Unit 28 Task 2

Task 2

P2

User side Factors:

Download speed – The download speed of your internet will determine how fast webpages load. For instance if you have a low download speed the page will take a long time to open and when it does it could not run smoothly. A common thing that happens is pictures/gifs or certain parts of text won’t load or will load a lot slower than the rest of the page itself.

PC performance factors – Much like your download speed your PC itself can affect surfing on the web. For instance if you have a better CPU then it will speed up your PC therefore the speed of surfing the web.

Another thing that can affect the speed of surfing the web is your RAM. People who have more RAM will be able to surf the web faster as it will download the information from websites faster than someone who has less.

Cache memory can also have an effect on the speed as when you visit websites the information on them is saved in the cache. Therefore when you go to upload the website once more it already has the information so it takes less time to load. However a down side of the cache is that if it holds to much information then it will ironically slow your browser down.

One more thing that can speed or slow down the process of loading web pages is your browser. There are several browsers such as Chrome, Internet Explorer and Firefox. However some browsers are slower than other ones this can be because of different reasons however one main one is certain browsers can’t block pop-ups and ads. Chrome is the most popular browser and famous for its speed and many extensions which can block ads and so on.

Server Side Factors: 

Web server capacity – When talking about bandwidth in Network it refers to the amount of bytes (data) that can be transferred from one place to another e.g. the hosting server (website) to your browser. So when referring this to surfing the web if a website is big in size due to pictures/gifs and lots of people are using this site at the same time then the bandwidth may not be able to handle sending out so many bytes that fast and therefore loading time will increase.

Executions to be performed – Before loading a website it has to go through a number of executions. This is because websites are becoming so much more dynamic these days and therefore it has to load several more actions before it can actually open. As well as this every website uses CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) this is the language used to give website colour, layout etc. Another thing which could slow down a website is if it has JavaScript on it as that would also have to be loaded before the page could.

Number of hits – If your page has a number of hits the process to load the page will be slower, this is because the server isn’t able to handle as many hits as it is getting. To increase the speed of the load time you would need more RAM so that it is able to handle the higher amount of hits.

File types:

Bitmap – A bitmap is a graphic type which is formed up of lots of pixels. You can edit the pixels and resize the bitmap however when you do this a bitmap will lose its quality and become blurry. Because your computer has to store information they are often large in space at least larger than other forms of graphic so therefore it wouldn’t be as ideal for a website.

Vector – Vector is unlike other graphic types as it is not made up of pixels. Rather vectors are made up of things such as lines and curves. Because of this a vector image can be altered in size without losing any quality. The problem with using vector images on a website is that the options to support the image is SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and Flash. The downside to this is that SVG is not supported on all browsers and Flash is a plug-in which many people have blocked.

JPEG – Is also referred to as JPG is a ‘format for compressing image files’. The advantage of JPEG’s is that they are only about 5% of the original file size. However when decreasing the size it also decreases the quality, however unlike GIF files it will lose size but keep the quality at a satisfactory rate. Another advantage of JPEG is that in most programs you can in fact decide how much quality/size you want to lose so if you keep it at the best quality it will take up a little more room but look just like the original image.

P3

Data protection act – The data protection act or DPA is in place to protect your personal information over computer systems. This act was first introduced in the 80’s however it was updated and made more specific for the benefit of the public in 1998. When talking about personal information the DPA doesn’t just protect things like your name but your email, phone number and any other information.

Security – The security of a computer or a network is dependent on how much protection you got. For example if you haven’t even got basic windows firewalls you will be vulnerable to downloading malicious software which could then gain access to your system and all your information within it. There are different threats which could affect your network or computer and we categorise them into hacking and viruses. Viruses are small pieces of software which purpose is to go from one computer to another and affect the operations by either removing or corrupting data. The problem with viruses is they are so small and can be hidden in anything that you may download something off the internet that they can be hard to detect. Different types are of viruses are Trojans - A Trojan is a program that disguises itself as something else. Trojans are technically not actually viruses because they do not replicate files, but they are just as damaging as viruses. Worms - A worm is a type of virus that can send's itself in emails to you and all of your contacts, whether it be through msn, Facebook or any kind of online social networking. A worm often contains a Trojan or virus with it so that it can infect all of the users it was sent out too. Phishing - A phish is a malware that will disguise itself as an email from something like a contact or your bank and by doing so can get things such as your details, or username and passwords. Piggybacking - Piggybacking is when a document carries a Trojan or virus within it so if you download the document, the virus or Trojan will then be on your computer (They are usually dormant until they are downloaded so they can’t be detected by basic anti-virus software). As well as viruses there are also hackers who can use programs such as malwares and once on your computer can not only just corrupt or delete data like viruses but can take complete control of your computer. If a hacker gains access to your PC they can take emails, passwords and any information you have stored on your PC. Once they have access to your computer the best thing you can do is format because anti-virus software, firewalls and other forms of protection won’t be able to get rid of it by this point.

Security protection mechanisms - Firewalls are a form of protection on your PC as they are used to prevent uses gaining access to your computer when going on the internet. It does this by examining all the information coming from the internet and blocking the data that appears as a security threat. Another form of protection is Secure Socket Layers (SSL) which is encryption software for you when surfing the web. SSL is used for sending information such as credit card numbers safely, because if a hacker is able to gain this information it won’t be translatable. The last form of protection which you should make sure is secure is your passwords. It doesn’t take a genius programmer or hacker to get a password off you and gain complete access so you need to make sure that is it strong enough so that it can’t be guessed. To check the security of your passwords you can go on Google and type in ‘Password checker’ and it will show you how strong your password is.