Here are some pointers to help you prepare for next week's test. 1. There will be a number of questions on printers. How do they connect to your computer? What are the different types of printers? How are they different? Which jobs are best suited for a particular type of printer? How do you install a printer or other output device? 2. How are other input and output devices connected to the computer, e.g. mouse, keyboard, scanners etc.? What is the role of device drivers? How do you install 16-bit devices drivers? 3. What is the difference between serial and parallel data transmission? 4. CDs and DVDs look alike, but how are they different? How much data can they store? What does 12X mean? 5. What are the different types of modems? What are the benefits of using one type over the other? What are the main components of a modem? What is a software modem? How does it work? What is the Hayes command set? What is flow control? How is it implemented? What happens to the data that is transmitted via a modem? 6. What are the considerations of setting up a dual boot machine? How do file systems affect your decision? 7. Why is it important to organize your disk? How can commands like ls and dir help to manage files and folders/directories? 8. What are the different interfaces used to connect disk drives? Why is IDE more common than SCSI? How do they differ in configuration? 9. What are the problems that can develop on disks, e.g. fragmentation, disk errors, etc.? How can you fix these problems? What is CHKDSK? What is Scandisk? What is FSCK? Which operating systems or file systems minimize the occurrences of these problems? 10. How does fragmentation occur? What are the different ways to fix this problem? What are the utilities included with OSes that fix this problem? 11. What is RAID and how is it implemented? What is disk striping? How do you manage disk space on a server? 12. What is virtual memory? 13. What is a backup? What are the different types of backups? How do they differ? What is a disaster recovery backup? How do you create one? What is tar? 14. What is the Microsoft Batch 98 utility? Why would you use it? 15. What is the Recycle Bin? What are some of the settings associated with it? 16. What are the different types of "digital" modems? Which services use these modems? 17. What is ESD? What precautions can you take when installing computer components? 18. When we talk about display resolution, what do we mean? What are the effects of increasing resolution? If you are comfortable with these topics you should be well prepared for the next test. Burt