirable for all or any of the objects of the Company.

i) To establish, provide maintain and conduct or otherwise subsidies and assist research
laboratories and experimental workshops for scientific and technical research and
experiments and to undertake and carry on with all scientific and technical researches,
experiments, tests and inventions that may be considered likely to assist any of the
business which the Company is authorized to carry on.

j) To carry on all or any of the businesses of general engineers, designers, manufacturers,

assemblers, maintainers, importers, exporters, repairers, installers, and dealers in

13
 engineering equipment, plant, machinery, appliances, components, accessories, tools,
jigs, dies and fixtures of all kinds, electrical, electronics, motor, hydraulic, and civil
engineers, engineering consultants, production planners, prototype designers,
draughtsman, and technicians, designers, distributors, factors, manufacturers and
merchants of, and dealers in moldings, shaping, wildings, pressings, assemblies,
repetition work and machined castings, metal founders, converters and molders,
millwrights, metallurgists, boilermakers, smiths and fitters, wiredrawers, tube makers,
tin. Plate workers, sheet metal manufacturers, workers and dealers, thinners,
galvanizers, platters, painters, sprayers and molders.

k) To buy, sell, manufacture, repair, alter, manipulate, and otherwise deal in vehicles,
fittings, furnishings, materials, products, articles and things capable of being used for
the purpose of the foregoing business or any of them, or likely to be required by
customers of, or persons having dealings with the Company.

I) To carry on the business as builders, property developers, Civil, mechanical and

labour contractors, building and erection engineers, dealers and manufactures of
prefabricated and precast houses, materials, tools, implements, machinery and metal
ware.

1.4 Vision, Mission, Goals and objectives.

1.4.1 Vision.

Cyntax vision is “is to become a focal point for a dependable, Innovative and responsive
Technological Service Provider, guiding technological development in totality, participating
in and contributing to the progress of the Community in Eastern and Uganda at large.

1.4.2 Mission.

Cyntax seeks “to be a vibrant Company that enables the community to cope up with
technology, through provision of quality internship, quality technological services and
community development. This shall be done through lobbying, negotiation, training,
fundraising and better leadership.

14
1.5 Size and Structure.

Cyntax computer solutions is now three years old from the time of its formulation. The
company is headed by the C.E.O Mr. Yassin Ramathan and assisted by the general manager
Mr. Elijah. It is mainly administered in four units; The Internship and Project management
department, the Research and documentation department, the Graphics and designs
department and the Secretarial Unit.

C.E.O

GENERAL MANAGER

SECRETARY

RESEARCH & ICT & REPAIR & GRAPHICS &

Figure 1 Showing the size and structure of Cyntax computer Solutions
PUBLICATIONS INTERNSHIP MAINTENANCE PHOTOGRA
1.6 Geographical Location.

Hissy Technology Solutions is also Known as Cyntax Computer Solutions Limited is located
in Mbale district in Eastern Uganda. The organization is found in Mbale Municipality along
plot 37 Kumi Road. Tell: +256 702217496 Email: info@cyntaxsolutions.net

1.7 Core Values of the Company.

 Basic and professional computer training services.

15
  Internship and other specialized trainings for systems administrators and other
practicing IT professionals.
 Research and Consultative Services

1.8 Company Roles.

 The organization provides a lot of services to the public including sorts of training as
well as working experience to students, graphics design, development of systems,
project documentation and software and video coverage.
 The excellence of the company is increasing day by day as its growing in terms of
structures and numbers of clients.

1.9 My position at Cyntax Computer Solutions.

For the period of field attachment, the student was well placed in the company activities and
indeed priority was given to my regular training and practical understanding of issues. The
company sets up all the infrastructure needed for each one to have a work station and
individualised attention.

1.10 My Basic Computing Area.

 System development.
 Computer networking.
 Computer graphics and design.
 Software installation.
 Software maintenance, Hardware maintenance and servicing.

1.11 Main activities of the Organization.

Cyntax computer solutions carries out a number of activities, with great focus on areas of
Software Development, Computer Networking, Graphics design ,Consultancy and
Computer Hardware maintenance and servicing. They also offer a number of Career
Development opportunities such as Internship. The sections below, provide brief
descriptions of some of the services offered by Cyntax computer solutions

1. Networking: The Company provides connection services in Network installation and

connection of different devices and computer peripherals to provide internet services
in different Organizations.

16
2. Software development: Cyntax as a Software Oriented company develops various
software’s such as Websites, Mobile applications, Management Information Systems,
banking systems and others.
3. Internship programs: The Company provides internship programs for IT and
computer science students as part of the field work and to practically put class
knowledge into use.
4. Research consultation: The Company also offers research consultation services in a
commendable number of fields. These include academic research, policy-oriented
research and other investigative publications.
5. Project documentation: Besides equipping their clients with technical knowledge,
the company goes an extra mile to introduce them to project documentation practices.
Feasibility studies, concept paper writing, memorandums of understandings are
drafted and developed.
6. Graphics design: Cyntax Computer Solutions as a company also offers graphics
designing like banners designing, report cards, stickers, flyers, Identity cards and bill
boards.
7. Computer care and maintenance: The Company extends computer servicing
services. That means they perform cleaning, blowing, software updates, and security
installations among others for computer cares and fixing new parts and repair of the
old parts.
8. Computer training: The Company provides computer training in MS word, power
point, graphics design, access, internet and basic computer maintenance training.
9. Presentation making: People from different organizations and companies are helped
to make presentations for meetings and workshops.

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 CHAPTER TWO
DESCRIPTION OF INTERNSHIP
2.0 Introduction.
This contains the description of the Department for internee and covers the Department name,
size and structure of the department, role of the Department in the organisational activities
and nature, method, accomplishments and goals of activity.

2.1 Internship.
2.2 Internship department.
The department I worked in during my Internship training was the ICT department of Cyntax
Computer Solutions.

2.3 Size and structure of department.

My training was conducted by the ICT department which is by far the most crucial and big
department given their inclination to crafting and implementation of the Company’s
information technology services. The department is managed by Mr. Ramazan Yasin.

2.4 Roles of the department in co-activities.

The ICT department is responsible for Configurations, Daily backup that is to say backing up
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and for other systems.

The department also carries out development of software’s.

2.5 Nature of work/tasks carried.

It describes all the work that was done by the intern during the industrial training period and
the methods used by the student for the activities.

2.5.1 Week One.

During the first week of my internship at Cyntax Computer solutions, a number of activities
transpired. The following activities took place during my first week;

18
Orientation

By definition, Orientation refers to the planned introduction of new people to their jobs, their
peers and to the company. The Orientation and briefing Exercise was conducted by the work
place supervisor who welcomed the interns to the company and briefed the interns about the
goals, aims, Mission of his organisation, guidelines through the internship and Areas of
coverage during the period.

Field work

Field work by definition is the process of observing and collecting data about people,
cultures, and natural environments. Field work is conducted in the wild of our everyday
surroundings rather than in the semi-controlled environments of a lab or classroom.
Therefore, I visited Bilal Islamic High School, from where I interacted with the school
Director on how they run their school activities. This was basically done in preparation for
the development of school management system.

Environment setup (software installation)

The work place supervisor gave the Softwares to install in preparation to start the
development of school management system. The softwares installed were the following:

 MySQL for the database.

 Visual studio 2012 for designing the system.
 Dev Express for system design.
 Crystal Report for generating report and others.
 Adobe Packages (Adobe Fireworks, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe illustrator)

System Study and setup

I did the feasibility study of the school management system I was expected to develop. This
included gathering and listing all the requirements for project development. These
requirements were gathered bathing on the users of the system. The gathered requirements let
to project setup that allowed coming up with the ERDs and User Case diagrams.

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2.5.2 Week Two.
Software Development

Basically, the second week of my internship was characterised by software development.

This was a continuation of work (system Study) done in the first week. The following are the
software development activities I did in the second week;

 Creation of the Asp.Net pages for the project. They included the master page and
other pages i.e. Admin Pages (Staff Registration, Student Registration, Time Table,
Finance) meant to be used by the school Administration.
 Creation of user web control forms for the pages and deploying them to their
respective pages.

2.5.3 Week Three.

On the third week of my Internship, the following activities took place;

Software Development.

The week was still characterized by system building, it majorly creation of user web control
forms for the pages and deploying them to their respective pages. This was work continuation
of week two and involved the use of visual studio tools like the ASPx grid view, Aspx
Button, object data source. The intern fully involved himself in the whole process and well
confiden with the use of user web controls.

Database Programming

Since the intern had developed the system pages of the school management system in visual
studio and employed some of the connection tools, the intern had to develop and design the
database for the system. Database design took the intern two days of the week to design the
system database. The intern used MySQL software to design the database. The database had
the table fields to help the system user store data and retrieve data. The intern created some
system functions and procedures into the database.

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The intern was able to write a procedure that calculates the total marks for the students by
adding beginning of term exam + Mid-Term exam + End of term Exam and also a procedure
data enables staff to view salary details based on requested month and year.

The workplace supervisor explained and demonstrated with an example on how to write a
stored procedure that can enable the users of the system to insert the data into specific fields
of the system leaving out others that are auto-generated.

The intern was also able to configure a system to display current date, username who login
into the system. He explained by picking a label and login name from the toolbox. The label
was renamed to date and the following code was written “txtDate.Text =
Datetime.now.TolongDateToString” was written at the backend and on the side of Database
programming I wrote a procedure to compute total marks for the students.

The intern was able to successfully connect the system to the designed database for testing.

2.5.4 Week Four.

The nature of the work did during week four of my internship was as follows;

System Login interfaces

The intern was taught on how to configure and assign system users with respective roles. This
was done as follows;

 The work place supervisor taught on how to add and configure a login, He went ahead
to show how to design another page called Director/Path that checks and directs
different users to specific web pages. Like for example an administrator of the system,
the Director/Path page directs this user to pages to be accessed by the system
Administrator.
 I learnt on how to add and configure a log out for the system. This was achieved by
Picking a hyperlink from the toolbox after which I renamed it to log out, I clicked on
it and looked for navigate URL from its properties. It was then linked to the login
page
 The work place supervisor taught on how to assign privileges to different users of the
system. The privileges learnt include;
Delete privilege
Insert privilege

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 Update privilege and
Viewing Privilege

I was therefore able to limit the privileges of different users of the system such as Accounts,
Admin, staff and Student.

Computer Graphics Designs

The intern was able to be taught some basic graphic designing using different graphics
softwares e.g. Adobe fireworks, adobe Photoshop CS5 and adobe illustrator. I was able learn
how to design Certificates, wedding cards, introductory cards, Invitation cards, Birthday
cards, banners, business cards and graduation cards using adobe illustrator CS5, Photoshop
CS5 and fireworks. The intern learned how to apply and use different effects on the document
designed.

Report Writing and Documentation

The work place supervisor demonstrated on how to write project proposal, the intern captured
the emphasis in writing this document being the language used in the proposal that the tense
used must be future tenses. I also highlighted things that should be included and what should
not be included in the proposal.

2.5.5 Week Five.

System report creation
A day of week five was dedicated to report creation using crystal reports.

 I learnt on how to configure the system to print reports using crystal report. This was
achieved by creating a folder and renamed it Report. I right clicked on the folder and
added crystal report, after that I choose crystal report wizard and follow the
command.
A button is then created which is coded such that when clicked on it allows generation
of a report in a PDF format.

I also had to design a customised report for the system. This was achieved using Crystal
Report. The process involved include the following;

 I started by right clicking on the folder named reports.

 Then added crystal report.

22
  I then choose the data that I wanted to appear on the report, this was done by clicking
on the table name.
 Then click next until I finished.

Computer Care and Maintenance

The intern was able to understand some computer care and maintenance basics. In computer
care the student had two laptop computers which required different attention. On the first
computer, I learned how to gather and document specifications of a computer to be
maintained. The student did a clean installation of windows operating system on a client’s
laptop which was brought and had some issues.

On the second computer, the student dis-assembled and re-assembled the laptop computer.
The process started by ensuring that there was no power supply to the system in order to
avoid electric shocks. The student identified the following internal components;

 Motherboard
 RAM
 Power supply
 Data bus
 Processor fun
 Case fun
 CMOS battery and other components.

The intern had the chance to blow off the dust from laptop computer using a blower and after
had the chance to reseat back the components (re-assemble). It was later tested and the
student was happy that the computer was now working normally.

Website development
The student learned new software application which he used to create and designed an
interactive website for a hotel. I worked on Victoria hotel website using brackets to come up
a responsive website.

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2.5.6 Week Six.

This was the last week of my internship according the university internship guidelines and a
number of activities took place during that week. The following are the activities that took
place during the sixth week;

Networking
This refers to inter-connection of computers to share information and resources like files,
internet, and printers among others. The student identified the networking devices such as;

 Laptop Computers.
 Switch.
 RJ-45.
 Networking cables and.
 Crimping tool.

After the identification process, I went ahead to terminate the cables following a specific
order of colours, for example cross-over cable, the following order of colours was followed

Cross-Over
 White orange
 Orange
 White green
 Blue
 White Blue
 Green
 White brown
 Brown

The student already had some knowledge and was asked by the work supervisor to guide the
team of other interns in the organization. The student also went ahead to show on how to
configure and assign IP address to the computers on the network. This was sampled in two
laptop Computers for the interns.

I finalised the networking activity by setting up a peer to peer connection between computers.
And managed to share some resources among the interns through the network.

24
Publishing a system
The student was guided by the work supervisor on how to deploy/publish a ready system for
use. The student published his system on free publishing site and was able to test the
deployed school management system he build over the internet.

System Backup
The student on his last day of the industrial period learned how to make backups for the
system. Backups are crucial that in case of theft or hardware failure, there cannot be any
suffering that may result to lose.

CHAPTER THREE
ANALYSIS
3.0 Introduction.
This chapter describes the usefulness of internship work, Technical and Non-Technical skills
acquired, performance and attributes acquired at Cyntax Computer solutions.

3.1 Internship Work experience.

To a greater extent I successfully accomplished the duties and responsibilities assigned.

Being in the Information Technology department responsibilities included: day to day work
and basic configuration; document procedures; application installations’ e.g. windows
installation, adobe Photoshop CS5, Microsoft word, working environment configurations e.g.
Checking for computer status(checking hard disk life span) installing and supporting new and
existing applications on various server platforms; writing business requirements documents
for new projects;

3.2 Examples I did during internship.

 I Installed and guided others interns how to install Operating system.

 Blew computers/machines very well.

 I also tried to develop the School Management System for Mbale College School but I
didn’t polish it well due to some challenges I faced.

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  I also interacted with fellow trainees, clients and administrators in the company very
well.

 Successfully deployed a test school management system for use (testing).

3.3 Technical experience.

System Analysis and Design. At the beginning of the industrial training, I had theoretical
knowledge about the system analysis and design process.

• I learnt how to generate requirements of a system and how to write a requirements

specification document (RSD) for a system to be developed.
• I also got practical skills on the SDLC, how to design ERDs and how to map the
ERDs to actual Database tables with attributes, primary keys and foreign keys.
This was mainly during the design of School management system for Bilal Islamic
high school.
Software installations and configurations. I had some software installation skills in a
GUI-based windows environment at the beginning of the industrial training. I learnt how
to install visual studio and Dev Express, crystal reports, Windows server and other
software’s like Adobe package which I used during the system development.
Setting up a network.

I acquired a skill of setting up a peer-to-peer network whereby the supervisor gave us a task
to network over four computers so as to share data and files. There was free interaction and
co-operation between the internees and the technical team of the organisation and this
enabled us learn more.

Termination of network cables:

I terminated cables practically while explaining as the other interns looked on. Equipment’s
such as RJ-45, clipping tools and others were provided to us in order to terminate cables very
well.

A figure showing the different colours for terminating a network cable

White Orange (OG)

Orange (G)
White Green (WG)
Blue (B)
White Blue (WB)

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 Green (G)
White Brown (WB)
Brown (B)

Preventive maintenance of a computer.

This consist of cleaning of a computer and replacement of faulty parts. It also includes
installation of operating system and other necessities of a computer system. I was able to do
all the above activities at the company during the field attachment.

Website development.

At the beginning of the internship, I knew some basic HTML, CSS. In the process of the
industrial training, I was able to learn how to develop a complete website and I choose to
design Victoria Hotel website using brackets (website designing application) which included
creating web pages and creating a responsive navigation bar and other skills related to
designing a website.

Report writing.

I was introduced to different types of reports that are written i.e. policy-oriented reports,
academic reports, project reports, appraisal reports among other reports. However, the main
focus was put on Academic Reports especially internship Report whereby I was able to write
my own report.

In addition to report writing, we also looked at project documentation where we focused on

different referencing styles such as APA, IEEE and MLA

3.4 Non-technical experience.

3.5 Analysis of individual performance.
During this Field Attachment period, the intern really enjoyed the experience of working at
Cyntax computer solutions including the comfortable working atmosphere, the technical
guidance on the latest web technologies and the friendly relationship among the staff
exhibited. Out of all these interesting moments, most interesting experiences can be seen
listed below;

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3.5.1. Interaction with experienced people in the field
I also had the opportunity to network with potential future employers and gain insight into
the types of employees they look for. This made me realize the greatest value of Internship
which is providing a unique and exciting experience that is unparalleled in the classroom and
to coordinate job experience with academic.

3.5.2. Learning IT area of interest

Internship offered me the opportunity to essentially customize my placement in order to gain
valuable work experience in my areas of interest.

3.3.3. Working with experienced and more skilled individuals

Working with some of the best developers, designers and managers in information
technology department, solving problems that you can never face in a school environment
that can give the confidence to become a job creator than a job seeker, bonding with other
interns that make up a very diverse demographic.

3.6 Attributes acquired.

 Time management.
 Patience with supervisors.
 Interaction and co-operation with supervisors and fellow trainees as well as Clients
for the company.

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 CHAPTER FOUR
CHALLENGES, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION.
4.0 Introduction.
The chapter presents the benefits of internship, challenges, recommendations and the
conclusions of activities noted during the industrial training at Cyntax Computer Solutions.

4.1. Benefits derived from field attachment

The field attachment was of great importance, some of the benefits include;

• Internship helped me understand work ethics, employment demands, responsibilities

and opportunities.

• Field attachment provided career direction and confidence in my abilities by

narrowing down the list of potential careers.

• My internship gave me the opportunity to try out computer related activities i.e.
dismantling a computer which I had not previously considered and broadened my
horizons through converting my academic knowledge into industry skills.

• It prepared me for the working environment.

• It enhanced my CV needed to negotiate future jobs.

4.2 Challenges.
4.2.1 Personal Challenges.
The field attachment period was too short. I could at times work overtime extensions in
order to accomplish particular tasks, but still time was not enough to accomplish the school
management system project development as earlier planned.

Technically, during the process of software development my computer was over freezing
due to the small processing speed and the RAM as well.

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Apart from the above and other minor challenges such as limited finances to cater for
lunch, travels, the field attachment went on smoothly.

4.2.2 Company Challenges.

The company lacks computers to cater for the internees who do not have their personal
computers.

Inadequate data in the company to facilitate the internees in the research for some vital
information on internet which is necessary in the accomplishment of tasks given by the
instructors.

Some networking tools like testing tool were missing at the company. This slowed down
the termination process as we were unable to identify some wrongly terminated cables during
the exercise.

Lack of enough facilitators especially in the software development yet it is the most
important part that the internee needs to be guided in.

Small working environment which leads to congestion during the process of the training.

4.3 Conclusion.
Islamic University in Uganda sends out students for field attachment with the main objective
of enabling the students to get hands-on real-life experiences in environments they are
expected to work in when they graduate. Cyntax computer solutions, Mbale was well
prepared to take internees for field attachment in the position of a web systems developer.

I was exposed to new technologies in web development, using different software’s like
Visual Studio, MySQL, Crystal Reports, Dev Express, adobe Photoshop and illustrator,
Macromedia fireworks especially for improving on the system graphics and others. I used
these technologies to work on projects such as Victoria hotel website and the School
management system for Mbale college school. Other activities I engaged in included
hardware and software configurations and deployment of the system, Computer graphics
designs especially in learning the different tools like pen, rectangle, paint bucket and others
in coming up with designs such as certificates, wedding cards and business cards.

4.4 Recommendations.
The following are the intern’s recommendation for improvement of field attachment,
Company, and the University.

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4.4.1 Recommendation for future interns.
 Student should always ensure good supervisory relationship as this is very important
to the successful completion of your degree, diploma or any other academic award.
 They get into the habit of documenting whatever task you do on daily basis. This is
because records made are not only important and useful when writing your report, but
also very important as a reference in future when faced with similar tasks.

4.4.2 Recommendation for the company.

 I recommend that the company should improve on the infrastructure because its
current office is too small which leads to congestion during working hours.
 The company should also buy enough computers so that it can cater for future
internee’s who do not have their computers.
 The company should also buy other networking equipment’s especially a tester,
Rooters, and more switches so that the future internee’s can gain much in the
networking field.
 The company should employ more instructors who are good at programming to avoid
over relying on one instructor in that field.
 The most recommendation for Cyntax is that in future, the organization should not
dwell a lot on the basic technologies like software development in most weeks of the
internship period, since the interns are expected to have knowledge about these basics.
Instead, a simple review of those technologies is enough and then deadline based
tasks focusing more on delivering outputs showcasing competences in advanced
technologies, would be a better time saving strategy.

4.4.3 Recommendation for the University

 This Field Attachment exercise, should be shifted to third year of study, such that it is
given more time, at least 3 months. Many studies have concluded that two months
internships are too small. Shifting the field attachment to the final year will further
increase the chances for interns to be retained by the employers, and just continue
with their jobs officially upon graduation.
 The university should carefully evaluate each proposed internship centres prior to
approving it as an internship station for its students. This because the workplace
supervisors obviously play a major role in the internship course and experience to
students.

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 The University should be holding pre-internship sessions with students at which the
course is discussed and packets containing the various internship documents are
distributed in order for the students to understand what internship is, before them
going for internship.
 The University should make at least one on-site visit prior to internship. A site visits
to the internship location by the instructor or a designated representative has
important benefits to all involved and should be a requirement of the internship
program.

 The University should keep good records of its graduates for feedback purposes;
while academic departments should liaise with employers for information on their
employed ex- students.

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