DCNSA Level I

Computer Information Systems Applications flashcards

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Complete Flashcard Reference

Review every card in this deck. Open any card to reveal its answer. The first 10 are free; the other 37 come with the subject.

Compare a cloud drive, a flash disc, a DVD and a CD as storage devices.

Cloud drive: a few GB to unlimited, reached from any connected device, best for ongoing work, automatic backup and sharing. Flash disc: typically 8 GB to 256 GB, any USB port, best for quick transfer between offline machines. DVD: about 4.7 GB (single layer), needs an optical drive, for archival and distribution. CD: about 700 MB, legacy media.

What is a style in a word processor, and why is it preferred to direct formatting?

A named, reusable set of formatting (Heading 1, Body Text) applied to a paragraph at once. Changing the style's definition updates every paragraph that uses it, so a long document's headings stay consistent without reformatting each one by hand.

Distinguish relative, absolute and mixed cell references.

Relative (A1): adjusts when the formula is copied, by the same amount the formula moved. Absolute ($A$1): stays fixed when copied, for a single value every copy must use. Mixed ($A1 or A$1): locks only the column or only the row, used when copying across a grid.

What is a primary key, and why does every table need one?

A field, or combination of fields, whose value is unique for every record, such as a student admission number or an invoice number. It lets any record be found or referred to unambiguously and stops two records being accidentally identical.

What is a frame in desktop publishing software?

An independent container for text or images that can be positioned, resized and layered anywhere on the page. Moving a frame does not push other content around, unlike moving a paragraph in a word processor. It is the feature that most distinguishes DTP from a word processor.

What does a master slide do?

It defines shared formatting: logo placement, fonts, colours and the position of standard elements, applied automatically to every slide that uses it. One edit to the master updates the whole deck, instead of changing forty slides one by one.

A shared network resource will not open. Which three kinds of problem should you tell apart?

Local: the resource has moved, been renamed or been deleted. Network: the connection to it is down, so other resources on the same server fail too. Permissions: the user is not authorised. Check the connection and the user's permissions before assuming the resource itself is broken.

A 5 GB file will not copy to a flash disk with plenty of free space. Why, and what is the fix?

Many flash disks come formatted with FAT32, which cannot hold any single file of 4 GB or more. Fix: copy off anything on the disk and reformat it with a file system that allows large files, or split the file.

Name the three types of relationship between database tables, with an example of each.

One-to-many: one course has many students. The most common type. One-to-one: a Staff table and a StaffPayroll table, splitting salary detail out for security. Many-to-many: students and courses, built with a linking Enrolments table of StudentID and CourseID pairs.

How is a document protected with a password, and what is the limitation?

Through the application's save or security options: Save As, then Tools or Options, then a password to open or to modify. It is an entry-level control for one document only, as good as the password is secret, and no substitute for access control, disk-level encryption and backup.

What checks should you make before and during installing an application program?