There are three ways to access the factory's information: online in the PC itself, online at Gateway's Web site, and in the printed materials sent with the PC. For this assignment, I used the first and the third. Although I find it difficult to locate information on Gateway's Web site, the other two sources are really quite excellent.
Loaded on the computer is an extremely helpful online quide. It includes general computing information, Windows tips, and technical information specific to my computer. This help is Windows-based, of course, and resembles the structure of the typical Windows product (hyper-text links, search mode, etc.). There is a very useful glossary of computing terminology that helps define the jargon. Of particular relevance to this assignment is the fact that there are wonderful, full color illustrations of the motherboard and other components in the system. I considered simply copying them into this page, but decided that would make the assignment too easy. So I designed my own version in the image above. The Gateway images are certainly more artistic than mine (they are artist renderings not photographs). The images are mapped and allow for clicking on an item and receiving information about the part (not totally exhaustive, but everything of use to a consumer: jumpers, slots, connectors, etc.).
In addition to the online information, Gateway's print manuals are well-illustrated and written in clear English. Among the many manuals I received was a "Technical Reference" for my P4D system (due to various combinations of components, manuals are specific to particular items). Inside is a very clearly labelled diagram of the motherboard, step-by-step CMOS setup instructions, and other information. As someone with a modicum of computer knowledge, the manuals and descriptions seem very clear. How a complete novice would react to them, I don't know; but it is hard to imagine that they could make it much simpler as to what to do. As an aside, during the past two years I have had to replace several components under warranty. Each time, Gateway sends yet another manual that gives clear step-by-step instructions on how to remove and install the offending part.
To summarize, the Gateway materials provided amble resources for identifying the parts inside my computer.
In order to get more specific technical information, I ran Norton Utilities (ver. 8) System Info. I have had Norton on my computers since version 4, and I am a strong fan of it. System info is not only useful for diagnostics, but just plain interesting (I especially like watching the hard disk test)! Using the "Print" results in conjunction with the append option allowed me to create a text file containing the reports.
In some ways, the most challenging part of the assignment was trying to get my images to look right. I composed them on MS Paintbrush, then used LView Pro to convert the .bmp images to either .jpg or .gif. I first used .gif (89a). When I loaded it into my account, however, I discovered that the black areas had become transparent and revealed whatever the background color was. To read any of the numbers against the white areas of the image required a really dark background. So I went back and saved the image as .jpg. This solved the problem, but resulted in much larger files that have those dots all over the colored areas (is this dithering?). But at least I could use a light background and black letters for the text on the page. Still not happy, I went back and discovered that there was another .gif format, 87a. Using this one, from what I could get out of the help comments, would not create a transparent background. Saving my images in this format made them smaller than .jpg, clearer than .jpg, and the black items stayed black.
