Updating the operating system

What we are going to do now is look at what is in the heart of your computer, which is the operating system. The operating system is sometimes abbreviated as OS. And the operating system is a program that actually makes the hardware of the computer work. It is not something you can adjust, but it is something that needs to be kept up to date. The operating system is what allows all the parts of your computer to work. Now, there are different types, depending on what sort of machine you have got. So there is the Windows Operating System, or the Mac have got their own system, as well. And if you are working with mobile devices, then they have also got their own different types of operating systems. Some of them will talk to each other, some will not. Now, with the operating system, the important thing is to make sure that you keep it up-to-date.

So what we are going to do now is have a quick look at the computer here on how to update it. So in order to check whether something is updated, what you can do is just click the icon at the top on an Apple computer. And you can look here, and it says, "About this Mac," and it will tell you what version you are on. So this computer here, it has got the version number there, and also the type at the top. You can also, here, click Software Updates. Now that, we will have a look and see what updates are available. Another thing you can do is look down at the bottom. This is the system preferences. You see there is one next to it. That is actually indicating that there is an update available for this particular computer. So if we just hit the Software Update button, you see that has opened up this window, and it is checking to see whether there are any updates available currently on this computer. It takes a few seconds, and it says, "Yes, there is now an update." So what you can do then, hit the Update button, and then that will go through the update process. Now, I will not click that, because what it is going to actually do is it is going to download the program.

And this can take quite a long time. It can take a number of minutes to do. And depending on the actual download, it can be maybe even up to an hour. Because what it is doing, is it downloading the very latest versions? It will either download the entire operating system again or components of it. And the reason it gets updated is that there might be little fixes or problems that the companies change. It may well be that they have been getting reports of errors when a certain program is used or a certain system is used. So what the updates do, they keep things up-to-date the whole time. So the operating system of your computer is something which is not just when you take it out of the box but also updates it on a regular basis. Now, you can set your computers to do automatic updates so it will always scan every day or every week and get any updates that are available.

And then sometimes what happens then, is you get a little window pop up on the computer, says, "Do you want to update it now? Or maybe delay that for an hour, or maybe do it overnight?" So what they will always try and do is update your computer, when you are not actually using it. So the way this machine here would normally have been set up for is, overnight it updates. Because the last thing we want to be doing with it is, right now, I am using the computer, I do not want it to do an update right now because it is basically going to cut off what we are trying to do with it. So look at the settings on that. But the key thing is, is go into your computer now and have a look what is the latest version, are there any updates? And if you are buying a brand new machine, it is always worth checking the updates straight away when you get that machine, as well, because the operating system is put on in the factory, so what it needs to do is get the latest versions for the time it has been sitting in the box, and so you can operate it at the correct level. So update your systems as much as you can, not only to make a system work better but also to make it a lot more secure against any possible viruses or attacks.