Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Examples:
Individuals:
For pupils working on a stand-alone computer, simply making a backup copy of their files
on the hard disk will reduce the risk of losing data.
They could also save a copy to a floppy disk if the file was small enough or store larger
volumes on a CD-ROM using a CD writer.
Schools:
A back-up of the whole Whitefield school system is carried out automatically every
weekday night so the most that can be lost is one day’s work. Special tape drives save
the data onto magnetic tape cassettes capable of holding over 20 GB of data. This is
enough capacity to allow all the data on the server’s hard drives to be backed up.
A number of tapes are used in rotation and previous back-up copy is taken away from the
school premises each night in case of a disaster such as a fire. Tapes kept on-site should
be stored in a fireproof safe.
Businesses:
Larger companies may have several sites with secure Internet links between them. Each
site can be used to store backups of the data stored at the other sites. Some
businesses have contracts with a company that specialises in data backup and they will
back up all the data at a secure remote location using a secure Internet link.
Computer viruses:
A Computer virus is a program which can be introduced into a computer via a floppy
disk, email attachment or the Internet. A virus program contains instructions that make
it attach itself to system files or programs and make copies of itself. It can therefore
spread to other programs on your hard disk and onto floppy disks or email itself to all
the contacts in your email address book.
Their effects can be devastating and cost millions of pounds to fix. They can alter the
host program, stop it working completely or cause a whole hard disk to become
scrambled.
Task Using your notes complete the following past exam questions.
Suggest two rules for choosing a password 1.
[2]
2.