Good morning, good afternoon, and good
evening, and welcome back to ITPro.TV. I'm your host Don Pezet, and
you are watching CompTIA IT Fundamentals. In this episode, we're gonna be taking
a look at peripheral devices because sometimes our computer just
isn't good enough, and we need to add more stuff to it. Here to show us how
that's done we've got Mr. Ronnie Wong in the studio with us,
Ronnie thanks for joining. Don thank you for
having me on the show, as we continue to take a look at
the idea of some of the different types of hardware,
including this idea of peripheral devices. The very fact is you're right, there's
no doubt that our computers can do so many different things that
when it comes down to it it needs additional enhancements
to do what we need it to do. So even though, let's just kinda give you,
for instance here, right. The very fact is, even though I go, hey
look, that's something I wanna keep but I wanna print it out. If I don't have a printer
attached to my computer somehow, I won't be able to do that. And that is an extra device that we
call the idea of a peripheral device, which is not directly
integrated into the computer or directly attached in some physical way
as far as being permanently there, we normally have to do
some type of attachment. So that's an example of
a peripheral device. So in this episode we wanna make
sure that we understand, of course, some of the different peripheral devices
that you're more than likely going to and be dealing with if you tend to choose
the idea of supporting hardware. And also, of course how do those
actually get connected to the computers? We'll talk about some different cabling,
maybe even some wireless connections too. And then of course well, how do we know that everything
is actually gonna work fine? So we wanna make sure that we have this
understanding of how these peripheral devices do come together and work with our
computer as we start to do something here. So that's what we're gonna
be talking about today. All right, now Ronnie obviously we
don't have to use peripheral devices. If I buy a laptop it will
most likely do what I need. But a lot of times businesses
have special needs, special equipment they need to add on. Or maybe just I personally, to have hardware that I like to use and
I wanna add it on to my system, there's a lot of different options-
Right. That are out there. Even within a single thing, so
let's say I wanna add a specific keyboard. There's a lot of choices that we
have to make before we're able to plug in a peripheral. So can you describe some of the different
ways some of these peripherals attach to a device,
help us understand that decision. Sure thing. When it comes down to different
attachments of peripherals especially if it's something like a keyboard but we normally have at least a couple
of ways that we can do this. When you wanna separate down to two
basic categories we of course can simply plug the device in by using
what's directly attached to the keyboard if it has a cable attachment for us. And then we plug it in to a port that's
gonna be on the computer somewhere. Or we normally can connect it through
some type of wireless connection. And inside of wireless we
can sub-divide that out too with different specialty types of
wireless connections such as Bluetooth or even radio frequency devices
if we choose to do so. So in that instance, you have to make that decision of
which one that you actually want. Now it used to be where keyboards, you just had to have one to even
turn the computer on at one point. I'm assuming that we still have to have
a keyboard to have computer to kind of generate and turn on so
that we can get access into it. But at one point you had to have it
plugged in if you had a desktop computer. You didn't plug in your computer it would
kind of make this not nice weird sound and then it would just stop in the middle
of this process of booting up. But overall though, a keyboard is our
first real basic peripheral device that we tend to connect in so
that we can interact. So we normally make a choice
of which one that we want. Now, it used to be, of course the idea of
having a nice physical keyboard there and available to use was the way to go. But as we continue to develop
in technology we found the idea of being able to sit on
the couch when I have my laptop there. And just pull the keyboard aside without
having to go, I gotta move the computer closer, was something that was
actually very much efficient and actually very easy to
learn how to deal with. So wireless became more popular too,
and so we see those options as well. And that's a big differentiator from
how a lot of previous peripherals work, where you don't even
necessarily have a cable run. Because in the early days of computing
external hardware was treated the same as internal hardware. It expected it to be there when
you pushed that power button. And if you plugged it in afterwards
good luck getting that to work. Well, fortunately for you the viewer
our there things have changed a lot. And now we can easily add and remove hardware all throughout the day,
we don't have to reboot the computer. There are some exceptions, but they
usually deal with the internal hardware. With external stuff we really do
have our choice of the market. So if I decide I want to get a keyboard,
and I wanna add it to my system, I don't really even have to worry about hardly any
of the stuff we used to compatibility. Pretty much every keyboard is gonna be
compatible with my computer, thanks to technologies like USB and wireless
that have kind of become standardized. Now Ronnie, USB and wireless are two
examples of how systems get connected. I know there's a lot of others
that are available too, some have specialized purposes. Some are just because vendors
refuse to follow standards. Right. You know there's a lot of different options there. Do we wanna kind of run through some of
those and get an idea of what's out there. Sure, let's go ahead and take a look at this example of
what we're talking about, right. The very fact is let's take a look at
least at what normally happens when we wanna plug in an external device that's
gonna normally go through what we call a USB port. Now, usually USB ports are gonna
be just about on every device. Now, just when I say that, I take a look at my own computer
they've changed over time. And so you might actually find out that
they're not on every single device and you have to kind of make them
specific to what you want to. So what we can do,
is we can take a keyboard, and let me grab one right here
that I have available to me. And here is just a regular
standard keyboard. And on this keyboard is
attached in the back and there is just a regular USB connector,
kind of a rectangular connector. And what you're gonna look for, of course is a place on the actual
computer to plug this keyboard into, okay. So I'm just trying to untangle it so
I can set this thing down for a moment. And when we plug this in, and I'm just gonna plug it into a port
that I have available to me. Now we can take a look at
my computer screen and this is what Don was talking about. We don't have to worry too much about
whether or not this device is going to at least need to be a lot of extra
configuration that's gonna happen. And that is because as soon as I plug
that keyboard in, it went ahead. And the operating system detected and said
hey, let me give you an assistant to help make sure you've actually got
this thing attached correctly. So at this point the installation method, it doesn't require us to have
to do a lot of different things. I didn't have to turn the computer off and let the hardware actually be
recognized and then turn it back on. I simply had to plug it into that USB
port, and through their USB port says hey, I can't identify whether or
not this is actually gonna work. If you need to, I want to continue. So that way it actually says hey,
do you want to actually do this? Press the key immediately to the right
to the shift key on the left side of the keyboard that can't be identified. So it's actually recognizing that, hey,
I don't exactly where this keyboard is, let me see if I can find it. Yeah, and
that's not really a hardware thing. It knows it's a keyboard,
it's ready to accept the keystrokes. He didn't have to do anything
special to get it working but different countries have different
arrangements for the keys. So like here in the United States,
we use what's called a QWERTY keyboard. If you look at your keyboard, the letters
would be Q-W-E-R-T-Y, across the top, but if you're in France,
you'll have an AZERTY keyboard. It's A-Z-E-R-T-Y constant,
it's a difference order of the letters. And so that's what it's
trying to figure out here. It looked and it said hey, it's a keyboard
but I don't know where you put the buttons on that keyboard,
you might have swapped them around. But from a hardware sense,
this is very simple. Ronnie didn't have to reboot. He didn't have to load special software. He just plugged it in and off it's going. And so that's what really makes
things like this really handy. And that connector he used is called USB,
which is the Universal Serial Bus. It's a connect to this design,
to make this whole thing easy. So most of the hardware,
would you agree Ronnie, that most of the hardware out
there today is going to use USB? Just about every bit of
hardware that's out there, people want to be able to
easily plug in and play. I think that's where
the technology really comes from, that they don't want you to have
to worry about the configuration. They just want you to be able
to plug it in, and make it work. They are gonna be USB based, and that was designed around that idea that we
could come up with one standard connector, that everybody could put on their
devices and not have to worry about. Whether or not their manufacturer was
gonna include my particular hardware port on it, they could just go ahead and
design their hardware. And then at the other end of that
cable they could make sure, yeah, as long as it uses this port,
we'll recognize it. We'll be able to actually
do what we need to, to it. So it makes it very easy. So Ronnie, I know nine times out of ten
when we buy an external piece of hardware, it's gonna be USB. Right? It's just so easy. It's simple and it works really well. But it's not the only type of cable. One time out of ten, we're gonna go and
it's gonna be something different. I know you're using a Mac. Right. And Apple is really pushing their thunderbolt ports which use USB-C. It's a different type of USB port,
so there are various other cables. So can you walk us through some
of those special case scenarios, that we might bump into? Sure, normally when we start
taking a look at data cable, if we're not taking a look at
using the regular standard USB. It's gonna be some other port or
some other cable, that's gonna have a different
type of connector. Let me give you an example here. I've just pulled up one and
as you take a look, here is one of the particular types of
cables that you can end up running into. And on this one there is
a little thunderbolt, that you actually end up seeing
right here on the cable itself, and this is what Don was referring to in
the Apple Devices where they're trying to standardize around the idea
of thunderbolt as well. So you might see this, and the connector might look similar to
another connector that's out there. But you'll end up seeing that that
thunderbolt kind of indicates the difference, and these are for
their high speed devices. Allows them to plug in not only
just different peripherals, just other monitors if they need to,
whatever it might be. And it can be really confusing, cuz like that cable that Ronnie is holding
up is actually a Thunderbolt 2 cable. Now we have Thunderbolt 3,
which uses a different connector, it uses the USB-C connector. Do you have one of those, Ronnie? I have one that's, yeah, it's very
similar, which is right here, okay. So on this one, the connector is a little
bit thinner in terms of this connection right here, and much smaller. Now Mac has, of course, always tried
to say look, we want one cable, so every single device now,
if you want to plug in. They want this type of connector to go
with that, so that you can plug in and be able to do this. So even though I just showed you kind of
the old one, you'll probably still see that there is many devices out
there that will support that. But the newest standard of course, are the newer one that they
want you to be able to do. It's gonna be something like this. It's a flat connector, it allows you do
a lot more with it in terms of speed and capacity, so that's what they
want you to go with as well. So the key here, right? On these peripherals, is understanding
what is on your device itself. Make sure you buy that particular
connector that you need, or that cable that you need, that will
allow you to plug into the computer. And you might find out that you
might buy a device like a keyboard, that only has that standard USB 2.0 or
3 .0 connector. And when it does that, well,
you might go, wait a minute. My MacBook or
my own device only has that new USB 3.0. They do sell adapters that will
allow you to make that happen, or you might have to look for
that peripheral that says, hey, we'll support this type of connector or
cable, to make that work. So yeah, just realize that you'll find
a lot of these, where you'll have to make sure that you picked the right
connector, to make that work. If not, it's gonna be a long day for
you, because you have to hang around and then you realize, I probably
should have bought another device. And the sad part is, sometimes it is
the right connector but the wrong cable. So for example you might have
a standard USB-C cable that's necessarily a thunderbolt cable,
that they use the same connector. But unless that lighting bolt design
there, that makes a big difference. And then there is various
grades of cable too. It does get very very confusing,
that's why when you buy hardware, it normally comes with the cable. And if it does it,
you know that's the right cable. Use the cable that it came with,
but if you have to replace it, it's very difficult to make sure, that you get one that meets
the specifications that you need. And Don, you make a great point, because we were talking about
this probably a few weeks ago. Where we were going through, and you always see these generic
cables that are for sale. And you go, yeah, that says it actually
will fit and work, and what we've found out is by trying those a few times,
that either they don't last as long. Or they don't work as well
as they claim to work, as an equivalent to what might actually
be better from the manufacturer. So you do have to worry about stuff
like that, even though they go, no, it's a direct replacement,
it will work just fine. In reality sometimes you gotta actually
read those kind of reviews, and see if it's actually gonna work or not. Or you'll do what I've done which is buy
a cheap cable, and then after two weeks or maybe after a day and a half,
it just didn't work anymore. So you do have to worry about
cables today much more. All right, so Ronnie let's
just say I'm fed up with cables. [LAUGH]
I'm tired of it, I'm tired of trying to pick the right one,
I wanna go wireless. So what are our wireless options like,
in the peripheral world? Well in the peripheral world there's
a bunch of different options for us, at least two different options. It depends on what you're willing to
actually be able to use and do, and what's built in your computer. For me, I like the idea of using
a wireless that we call a Bluetooth. Most of the time,
as far as on most modern devices. They tend to have a Bluetooth
antennae built into them. For example, on my Mac Book, let me show
you what I'm talking about here, okay? So here on my Mac Book, I have a little
icon in the upper right hand corner, and it says Bluetooth. And if I open those Bluetooth preferences,
you can now see that, here it is. That means that this particular
one is turned on, and it is sending out this wireless signal. And it is going to try to
connect to one of these devices. And we'll pair to one of
these different devices, you'll actually seeing different
devices starting to pop up here, as it starts finding more and
more of these devices. And I like this,
because it's just built in, don't have to worry about anything else. And once those devices get recognized,
then I can make this type of pairing, and that will automatically connect
it to the other device. And on my end, I have this older
trackpad for my previous Macbook. That's what I kept it from. And it just allows me to not have to
worry, once I allow that pairing to go on. It connects and now you can see on my
mouse here, on my screen I should say. I'm no longer using the trackpad
that's directly built into it. I'm now using the one that's
the peripheral device. And this allows me to move
that wherever I need to. So even if I had my laptop across
the room, I could still get access to it. I like this because it frees
me from any type of tethering, that I have ready to go. The wireless, at least for me, with
Bluetooth is actually the way I like it. And the other reason behind this is I
don't normally need what we call a dongle, okay, with the Bluetooth. Now, I don't know about every single
device, but at least on the Macbook, since it's built in. I don't have to take up one of my few
ports that I have available in my Macbook, to add that additional dongle in there,
that takes up one of those ports. Then I can connect an external
wireless device as well. And so
let's talk a little bit about that dongle. Mm-hm. So you've been showing us a Bluetooth device, and Bluetooth is built
into the laptop, doesn't require a dongle, sounds great, like why would
I not want to use Bluetooth. But the problem with Bluetooth
is that it's a little bit slow. [LAUGH]
It's not designed to be fast, and the range is actually
pretty short too. I think it's something like 30 feet,
right? So you don't have a huge
amount of distance to go, before you lose that signal. So you'll see Bluetooth used
widely with keyboards, and mice, and you'll see it used with Sometimes
cell phones, like if I wanna quick copy photos from my laptop to my computer,
I can use Bluetooth. But beyond that,
you really don't see Bluetooth out there, because of the being slow,
as far as straight-up bandwidth. But also there's a little bit of latency,
and it's hard to see if you've never
heard that term before, latency. Latency is the delay that occurs between
when you tell a computer to do something and when it actually does it. And if I touch my mouse
I move the mouse ball, I expect the mouse cursor
to move instantly. Well it usually does or it appears
to be as a human to move instantly. But the reality is with Bluetooth, it's gonna take that signal it's gonna
encode it it's gonna send it over to WiFi, it's gonna be decoded on the other
side and then it moves the mouse. There's a small period of time
that the lapses between them. If you're doing something
like graphic design and you're drawing with one of those pens. If you're one of those professional video gamers
[LAUGH] And you've got your controller and you just shoot somebody fast. That kind of stuff they actually do notice
that latency and it drives them crazy. So some devices aren't really
well-suited for Bluetooth, but that doesn't mean we're out of luck,
right Ronnie? Right. So what do they do instead of Bluetooth when latency is an issue? When latency is an issue and
even range is an issue, right? We tend to also use
radio-frequency signal instead. And this is when those
peripherals are wireless, but they also come with an antenna
that allows them to do so. So for example I have this track ball,
I couldn't remember what it was called, track ball here. I don't use a track ball, I took this
one off of Don's desk, so sorry Don. I thought it looked familiar [LAUGH]. So I've got his track ball here
that he uses all the time, and he's a master at doing this here, but
it allows him to be able to take this in pretty good decent range, but
also not experienced the latency as well. But for him he's going to lose
one of his ports so, for example, in my machine where I only have two ports. If I was able to plug this in,
I would lose access to one of those ports, that's what I don't like is that. Right. That loss of that one extra port that I have. But the nice thing is,
it does allow that what we want it to. And it simply opens up here and it's right
here that there's this little tiny USB, once again, USB kinda ruling the day here. And it's got a wireless antenna on this
end, that allows this to be able to communicate with this device when
it's plugged into my machine. So that's what we have
the ability to be able to do, I'm setting up to close this up here. And the reason it needs that is that
RF, radio frequency, is proprietary. There's many different frequencies
that are out there, so Logitech, who made this mouse,
they picked a particular frequency. And so they had to make a hardware
dongle that was ready to listen and receive that communication. So when Ronnie plugs that in,
it's really interesting what happens here. That, when he plugs that dongle in, his laptop will see
the dongle as a wired mouse. It doesn't even realize
that it's wireless at all. It just sees the dongle. The dongle and the mouse itself take
care of all of the encoding and the RF transmission,
the computer thinks it's wired. So it's really straightforward technology,
it doesn't require any special software. Yeah, it really doesn't,
it didn't even have to show up and ask me like the idea of the keyboard
which say hey it's a foreign device. It just simply allowed me to start
making it work right away and you can barely see my cursor only
if I shake it around, there you go. You can see it and
this working with the track ball here. I'm having a hard time
mousing with my thumb, is what I've having a hard time doing. [LAUGH]. But overall though, it worked very well, right? The ability to do
something like this works. Now Don, sometimes though these devices,
what if I had, let's say a wireless keyboard at the same
time, from the same manufacturer. Could I still use that one device, or do
I need to put a separate dongle in there? It depends, right,
this one's a Logitech one, and Logitech actually makes it. They call it a unifying receiver. So you could have a mouse,
a keyboard, a joy stick, and they could all share that one receiver. There's other vendors where they're
a little more specialized, and you have to have a separate dongle for
each one. And then you run into the problem
that Ronnie was talking about, which is eventually you run out on ports,
right? So you need to add a USB hub or an
expansion, actually Ronnie's using the USB hub here on the show, where he's
only got two ports on his laptop. But if you see that little gray box
by his left hand that's adding, what are you getting,
like another four ports there. Three ports yeah. So expanding that functionality,
adding more room for peripherals. That's right. And Ronnie was complaining, whining, I don't know [CROSSTALK]. Can't use the track ball with my thumb. That's really the highlight of
peripherals, I love the track ball. That works great for me, I like being able
to have it Ronnie, are you a touch pad or mouse person? I like the touch pad,
yeah now that I've gone to the Macbook, the touch pad is just seem
to be more natural for me. So
thanks to peripheral devices though-. I doesn't matter. We can take any system and add on
what we're most comfortable with, and so if he hates the trackball,
he can just throw it away. Don't throw it away, it's mine. [LAUGH]
But then he can use the touch pad. All right. So you've got that functionality, you can customize it so actually, I think
Ronnie, you and I have identical laptops. We do. But through the use of peripherals,
obviously, we add additional different things. Now, some of those things, we've been
talking about mice and keyboards, because everybody has mice and keyboards. But there's a lot of other
things that we could add and we could probably spend hours
just going over different stuff. But let's hit some of
the more popular devices, what are some of the more popular
things you might wanna add? Well, Don, today in social media, and
I know how much you love social media. Love it! You are a social media king. I gotta go check on my
Facebook feed right now. That's right, yeah,
you gotta be able to do that. [LAUGH]
It's gonna be something like this. Now, most laptops have a webcam cam built
in, I know it's hard there we go, okay. I know it's a little
difficult to see here, but they have a webcam that's built
into my laptop right here, and it's kind of a multifunction device in
that it not only records the video for me, but also it actually has a recorder
for my voice so that I can speak to it. And so it has a microphone built into it,
as well as maybe even speakers I believe, that may allow that
the communication happen as well. So this device itself allows
us to be able to do that. Now, you might go well,
if you already have one, why would you choose a peripheral
one is kinda the key? Well, that may be that there's
actually a better enhancement. In other words, better lens,
better whatever it might be is on this, allows me to do HD recording,
or whatever it might be. And that's what I want to actually
understand here, is that I might choose to add this in because I believe
that there's better functionality to this. Yeah, and you mention the ones
built in to a laptop, right? If you've ever done any kind of
video conferencing with your laptop, you know the problem is, you usually have
your laptop monitor tilted back a bit. So the camera is looking
right up your nose. [LAUGH]
So if you're going into some kind of conference or giving a presentation, you
don't want people looking up your nose for the whole thing. You can't angle those very well,
add on a camera and you can. Or in my office I have a desktop, and
so I have a monitor on my desk, and it doesn't have a camera built into it. So I need an add-on to add that
camera functionality, and get that. Now Ronnie, you mentioned that this one
was multifunction cuz it also did audio as well right? Right. But, that might not be the most
ideal audio that we have, that we might wanna even upgrade that. Right, so
even though this might be built into it, you might hear that hollow sound and
something else that you want. So if you wanted to upgrade that to that,
Don can you hand me that? Sure. Here, okay. Now we start upgrading the idea of audio
to something more like this, okay? And this one, is the speaker built? Yes
The speaker is built into this so it's not only a recorder, which allows
you to speak on microphone, but it also allows you to
hear the sound out of it. And this one of course is how you can see
has a larger speaker and probably a better microphone built in and Don,
this one actually has a back up, okay. We can physically plug it in,
which give us a nice good connection. But I also see that there's a little
dongle that's actually right here too, that they've given you a little spot
to put in, so that you can take this wirelessly, and then we can turn the
actual power on there's a battery into it. So it's very nice. And
it's got Bluetooth built into it as well. And Bluetooth, yeah. This is another piece of
hardware I'd kill for for my desk. [LAUGH]. So I do a lot of conference
calls in my office, and so this thing comes in really handy for that,
cuz I'll do voice-over IP from my laptop, I can grab it And we can have
a high-quality call, which is really nice. And it gives you the functionality
to be able to pick and choose, so it's another example. Yeah, I just noticed that
it even has a little stand, so that you can even tilt it and
angle it on your desk. It actually kinda almost points up
directly to where you're talking, so it makes it very nice. So very nice functionality, enhancement of everything that we
actually want to be able to do. Is something that we have here. So it works in the same way. We plug it in and, normally, the operating
system will work and we'll see it. Now, Don, if it doesn't though, okay,
if we don't have that, in other words, what if my, not my MacBook, but let's
say a Windows computer, it goes, hey, I see a device. It looks like it's a recorder, but
it's not functioning all that well, I may be able to actually go to
the manufacturer's website and download something that we call a driver,
okay? And a driver is important. It's software that allows for
the hardware manufacturer's stuff to be able to communicate
with the operating system and say, here's all the things
that this device can do. And makes it operate with it. So you may find out that even though
the device might be recognized, it says I see it,
I just don't know how to work with it. Adding that driver in for that device is probably going to be
something that you'll need to do. Yeah, and I know with that speaker in
particular, that if you just plug it in, it will pick up as a speaker and
a microphone and it will work right out of the box. But if you go to Java's website and
download their driver and install it, you get echo cancellation. Nice. Where it makes sure that your voice doesn't feedback in and
create a feedback loop. And that's a nice feature to have but it's driven by software that's
used in conjunction with it. And a lot of peripherals do have that, especially things like scanners and
multi-function printers. They almost always have to have
software alongside to drive them. Now Ronnie, I know we have a few more
devices that we wanna talk about. And we wanna talk a little
bit more about drivers. Might even be worthwhile
to show an example of that. And a few other different ways
of configuring peripherals, but I know we're running a little low on time. So what do you think about breaking
this one up into a two part and we can tackle those other edge
cases in the second part? That sounds great. Sounds like a good idea. All right, well, before we wrap up, do you have any other comments to make
on the devices that we've seen so far? Just remember that if
you are gonna end up having to pick out a peripheral that you want to
enhance the way that you do the computing, you don't always have to,
you can do like I do. I just kind of go spartan, and I try and learn whatever device that I'm on without
adding in additional enhancements. But if you're gonna be
working with it all the time. The ability to make it
conform to what you want and to compute the way that you want is
something that you want to do because its gonna make it more comfortable for you. You're gonna feel more natural about it
and you're gonna learn it better as well. So, just take the time to actually
pick the right peripheral and to make sure that it functions
the way that you want. And then you'll be off and ready to go and see a more enhanced computer
experience for you. All right, well ladies and gentleman,
that's gonna be a wrap for this episode. But do stay tuned,
cuz we're gonna have a part two. We continue talking a little bit more
about peripheral devices, and things that we can add on to our computers, definitely
want you to stay tuned for that. But for now, signing for
ITPro.TV, I'm Don Pezet. And I'm Ronnie Wong. And we'll see you next time. [MUSIC] Thank you for watching ITPRO.TV.
