Probably the best feature on Microsoft Word would be the copy and paste because then you can copy writing, tables and even pictures on the internet.
The table feature is also good because if you want to put some information into a table it would look a lot neater and makes it clearer. The align feature is as good as the table feature because if you use the left align, right align or centre it would put the writing into columns so it would look like a newspaper article.
An extremely good feature on Microsoft Word would be the save and open button because if you are doing a very long piece of writing you could lose it if any accident occurred but with the save button you can save it anytime and you can even load it anytime.
The auto shape button is also very useful because you can have all sorts of different shapes and sizes which makes the writing very attractive.
Hardware
The hardware’s I am going to use to make the mail merge letter is a monitor, so you can see what you are doing and you can see what you are changing/correcting. Another hardware would be the keyboard, so you can input some data, save your work, load your work etc… A very important hardware would be the mouse because with the mouse you can do a lot of things like copy and paste, menu options and to drag things into other places. Probably the most important hardware of all would be the hard drive because without the hard drive nothing would work and the hard drive powers the whole system. The printer is also very useful because then you can print copies of work out and you can print pictures with colour or you can print it out in black and white, laser printers is a lot better than normal printers because with the laser printer it can print out work twice as fast as the normal ones and the quality is a lot better. Floppy disks are a very good thing because you can save your work anytime you want, transfer information onto other computers and you can even save a back up of your documents because if any thing happens like natural disasters, power cuts and other things you would still have your document with you.
Software
The software that I have chose for my poster and business letter is Microsoft Word. I have chose Microsoft Word because there are a lot of functions you can use on it like, spell check so if you’ve spelt something wrong it would correct it automatically. Another function on Microsoft word would be the word art and the fill effects because these functions make the document very attractive and eye catching. Clip art is also a good function because then you can add pictures to your document which makes it more attractive. There are boarders so you can make it neater, tables to make the work better to read and many more functions!!
Microsoft Excel is a good program to store information/data source because it can calculate sums by itself, sort names by alphabetical order, data filter by names etc… The information about the customers can be broken down into different pieces of information like 1st name, 2nd name, Tel number etc…
How I made mail merge
I am going to make a letter template by using Microsoft Word. It will contain information about the latest products that have arrived and the times of the opening hours. It will also have fields inserted like the customers title, 1st name, last name, age, address so it makes the customers feel more friendly.
How I got my information
I got the information for the table in the letter from the customers by making a questionnaire. I made the table in Microsoft Excel and copied this over to the letter. The table showed the original price of the item, how much the sale was taking off and then using a calculation formula I worked out the new price.
The benefits of using Microsoft Excel to work out calculations is that it can automatically update the calculation so eg if a sale was on, the new price would change automatically.
The information that needs to be on my letter
The information that customers need to know on the poster are, the prices of the products, the pictures of them, the address of the company and the name of the company etc…
Where the information for the poster was taken from
The information for the poster was taken from a various of places like, the questionnaire (this is where I got some of the information about the customers), books, the internet for the pictures ( I used google the most for the images)
How I will record my data
I collected information from the questionnaire and gave it to the end user. Then in order to carefully get the customers details from their paper records, I wrote them down into a table.
Method of data input
The customer’s details (title, 1st name, 2nd name, address etc…) were inputted into Microsoft Excel manually using a keyboard and mouse. It is important that the information is correct so I spell checked it in case I make any mistakes and then I went through it because then it looks more professional and the customer details must be correct.
Data Manipulation
To make my data and information look more presentable, I formatted different things and layout, this can be done in several ways like, changing the colour of the writing to make it look better, making the font look bigger so it is easier to read, putting good quality pictures in to make it even more attractive. I formatted some of the graphics in my poster so that it is easier to do it like, grouping the company name with a picture so when you want to move it somewhere else, it all moves together instead of moving one by one. I also formatted it so that the picture was behind the text which makes it more attractive.
The data about the customer details was also manipulated when it was used as a data source for the letter template. Instead of putting “Dear sir” I actually put their names on like “Dear Julie”.
Outputs
To show my end user what the letter template, poster and the address book look like, I printed a copy of each document and some examples of the letter template. The final version of the document was the output. My visual output was the computer screen , this lets me see my document and lets me see the mistakes I have done, the font of my writing, the graphics and layout.
22)
See sheet for Data Flow Diagram.
23)Back-up
The definition of back-up basically means an exact copy of the same documents, files, data, letters etc…
The advantages of backing up data is that if any natural disasters happen, you would still have the same document in hand. Another good reason for backing up is if any viruses or network problems occur, you would also have the same document. If hackers get into the documents and deletes it all, you would also have that document, this is a very good reason for backing up.
There is a several ways of backing up files like using a floppy disk, a compact disc, the hardrive/ zip drive or using a memory stick. All of these can be used to back up all data.
Businesses should back up all their data at least once a day because some of their documents might be very important and if they don’t back it up, it could be at risk.
People back up their work so that they can always take the spare copy home and do their work there so they don’t have to do it in the company. This is called working OFF SITE, another useful feature of this is that if something goes wrong in the company and loses all the file, you would still have a spare copy.
24)Security
We can protect our documents and files from hackers in a several ways like putting passwords and PIN’s so that hackers can’t get in so easily. The manager of a company has the right to restrict certain people from going into secret files.
Data Protection Law
It is a law that restricts the way personal information is stored and processed on a computer. It mainly protects ordinary people by how people store their personal information. They collect information like, payment details, name, address, contact details, DOB, Sex, occupation, income details, marital status etc… The company Mobiles4u should consider this law very carefully so I suggest they should always keep the documents up to date, put passwords to secure it and make sure there are back ups of the information.