Google IT Support Professional Certification - Course 1: Technical Support Fundamentals

Byte

A group of 8 bits is referred to as a byte. Each byte can store one character, and we can have 256 possible values thanks to the base-2 system (2^8)

Character encoding

Assigns our binary values to characters, so that we as humans can read them

UTF-8

Allows us to store a character in more than one byte, is the most prevalent encoding standard used today

What is the highest decimal value you can represent with a byte

255

Abstraction

To take a relatively complex system and simplify it for our own use

Hardware Layer

Made up of the physical components of a computer

Operating System

Allows hardware to communicate with the system

User

Interacts with the computer

Ports

Connection points that we can connect devices to that extend the functionality of our computer

CPU

Central Processing Unit. The brain of our computer, it does all the calculations and data processing

RAM

Random Access Memory. RAM is our computer's short term memory

Hard Drive

Holds all of our data, which includes all of our music, pictures, applications.

Motherboard

The body or circulatory system of the computer that connects all the pieces together.

Programs

Instructions that tell the computer what to do.

External Data Bus

How data is passed around the computer It's a row of wires that connects the parts of our computer

Registers

They let us store the data that our cpu works with.

Memory Controller Chip

A bridge between the cpu and the ram.

How does the CPU, the address bus, the memory controller chip, and the external data bus work together?

The cpu asks, through the address bus, for data that it needs. The MCC looks for the data in RAM and sends it back over through the External Data Bus.

What is the simplest way to describe the difference between cache and RAM?

Getting something from RAM is like getting food out of a refridgerator, getting something from cache is like pulling food from your pocket; it stores recently or frequently used data.

How many levels of cache in a CPU?

Three levels: L1, L2, L3.

Which is the smallest and fastest cache?

L1.

Gigahertz to cycles per second?

For example, 3.4 GHz is 3.4 billion cycles per second.

LGA

There are pins that stick out of the motherboard, the cpu has holes.

Pin Grid Array

There are pins that stick out of the cpu, the motherboard has holes.

What is the significance of 32 and 64 bit?

They reference the cpu archiecture and state how much data they process efficiently.

What is the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows?

The terms 32-bit and 64-bit refer to the way a computer's processor handles information. The 64-bit of Windows handles large amounts of RAM more effectively than a 32-bit system.

Volatile

Once we power off our machines, the data stored in RAM is cleared

DRAM

Dynamic Random Access Memory.

DIMM

Dual Inline Memory Module. Have different size of pins on them.

SDRAM

Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory.

Chipset

Decides how components talk to each other on our machine.

Northbridge

The chip that interconnects RAM and video cards.

Southbridge

Maintains our I/O, such as hard drives, and USB devices.

What does the Chipset do?

Allows us to manage data between our CPU, RAM, and peripherals.

Peripherals

External devices we connect to our computer like a mouse, keyboard, and monitor.

Expansion slots

Gives us the ability to increase our functionality of our computer.

PCIe

Peripheral Component Interconnect Express.

ITX

Information Technology eXtended.

How many bits are in 1 byte?

8 bits.

How many bytes are in 1 kilobyte?

1,024 bytes.

How many kilobytes are in 1 megabyte?

1,024 kilobytes.

How many megabytes are in 1 gigabyte?

1,024 megabytes.

How many gigabytes are in 1 terabyte?

1,024 gigabytes.

HDD

Hard disk drive. Uses a spinning platter and a mechanical arm.

RPM

Revolution per minute. The speed at which a platter can be rotated.

SSD

Solid State Drives. Have no moving parts. Data is stored on chips. They are much faster than HDDs.

What are the pros and cons of HDD and SDD?

HDDs are more affordable but more prone to damage, SSDs are more expensive and less risky.

SATA

Serial ATA. Sata drives are hot swappable.

DC

Direct Current

AC

Alternating Current

Wattage

The amount of volts and amps that a device needs.

What is the speed of USB 2.0?

480 Mb/s

What is the speed of USB 3.0?

5 Gb/s

What is the speed of USB 3.1?

10 Gb/s

Difference between MB and Mb/s?

MB is megabyte or unit of data storage, while MB/s is a megabit per second, which is a unit of data transfer rate. Remember that 1 byte is 8 bits, so to transfer a 1MB file in a second, you need an 8 Mb/s connection speed.

What are the colors of USB 2.0, 3.0, 3.1?

Black for 2.0, Blue for 3.0, Teal for 3.1. Can change depending on manufacturers.

Drivers

Instructions that tell the cpu how to use external devices.

ROM Chip

Motherboard stores the BIOS on the ROM chip (read only memory).

UEFI

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface.

CMOS chip

Stores basic data about booting the computer.

Reimaging

Wiping and reinstalling using a disc image which is a copy of an operating system

Standoffs

Standoffs are used to raise and attach your motherboard to the case.

Operating System

The whole package that manages our computer's resources and lets us interact with it.

What are the two main parts to an OS?

The User Space (applications) and the Kernal Space (process manager, memory manager, file manager, i/o manager).

What is a file system?

How we manage files.

What is process management?

How your computer handles processes (such as when you're writing something in word, listening to music, and running updates).

What is memory management?

When our kernal optimizes memory usage and makes sure our applications have enough memory to run.

I/O Management

How our kernal talks to external devices. It's anything that can give us input or that we can use for output of data.

What are the three main components of file handling?

Data, metadata, file system.

NTFS

Created with Windows NT

ReFS

An up and coming file system that Microsoft is developing; not ready for consumer use.

HFS+

MacOS's file system. It's journaled which means it does a better job at saving your disk state for file failure.

ext4

The file system for Linux.

What is the meaning of "storage of file data"?

When we write data to our hard drive in the forum of data blocks.

What is "block storage"?

It improves faster handling of data because the data isn't stored as one long piece and can be accessed quicker.

What is file "metadata"?

Things like file owner, permissions, file size, data modified, date created, file type, etc.

File extension

The appended part of a filename that tells us what type of file it is in certain operating systems.

Process

A program that's executing, like our internet browser or text editor.

Program

An application that we can run, like Chrome.

Time Slice

A very short interval of time that gets allocated to a process for CPU execution. A cpu processes each process in time slices, one-by-one.

Kernel

Creates processes, efficiently schedules them, and manages how processes are terminated.

Virtual Memory

The combination of hard drive space and RAM that acts like memory that our processes can use.

Swap Space

When we store our virtual memory on our hard drive.

I/O Devices

Devices that perform input and output.

What are the two ways to interact with the OS?

Through the shell or the graphical user interface.

CLI Shell

It is the command line interface that we use to send text commands to the computer.

GUI

Graphical User Interface.

Shell

A program that interprets text commands and sends them to the OS to execute.

BASH

Bourne Again Shell

Powershell

Window's shell.

Logs

Files that record system events on our computer, just like a system's diary.

Boot

Describes the startup process of a computer. It goes: Power --> BIOS/UEFI --> POST --> Boot Device --> Bootloader --> OS --> Kernel --> System Processes and User Space

BIOS/UEFI

A low-level software that initializes our computer's hardware to make sure everything is good to go.

POST

Power on self test. Performs a series of diagnostic tests to make sure the computer is in proper working order.

Bootloader

A small program that loads the operating system.

How to decide which OS to use?

The operating systems in use by an organization have a lot to do with the applications and systems that they need to run.

VM

Virtual Machine is a copy of a real machine.

Network

An interconnection of computers.

Internet

The physical connection of computers and wires around the world.

The Web

The information on the internet.