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Factors To Consider When Buying a PC or Laptop For Your Course

When buying a PC or Laptop in today’s modern world everybody wants to make sure they are getting the best out of their money especially with the gloomy economic downturn that Ireland is in. Therefore the following post will explain the factors that you as a student doing the Applied Psychology course in IADT will need to consider when buying a PC or Laptop.

Considering this economic downturn the cost of the laptop or PC would be one factor that people would need to consider when buying a Laptop or PC. Therefore it would be beneficial to shop around online and in stores for the best quality for your money. Online site suggestions include Komplett.ie, Elara.ie and Argos whereas; stores suggestions include Currys, PC World, Harvey Norman and DID Electrical.

The most obvious factor for a person doing my course would need to consider when choosing to buy a laptop or PC is simply whether or not a PC or a laptop would be more beneficial for them. A laptop would be handy to bring into college everyday but if that’s not what they want than they could probably go with the PC but then again that could take up space in the house but wouldn’t need to be charged. The person should weigh up their options and choose whatever is more valuable to them. This is why deciding whether or not to buy a PC or laptop is a factor when considering to purchase a computer.

Another factor a person doing my course would need to consider when buying a laptop is the size of the laptop. The size is a factor because many people would like to bring their newly purchased laptop into college for assignments etc. but if the laptop is too big or too heavy this may be a factor to take into account when purchasing the laptop and this is why a student doing my course should look further into the size of the laptop to see if it is easily portable.

Another factor a person undertaking my course would need to consider when buying a laptop is the battery life of the laptop. This would be a factor because there is nothing worse than buying a laptop that has to be charged twice a day, every day. When doing the course and bringing the laptop in everyday the last thing a person wants to do is to bring the charger with it as well in the bag which would take up more space. This is unnecessary as a good battery life would prevent this from happening. This should be taking into account as this could become quite annoying so the better the battery life…the less of a factor it is.

Another factor a person doing my course would need to consider when buying a laptop or PC is the speed of the laptop. Slow computers are a thing of the past and so annoying so why buy one? Laptops and PC’s can now take the user where they want to be in no time with the click of a mouse so why settle for less? This is why computer speed would definitely be a factor to consider when buying a Laptop or PC.

Another factor a person undertaking my course would need to consider when buying a laptop or PC is the computer memory. The faster the memory the more expensive the laptop or PC will be but it is worth paying the extra money to get good quality memory which in turn would come in handy when saving all the assignments you need to write up on to the computer without worrying how much space you have left. The longer you have the laptop or PC the more information you will be storing on it, not only when undertaking your course but also when downloading applications to make your computer more friendly to you would take up space which may slow down your laptop or PC. This is why computer memory would certainly be a factor to consider when buying a Laptop or PC.

Another factor a person doing my course would need to consider when buying a laptop or PC is whether it is up-to-date or not? This is an important factor as laptops and PC’s are getting better and better every eighteen to twenty - four months due to the amount of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit according to Moore’s Law so the student should ensure that the laptop they chose to buy has all the latest features that the student may benefit from for example ‘webcam’ and ‘wireless options’ such as connecting to the internet and other gadgets. This can be favourable for the student as little gadgets and accessories like the webcam would allow the user to communicate in different ways which would be good for group projects which there is a lot of in this course. This is why up-to-date technology would certainly be a factor to consider when buying a Laptop or PC.

Another important factor for a person to consider when doing my course is the type of laptop or PC it is. As computers have got more advanced, so have the brands and operating systems such as windows and mac. It is important to choose a computer that you are more familiar with as macs and windows do differ and can be quite difficult to operate one if you are accustomed to another. While doing this course you may not have the time to get familiar with the operating systems as it’s fairly hands on so this is why considering operating system of computers would certainly be a factor to consider when buying a Laptop or PC.

Finally the last factor a person doing my course would need to consider when buying a laptop or PC is ‘are there any good packages/deals from shops that you may benefit from?’ For the course that you are doing there is a lot of software needed for example Photoshop for Multimedia Design, Microsoft Word Office for all assignments and finally Norton Anti-Virus Security to protect the laptop’s and PC’s files that are saved and also while searching online. Individually these software’s’ are expensive so it is vital to look for packages in different stores and online that may have a good deal on laptops or PC’s with these types of software. This is why packages and deals would certainly be a factor to consider when buying a Laptop or PC.

I hope this report explaining the factors you would need to consider when buying a PC or Laptop for your course was helpful.

Article 2: The World Now Has 4 Billion Phone Users

This is a summary from the article ‘The World Now Has Four Billion Mobile Phone Users’ extracted from http://www.itwire.com/it-industry-news/market/27107-the-world-now-has-4-billion-mobile-phone-users and relates to an area of technology which interests me, which are mobile phones.

 

This article evidentially shows the importance of mobile phones in everyday life as two - thirds of the world’s population now uses a mobile phone. The spread of this technology is a cause of continuing strong growth in newly industrialised countries and the continuing demand for mobile data booming across Europe, Japan and the United States of America.

This growth of mobile phone users is speedy as seen in this article, as in 2008 the number of mobile phone users in the world was twelve per cent less than in 2009 with an outstanding 4.4 billion people using mobile phones. This rapid growth is nearly surpassing the total population of the world. This article emphasises the growth of mobile phone users especially in developing countries, which is surprisingly where the strongest growth takes place. For example in the future, India is expected to increase in mobile phone users by thirty – two per cent and by fourteen per cent in Brazil according to this article. This emphasises the demand and ever swift growth of mobile phones, therefore it is no wonder why it is an area of technology that interests me.

I chose to do a summary of this article because mobile phones are an area of technology that interests me. Mobile phones are a big part of my generation and a big part of my life as I use it for all the right reasons. I picked this article from 2009 on purpose to show the importance of mobile phones in the modern world. This article clearly achieves that goal as in 2009 there was 4.4 billion phone users contrastingly to the year after as in 2010 mobile phone users reached 5.28 billion nearly surpassing the current population of just over 7 billion which further identifies why mobile phones are such a vital medium of modern communication. The interesting thing about mobile phones and this article is that from the figures represented there are more people in the world with access to a mobile phone than the Internet. This captivated me as I thought it would of being the other way around. From this article I take that mobile phones create a huge part of people’s lives to the point where everyone wants one. This is because it provides the owner with services that may be of great support to the individual and allows that person to remain in instant contact with whoever they may want to. Although this opinion and summary of this article show the positives of mobile phones, there can also be negatives which can be seeing in the blog below titled ‘Text Bullying’.

Article 1: Text Bullying

This is a summary from the article ‘Text Bullying’ extracted from http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/text-bullying.html and relates to an area of technology which interests me, which are mobile phones.

This article explores the fairly new world of text bullying much like Cyberpsychology. It explains how teens are coming up with more inventive ways to bully others and more importantly this article states ways to prevent being a victim of ‘text bullying’. This article shows how serious text bullying has become especially among teens and emphasises that parents can prevent it from happening. In this article ‘text bullying’ is defined and reveals shocking statistics about how common this devastating act takes place amongst ‘kids’ which makes me wonder, should parents allow their children own a mobile phone? These statistics indicate no…

This article explores factors, which show that text bullying can be more damaging than traditional bullying for both the victim and bully. For example ‘text bullies are often meaner because they don’t see their victims’ which can lead to depression, violence, suicide and other negative repercussions explained in this article.

From this article it is clear that bullies can face legal charges for text bullying but usually don’t get caught as the victim of text bullying do not tell loved ones due to the fear of parents taking their phone away from them thinking they’re preventing ‘text bullying’ but as a result are unfairly taking away their social connections, applying punishment to those who should be cared for. Instead of this, this article provides ways parents can combat text bullying the ‘right’ way. This article speaks up for the victims of text bullying and speaks up to the bullies explaining in the meantime, that victims should not blame themselves and raises the message that other people think good of the victim regardless of what the bully declares. 

The interesting thing about this article is that it relates to the field that I am interested in, psychology. Not only does it relate to my chosen path in life but also relates to ‘Cyberpsychology’ which is a module I am undertaken this year as part of my course in college. The fascinating thing about this type of bullying is that it’s fairly new. Years and years ago before mobile phones ever even existed there was traditional bullying but now as the world is changing and technologies have got better, new ways of communicating have arisen. The bizarre thing is that even though people would think this sort of breakthrough would bring nothing but positives are proved wrong as contrastingly and interestingly this brought negatives as well which is evident in this article. People have come up with ways to use this useful medium of communication as a tool to play with people’s minds. This interests me but at the same time sickens me. The frightening thing is there’s more to come. I chose to do a summary of this article because it is an area of technology that interests me. This is because this technology can be a positive medium of communication but from this article it shows that mobile phones can be a negative source of modern communication with many hazardous consequences if placed in the wrong hands.

Links To Sites Useful For Your Course

     http://tutor2u.net/ - Tutor2u is a great way to learn more about many aspects of psychology. It really is like a tutor helping you on your very own computer, just type anything about psychology or whatever your course entails of you in the search engine.

  http://allpsych.com/dictionary/n.html - Psychology Dictionary with over 500 psychology terms defined.

  http://photoshoptutorials.ws/ - This will help you guys in Multimedia and Design, gives you everything you need to know about Photoshop.

     http://www.hyperdictionary.com/computer - Computer dictionary for all you technophobes out there.

     http://www.psychologies.co.uk/ - Offers great studies to be inspired by and may help you come up with studies of your own and even how to conduct them.

    http://www.g2conline.org/2022 - A 3-D exploration of looking at what psychologists are dealing with in the brain. Helpful with Psychology and Perception & Ergonomics.

    https://auth.athensams.net/?ath_returl=%2Fmy%2F&ath_dspid=ATHENS.MY – A great way to find articles, journals and books online that you may use as a reference.

    http://dictionary.reference.com/ - For any words that you don’t understand, just type them in here. Get a meaning and definition instantly.

All of these sites can be seeing to the right of this blog as a gadget, hope it helps :)

Introduction To Psycholoy Overview Video

The above video is definitely worth a watch. This video is an overview of psychology that is presented in a fun and interesting way. It is basically everything you need to know about psychology in four minutes. The video uses images and witty humour to inform people about basic disciplines in psychology. Images change unhurriedly but you may not get what the voice over’s mean so if that’s the case don’t be afraid to watch it again, it’s worth it. Keep up the good work :)

Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers (1902-1987) worked in the humanist area of psychology. Humanists such as Rogers promoted the view that within man is an active desire to reach his full potential, or self-actualisation.

Rogers is known for producing one of the most influential theories of self-concept development. According to Rogers, we hold an image of ourselves as we are called the ‘actual-self’ and an image of our ideal self which is how we would like to be and this is called the ‘ideal-self’. If the two images are the same, we will develop good self-esteem if not we will not.

Rogers suggests the development of this congruence and the resultant self-esteem is dependent on two factors which are:

     Unconditional Positive Regard in the form of love and affection from others.

     Self-Actualisation which is fulfilling our potential and achieving all we are capable of.

Carl Rogers also worked extensively with counselling and therapy and founded Client-Centred Therapy which is where the client is the centre of attention. Rogers believed that therapists had to display three qualities to be able to get their clients to open up to them and the three qualities are:

     Genuineness

     Unconditional Positive Regard

     Empathy