Utility programs
Operating systems come with a range of what is know as 'utility programs' for the user or computer to use. A utility program is simply a program that is part of the operating system which performs a commonplace task. We will have a look at some common ones in this section.
Anti-virus software
Anti-virus software is used to help protect your computer against viruses. A virus is a program written by someone and distributed across the Internet, by email or by sharing storage devices. They are sometimes designed to do nothing more than annoy (like making your keys beep each time you press one on your keyboard) but they often do a lot of damage such as wiping your hard drive clean or allowing your computer to be accessed by a hacker remotely. As thousands of new viruses are written every week, it is important to ensure that virus patterns are kept up-to-date. This can usually be done automatically. There are free versions of anti-virus software and there are also many paid-for versions as well. These often come with many additional features and support if there is a problem. Sometimes, anti-virus programs are classed as an 'application' because some do many different things. Other times, they are very focussed on destroying viruses so are classed as a utility program.
Spyware protection
Spyware is software that installs itself on your computer and then gathers information about passwords, what Internet sites you visit and other confidential information with the aim of transmitting it to criminals to use. You can download spyware programs unwittingly when you download open source or free applications from the Internet so it is always a good idea to only download software from trusted web sites. There have even been instances of criminals setting up sites that look like they are offering free anti-spyware programs so you need to be careful. Anti-spyware applications are available from the Internet. One that has been around for a long time is Ad-Aware.
Firewalls
A Firewall is a program designed mainly to allow only authorised users access to a network and to stop worms and other malware from spreading across networks. A Firewall, according to the British Computing Society's 'A Glossary of Computing Terms', "is a computing program used in a large computing system to prevent external users (even if authorised) getting access to the rest of the system. Network users' access is restricted to a small part of the system and the firewall software prevents a user (including unauthorised users) accessing data or executing any programs in the rest of the system".
Formatting utility
Operating systems come with a utility that allows you to format devices when you connect them to your computer. Before you first use a storage device such as a hard drive, an SD card, a DVD or a pen drive, they have to be set-up for use. This is called 'formatting'. You will be storing lots of files on the device and they have to be organised so that the operating system can find them again. When you 'format' a disk, you are creating a table that will be stored on the storage device itself. As you add and delete files, the operating system updates this table and therefore keeps track of where everything is. Sometimes, these media come pre-formatted and sometimes, you have to do it yourself using the format utility program.
File transfer utility
Operating systems have a commonly used program to copy files across from one device to another. When you plug in a pen drive into a computer, the operating system detects that you have done this. Then, if you want to save a file to it, this utility program opens and takes over the moving of the file.
Defragmentation utility (usually known as 'defrag')
When you save a file or program on your hard disk or other storage device, it is tempting to think that it is all saved together. Unfortunately, that is not usually the case. When you save a file, the operating system looks at what space it has free on the hard drive and then breaks up the file into chunks. It then stores these chunks all over the hard disk, in whatever spaces are available. As long as the operating keeps track of where these chunks are, it isn't usually a problem because of the speed the CPU works at. Over time, however, if too many files are spread over a disk, it will start to take a long time to read those files back. The hard drive is a mechanical device that has moving parts. These moving parts have to move to collect each chunk of a file when you want to open it so that it can rebuild the file.The operating system has a defragmentation utility program that will reorganise these chunks so that they are next to each other or as close to each other as possible on the storage device. This will make it faster to get back files and also free up bigger spaces for files you save in the future.
System information, diagnosis and repair
Sometimes, you will want to know how much storage space is free on a hard drive, or how much RAM is stored, or what software you have installed and what hardware is working correctly. The operating system has tools that allows it to produce a range of reports to both report the current status of a computer as well as tools to help resolve any problems you have. If you do have a problem, you may find that your operating system has wizards which can help walk you through finding a possible solution. for example, if you are having problems accessing areas on a storage device, you could run the disk repair utility as that may solve the problem.
System clean-up tools
When you remove files and programs from a computer, you often leave behind bits of the files and programs that aren't required anymore or are out-of-date. By running your operating system's clean-up tools regularly, you can ensure that there are no unwanted pieces of software left on the computer, taking up space and possibly causing problems. When you use the Internet, many web pages you visit and programs you use will be downloaded and stored locally on your computer and you will also generate temporary files just by using your operating system. You can properly delete them all by using your operating system's clean-up tools. When you delete files, they are usually moved into a Recycle bin of some sort. This can then be periodically emptied as well.
Automatic updating
As problems are discovered with your operating system and with software and solutions found, and as newer versions of software become available, you should download and install them. In some cases it won't matter when you do it but in other cases, which involve security issues with your computer, it is important to download them as soon as they become available. You can set up your operating system to notify you when updates become available and to download and install them as well. This will ensure that necessary jobs are done in a timely fashion and not constantly put off.
File compression
File compression means that you take a file, some files or a folder and you give it to some compression software that 'squashes it'. This makes it much smaller than the original size. This is sometimes known as zipping up a file or folder. What file compression software actually does is to look at each file you want to compress and see if it can construct rules to reduce the size of the file. There are a number of reasons why you might want to compress documents. Compressed files and folders take less time to transmit across the Internet than the original files, because they are smaller. If you had, for example, video files or music files to send, which can be very large, this might be important. If you were the BBC and wanted to 'stream' video (where people watch the video at the same time the BBC is sending it) then you need your large files to be as small as possible or the video will slow or stop from time to time. You can store more files, programs and data on any storage device such as your pen drive if they are compressed. If you want to send ten files by email, an efficient way to send them is to first put them in a zip folder. The zip folder can be attached to an email in the same way that a file can be attached to an email. (Note, however, that you can't attach a normal folder to an email usually.)
There are lots of free data compression programs available and some that you have to pay for. Windows comes with a free utility program in the File Manager, just right-click and then select 'New' folder by 'Compressed Folder'. 7-Zip is open source and very good, as is the Hamster Free Zip application. You can also download and try out an evaluation copy of WinZip, another well-known compression utility.
Backing up data
Have you ever lost work you have done on the computer? Do you backup your work onto a pen drive every time you do some work on the computer? If you don't, you should! Given the amount of coursework you probably have to do, it is a wise approach keeping up-to-date backup copies of work that goes towards your final course grades! Your teacher would have told you to do this many times and you will get little sympathy from anyone if you lose work! Companies must also back up their work. If you lose your work, you can start again - not much fun but possible. If a company loses files they could go out of business. People could lose livelihoods. Data is valuable to an organisation. It takes companies years to build up a customer base. Getting data into a computer takes time. Businesses today are run on computers.
Operating systems usually come with utility programs to allow you to take back-ups. Typical options include the ability to take an entire 'snapshot' of your hard drive (called a 'system image') so that if your hard drive fails, you simply replace it, and then run a recovery program on a pen drive or CD that loads the system image onto your new hard drive. Another option is to schedule back-ups so that back-ups happen automatically at a particular time of day. You can also tell your computer to do a full back-up (all of your data files), only back-up files that have been added or altered since the last time you did a back-up (called an 'incremental back-up') or only back-up files from certain folders. Most people used to back-up to an external hard drive but it is becoming more common to back-up to cloud storage now.
The last point about back-ups to make is that an untested back-up should not be depended upon. You should periodically test files being backed up to see if the process has been working correctly. Unfortunately, some people do not do this and find out that their system has not been backing things up correctly only when their hard drive fails! This can be a disaster, of course.
With the help of your teacher and the Internet, find out how to do these things on your school and / or home computer:
1. How to check if you are using the latest virus database in your anti-virus program.
2. How to download, install and run the free version of 'Ad-aware' or a similar program to detect spyware.
3. How to look at your Firewall settings, how to allow a particular program to get access to your computer by adding it to your Firewall and how to block a program using your Firewall.
4. How to format / re-format a DVD or pen drive. (NOTE: you will lose everything on the device when you re-format it so proceed with caution!)
5. How to run the defrag utility on your computer.
6. How to run the system information utility on your computer.
7. Locate and run your system clean-up tools.
8. Know how to turn your operating system's automatic updates on and off.