INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING

CHAPTER 5: TROUBLESHOOTING, SECURITY, AND ETHICS

LESSON 1 – PHYSICAL, DATA, AND SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE

Physical Maintenance
Of course, every one of us doesn’t want our computer or laptops to
malfunction or get broken. In fact some of us are doing some extra efforts to
protect this machine, it is for a reason that this machine is a bit expensive and
also because this machine is somehow important in our studies or even in our
work.

If you want to sustain your machine, it requires a lot of work because you
need to keep it very clean as in physically clean. Dust at the office, school or
even at home is typically 2 to 10 µm (micro-meter) and even though its 20-
50times smaller than your hair. Once dust accumulates it can cause damage in
your motherboard because of short circuits.

Figure 5.1 – Cleaning the Keyboard

That’s why in this lesson, we will focus more on cleaning your machine,
whether external cleaning or even internal cleaning. Let’s start this lesson at
the keyboard. According to gcflearnfree.org, a dirty keyboard doesn't look
nice and can cause your keyboard to not work properly. Dust, food, liquid,
and other particles can get stuck underneath the keys, which can prevent them
from working properly.

That’s why you have to check the user’s manual if there are instruction
specific for your keyboard. Here are some of the tips you can follow to keep
your keyboard clean.

Of course, if you will be cleaning your keyboard. You need to first unplug it
from the PS/2 or USB port of your system Unit to avoid another trouble. After
that, gently shake the keyboard in an upside down position, so that the dust
and dirt will fall-out from the keys.

You may use compressed air to clean between the keys because if you will
just blow it by your mouth, water from your saliva might cause another
INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING
CHAPTER 5: TROUBLESHOOTING, SECURITY, AND ETHICS
LESSON 1 – PHYSICAL, DATA, AND SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE

problem. Use a moist cloth to clean the top of the keys as much as possible
put rubbing alcohol in the cloth to make it more effective.

Lastly, reconnect the keyboard to your system unit and check if it is still
working properly.

Another thing, is how if there are spilled liquid in your keyboard?

Immediately, after you spill a liquid in your keyboard make the keyboard
upside down and let the spill drip off. Allow the keyboard to dry well before
reconnecting it in your computer.

Next thing, after cleaning your keyboard is your Mouse. If you are using
optical mouse, there is no need for in depth cleaning since it does not have any
mechanical parts inside that will accumulate dust. But if you are using
Mechanical Mouse, you need to do an in depth cleaning because it can
accumulate dust inside the mouse balls.

Figure 5.2 – Cleaning the Mechanical Mouse

Here is the steps to follow in cleaning a mechanical mouse. First, you need to
disconnect the mouse from your computer. Second unlocked the mouse ball
covering to remove the mouse ball. Using a moist cloth clean the tracking ball
and the inside of the mouse. Clean also the outside of the mouse to take away
some sticky substance. Third, let all the parts dry before you reassemble them
and connect it back to the computer.

Aside from the mouse, there is another external parts of the computer that
needs to be clean which is the Monitor or the Display. Monitors are clean to
fully utilize its clarity and vibrance because most of the time dust, dirts and
fingerprints tends to make our monitor not clear and a bit darker. In order for
you to clean the Monitor what you just need is either a cloth moist with a bit
water or a cloth with a monitor cleaning solution.
INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING
CHAPTER 5: TROUBLESHOOTING, SECURITY, AND ETHICS
LESSON 1 – PHYSICAL, DATA, AND SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE

Figure 5.3 – Cleaning the Monitor

Of course, if you will clean the external parts, you also need to clean the
system unit itself. In cleaning a computer surface here are some of the tips
which I get from a website GCFLearnFree.org. Dust is your computer’s main
enemy. Use an antisatic wipe to lightly dust your computer casing. Don’t use
furniture cleaners or strong solvents. Use a can of compressed air with a
narrow nozzle to blow out debris from the air intake slots. Spray cleaning
solutions like diluted ammonia cleaner or glass cleaner on a paper towel or
antistatic wipe. Clean the monitor housing and case not the monitor screen by
wiping in a downward motion. A safe cleaning solution for computer surfaces
not computer screens is ammonia diluted with water or glass cleaner
comprised mostly of ammonia and water (check the label). The milder the
solution, the better.

When it comes to the inside of the system units I suggest you need to use a
small vacuum cleaner to do the dusting. And also don’t forget to always use
the antistatic gloves in order to avoid the damage in the IC’s, Resistors,
Capacitors and etc. So I presume, next time you are now ready to do this
preventive maintenance on your computer in order to maintain its quality.

Figure 5.4 – Cleaning the System Unit

 INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING
CHAPTER 5: TROUBLESHOOTING, SECURITY, AND ETHICS
LESSON 1 – PHYSICAL, DATA, AND SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE

Data Maintenance
Aside from maintaining or keeping the physical components of your computer
clean. Now, we can discuss the maintenance of the data inside your computer.
There are three factors that will affect the data maintenance and that is Back-
ups, Privacy and Cyber Crime.

Backup, according to Wikipedia.com it is the process of copying and

archiving the computer data so that it may be used to restore its original data
after a data loss event.

Most of the time, back-up is being neglected by home computer user and this
should be corrected in order to avoid future problem when data loss event
arrises. But for big institution, Backup is a must or it should be a routine since
they are processing a huge amount of data for their business transaction, that
should be accurate and real time.

There are two ways to do a backup, its either you backup locally or you use
internet also known as cloud to do the backup.

In doing a local backup, you can make use of different storage media and one
of the most inexpensive one is to use CD’s or DVD’s. This medium is
commonly used by user who wants to have a secure copy of their files, so that
when data loss events happen they have something to restore in their
computer. Another way to do the local backup is to use removable storage
such as flash drive or memory cards. This option is use if you are backing up
or copying a big amout of data from your computer.

Figure 5.5 – Cloud Backup

Next is using the Internet or the Cloud backup. Cloud Backup is the process
of copying your local files into a cloud storage for future use. There are
several companies that offers cloud backup at a minimal amount of price.

IDrive is an online backup company that offers 1 Tb storage in unlimited

number of computers at $59.50 USD per year. IDrive can do scheduled
INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING
CHAPTER 5: TROUBLESHOOTING, SECURITY, AND ETHICS
LESSON 1 – PHYSICAL, DATA, AND SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE

backups, continuous backups, full disk backups, file sharing and folder
syncing.

CrashPlan offers online backup for $59.99 USD per year in each computer.
But the storage space of this company is unlimited compared to the 1Tb of
IDrive. It can do the same thing as IDrive can do except for the File Sharing,
Explorer Integration and Folder Syncing.

SOS Online Backup offers their service for only $59.99 USD per year in each
computer. Same as to CrashPlan it offers unlimited storage. It also has the
feature of IDrive except for Full Disk Backups and Explorer Integration.

SpiderOak is the company that offers online backup at a bit higher price.
SpiderOak offers 1Tb storage for unlimited computer at $129.00 USD per
year. It has the same feature as to the IDrive Company.

If there is a company that offers expensive backup plan, there is also a

company that offers it a cheap price. Nero BackItUp offers unlimited storage
for 5 computers at $14.99 USD per year. And because it is a bit cheaper than
others, Nero BackItUp has some limitation compared to IDrive like it cannot
do full disk backup, explorer integration, folder syncing and version saving.

Those are the different companies that offers online or cloud backup services.
Let us now discuss the next topic of this lesson which is Computer Privacy.

Computer Privacy, according to ComputerHope.com is “a term often used to

describe an individual's anonymity and how safe they feel in a location. When
referring to privacy on the Internet, this commonly refers to what information
is shared with the visiting site, how that information is used, who that
information is shared with, or if that information is used to track users when
on the website. Answers to these questions are commonly found on the
company or website privacy policy page.” This Privacy includes several
common risks that is much known to everyone: Pharming, Spyware, Phishing
and Malware.

Figure 5.6 – Computer Privacy

INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING
CHAPTER 5: TROUBLESHOOTING, SECURITY, AND ETHICS
LESSON 1 – PHYSICAL, DATA, AND SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE

Pharming, is a hacking activity that redirects the website visitor from their
legitimate website into a fraudulent website without them knowing it.

Spyware, is software application installed inside your computer that spying in

your data, meaning spyware get’s information from you computer without you
knowing it and sends it to the attacker or the hacker.

Phishing, is another hacking activity wherein attackers make use of e-mail or

other method to get secure data from a person such as bank account number,
username and password, security PIN and or even credit card number.

Malware, coming from its name Mal and Ware which means Malicious
Software. This malware is a software application that brings potential harm to
your computer because it disrupt your computer operation by installing
Trojan, viruses, worms, spyware, adware and other software that does
malicious intent.

CyberCrime is somehow related to computer privacy because computer

privacy is just one issue under the CyberCrime. According to Interpol.int,
“Cybercrime is a fast-growing area of crime. More and more criminals are
exploiting the speed, convenience and anonymity of the internet to commit a
diverse range of criminal activities that know no borders, either physical or
virtual.”

Commonly, CyberCrime can be divided into three areas:

1) Attacks against computer hardware and software

2) Financial crimes and corruption

3) Abuse

Figure 5.7 – Cyber Crime

 INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING
CHAPTER 5: TROUBLESHOOTING, SECURITY, AND ETHICS
LESSON 1 – PHYSICAL, DATA, AND SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE

Software Maintenance
Your Computer systems won’t probably work without any software, programs
or applications inside it. And in order to maintain an efficient and good
running computer system we have to do some Software Maintenance. There
are several things we have to consider in order to do Software Maintenace like
maintaining the Operating System, doing some Software Updates and
knowing your BIOS.

According to OWU.edu “In order to keep your system running smoothly there
are few task you can perform. Regular maintenance will help your computer
up to speed and free of annoying problems.” Here are some of the routine that
you can follow:

Disk Cleanup – a maintenance utility included in Microsoft Windows that is

used to free up disk spaces on the computer’s hard drive. Using this system
utility it will first analyze the hard drive for its files that are not being used
anymore and then removes the unnecessary files. Here are the step by step
procedure coming from owu.edu website.

First, go to All Programs under the Start Menu, click Accessories and look for
the System Tools. Find the Disk Cleanup button to proceed in the calculation
of how much space it can free up. After the calculation, Disk Cleanup will
give you a list of categories of files to delete. Make sure that the following
options are checked: 1) Downloaded Program Files 2) Temporary Internet
Files 3) Microsoft Office Temporary Files 4) Microsoft Error Reporting
Temporary Files 5) Recycle Bin 6) Setup Log Files 7) Temporary Files 8)
WebClient / Publisher Temporary Files 9) Temporary Offline Files 10)
Compress Old Files. Click OK and it will ask you to confirm you’d like to
delete the files. Usually it will take around 5 – 15 minutes depending on how
big the file is.

Defragmentation (Hard Drive) – the process of physically organizing the

contents of the mass storage device into the smallest number of contiguous
regions (fragments). It also attempts to create larger regions of free space
using compaction to impede the return of fragmentation. Here is the step by
step process on how to defragment your hard drive:

First, click the start menu and look for all programs. Under all programs
Figure 5.8 – Disk Cleanup choose accessories then system tools. From there you will see the Disk
and Defragmenter Defragmenter utilities. On the Disk Defragmenter options, it will ask you on
what disk to defragment and click the analyze button. After the analyzation
process it will recommend if you need to defragment or not. If it suggest to
defragment then click the defragment button otherwise cancel and close the
utility.
INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING
CHAPTER 5: TROUBLESHOOTING, SECURITY, AND ETHICS
LESSON 1 – PHYSICAL, DATA, AND SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE

Antivirus (Software) – is a software application that scans your whole

computer’s hard drives and folder for possible malware or virus infections.
Antivirus also prevents and cure the said virus by removing infected files out
of the system. There are different types of anti-virus and let us discuss the
common types like Worms, Trojan Horses, Rootkits, Spyware, KeyLoggers,
RansomWare and Adware.

Worms – is a virus or malware that replicates itself to infect the whole

computer. This type of virus is commonly used by hackers or attackers to
make a DoS or Denial-of-Service attack wherein instead of the computer
processing the valid applications and softwares, worms are consuming the
computer resources.

Trojan Horses – if you know the story of Troy and the Greeks in the early
years. This type of virus or malware uses the same technique that Troy uses to
win the battle. Typically, Trojan Horse Virus are malicious codes that is
attached to infected application programs or software which will execute a
different set of actions that will bring harm to your computer like for example
loss of data.

Rootkits - special type of software that are use to hide malware, bots and
worms. And in order for the attacker or hacker to attack a computer using this
type of technique, he needs to have a full access to the computer system to
install the said rootkits.

Spyware – Another type of malware that is installed on an infected computer

without the knowledge of its owner. In order to collect different data and
information from that specific computer.

KeyLoggers – a type of software application that is used for surveillance.

Wherein hackers make use of this to record or gather the keystrokes made by
the users of the infected computer. This software can record conversation,
personal information, pin codes, credit card numbers and etc.

RansomWare – a special type of application that prevents its user to access the
computer system without paying its creator or subscribing/buying to its
creator’s products or services.

Adware – software package that automatically renders advertisements in order

to generate revenue for its author.

Software Updates (Patch or Service Pack) according to

SuperAntiSpyWare.com, “is a piece of software release by software vendors,
mainly to address security vulnerabilities in their existing products. Software
updates occasionally contains bug fixes and product enhancements. These
updates are installed over the current installation and do not require
uninstallation or re-installation of the software in question. In simple words,
INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING
CHAPTER 5: TROUBLESHOOTING, SECURITY, AND ETHICS
LESSON 1 – PHYSICAL, DATA, AND SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE

when you need to update a program, you don’t need to do anything other than
let the update do its thing.”

Next and last thing for the software maintenance is what we called the BIOS.
BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System, which is a type of firmware
used for the boot-up process of a computer system. According to
ComputerHope.com, BIOS has four main functions:

1) POST (Power-On Self Test) – Test the computer hardware and make sure
no errors exist before loading the operating system.

2) Bootstrap Loader – It locates the operating system. If a capable operating

system is located, the BIOS will pass control to it.

3) BIOS Drivers – Low level drivers that gives the compute basic operational
control over your computer’s hardware.

4) BIOS or CMOS Setup – Configuration program that allows you to

configure hardware settings including system settings such as computer
password, time and date.