Setting Up and Configuring a PC

3. Completing PC Setup

Setup is so automated these days that you only have a couple of tasks to personalise and set up a user account. Personalization means telling Windows where you live. Not the street address or even the city, just the time zone. You can also personalise the system by creating a username. That way, your new system has both an administrator account and a regular user account. Next, connect the computer to the internet if it's not already connected. Because you have two post-installation tasks to perform: update the system and personalise it to your liking. Let's look at both tasks. Windows Updates should run automatically, but if not,that's the first thing you should do. Once the computer is on the Internet, updates to the operating system fix or patch problems,close security holds and add features. To run Windows Update, go to Settings, click Update and Security, and then click the Check for Updates button. Now, according to the CompTIA IT Fundamentals exam, you should install security software as your next step. Keep that in mind for the exam,but don't do it in real life. Windows handles its own security just fine these days through a programme called Windows Defender. Windows Defender instals automatically and runs in the background. Windows Update updates Defender too. It works. It's excellent. Move on. You don't need to install third-party security software. Updating can take a while between downloads and reboots, so grab a book and relax once the updates finish. Customize the PC. First, uninstall applications that you don't need. Every computer comes with software installed. If you buy a domain, for example, you'll get trial software and offers and such.Plus, Windows has extra features you can uninstall. Older versions of Windows require you to open the Control Panel to get to programmes and features. The easiest way to get there is to type "this" in the search bar. While you're here, you can do the last part of personalising the operating system by adding Windows features that don't install by default, such as games. To turn Windows features on or off, click here to turn Windows features on or off. Nice, huh? The Windows Features screen will populate with all of the installed and uninstalled orinstallable applications that come built into Windows. So you can scroll down and find something you want,and then just click OK to add a feature. That's all there is to it. Next, add and configure any peripherals you need, such as a joystick, a printer, and so forth. Finally, add user accounts for other users on the machine. Again, in the settings accounts, Keep that in mind for the exam. But with Windows Ten, Microsoft has pushed very hard for users to log in with a Microsoft account instead of a local user account. With a Microsoft account, you synchronise all your settings, your bookmarks, everything. It's really awesome. You're done with the initial setup at this point. Install the third-party applications you need to make this an excellent personalised tool.

4. AMA - Ask Me Anything About Setting up and Configuring a PC

I wanted to take some time to hear from you and answer questions you might have on IT fundamentals or computer literacy. So that's why we put together these Ask Me Anything episodes. My friend Aaron is going to ask questions about stuff in this chapter from viewers like you. I also want to hear from you as well. Well, my email is at the end of the episode. Ask Me Anything. Recently, I was at a study group with my classmates at one of my friend's houses. I had my laptop and I wanted to print something off of his printer, but I didn't know what to do. What should I do? In that case, what you need to do is to look at the printer. I assume you have Internet access. Yes. Okay, so this is easy. You need to look at the printer and get the make and model. Okay, right. So, Samsung ML 2050 or something like that. Then go online and search for Samsung ML 2050 drivers. Okay, Get them from the manufacturer. Okay, You do not want to get drivers from drivers.com or Downloads.com because who knows what other kinds of little extra things might come along with those drivers? So get them from the manufacturer. You need to get the drivers that go with your operating system. What kind of laptop do you have? I have a Dell. A Dell. Okay, As a result, for any windows Ten. Yes. Do you know if it's 32 bit or 64 bit? I don't. Okay, well, you can find out that information by just typing and type system.Okay, right. And this will get you; it'll pop open a page that says whether you have a 64 bit or 32 bit version of Windows. That's important because you need to download drivers that are 32 bit for a 32 bit version of Windows, or 64 bit for a 64 bit version. Okay, But once you've downloaded the drivers, just double-click on them in downloads and install them. Then, as part of that process, the installation team will go look for the printer. And you say it's a network printer. And as long as your friend has shared that printer, you're golden. Nice. Yeah, that sounds easy enough. Awesome. Next is Chantelle from Baltimore, who has a question. In Baltimore, Maryland, you talked about setting up a PC in this chapter. What do I need to know to set up my new laptop? It's almost entirely the same. The process, the physical stuff, is even easier. You don't have to plug anything in. You literally have to plug the laptop into the wall. Right. That's it. The operating system set up is the same. You simply go through, look at the prompts on the screen, and follow the prompts. It's easy enough to OK, next, we have an unrelated question from Earl in Newark, New Jersey. I'm not very good with computers, but I want to buy a new PC. When I had to set up my old PC about ten years ago, it was kind of difficult, and I had to have the help of my daughter. Is it any easier now? Yes, it's a lot easier now. Earl, you're going to love the new Windows 10 PC. Setting up a new PC has become so simple now. And everything that you need to do is right there on the screen. The instructions will be there to tell you where to plug things in. Everything plugs in only one way in one place. That's good. Except for USB. And it doesn't really matter where you plug in the USB pieces. Okay, Right. They just go where they fit. And then setting up the operating system and personalising it so that it's your operating system. Just read the screen and do what it says to do. All right. And if you are still thinking about, well,maybe I might need some help, or what do I do if something goes wrong? Whom do I call? big companies that sell computers, like Dell, for example. When I hooked up my mother with a new laptop, she lived five states away from me. And of course, I'm the computer expert, so I would be her built-in tech support. Right. This is not good. It would be much better. Too far. For just a very small bit of money, we paid for three years of Dell onsite warranty. In other words, when my mother has a problem,instead of calling me, she calls Dell, and there is somebody at her doorstep the next day wow.to help her with her problems. That is nice. It's really sweet, and it's been very good for her and for me, I'm sure. very cool. What is the difference between a standard power strip and a surge protector? And do I need a surge protector? I happen to have one right here. Well, I know magic, right? Surge protectors and power strips look the same. The difference is that a power stripprovides just some extra outlets. It doesn't provide any protection at all. This is the five-dollar special from your local store. Okay, A real surge protector protects the computer against a power surge. Like when lightning hits somewhere nearby and there's a little extra juice on the wires. The surge protector will stop that from going into the computer and hurting the computer. Oh, wow. So, this is very important to have. A surge protector is great. And something you definitely should have in case there's some extra juice. You need a little burst of extra power. Your electronics are protected, but if you want true protection, you need an uninterruptible power supply. Thanks, magic hands. A UPS provides surge protection, but it also protects the computer from brownouts and blackouts. A brownout is when the electrical grid just kind of blinks and there's a little dip in the power. And different parts of the country are more or less prone to brownouts. Really big cities, the old cities, those have a little more fluctuation in power, but this will protect the computer so it won't just spontaneously reboot. Nice. Yeah which is nice. A blackout is when the power just goes down. And a good UPS will enable you to orderly shut down all of your computers and not lose data. That's important. Yeah, UPS is absolutely awesome. Awesome. very cool. Up next, Alonso from Lubbock, Texas asks, "How can I tell if I should uninstall software?" I'm going to pick on Dell right here. If you go out and buy a new Dell, for example, it will come with preinstalled trial software, okay. For Microsoft Office, for example, or for antimalwareprotection, you can safely uninstall those things. Just type in "programmes and features" and it'll pop up and give you a chance. You'll see all the installed software, and you can uninstall it from there. Oh, nice. This is also a good place. If you look at that list of surprisingly a lot of software that you didn't install,the programmes and features will tell you the manufacturer or the developer of that software. So things that are from Microsoft, for example,don't uninstall those that go with your computer. Okay, But stuff that says something like 12378,five, whatever, and what is that? Right. You can Google those names. Okay, And the Internet is your friend in this case, and it will pop up very much by saying things like, "Oh, that's malware. You should uninstall that right away." Or is this a legitimate programme that's helping your fans spin properly? Oh, wow. Okay, The Internet is a very powerful tool to see what you can uninstall safely. It's useful to know. Good luck. Thank you. Okay, well, that's it for chapter five. Thank you, Scott. Thank you. And thank you.

Setting Up and Configuring a Mobile Device

1. Personalizing a Tablet

You can use them for consuming media, of course, like watching a movie in bed or listening to music at the park. You can use them for email,web surfing, checking the news, shopping,and even occasionally for creating content. They're awesome little devices that come in many flavors, one of which will certainly suit your taste and pocketbook. Setting up a new device follows similar patterns. Regardless of the manufacturer, you'll need to agree to the End User License Agreement, or Eula, which basically says you can use the device but not modify it. I mean, aside from adding apps and such to personalizeit, all of them require some sort of account with the manufacturer to set up an iOS device fully. For example, you'll need an Apple ID. Android tablets often rely on a Gmail account. They all come ready to connect to WiFi for proper setup and personalization. Two things to note here. First, neither the Apple ID, which is some email account, nor the Gmail address need to be your primary email account that you'll set up later. Second, connecting to other WiFi networks after setup is a separate step that we'll run through at the end of this episode. The mobile device used here, for example,screens, is a Samsung Galaxy Tab. I'll show you close ups of some of the setup screens, but not all of them because they'll differ in look and wording among the many manufacturers' devices. Like the book says, just follow the prompts. Let's power on this device and start clicking through some screens. Nice little arrow. Welcome. This device wants me to connect immediately to WiFi and the Internet. I'm here at my office, so I will select my office network. Once you've typed it in, click Connect. Note it says "connected." Let's go to the next screen. Now, here's the end user licence agreement. I told you about the Eula. Say yes. No, I really do agree. The device will usually check to see if it's the most current. With Android devices, they're going to prompt, usually for a Gmail account. So I'm going to type mine in. Mobile devices connect to some sort of an app store so that you can download new apps, either free ones or for pay, to enhance the capabilities of your mobile device. So, of course, it's prompting me for credit card information right now. Or you can use PayPal, or in this case, we're going to remind me later so I can dig up my credit card. Because this tablet is already connected to the Internet, the date and time are already synced, so it should be correct. Just double check and yes, here we are in central time. Security is incredibly important on mobile devices. It's easy to set this down in a cafe and have somebody pick it up. It has all of your personal information,including credit card information, stored in it. This is not a good thing to lose. So one of the very first options here is to protect your tablet using a set screen lock. Now this particular device offers me three different ways to set a screen lock. I can use a pattern, which means I move my finger around the screen; I can use a pin, which is a set of numbers; or I can use a full-blown password. Let's use a pin. The notification options are about what the device is going to show on the screen when you're not actually logged in. So, for example, if you get a text message by default, it's going to pop up and say, "Hey, you got a text message from your buddy John." If you don't want that stuff to show, then you can change it here. Note that all of these settings can be changed later. Easily. An Android device is tied into Google Services for backing up apps, app data, settings, and some of your personal information. You can use Google's location services and much more. Samsung also needs you to create an account with them. You can use your existing Google ID, you can create a new ID, or because this isn't my first Samsung tablet, I can simply sign in and that's it. For your basic setup, you have your apps here along the bottom. A nice time. This is your home screen or start screen. Let's look now at how to connect to various WiFi networks. To get there, we go to Settings. On this particular tablet, we swipe down and press the little settings button. There's my WiFi network. And that's what this Samsung device can see around it or Sense. Now please note I'm connected to my work WiFi because I'm still filming this video. But as long as I have the proper credentials, I know the password or passphrase, I can connect to any of these other WiFi networks in range. And there I am connected to my buddy Ivan's Mobile Hotspot. Now let's further personalise this device by setting up our primary email account so we can get our email. To do this, we're going to go back into Settings and we'll go down to Accounts. And note that there are already two accounts associated with this tablet. I used the Google account, the Gmail account that I used to log in initially, and the Samsung account that we created as well. But here's the kicker: I can simply add an account and I have tonnes of different options. For example, my work email uses IMAP. I'd simply come here, type in my email address, other credentials, and password, and within seconds I'd be able to get my email from work, making my boss happy. Setting up and personalising a new mobile device is a pretty straightforward affair. You connect to the Internet, you put in your username and password, you accept the eula, you get the idea, you basically just follow the prompts.

2. AMA - Ask Me Anything About Mobile Devices Part 1

I wanted to take some time to hear from you and answer questions you might have on IT fundamentals or computer literacy. So that's why we put together these Ask Me Anything episodes. My friend Aaron is going to ask questions about stuff in this chapter from viewers like you. I also want to hear from you as well. Well, my email is at the end of the episode, so ask me anything. So recently, my mom was visiting, during which she took lots of pictures of her new grandbaby. Excellent. She also happened to get a text message from her cell phone provider saying she only had 10%of her data left for the month. So her initial reaction was to think that she was using more stuff on her phone than usual, taking lots of pictures, and that was eating up her data. How do I explain to her the difference between storage and data? All right, so the question is the difference between storage and data usage. Storage means when you buy your device, it comes with a certain amount of capacity for storing files. With an iPhone, for example, or an iPad, it's a fixed amount. So whatever you buy is what you get: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, whatever. With an Android device, many of them come with a microSD card slot, so you can actually add more capacity. But that's storage. That says how much stuff you can put on your device, whether that takes into account all of the apps that you have, all the pictures you have, all the movies you take. So that's storage, that stuff that's local to that device. Data usage is a very different thing. The amount of data flowing from the cell phone company to your device is referred to as data usage. Right. So if you're streaming movies while you're cruising the two-day drive from her house to your house, that's data usage. Right, because it's using the cellphone towers to stream data to your device. And most cell phone companies let you pay for a certain amount of data usage each month. And so what your mom was experiencing is the conflation. It's my 25 cent word of the day, mixing the two terms up because data storage sounds kind of similar. Right. And since she was traveling, she was using both of those, right? Absolutely. At the same time, One thing to note is that on most devices, when you connect to Wi-Fi as opposed to the cellular network,you're not actually pushing your data usage. Right. So if you want to stream movies, yes. You should always try to connect to WiFi instead of using a cell phone. Yes. Okay, great. I'll be able to explain it better next time. Excellent. Thank you. Next is Ava from Toledo, Ohio asks: I'm thinking about switching from my iPhone to Android. What do I need to consider? Really? Your iPhone? No, I'm kidding. Both devices are awesome, and they have different uses. The iPhone is a very tight environment. Right. What Apple says, this is what it's going to be like, is what it's going to be like with Android. It's not so much that way. Each different company that produces Android devices is able to customise the operating system. So what you get from LG, for example, is not the same as what you're going to get from Samsung. It's not the same as what you're going to get from Amazon. Right. So there'll be a little bit of a learning curve for you, but from all the way back in chapter one, all computing devices work the same way. So just by trying, you'll be able to figure out how to do stuff. So that's not a really huge issue. The bigger issue, though, is in your apps. Are there things that you like to do on your iPhone and apps that you've downloaded and purchased? Those apps are for the iPhone and iOS specifically, right? So if you want to get the same functionality on your Android device, you're going to have to buy the apps again. Right, because you're actually buying a new app, one that's designed specifically for Android. Right. So the expense of spending $2 on an app could add up. It could add up depending on how many apps you have. Now, this doesn't apply to your videos, pictures, or sound files. All that stuff is very easily portable. Good. So you should be good to go on multimedia stuff. Okay, Just the apps. Tricky. Absolutely. Mark from Scottsdale, Arizona wants to ask, Do I need to know the OS make and model before I buy a new device? I want to be like, all blythe, no, whatever. It doesn't make any difference. And that's kind of true. Mobile device manufacturers know that their users have a tonne of variation in the personal computing devices that they also have. And so every Android device is going to plug into Windows, Mac OS, Chrome OS, it doesn't care, right? There'll be utilities and tools to be able to support that mobile device, regardless of what operating system you plug into. Apple is well aware that they only have a 10% market share in areas such as personal computers. So they know that your iPhone is going to plug into a Mac, or much more likely, it's going to plug into a Windows PC. Yeah So they design copies of iTunes, for example. That runs beautifully on the Mac because that's what it's designed for. And your phone will connect you with that and be very happy on the Mac. But they also have copies of iTunes for Windows. And you plug it in, your phone connects right there, and it looks and feels the same. So it doesn't really matter. Apple devices are in their own right. My second 25 sent word of the day. They're in their own ecosystem. So Apple designed their devices to work really well together, right? So, yeah, you'll get maybe the most seamless interaction between iOS and Mac OS. But it will work with anything you can manage. You can manage absolutely. And most of us do. Yes. And that's all.

3. AMA - Ask Me Anything About Mobile Devices Part 2

I wanted to take some time to hear from you and answer questions you might have on IT fundamentals or computer literacy. So that's why we put together these Ask Me Anything episodes. My friend Aaron is going to ask questions about stuff in this chapter from viewers like you. I also want to hear from you as well. Mail is at the end of the episode Ask Me Anything. Edna from Jacksonville, Florida wants to know, Can I set my Gmail up anywhere? Yes. Any device that you have that has some kind of a Mailapp is going to have some way to connect to Gmail. It really is that easy, whether it's on a Windows PC and you use the Chrome or Edge or whateverbrowser, and you can access Gmail that way. On mobile devices, they all have Mail apps. They are all set up to run Gmail just fine. And in fact, you can even run multiple instances of Gmail. So, for example, I have both a work Gmail account and a professional Gmail account, and then I have a private Gmail account that I use just for my friends and family, and I set both of them up on my phone, and I can get my email, no problem. Awesome. Yeah, Gmail is awesome. Next up is Trent from San Jose, California. He asks, "I have this game on my Android that keeps crashing." What's with that? Yes, there are a tonne of different reasons why apps crash. It could be that the app was poorly written. Okay, so that's one thing, but you've already spent your money on this, so that's not what you want to hear. It could be that the app was written with a specific version of Android in mind. Okay, Okay, Android, unlike iOS, has lots of variations depending on manufacturers because they can customise it according to what they think is the best way to present that operating system. So it might be that the app, even though it's bought in the Google Play store, That it might run great on a Samsung device, or it might run great on a Samsung device that's nine inches as opposed to one that's eleven inches. Right. So there's all these different things. You put it on an LG device, you put it on some other device, and it might not quite function. Right. So what are your options? Right. This is the other thing. How do we solve this? Most likely, your best option is just to wait. Wait for a patch check to see if you've got the latest version of that app and whether you've got the latest version of the operating system. Right. So, updating everything is a good way of approaching the problem. And if all that fails, then you wait. Okay, Yeah What else can you do? Right. Okay, Next is Fabian from Mesa, Arizona, who asks, how do I get the stuff on my iPhone to match up with what's on my Mac? OK, Fabian, what you're asking is, okay, the third 25-cent word of the day is synchronization, right? So what you're trying to do to be able to get the stuff on your Mac onto your mobile device is to synchronise the device with the application that's on the computer. And the way you do this is you plug in the device and run the software. So, for example, if we're talking about an iPhone,you would connect to whatever machine you've got,open up iTunes, and there's an option to synchronise your device to just click it. It'll take a few minutes, depending on how much new stuff you've done on your device. So the pictures that are on your device that aren't on your computer will be uploaded to the computer. The playlists that you've made on itunes, if you want that particular music on your computer,you synchronize, and that music will be copied onto your machine, onto your mobile device. Right. So you just need the connector and a click, right? That's right. Okay, awesome. So now I want to ask you something a little personal. I'm thinking about getting a new tablet. So I've noticed that there's a big price difference between iPads and the Galaxy tablets and the others that are out there. It's a huge difference. There's amazing variation among tablets and there's also amazing variation in price from the very lowest end, like a Kindle Fire, for example, subsidised by Amazon, will run you maybe $80, which is amazing, right? A new iPad, on the other hand, will set you back $700. I mean, there's a huge difference. And galaxies are up there as well, in the four or $500 range. The big difference that you'll find is the quality of the screen. It's one of those things that until you actually look at the device, you won't necessarily think about. But there is a huge difference between two K or four K resolution. And those are buzzwords. What it means is that the things, the elements of what are called pixels, that make up the screen are super fine at high resolution and they're kind of coarse at lower resolution. So it makes a difference in just how beautiful the picture shows up on the screen. There's also a really huge difference in the quality of the internal processing functions. Higher-end tablets, for example, will have faster processors. They'll have more RAM, right? They'll have better components inside. They might have better battery life. Right. So as you keep going up in price, you just get a better machine. I see. So there is a difference. Okay, Okay, The last point to make on that, though,is how much do you need? What are you trying to do? If all you're going to do is maybe surf the web and watch YouTube videos, you don't need a huge machine to do that. If you are going to use it as your primary computing device and actually run Microsoft Office or other software and actually do productivity on it,then you should pay the higher price. Pay the higher price and get a better device. Absolutely. It's useful to know. Thank you. You're welcome. And that's all I have for chapter nine. Thank you, Scott.

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