Assignment 5

1.     General Health and Safety steps when using a computer

When you are using a computer, there are many tips and tricks that can help prevent injury, strain and pain. I will now describe some of the ways you can stay safe when using a computer.

Use a chair that can be adjusted to place you at an appropriate level so that your eyes are level with the top of the screen and that your hands are at an appropriate level with the keyboard and mouse. If you do not have this then you may end up with back, neck and wrist pains. If symptoms appear and are then untreated, RSI may form.

Using traditional keyboards(pictured right) may cause you to develop RSI in you fingertips. RSI can be combated in many ways. An initial rest period is essential to treating RSI, 48 hours rest without using a keyboard is heavily advised. If the RSI is chronic, you should consider using different methods of typing such as using pens to type which causes you to use different muscles to type, albeit much slower than usual. Using a chiclet keyboard(pictured right) as a pose to a normal keyboard may help prevent RSI in your fingertips.

2.     Health and Safety steps when connecting peripherals

When connecting peripherals it is important to keep yourself safe. There are a few essential rules and regulations that must be followed in order to prevent yourself from causing yourself or the computer injury.

Make sure that you switch off the system from the wall. This helps to prevent damage from “hot insertion” whereby a device is plugged into a powered system and will also help to prevent electrocution.

Make sure that wires are not left trailing around the computer or else there would be a danger of electrocution and damage to the devices. If there are wires left trailing on the floor, then there is a chance of people tripping up on the wires as well as a chance of electrocution and damage to the machines.

If plugging devices in, make sure you are plugging it into the correct port, e.g make sure usb 2.0 devices are in usb 2.0 ports, etc. if you do not plug the device into the correct port then your device may not be able to perform to its fullest.

Connecting a Printer

To safely connect a printer you must first check the printer to ensure it has ink cartridges placed within them. Turn off the power and unplug both your printer and your computer. Your printer should come with a USB port, place the cable that comes with the printer into the printer and place the other end of the cable into the computer. Turn on the computer and if your printer came with a disk, insert it into the computer. Follow the on screen instructions to install you’re the software for your printer and you should have a safely connected printer.

Connecting a Monitor

In order to connect a monitor, turn off the power of the monitor and the computer and unplug them both. Then you should take the supplied cable, usually this cable is a VGA cable. Connect the cable to the back of the computer as well as to the back of the monitor. Plug in and turn on the monitor and computer and the monitor should be working. You have now safely connected a monitor.