I want to thank the following organizations and individuals for their generous support:

Firstly, thanks to the living God, who gave me the strength to use my God-given powers of creativity to complete this work, and continues to guide me. Thanks also to my students who asked such good questions, that only a book would suffice to answer them. I wish I could remember the names of all the publications that influenced my writings in this book over the past twenty years. Some of the information has been used time and again by countless authors and teachers, so I am sure they will understand if there is some slight duplication to get ideas across coherently, without reinventing the wheel.

Michael Sharp is the founder of Centre Diplomé Informatique. With more than 20 years experience in the computer industry, working in technical, training and support level in the corporate and public sector. He is a qualified CNE. and holds a Diploma in Business (Marketing). He is currently researching a second book on the forgotten heroes of technology. When he is not teaching, writing or consulting, or experimenting with new technology, he leads the good life on the tropical paradise island of Saint Martin / St. Maarten in the Caribbean. He can be reached at sharp_monsieur@hotmail.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced in any form, or stored in a database, retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission from the author.

All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks or service marks, have been appropriately acknowledged in the first instance with the appropriate ® symbol to indicate it is a registered trade mark. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark. Accordingly, MS-DOS®, Windows®, Windows® NT Windows® NT Server, Windows® 95, Windows® 98, Windows® Millennium Edition (Me), Windows® 2000, Windows® 2000 Professional, Windows® XP and Office XP, are trade marked products of Microsoft Corporation Inc. Pentium® is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. Award BIOS is owned by Award Software Inc; AMD is the registered names of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Zip® and Jaz® are registered trademarks of Iomega Corporation. The names are used in a editorial fashion only, and not for the benefit of such companies. Use of a name does not imply endorsement or any other affiliation with the book.

Every effort has been made to make this book as complete and as accurate as possible, but no warranty or fitness for any purpose is implied. The information is provided on an "as-is" basis. Neither Centre Diplomé Informatique, the author, its dealers and distributors, shall be responsible to the purchaser or any other person or entity, with respect to liability or responsibility for any loss or damages, caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly attributable to errors, omissions, or other inaccuracies from the use or misuse of information contained in this book. Use of this publication is considered acceptance of these conditions.

You have made the first step by investing in your own future or those of your loved-ones, and it has always been my desire for computers and training to be accessible to everyone. That’s why I wrote this book, to give you the benefit of the knowledge and experience I have gained from over twenty years of professional involvement with computers. One thing I've learned from listening to students and consulting clients alike: you don't like "computer gurus" using meaningless computer jargon, unless we are willing to explain it in plain language. I hope this book has achieved that goal. There are so many technical references manuals out there, so I didn’t want to add to that huge list of them. I want people to pick up this book and be comfortable enough to keep it by their computer for future reference. I deliberately left you a wide side margin to make plenty of notes and make the book your own.

If a new word or phrase is used that is important, it will be listed at the end of the chapter along with some key reminders to reinforce your learning. In the Brief History of Computers, I couldn't really explain the new words in the history, and still make the story flow. So, when you complete, this course, please re-read this section, and I am sure the pieces will fit together nicely for you.

The course was originally designed to be taught in a computer lab environment by an instructor. However, you could also work through the book at your own pace, in self-study. If you do, and get stuck, (and the book doesn’t have the answer), email CDI with your questions learncomputer@themail.com and we will try to help.

At the end of this book, you will know: the history, what most parts do and how they work; how to use the computer; how to work out why it’s not working as it should; and the meaning of abbreviations used with computers. The course is based on Microsoft Windows 98, which remains the most popular system in use today, although the broad concepts equally apply to Windows Me, 2000, XP etc.

You, the reader, are foremost in our minds. If you have any comments, complaints, questions, corrections, suggestions, we welcome them all. Our desire is to improve on future editions, with your kind help.

Centre Diplomé Informatique

E-mail: learncomputer@themail.com

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I magine a world without computers! You may say, never! But there was a time when we did everything by hand without the help of computers. They have changed the way we record our thoughts and ideas. They have become such a large part of our lives today, we wonder how we ever got along without them. And yet, they continue to impact on our lives in so many ways—the computer age is here and it’s here to stay! The ownership cost of computers is now so low, most everyone can afford them. Businesses have embraced them as strategic planning tools to improve productivity—so, as companies strive for a competitive edge, they will continue to use more computers, or as it is called IT—Information Technology. Personal computers can do so many tasks, we are only limited by our imaginations what we want them to do with them. The latest version of Windows XP has built-in support to control lighting and airconditioning of our homes—that is a standard feature! Computers can be found everywhere: in space craft, satellites, on the sea bed probing the ocean floor; in our homes, in children’s toys. We look around and use computers without being aware of it.

Where will it all end? Who knows? Only a foolish person would to try to make such a prediction. We know, man by nature has always strived for self-improvement. That’s how computer technology got to where it is today. If

we apply Moore’s Law

that the number of transistors that can fit on a single chip has been doubling every 18 months, we can see that technology continues to increase at an astonishing rate. There is every indication the growth rate will only accelerate as we gain a better understanding of these new physical principles.

So let’s join this exciting time of our lives, by learning the basics. Read on...

T o understand how much computers have changed the way we live and work, it is useful to know a little about how computers worked in days gone by. So, who actually invented the computer? The real answer there is no one person who invented the computer, but they were independent inventions. Throughout history, man has been confronted with problems, and have applied their mental powers of creativity to solving them. As the solutions to these problems were usually arrived at by repetitive manipulation and calculation of numbers, it made sense to develop machines to do the task.

A computer is a complex combination of electronic and electro-mechanical devices, which we call Hardware, that is controlled by Software (recorded instructions that control the actions of the hardware). Both hardware and software came together to form what we now know as a computer system. Even though they came from different yet related scientific fields, such as mechanics, electrical engineering, electronics, mathematics, physics, many of the pieces to the puzzle were already in existence, it just took scientists to combine them to get a machine that could do something useful.

Figure 2 An early Abacus. This was the fore-runner of today’s computers.

The first ever-computing device developed by man was the Abacus, which was used by ancient Greeks and Romans some 5,000 years ago (3,000 B.C.). It was later significantly improved by the Chinese, and is the forerunner of today’s computers. The abacus was a wooden frame with wires. (pictured right) with beads which were pushed along the wires to certain positions to represent numerical values. Certain calculations could be performed in this way. The abacus is still in use today in China.

Figure 2 Leonardo Da Vinci, self portrait.

In the early 1500s, an extraordinary Italian, genius painter, inventor, musician, mathematician, anatomist, physicist, sculptor, engineer, civil and military architect, and so on, named Leonardo Da Vinci, drew up plans for a mechanical calculator. His famous notebooks were only discovered in 1967, with plans for a mechanical calculator. Da Vinci is credited with inventing the mechanical calculator.

Da Vinci notebooks revealed many other discoveries such as the helicopter, submarine, glider, to name just a few.

In 1642, Frenchman, Blaise Pascal, at just 18 years of age, devised a hand-driven adding and subtracting calculator. Pascal called it Machine Arithmetique. He built it to assist his father who was a tax collector. Pascal went on to become one of France’s greatest mathematicians and philosophers.

2 Pascal’s Machine Arithmetique. Picture: Courtesy IBM Museum.

In 1671, German mathematician and philosopher, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, improved on Pascal’s design and built a machine with multiplication, subtraction, division and square root capabilities. Leibniz’ machine used a series of sliding gears and wheels with varying length teeth. The wheels turned on axles. This mechanical principle remained with us until it was replaced by electronic calculators in the 1960s. Leibniz also invented binary arithmetic

—which is what digital computers use today.

In 1801, Frenchman, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, designed a weaving loom controlled by reading the position of holes punched in a piece of cardboard. By using different cards the loom could do fancy designs in the woven fabric. This punched card system, was a method of storing a sequence of instructions

, although Jacquard never used to perform calculations. Jacquard’s loom, did however, inspire a British mathematician to use the card system for performing repetitive calculations. These punched card computers were in use well into the 20^th century.

Figure 4 Working model of Babbage’s Engine. (Source: Science Museum, London)

In 1812, Charles Babbage, a British mathematics professor, designed the Difference Engine with financial assistance from the British government. This machine in theory, (as he died before its completion), could automatically make calculations using mechanical controls. Babbage then started working on his “Analytical Machine.”. It is for his revolutionary thinking that Charles Babbage is generally accepted by computer historians as the “father of the modern day computer”, even though he never built them. After Charles’ death, his son Henry, built one from the plans, in 1871, and it worked exactly as his late father had envisaged. It was almost 100 years later that people recognized Charles Babbage’s enormous contribution to the history of the computer. Computer historians cite various reasons for Babbage’s inability to complete his machines, such as lack of precision tooling and materials being available to turn the brass rods. The more likely reason may be that Babbage was working on problems the ordinary person of his day did not think important—people of the 1880s were more interested in surviving day-to-day than building machines to solve complex mathematical problems.

Figure 5 Punch card from the 1890 census. Source: American Department of Census.

In 1887, an American named Herbert Hollerith, (1869-1926) who worked at the American Department of Census, built the first electromechanical punched-card tabulator to read the data in punched cards. This machine was used to compile the 1890 Census. Data was represented by a series of holes in cardboard punched cards as can be seen in the picture below. The card was read by a card reader and the position of the holes in the card represented the data. By 1896, Hollerith went on to found the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, which was later merged with other companies in 1924 to become International Business Machines—IBM. They began construction of desktop calculators using Hollerith’s punch card readers and tabulating machines. These machines were used to solve specific mathematical problems. The computers were electrically powered with electromechanical controls for turning wheels of the adding machine. The punch card computer did most of the business world's computing for more than 80 years.

In 1936, Konrad Zuse, a German, was commissioned by the U.S. Army to build a computer for the upcoming World War II (1939-1945). Zuse built a fully functioning programmable digital computer that used Leibniz’ binary system. It was called Z1.

In 1942, Professors John Mauchly and John P. Eckert, at the University of Pennsylvania were commissioned by the U.S. Army to build a high-speed computer to produce missile trajectory tables. It was known as ENIAC—Electrical Numerical Integrator Analyzer and (Computer) and was 1,000 times faster than previous generations of the relay (Electromechanical Computer). ENIAC could perform 5,000 additions per second. The major disadvantage was: a problem that took a few seconds for ENIAC to solve, took two days for programmers to set up (see photograph being programmed)—and the computer's plug-in connections had to be rewired after each calculation. ENIAC weighed 30 tons, was 100 feet long and 8 feet high, and consumed 200,000 watts of electricity per hour, and contained almost 18,000 vacuum tubes—that generated a lot of heat, which caused components to fry regularly. Despite these shortcomings, ENIAC remained in use from 1946 to 1955. In 1945, Mathematics professor John Von Neumann, joined the team at the ENIAC team to solve the resetting problem. Van Neumann devised a system of Stored Program technique—this is what we still use today.

In 1943, Chairman of IBM said: “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” —Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943.

In 1946/47 John Bardeen, Walter Brattain & William Shockley invented the transfer resistance device, later to be called, the Transistor. You’re right! it's not a computer, but the transistor essentially did the same job as vacuum tubes

, but generated very little heat, because it used less current. This invention is so important that it changed the history of computers that it should be included. From this time forward, computers began to get much smaller.

We classify computers on the basis of advances in technology, and refer to them as “generations”. We are now in the fourth , and fifth generation computers ae currently under development. Each generation

was typified by different types of circuits used in its construction. It is difficult to place specific dates on when generations begin and end, but here are the approximate dates and the main characteristics of each generation:

By 1951 the first commercial general purpose computer called the UNIVAC1 (Universal Automatic Computer) became commercially available.

• Programs are executed in sequence. (specific order) unless changed by the user.

They were very expensive, and very large, requiring specially built rooms to house them. They used an enormous amount of current and generated a lot of heat.

With the advent of transistors and magnetic core memory, computer systems became much more reliable. This paved the way for the development of high-level programming languages

such as FORTRAN and COBOL etc.

The third generation of computers was characterized by the invention of the Integrated Circuit (otherwise known as "The Chip". A thin sliver of silicon contains all elements of an electronic circuit packaged into a tiny area using “microelectronic circuits.

In 1964, the Mouse was invented. It was so-called because the tail came out the end like a mouse. This gave the user the ability to move a pointer and click on a small image called an Icon, instead of typing everything in manually.

In 1969, the Internet is invented by the US military’s DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) as a strategic response to the threat of nuclear war. Computers would search for other servers (larger computers) to connect to, thus keeping communications operational. The system was called DARPANET, and is the fore-runner to today’s Internet.

Also in 1970, Xerox Corporation (inventors of the xerographic process we now know as photocopiers), established Palo Alto Research Center—PARC, in California. PARC resulted in major contributions to the computer industry, and is the birthplace of the Graphical User Interface—GUI, the Local Area Network—LAN, the laser printer and the PC-based Desktop Publishing System.

1975-1977, The Altair 8800, the world’s first personal computer is released. It had no keyboard or monitor. Data was entered by flicking switches on the front panel, and the result was read as patterns of small red lights. Later, accessories including keyboard and video display unit became available for it.

Large Scale Integration—LSI, shrinking the size of components, led to increases efficiency. By the 1980s, Very Large Scale Integration—VLSI technology meant that hundreds of thousands of components could be placed on a single chip. In the same year, IBM announced there was a worldwide market for 275,000 of their PCs.

They actually shipped 60 million (Personal Computers) PCs that year. A Personal Computer cost $10,000.

1981, Microsoft Corporation’s DOS

(Disk Operating System) is released. In the same year, computers from Radio Shack and Commodore, began appearing in businesses.

1993 was a busy year: Intel Corporation released the Pentium® processor (CPU) and it swept through the computer industry. The Pentium processor contained 3.1 million transistors and initially ran at 60 MHz. The Internet had been around since 1969, but the introduction of the World Wide Web changed all that, and made the Internet popular. The Web gave a simple, mouse-driven "point and click" friendly, graphical way of browsing for information or entertainment. In the same year, the first full-length motion picture "Toy Story" was produced. This was no ordinary movie: it was 100% computer generated, using digital imagery, 3 dimensional rendering, and full animation. The film brought the characters to life using well-known actors’ voices only—no actors and no film. This film changed the way film studios view of computers, and the way they make films today.

By the late 1990s, the Internet revolution had begun—and just about everyone who owned a computer wanted to connect to The Web. Modem sales around the world skyrocketed. The Internet gave users graphic images, then video and audio, and even 3 dimensional graphics and virtual reality. The number of Internet users worldwide doubled every few weeks.

The computer field continues to experience huge growth. Computer networking, computer mail, and electronic publishing are just a few of the applications that have grown in recent years. Technological improvements continue to produce cheaper and more powerful computers. As an illustration: if memory costs were the same today as they were in 1960, a PC would cost $30 million.

This generation is yet to arrive. These computers will be based on VVLSI (Very, Very Large Scale Integration) using very sophisticated software technology. We are fast approaching the limitations of silicon chips and scientists are looking for other materials such as diamond and other crystals that are known to have stable properties.

These leaps in technology are still under development in laboratories and depend on dramatic advances in all of the sciences. Expect to see these computers emerge in late 2003 in their primitive form. We are assured these new generation technology computers will be a massive departure from the standards we have known in the past.

In 1679, an extraordinary mathematician and philosopher, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

invented binary arithmetic.

. Leibniz proved that all numbers can be represented using a sequence of the digits 0 (zero) and (one) 1. For example the decimal number 2 can be shown in binary as 10, likewise 24,096,846 can be shown as 1111101000001101001110

Joseph-Marie Jacquard, who built the weaving loom in 1801, is credited with being the father of software, as his loom gave a mechanical device the ability to store instructions on stiff cards with holes punched in them. This was to be later used to control the input and output of early computers until well into the 1980s.

It was not until 1975 that Paul Allen and Bill Gates, two childhood friends studying at Harvard University together, developed an Operating System, that software really developed. Gates dropped out of Harvard in his junior year, to concentrate on their Trafo-Data company to produce a BASIC (Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) Interpreter, which later became Microsoft Corp.

In 1981 Microsoft released MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System), a single-user program known as the Operating System, which controls all of the hardware, so that it can communicate with the Applications (programs). DOS was licensed to other companies including IBM, who in turn packaged it as PC-DOS with their personal computers. Microsoft followed it up with Windows, their first Graphical User Interface—GUI. A mouse was used to navigate and click on icons, instead of having to type in commands. Next came enhanced versions of Windows, but they were not freestanding operating systems, but needed DOS in order to operate. They were known as Operating Environments.

Microsoft finally released Windows '95 in the summer of 1995, amid a huge media campaign. Windows '95 also had built-in networking, including tools for accessing the Internet The look of the user interface components was altered to make them look more stylish. Windows 95 is a self-contained operating system and it does not need DOS to operate, SO IT IS KNOWN as an Operating System.

Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition (Me) are upgraded versions of Windows 98. A second edition of Windows 98 was released with major improvements in the way it organized files.

Windows NT—(New Technology) and Windows 2000 Professional is a fully featured networking operating system, although all previous version of Windows could be networked, they were not dedicated to the task until Microsoft produced Windows NT Server and Windows NT Enterprise Edition, Windows 2000 Advanced Server. These are designed to run dedicated network file servers.

Windows XP is the latest breed of Operating System that seamlessly integrates an improved Office 2000 suite XP suite of programs with the online capabilities of Internet Explorer and digital multimedia experience. It can be networked with other computers locally and remotely (sharing other computer's resources).

There are other operating systems apart from Microsoft, but they are not credible contenders in the mass computer market. In the early 1960s, the Unix operating system was invented at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, and later purchased by AT&T (yes the phone company). The original programming team kept the original version and called it BSD (Berkeley Standard Distribution), but after legal problems, they renamed it FreeBSD

, which remains as a completely free, original Unix operating system in the public domain (yes, free!). AT&T’s Unix was the operating system later used to put man on the moon, as a major contributor to the success of the space project. This was the world's first multi-user operating system and still exists today. In fact, the Internet was written to run on Unix and continues to be the choice of Internet providers and major government and corporate users.

In the early 1990s, Linus Torvalds, a computer student at the University of Helsinki in Finland, took the Unix System V operating system (which he considered too expensive) and wrote his own version of it called Linux

, after his name. It is distributed free, and its source code is open to anyone to change

) Linux has already started making a dent on Microsoft’s corporate sales. As software costs have been rising, corporates are looking for cheaper alternatives. Today, major vendors such as IBM, Dell, Compaq, are shipping pre-installed Linux computers and servers. Linux is a reliable and stable operating system

, and the main reason people like it, is it's free, yes free! Linux GUI interfaces can be made to look a bit like Windows, without a fast computer. Linux still has a way to go, but keep an eye out for it in the future

Today there are many Unix-like operating systems, and they are collectively referred to as *nix systems. For example, BEOS, Hewlett Packard’s HP-UX, IBM’s AIX, to name a few.

No one knows exactly where computers are headed. Only a fool would try to make that prediction. Researchers are working on incredible advances in technology: Fifth generation computers with a form of Artificial Intelligence—AI, using what we call Neural Networks, (simulation of the function of the human brain). AI is supposed to be able to learn from its experiences, but not able to think independently. Neural networks can be trained to recognize patterns in large amounts of data, for example to make predictions in financial markets. They are also being used for research in AI.

Arthur C. Clarke, the futurist science fiction writer in his classic “2001: A Space Odyssey”, wrote in the 1960s of an artificial intelligence computer called HAL that could reason sufficiently, hold conversations with humans, and learn from its experiences. They made HAL a little too human, and it took over the space ship, and killed most of the humans on board. So much for science fiction! But in 2003, designers are making advances that make artificial intelligence almost a reality, now that programmers realize human understanding depends as much on context of the words and meaning as it does on the simple translation of words.

Microsoft have recently unveiled a prototype Tablet PC, a legal-pad-sized portable, wireless computer. Demonstrating a prototype, Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates showed its ability to record handwritten notes. The notes can be searched, highlighted, boldfaced or italicized, and converted into text to paste into other documents. But it is still years away from market.

Computers have been read able to read handwriting using Optical Character Recognition—OCR systems, for years, and there do not seem to have been any significant advances in recent years to indicate any breakthroughs, other than using the increased computing power to process the characters faster.

Sure we have had computers like IBM’s “Deep Blue” which beat the world’s reigning chess champion, Gary Kasparov, in 1996. But it’s not that difficult to program all of the moves into a computer. Rather than a leap forward, it says more about man’s ingenuity to design such a machine.

Scientists in Israel have just devised a programmable molecular computing machine composed of enzymes and DNA

molecules instead of silicon microchips. (That means enzymes are suspended in liquid in a test tube) Silicon chips have been scaled down about as far as they can go, so scientists are looking at the DNA molecule, because its is contained in the nucleus of all cells, and can hold more information in a cubic centimeter than a trillion music CDs. This DNA computer can perform 330 trillion operations per second, more than 100,000 times the speed of the fastest PC. It was accepted into the Guinness World Records in February 2003, as the smallest biological computing device ever constructed. Don’t rush off to the computer store just yet. It can only give a yes or no to a question and can’t correct a misspelled word. Also, you need to be a genetic physicist to interpret the results from analyzing the liquid in a test tube. This is purely research, has no practical applications as yet.

After the huge shake-up of technology companies with the stock market crash (Dot.com crash, as it was known) companies that actually produce an innovative product, with fresh ideas continue to emerge. Some of the dot.coms were working on what is known as “expert systems” and Neural Networking, and got a lot of venture capital funding, but never produced a result in the market. The Japanese government poured billions into AI research in the 80s, without any result, and some argue it cost Japan the huge profits from the computer revolution, because all of their best scientists were locked away working on AI for the Japanese government. After all the discussion on artificial intelligence, given that computers are 1 billion times faster than they were when AI research began, not one thinking computer has been produced. We still don’t have a computer that can tell the difference between the phrases “recognize speech” and “wreck a nice beach”. In 1937, British Philosopher, Alan Turing devised a simple test as to whether a machine is intelligent. You put a person in a room typing messages to a terminal in the next room. If the first person can’t tell he’s talking to a computer instead of a human, then the computer is intelligent. Nothing has ever met the Turing test to date, so as far as Artificial Intelligence is concerned, this author thinks, never!

A machine made up of electronic and electromechanical components, that can accept information, (or as we call it, Data) that enables the user to perform any mathematical operation (calculation) on data and process it (execute program statements in sequence) under control of a program. It can handle a great amount of facts and figures, and solve complicated problems. It is capable of using a stored program (set of instructions) to direct its activity.

INPUT ➞ PROCESS ➞ OUTPUT

Computers follow Input-Process-Output cycle. Information is entered (Input) to the computer. The information is Processed, maybe it is an accounting system and you are entering the amount of the payment received. The balance of a customer’s account and the details are displayed on screen (Output)

Computers cannot think. They need human beings to tell it what to do with the information it receives. Also, computers cannot verify the information being entered by the user. If wrong information is entered, wrong information will be the result. This is sometimes referred to GIGO—Garbage In/Garbage Out.

WHAT IS A COMPUTER?

An electronic device that accepts, stores, changes, and processes information, does calculations, processes data, and runs under the control of programs.

Data is information in a form that can only be read by machines, but not by humans. Data can be entered into the computer by the user, or it may be supplied by software manufacturers to be read by their programs.

As we see, computers are used almost everywhere: in banking, government, telephone companies, electricity suppliers, schools, colleges, and all manner of small businesses. So why do we use them?

1. Speed They are much faster than humans at performing certain complex tasks such as mathematics. What may take a computer a minute, may take us weeks to do. Even home personal computers can operate at millions of instructions per second.

2. Accuracy Computers can perform calculations precisely (once they are programmed properly and don’t malfunction.

3. Reliability Modern computers are extremely reliable. They can operate for extended periods without needing a rest, unlike humans.

4. Versatility Computers can do a range of different jobs efficiently. They can do work that humans cannot do, such as working in hazardous areas. They can also work with different types of data such as graphics, audio visual, word processing, and accounting–all on one computer.

5. Large Storage Capacity. They can store a very large amount of data in a small physical space. For example, a DVD-Rom can store 3 ½ million letter sized sheets of text. The data can also be stored systematically and retrieved very quickly.

1. Microcomputers—small computers originally designed for one user. They are also called desktop computers, or PCs (personal computers), which were introduced in 1981. Today's PCs are very fast and can support small networks.

2. Portable Microcomputers—laptop, notebook and palm computers also known as a Personal Digital Assistant—PDA.. The Portable Data Entry Terminal—PDET is used for data logging. E.g. Fedex couriers use them to record transactions while on the road. When they return to the office, the data is uploaded to their main computer.

3. Minicomputers—more powerful than microcomputers and can handle the needs of several users. They can also support a network of users’ terminals, but not as many as a mainframe.

4. Mainframes—large and powerful computers. People who use them work from remote terminals. They manage large networks of remote terminals.

5. Supercomputers—extremely large computers used to perform the most complex operations and scientific calculations. These computers can process tens of billions of instructions per second. Some examples of Supercomputers include Cray Research XMP-6, Fujitsu, Hitachi.

The main box with the internal parts for the computer is called the System Unit. Some people call it the CPU, but the CPU itself is a small but important component inside the System Unit.

• Main Board (Motherboard)—The Main Board is the printed circuit board on which the rest of the components including cables, memory and the CPU and other circuit boards are installed.

• CPU—Central Processing Unit, pronounced "see-pea-you" The Central Processing Unit is also known as the Microprocessor Chip. It is the computer's brain. The underside of the CPU has connecting pins that slot into the motherboard. The CPU responds to input from devices, e.g. Keyboard, and Mouse. It manipulates (processes) the data received, according to sets of instructions.

• Memory Modules—Memory chips are printed circuit boards installed in special slots on the Main Board. It contains working memory (RAM). This is where commands and data are processed by the CPU are temporarily stored. Data in this memory is lost when the computer is turned off. They are often referred to as RAM (Random Access Memory) The current memory modules are called DDR (Double Data Rate) and RAMBUS memory.

• Adapter Boards—(Adapter cards) These Adapter Cards are circuit boards that fit into expansion slots on the Main Board. They increase the capabilities of the motherboard.

Sound Card—(Sound Board) is a common adapter card that enhances the computer's sound. It outputs the audio signal (sound) to external speakers. Most modern programs use sound, e.g. video clips, music CDs, and warning and alert sounds in Windows, games.

Video Card—(Graphics Adapter) the Video Display Card is a circuit board that gives communication between the CPU and the Monitor.

Internal Modem Card—(MODulator/DEModulator) enables the computer to communicate and exchange information using telephone lines, with other computers. It is used for Internet web browsing, e-mail, fax, telephony (cheap way of making telephone calls using the internet).

• Power Supply Unit—PSU converts 110 volts or 220 volts Alternating Current—AC into +5 and -5 volts Direct Current—DC and +12 and -12 volts DC. Once converted the current is distributed to the various components.

Main Memory—the primary storage area. The area for commands and data used by the computer while performing an operation. The commands and data are held in Memory Modules. Instructions required to perform an operation are transferred from Secondary Storage into RAM where it is readily available to the CPU. The computer’s primary memory is lost when the computer is turned off, so we say it is temporary type of memory.

MAIN MEMORY IS ALSO KNOWN AS:

RAM (Random Access Memory)

It is “Primary Storage”, which is a type of temporary memory (information is lost when the computer is turned off).

STORAGE DEVICE TABLE

Device Type	Memory Type	Storage Type
RAM or Main Memory	Temporary	Primary
Hard Disk Drive	Permanent	Secondary
Floppy Disk Drive	Permanent	Secondary
CD-Rom Drive	Permanent	Secondary
DVD-Rom Drive	Permanent	Secondary
Zip or Jaz Drive	Permanent	Secondary
Tape Backup Unit (Digital Audio Tape)	Permanent	Secondary

Figure 6 Storage Device table

Locations where programs and data is stored permanently, so that when the computer is turned off the information is not lost. Some examples of secondary storage devices are:

Hard Disk Drive—The largest storage device in the computer, capable of storing thousands of millions of characters. It is a set of metal platters sealed inside the drive unit. It is mounted inside the system unit, so all the user sees is the access light at the front which flickers when reading and writing.

Floppy Disk Drive—A device that reads and writes data to a floppy disk. (a reusable magnetic, round, flexible piece of magnetic media stored within a 3.5 inch square protective plastic case. The floppy disk is still used to transfer small files between computers and backups. The floppy disk was invented by Sony.

CD-Rom Drive—Compact Disk Read Only Memory acts much like a CD Player, but as well as play music and video, it runs programs, and installs software. Once the data is written

to a CD, it can read a copy of it but it cannot be deleted, changed or added to.

DVD-ROM—Digital Versatile Disk looks similar to CD-ROM but it reads much faster and stores more data. They deliver very high quality images especially with motion pictures (movies) and audio. It can store up to 18 gigabytes of data on it.

CD-RW—Compact Disk Re-Writer) they look like a CD OR DVD-Rom but they can write data to a blank CD. They are also referred to as CD Burners.

Tape Backup Drive—A device used to make copies of important programs and data stored on the hard disk. Larger businesses use protect their valuable data at the end of a business period.

Zip® and Jaz® Drives—A disk drive developed by Iomega that uses a thick 3.5" floppy disk drive that stores between 100Mb and 2Gb of data. They can be internal and fit in a floppy drive bay, or they make an external unit, which can be easily removed from the computer and transported to another computer. They were invented by Iomega.

Card Readers—credit card-sized memory cards, that work much like a hard disk. The user saves data on it, carries the card to the next computer with a Card Reader installed. By inserting the memory card, the user can read/write data to or from the card. Data is usually sent/received from/to the computer to the reader using infrared (wireless), USB (Universal Serial Bus) or Serial data connection.

Peripherals—any device that connects to the system unit is called a Peripheral. In other words, the device is on the periphery of the System Unit. The following are peripherals:

Keyboard—is the device you use to type (enter) information into the computer. There are many different styles of keyboards available these days. Some contain special function keys to play video clips, audio files, connect to the Internet, and check email. There are others with raised keypads that are shaped to the contours of your hands, such as Microsoft Natural keyboard. There are wireless keyboards that transmit your keystrokes to the computer using infra red waves. No matter what type you have, they all have the same basic functions.

Pointing Devices—are a family of input devices that slides over the desktop or pad or roll on a ball, to move a pointer on around the screen. The buttons on the device generally allow you to select commands and options. The Mouse is most common pointing device in use. New mouses have a scrolling bar for Internet browsing. Some are wireless devices, that use infrared (waves) to transmit the information to the computer. Optical mouses have no rolling ball inside but use an electronic sensor. They never need cleaning, but are more expensive, however they last much, much longer because there are no moving parts. In the same family is the Trackball, which remains stationary on the desk and the ball is rolled with your fingers and palm of the hand to move a mouse pointer on the screen. It is ideal when you don’t have much desk space. A Touch Pad is a surface which is sensitive to pressure. By tapping the surface with your fingertip or a stylus. It performs the same functions as a mouse. A Puck and Graphics Tablet are used by professionals for designing. The puck slides over a graphics tablet with a drawing secured to the tablet area. The puck has a magnified cross-hair window on it, and predefined buttons are pressed to record the precise positioning of a point on the drawing. The measurements are read by a drafting program and by joining the points, quickly produces a design.

Game Pad—A device used to control direction, speed, and other button functions in a game. Most popular games use game pads.

Joystick—A device with a hand grip used to control the functions in a game. Some joysticks have features such as Positive Force-Feedback, which gives realistic vibrations and responses to simulate the feel of for example, a fighter jet diving out of control or a racing car shaking at 200 miles per hour.

External Modem—A modem that externally connected to the System Unit. Internal Modem Cards are much more common these days.

With Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line—ADSL, and DSL modems, we can use existing telephone wires for high speed digital connections. Cable modems are used to split the Cable TV signal for Internet use. These are all external peripherals.

Monitor—(Screen) it's a lot like a TV but it doesn't receive television signals. The monitor

allows you to see where you're going. They are available in 15 to 21 inch sizes; Also, LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) flat screens are becoming more popular these days.

Digital Cameras—allow you take photos or videos and store them and view them on your computer. The images or videos can be edited in the computer. The image quality is very high (up to 4 million pixels). You can record several minutes of full-motion video. Because pictures are digitally stored, you can drop them into documents and cards you create.

A device is used to send or put information to the computer. There are many types of input devices, as we have already discussed in the peripherals section of pointing devices. All input devices send the information to the CPU.

A device that takes information from the computer and outputs it, by printing on paper, displaying on the monitor, or audio speakers, for example.

Looking the System Unit from the back, you will see sockets we call ports.. Here is what you may expect to find on a typical System Unit:

A set of recorded instructions that control the actions of the hardware, to perform

Programs may be further broken down into either: Applications, Utilities, Integrated Software, and Systems software.

Applications help the user do specific jobs. Here are the main groups of Applications and a few examples:

These programs help the user to diagnose and repair problems, and to maintain the smooth running of the computer system’s hardware and software. Utilities do “housekeeping” that can help to improve the performance of software and hardware. E.g. Microsoft ScanDisk, Disk Cleanup.

SYSTEMS SOFTWARE: - Operating systems such as Windows 95, 98, Millennium Edition (Me), XP and Windows 2000. Other systems software may be Unix, BEOS, Linux and FreeBSD.

Before we start the computer, here are some common-sense rules for using computers:

No food and/or drinks with computers/keyboards. Keep them away!

Turn off Internet/modem during lightning and thunderstorms.

If the current company turns off the current, make sure the power switches on the computer are turned off, so when current is restored, the surge when the power company turns back on the current won't damage to the computer. *

Don't force plugs or fittings. They should slide in easily.

Don't connect computer to same current strip as Air Conditioner.

A quality surge protector or even better, a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply - giving you around 20 minutes of standby power)

* After a current failure, Windows may need to run some repair programs before it loads. The most common one is ScanDisk and should never be ignored.

• Make sure the floppy disk drive is empty (some computers are set try to read a bootable floppy if it is present

• White writing should appear on screen. This is known as POST—(Power On Self Test) indicating that all the hardware is detected and working properly. It will display all the names of the devices it finds.

• When the computer starts up you should hear the power supply fan humming, and a screen with white text is displayed. It is called BIOS—Basic Input/Output System. They are instructions encoded in ROM in a chip mounted on the motherboard. It controls the correct operations between the various components on of the computer system and is responsible for POST—Power On Self-Test; therefore, it is the first screen to come up when the computer is turned on.

• When the technicians first configure a new computer, all the configuration parameters about the computer are entered and stored in a memory location called CMOS—Complimentary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor). CMOS is mounted on the Main Board. CMOS is a type of RAM, and as we have already learned RAM is temporary memory, but this RAM is powered by a lithium (long life) battery, so when you turn the computer off the information in CMOS is not lost.

• It may look like a TV set where you just push the "off" button. The computer is a bit different. You could lose valuable information, or worse, damage Windows. So here is the correct way to shut down...

• Click the Start button on Task Bar and a menu will appear with the following options: Shutdown (already selected), Restart and Restart in DOS mode (meaning it will not be in the Windows environment but using text commands. Don't worry about this for now).

• The computer will now close any open programs and shut the computer down. If not, refer to Troubleshooting Checklist first.

Getting used to the keyboard might look hard, but it's easy once you know the basics.

John Dvorak (pronounced Vorjuck) invented the keyboard, although it looked quite a bit different to the one we have today. It had the most frequently used keys closest to the center of the keyboard

Note: There are small dimples on the F and J keys where the left and right index fingers rest. We call this the Home Position, because it is where your hands should return after typing a key anywhere else on the keyboard.

Figure 6 A typical 101 Keyboard.

The Shift Key is used exactly the same way as a typewriter . Makes capital letters and allows you to use symbols such as @#$%. The Shift Key can also be used to highlight text, but we will learn more about this in the Windows section.

The Alt Key: The ALT key stands for "Alternate." And is used in Windows to open menu bars at the top of the screen.

The Windows Key: This key opens the "Start Menu" at the lower left corner of your screen. It has the same effect as you clicking the "Start" button with your mouse.

The CTRL Key: The CTRL key stands for "Control." This key is used in combination with

other keys to perform specific tasks, often called shortcuts. A list of common Windows Keyboard Shortcuts is included later in the course. One example is "CTRL+P." Often times programs automatically print the document you are using if you hold down the Control key and the "P" key at the same time.

DELETE Key: This key erases the character directly to the right of your cursor. If you have text or graphics that are highlighted, those are erased by pushing this key as well.

The BACKSPACE Key: This key erases the character directly to the left of your cursor. If you have text or graphics that are highlighted, those are erased by pushing this key as well.

Enter: The ENTER Key works very much like the "Return" key on a typewriter. It indicates to Windows you are reaching the End of a line, and will go to the next line. Pressing enter also usually agrees to a question that Windows asks you, similar to pressing an "OK" button, or a "Yes" button.

Tab Key: Similar to a typewriter, the Tab key will Insert indentation into a document. It also jumps from box to box when entering a form online, or in Windows.

Insert Key: The Insert mode toggles between the Insert Mode, and the Overwrite Mode. The Insert Mode will Insert text where the cursor is when you type. For example, if you earlier typed the phrase "This is Fun", then moved your cursor between "is" and "Fun" and typed "REALLY", the result would be This is REALLY Fun." However, Overwrite Mode simply writes over anything in its path. In our last example, the word "Fun" would have been written over by "REALLY", making the sentence read "This is REALLY.

Num Lock: If you look at your Numeric Keypad (that group of keys to the right with all the numbers on it), you'll see that there are arrows and words under most of the numbers. When Num Lock is turned on, you can use those keys to enter numbers (instead of using the row right above the keyboard letters). When NUM LOCK is turned off, you can use the arrows and commands printed below the numbers.

HOME / END / PG UP / PG DOWN: Often the Home key is used to move your cursor to the beginning of a line, and the End key is used to move it to the End of a line. Page Up and Page Down are slightly misleading. Often, the Page Down key won't move your cursor from Page 2 to Page 3, like you would think it would. Instead, they often move the cursor up/down one "screen-length", meaning that if you push the Page Down key, the top of the screen becomes what was just after the bottom of the screen before you pressed the key. That's hopelessly confusing, so try it out yourself.

Cursor—(Direction) keys move the cursor in the directions left, right, up and down.

FUNCTION keys are pre-programmed keys numbered from F1 thru F12.. They may do different things depending on the features the software manufacturer' put in their program. F1 key will usually open up a Help box.

COMPUTER HARDWARE

Devices and equipment that make up the computer system. For example, keyboard, monitor, printer, scanner, mouse, CPU, hard drives and the circuit boards.

Computers store their information in the form of Bits (Binary Digits). These bits are composed of sequences of (zeroes) 0 and (ones) 1. A computer needs 8 bits to display 1 byte (a character, symbol, letter or space).

Humans count in decimal

numbers 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9, but computers count in binary

We call it a positional value system because the position of the digit determines its value. There are 2 digits in binary: 0 (zero) or 1 (one), so we call it a Base 2 system.

It is important to understand this important concept, so let us digress to learn how to convert a binary into a decimal.

We simply take the sum of the products of each digit value (0 or 1) and its positional value. To convert a Binary to its Decimal equivalent:

Working from the left digit and working to the right. We multiply 1 by 2³(just another way of saying 2x2x2), which equals 8. We go to the next digit which is 0 and multiply that by 2², which we know is 0 because zero times any number is always zero 0. We keep going until we have multiplied all of the binary digits, like so:

All we are doing is doubling the number each time (or multiplying our answer by 2) So 2 x 2 is the same as 2 to the power of 2, which looks like 2²

As we mentioned before, computer files are measured in Bytes. A byte roughly translates into the amount of space required to store one character e.g. one letter of the alphabet, number, symbol or space.

Each byte is stored in a cell at a particular address (or memory location). There are approximately one thousand bytes in a Kilobyte (KB), a thousand kilobytes (1 million bytes) in a megabyte (MB), and a thousand megabytes (1 billion bytes) in a gigabyte (GB).

The Drive Space is the location on a drive where data is saved. It is a little like the space inside a physical filing cabinet. Each drive is given a unique letter of the alphabet followed by a colon (:) and backward slash (\)

Note: The above is just a guide for standard computer setups. Some manufacturers e.g. Hewlett Packard/Compaq may identify the CD-Rom as M: drive. So depending on the devices, the above may not always apply. It also depends if a CD-RW is installed. If there is a Zip Drive present, the floppy may be identified as B: drive.

A folder is an electronic container within a drive that contains sub-folders and files. You can compare a folder to hanging folder in a filing cabinet. So it can be easily identified, it can be given a name of up to 255 characters or letters. A folder name can contain up to 255 characters, including spaces. It cannot contain the following characters: \ /: *? " < > |

A Sub-Folder is an electronic container within a folder. Sub-Folders can be compared to manila folders within the hanging folder of a filing cabinet drawer. A Sub-Folder can contain more Sub-Folders beneath it. A folder name can contain up to 255 characters, including spaces. It cannot contain the following characters: \ /: *? " < > |

A File contains the actual data file, document or program file. Every file has a name. A folder name can contain up to 255 characters, including spaces. It cannot contain the following characters: \ / : * ? " < > |

A file path shows all of the folders from the drive to the file, it goes through to get there.

E.g. C:\My Documents\Outgoing Mail\letter1.txt We have used the file extension .txt There are many other file extension names and they help to identify the file. A file extension is always a period (.) followed by a maximum of characters. E.g. testfile.doc or newfile.xls etc. Software programs automatically name the extension according to their own format. Microsoft document is .doc Corel Draw file is .CDR etc.

W indows 98 is the most popular operating system presently in use, so we have based this book on this version, although it is an upgraded version of Windows 95. The look and feel of Windows 2000, Me, or XP is quite different but the functionality is similar, except there are more features in the new operating systems. There are some important parts to Windows 98 as follows:

10 A typical Windows 98 Desktop

The Desktop is the opening screen of Windows 98, on which the computer will open after the boot up procedure. It looks a little different in Windows Me, but we will deal with functions both have. ( The Desktop is just like the top of a desk, where you put the things you are working with or want to use more often. It has a background area on the screen and has Icons, the Start Button (bottom left corner), the Task Bar (bar along the bottom of the screen), and other Bars with Indicators (Time and Date in the bottom right corner), and Mouse Pointer.

Icons are images (or small pictures) representing Applets that are integrated into Windows 95/98, as well as other programs by other software makers. You can add or remove Icons on the Desktop to point to additional programs, Folders or Files. Icons may represent Shortcuts or Links to open frequently used Files, Programs, Web Pages, or Commands. Most of the time the icon will remind you of the function it represents. Icons can also be located on the Start menu.

Left click on the Start Button in the bottom left corner, to access many features of Windows 98. Note: Right clicking opens a small pop-up list with Open, Explore and Find.

Use these icons to start Internet Explorer, start Programs, minimize all open Windows, or view channels.

The bar running along the bottom of the screen where an icon and name of open programs are displayed is known as the Task Bar. If programs are in the task bar, they are Open (highlighted) but Inactive programs (grayed) are open but not active. When you open more than one program, at once they both appear in the task bar.

Note: The task bar is found by default at the bottom of the screen, but it can be moved either to the top, left or right edge of the desktop.

When a window is open but not active, an icon for the window appears here. Quickly switch between open Windows using the icon.

The Time and Date appears at the right edge of the task bar. If you point the mouse over the time, the date and year will appear above the pointer. If you double-click on the time, a window will open to view or change the date, regional time and date format, according to your preferences.

A floating (optional) menu that gives you access to Media, News links on the Internet. (Only applies to Windows 98)

As you move the mouse pointer around the screen, it will change shape as you point on Tool Bars. More on this later...

When you opened the Start menu, you will have noticed icons with program names. Programs such as Find have a right pointing black arrow-this means it has Sub-Menus and you can navigate with the mouse through the level of sub-menus and point the program you wish to open.

On the Programs sub-menu, click on the name of the programs you wish to open. If you know the name of the command you wish to run or open a folder or file. This function is not usually used by first time users, but as you become more familiar with Windows it will save you time.

This option gives you access to help on Windows 98. Click on the Index tab to search a topic by keyword. It can also do a thorough search based on words. Follow the links (underlined in blue text) to do a task or Troubleshoot Windows.

This will display the last 15 documents to have been opened. Double-Click on a Document name and it will open the Application in which the document was created. You may clear the Documents Sub-Menu list by right clicking on the task bar and clicking on Properties, the Properties window of the taskbar appears. Click on the Start Menu Programs tab. Under the Documents Menu, click Clear.

Under this menu, are sub-menus to allow you to find files anywhere on the computer, or on other computers (on a network), or on the Internet, or People (in the Address Book).

Allows you to access Control Panel, Printers, Task Bar Settings, Folder (display) options, and Active Desktop (Active Desktop makes it possible for you to customize your desktop, launch programs, switch between files, and keep up with the latest world news by integrating the Web and your desktop. With Active Desktop, you can turn Web elements into desktop elements and update them at any time.

This option lets you quickly view the contents of a file. To do this, from the Desktop, right click on an Icon of a document or a file you have created and it will display the contents.

As we said elsewhere in the book, you can't just turn off the power switch to a computer while Windows Desktop is displayed. You need to run the Shutdown procedure first. Click Start, click Shutdown and a new window will appear with the following options: What do you want windows to do: Standby; Shutdown (is selected) Restart; Restart in MS-DOS mode. Option is OK, Cancel and Help. Select OK or press Enter key. The computer will display a Splash Screen saying "Windows shutting down". If the computer has automatic shutdown, the screen go blank and power to the System Unit will go off. Now turn off power to the Monitor. If your model is not automatic, a screen will display "It's now safe to turn off your computer". Turn off the power to the System Unit and the power to the monitor.

When a file is Open, it is stored in RAM (Random Access Memory). As main memory is temporary memory, you would lose unsaved data when you turn the computer off.

Double-clicking on an icon with the left mouse button opens the program it represents. Clicking on an icon with the right mouse button may cause a drop-down list of commands or options to appear.

Note: these may vary depending on the options selected at the initial Windows installation.

*HyperTerminal - a useful program to communicate with another computer directly or to test the operation of your modem.

CD Player - just insert the CD in the CD-ROM and it should run this program automatically. Sometimes Autoplay function is disabled; so click the Play button that looks like this ?

Sound Recorder - you may use a microphone to record your voice or CD music and play it back.

Volume Control - allows you to adjust the volume of the CD or your computer's sound, from the Taskbar

Windows Media Player - a great program that can play Movie files in a range of file formats, such as AVI, MPEG, (these are industry standard formats software manufacturers encode their motion picture files in. It will also run CDs with a nice series of colorful fractals. We recommend you update it on the Microsoft web site under downloads.

I recommend playing games to get new users comfortable with the technology. Games help develop eye-hand coordination skills and some, stimulate your brain. The mouse can be difficult to master-try relaxing with a game of Solitaire.

The object of FreeCell is to move all the cards to the home cells, using the free cells as placeholders. To win, you make four stacks of cards on the home cells, one for each suit, stacked in order of rank, from lowest to highest.

The object of Hearts is to have the lowest score at the end of the game. It can be played with your friends across a LAN (Local Area Network)

The object of Minesweeper is to find all the mines without being bombed by any you uncover. You are up against the clock.

The object is to use all the cards in the deck to build up the four suit stacks in ascending order, beginning with the aces. First, you need to get the cards from the deck to the seven stacks in alternating suit color order. Then they need to be placed in the four suit stacks to win.

Programs to help you connect to the Internet. They are rarely used these days, as we have more choice of Internet service Provider, instead of just Microsoft, and it is not available outside the U.S.

System Tools - I could write a book on this suite of programs. Let me just tell you about the useful ones. If you want to experiment, back up your files first.

Disk Defragmenter - this will clean up the fragmented sectors, which slows down the computer enormously. It should be run weekly to maintain the system performance.

ScanDisk - checks drives for errors and in some cases may be able to repair or mark out bad sector of the hard disk..

Note: If Disk Defragmenter encounters an error, it will abort the program and require you to repair the problem with ScanDisk. Solution: Run ScanDisk then Disk Defragmenter.

Maintenance Wizard is a way of automating the ScanDisk, Disk Defragmenter etc process in the correct order, on a regular basis. Just press F1 to find out how to use it. Once the Task has been scheduled, it will automatically run ScanDisk, Defrag (short for Disk Defragmenter) and run Disk Cleanup, which removes unneeded or deleted files, at regular intervals.

Space does not allow me to describe System Information here. It is for technicians to diagnose faults. I do NOT recommend you change anything in there, but once you get familiar with Windows you may want to take a peek in there to see how Windows organizes your hardware and software. Play around with it at your own risk!

Calculator - simulated a desktop calculator but it can display in Standard and Scientific modes. It. It can also paste its results to the Clipboard (saving a lot of double typing).

Notebook - a very simple text editor. It can have different fonts and text wrapping at the end of a line, but that's about it. It has a small limitation on the file size it can open as well.

A very basic word processor, but it does not have anywhere near the features of Word 2000.

Synchronize - a program that allows you to ensure when you go online that you have the latest copy of the document on which you are working. It also updates files when you are on a LAN (Local Area Network).

When you press a button on the mouse. It sends a command to the computer to start an operation or run a program etc.

* You may need to practice to get the timing right with the double click. The clicks need to be quickly behind each other, and the egg timer symbol appears to let you know it is working.

The following standard icons are automatically installed on the Desktop when Windows is installed. There are (2) two types of desktop icons:

These are linked to a folder, program. When you delete this icon, only the link is deleted. The file, folder or program is NOT deleted. Shortcut icons can be identified with a black curved arrow in the bottom left corner of the icon.

When you delete this icon, the program, file or folder it is linked to is deleted

Double click on this icon and it opens a window with drives, folders, printers and Dial-up networking (Internet) etc.

This looks very similar to My Computer, but applies to computers in a networked environment, where computer's devices and resources are shared between other computers on the network, also known as a Local Area Network (LAN).

This is folder where files you have deleted from your hard disk, will be stored until they are deleted permanently by emptying the Recycle Bin. You may restore files while they are still in the Recycle Bin.

This is Microsoft's Exchange software for all E-mail and online services including internal email.

A folder in which you can save the files (documents) you have created. You may divide this folder into one or more levels of Sub-folders.

Click on the Start button in the Taskbar. Point on the Programs sub-menu. In the programs sub-menu click on the name of the program you wish to open. If you don't see the name of the program, scroll down on the black arrow that may appear at the top-middle or bottom-middle of the program list. If you still don't see the program's name, or there was no black arrow, then your program name is listed within a Program Group.

In this case, you need to know the name of the program Group. Point on the name of the Program Group in the Programs Sub-menu, (Some programs group may be listed directly on the Start menu) and click the program name in the Program Group Sub-Menu.

Use the Browse windows to find the Program. Double click on the Program in the Create Shortcut dialogue box, the path to the program/shortcut will appear in the Command line box. Click Next in the Next dialogue box scroll to find the Start up folder. Double click on the Startup folder.

You now have the option of entering the name you want to see to represent the program on the startup menu, or you can leave the default name. Click Finish, and then click OK.

You can create a shortcut to any program, file, or folder. You may want to create a shortcut for the word processing program you use, or for a folder that you use frequently. These shortcuts can be placed on your desktop or Start menu for easy accessibility.

( To move several files at the same time that are listed consecutively, click the first file you want to move and then, holding down the Shift key, click the last file you want to move. All of the files in between will be selected and you can drag them all to the new location.

If you want to move more than one file, but they are not listed consecutively, hold down the CTRL key while you select the files, then drag them to the new location.

These are key combinations that save time, when you have one hand on the mouse and the other at the keyboard. Some of these will work in many programs such as Word, Excel. Work out which ones work for you and save you time.

These Windows Keyboard Shortcuts deal with other keys besides the letter keys. Try them out, and see which shortcuts will save you time:

[CTRL] and [F4] Close active document or group Windows (does not work with some applications)

At the bottom left of your screen, there is the "Start" button. Use the Right button of your mouse to click on that button, and then left-click on "Explore"

Windows Explorer is the software program that best lets you manage your computer's files. It represents your computer as one big filing cabinet. We'll use that analogy as the tutorial progresses to best explain Explorer.

As you view Windows Explorer, you see the screen broken into two halves. One side contains the folders, or directory tree. The other side shows the files and folders inside the folder selected. Look on the left window. The disk drive is usually labeled the "A drive" (A:). The hard drive is usually labeled the "C drive" (C:). CD Rom drives can be any number of other letters such as D, E, F, G, H, etc. Your "C Drive" has a label. Can you find its name? Your "C-Drive" can be labeled anything you wish to call it.

Notice how both the A: and the C: are located under "My Computer". That makes sense when we think about it, because both of the drives are in the computer.

Just as the two drives are in "My Computer", the C: drive has folders in it as well. The folders "My Documents" All files are contained within C: This is where we draw the analogy of a filing cabinet. You have the Cabinet as a whole (My Computer), and then you have Drawers (C: and A:). Inside the drawers is the folder named (My Documents), and inside the folders may be sub-folders or the papers themselves (files).

Notice the plus (+) signs by certain folders in the diagram above. Those indicate the folder has other sub-folders contained within. Click on the plus sign, and the tree will expand further.

As you can see, if you click on the plus sign to the left of a folder, it shows a sub-folder. This folder may also have its own sub-folders, as the plus sign to the left of it shows. Windows Explorer shows the sub-folders and the files within on the right side. We have created a file called Readme.txt; it is in the subdirectory of My Documents called Help Files. Can you find it using Windows Explorer with what we have learned. Try it now!

Now you have all the tools to organize the files on your hard drive. The main reason people lose files on their computer is that they don't remember which folder they saved it under.

You can now easily create your own folder system, and save files under appropriate headings.

Ok, that's the basics to run Windows. Word 2000 and Excel 2000 (part of the Office 2000 suite) are important programs to run within Windows.

The highlighted bar at the top of the window, that shows what the Icon is for and the names of, the program and/or document. It also shows a brief explanation of the purpose of a button the mouse pointer is resting on.

Etc. Pointing (and clicking the first time only) on a menu causes a drop-down menu to appear revealing the names of commands and options contained in that menu.

Situated below the menu bar, it contains shortcut buttons with icons representing commands. Pointing to an icon causes an explanation of the command to appear in the title bar and below the mouse pointer. Clicking on an icon causes the command it represents to be executed.

Located below the Standard Tool Bar, contains more shortcut buttons to options and commands.

Commands and options placed on these tool bars are also found within menus in the menu bar. Programs with tool bars provide the facility for the user to add and remove buttons to and from these bars.

Additionally, moving the tool bars around can change the order of the tool bars, although a standard installation puts them in the order specified

Some commands, e.g. PRINT command, when activated causes a small window, called a Dialog Box, to appear. In the dialog box, the user can type in, or click on, further instructions relative to the command, and then cause the command to be executed by clicking on the OK button (or a button that means to go ahead and execute), or pressing ENTER on the keyboard.

This is an optional bar. When activated, it appears below the Formatting Tool Bar.

Situated along the bottom of a window. It contains the names and icons of opened programs and indicators which may include the current document page number, section number, page number of total number of pages, depending on the application

The user usually has the option of adding or removing any bar, (except the title bar) by opening view in the menu bar and clicking on the name of the bar in the view drop-down list.

Appears along the left side and bottom of the document. When the entire document will not fit within the window. Click or Drag the arrows to move (scroll) the document through the window. The position of the scroll bar indicates the position of the screen relative to the document margins. You may also drag the scroll bar.

It indicates where text we type will be inserted or positioned. This is not the mouse pointer. The insertion point changes ti an arrow when pointed in the left margin, on selected text, or on the bars.

There are up sides and down sides to every purchasing decision, and computers are no different: You can save money or you can lose everything—so plan carefully. You need to decide what you want or need before going anywhere. Discuss it with the rest of the family, colleagues, boss, etc.

Before you sign up for a computer system that does everything but make coffee, make sure the entire system is covered by the warranty—if not, I would not recommend you buy it. Spend a little time doing your homework first and you may not be disappointed. Spend $10 in an Internet café and check out what is available: Here are some sites to help you along:

Please Note: I am not recommending any of these companies, merely listing them so you can do your own research.

Find out what are the latest features and packages on offer and how much they increase the price of the overall system. Find out what independent reviewers (not the makers) are saying about them. Go to the company's support site and see what users think of the model, or what problems they are encountering. If it has a particular video card, check out what the users think of it. Check for complaints in some of the independent support forums.

These days fast computers can run most off-the-shelf software. If you are planning to run special software for graphics, audio, animation, video editing, or anything that may require special hardware considerations, check with the manufacturer of the software for their recommendations.

Warning: Some computer stores install illegal (pirated) software on new computers to keep the price down, or have ulterior motives by selling the computer at a high price and increasing their profit by installing software the computer dealer paid nothing for. Believe me: they are not doing you any favors: you can't get upgrades or technical support from the manufacturer with illegal software and when you add in having buy the original software you thought was included, it may turn out to be a very, very expensive system.

Consider this fact: over 90% of computer problems are software-related, not hardware. A computer is a system made up of hardware and software. If the warranty only covers hardware, you should look for another supplier.

Be careful with bank-financed computers. They tend to be joint marketing programs between the bank and a computer retailer at very high interest rates. Make sure you know exactly what you are getting and check how much the system costs over the full period. Also, consider that the computer may not even last the 3 years finance period, so you may be paying for something that doesn’t work. You have been warned.

If you plan to run a certain software program, check with the manufacturer for their hardware recommendations. Don't choose hardware that meets minimum requirements, but recommended system requirements, as you will soon outgrow it, or have no expansion capabilities.

Sony, Compaq, Hewlett Packard, Gateway and Dell, are leading brands that sell bundled computer systems.

• Generally supplied with a Recovery CD so you can reinitialize the computer to the manufacturer's original specifications).

• They have high-quality technical support and back their models for years after release.

• Many authorized service centers have a changeover policy if they can't fix the problem immediately.

• Bundled systems usually have cut-down (or Lite versions—cut down features) of software that need to be upgraded for extra money.

• The home systems are usually bundled with entry-level applications e.g. Microsoft Works instead of XP Office.

• Systems are usually more expensive than (generic) no-name computers, where stores stick their own labels on them.

• Some manufacturers may use proprietary hardware, which is not readily replaceable with generic items (and they may be more than twice the price).

• The computers tend not to be very ungradable (the companies prefer you buy the next model up).

No-Name PCs usually manufactured in Taiwan (Republic of China), Korea, etc, can be very risky buys unless you know what you are looking for. Cheaper systems usually have lesser or almost unknown parts manufacturers and cut their costs by using cheap entry-level (non-ungradable) parts. Quite often, the main boards have integrated sound, video, modem and network (no adapter cards). These are purely software driven and do not perform as well as adapter cards. That is no problem, if that is what you want and are on a budget, and you know the limitations of each, but at least make sure you know what is inside.

The modem is known as HCF (Host Controller-Free), which means the modem is purely software driven. The modem gets its instruction set from the spare cycles of the CPU (so it takes away from performance of the computer). These modems are subject to line dropouts, but the technology is slowly improving with WinLT/Lucent Technology. (With the availability of DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) external DSL modems do not suffer these weaknesses))

The sound is usually lower quality (without 3D effects) and not really suitable for recording; The video is usually limited and uses "shared memory" which means it gets its video memory from your RAM (main memory) E.g. 128Mb main memory with 32Mb shared video, only gives you 96Mb for Windows and applications.

Even more concerning is, these devices are cheap and the manufacturers tend to have less than satisfactory support on the Internet sites, and the vendors (computer stores) tend to discontinue the models quickly, so support soon disappears—and as new software is released your component will never be updated. Spend a little extra and invest in a brand product with a proven track record.

Therefore, the course has focused on getting you literate with computers, so hopefully you are also ready to specify your own computer.

Motherboard manufacturers make both integrated and non-integrated motherboards (which means you need to add adapter cards for modem, video, sound and LAN). Look carefully at the brands and models. If you are on a budget, then integrated sound/video/modem/LAN may be the way to go, but now at least you know the issues.

Mainboards: Stay with brands such as Gigabyte, Asus, MSI, QDI, and Tyan. Go to www.tomshardware.com for a more complete comparison of mainboards. It is better to use Intel chipsets, although Via is reliable. Realize that chipset manufactures do not make motherboards. Do your own homework. Determine if the company stands behind their products. Go to www.driverguide.com user: drivers password: all and check what customers have to say about them when it comes to getting technical support or drivers (software that makes the hardware work on your operating system).

Intel Pentium and AMD Duron and Athlon processors are excellent. The AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) CPU is slightly cheaper and generally a bit faster, so represents good value for money, but AMD processors use a different motherboard than computers with the Pentium. Avoid WinChip/IDT CPUs—they have compatibility issues, even though they are much cheaper than Intel.

This should be a leading brand name because the difference in price between a good and bad CD is usually only a few dollars. I recommend Sony, Toshiba, and Pioneer. Many DVD-ROMS are unbranded on the fascia panel and makes it difficult for a buyer to determine the manufacturer. Check the web sites for reviews, not company-produced PR statements.

This is a low-end, low failure rate item. Stay with Panasonic, Sony, NEC, and Mitsumi. These are all well known and reliable. They are cheap to replace, so the choice is not critical.

Do your homework on these. There are many, many options. Compatibility issues are numerous, so check around first. Software for burning is tricky. Stay with Adaptec, Roxio, Nero, to name a few. Specific software is bundled with certain CD-RWs, and in many cases will not work with another software program. If your purpose is to clone copy-protected games software—then you are on your own. It is possible in some cases, but you may finish up producing CDs that don’t read. There are web sites that show you how to break copy protection, but I would suggest if you like the game, buy it and support the industry, so they are in business to produce more great games.

These are a relatively expensive component of the computer, so it makes sense to choose carefully. Once again refer to web site reviews. Try for 7200RPM (revolutions per minute) instead of the usual 5400RPM, they usually only cost $20-30 more, but performance is vastly better.

When your new computer arrives, make sure you have everything included. Some unscrupulous traders do not supply the CD-ROMs with the drivers, so in the event you have a problem, they will be paid to do something you could have done yourself. This is a dishonest practice to tie you to them for additional support (not covered by warranty). If the supplier is reputable, everything will be included in your system. If you go to another computer store afterwards, you may void your warranty in any case. But if you arrive with your computer without the original software CDs, the repaired is obliged to charge you more, because they have to search for the software.

I am always interested to hear of reader’s good and bad experiences when dealing with local computer stores. Please feel free to email me at: LearnComputer@theMail.com

Never remove the case lid without unplugging the current cable located at the back of the System Unit. FIRE, DEATH or ELECTRICAL SHOCK could result if you try to work on the computer while the current is connected. Don't open a Power Supply Unit or Monitor, as they are very high voltage devices-and there are NO user serviceable parts inside them. Always refer them to a professionally qualified technician for service.

If you are having problems operating a program in Windows, press the F1 key or select "Help" on the Menu bar.

Sometimes you may find that your Computer has Frozen, Try pressing the Esc key and click the mouse. If Windows does not respond, try pressing the F1 key (for help on Windows). If the Help dialog does not appear, you may be tempted to just turn off the computer and then on again. Resist that temptation.

Try to Warm Boot the computer, hold down the CTRL key and Alt key and press the Del key once. This key combination, CTRL-Alt-Del, is commonly needed when using Windows and is a safe way to try to restart Windows. Just turning off a computer is very severe on the computer.

If you try to warm boot from Windows, you see a warning screen that explains the potential risks and option available to you. In most cases Windows performing some other task or one of the applications you're running is conflicting with Windows causes the lock-up. You can probably regain control of Windows without rebooting, simply by exiting the program that caused your computer to lock up. If you press CTRL-Alt-Del and you see the Close Program dialog box, Windows may display [not responding] next to the name of the program that's causing problems. Click the program's name and click the End Task button.

Sometimes, the CTRL-Alt-Del key combination doesn't work. You press the combination and nothing happens or you get Microsoft's now infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD: a blue screen-full of writing telling you to CTRL-Alt-Del to restart). It usually means the Windows system has become unstable. What next? If your computer has a Reset button to reboot your computer, press it now. Just as CTRL-Alt-Del, the Reset button reboots the computer without turning the power off and on.

Reboot (warm or cold boot) your computer only as a last resort. If you are working on a project and have to reboot, you will lose everything you have done the last time you saved your work. Some programs make automatic backup copies at set intervals, e.g. each 15 minutes.

If CTRL-Alt-Del doesn't work and your computer doesn't have a reset button, you will have to cold boot your computer. To Cold Boot your computer, start by pressing the power button to the "off" position. (Don't turn off the monitor or any other devices, just the system unit.)

Wait 30-60 seconds for the system to come to a complete rest and to allow the system clear everything from memory (remember from previous classes, the contents of main memory is lost when power is turned off). You may also hear the hard disk drive spin to a halt. This is important, because if you turn the power back on before the hard disk stops spinning, you may crash the hard disk drive. Wait until you hear the powering down has stopped completely, and press the power "on" switch on the system unit.

After you have rebooted this way, Windows will usually run ScanDisk, a program that checks the sectors of your hard disk for damage before Windows loads up. If you cancel this ScanDisk, your computer may continue to crash until ScanDisk has been run completely, and repaired any damage. ScanDisk also analyses the hard disk for other more serious errors, which may indicate impending hard disk failure. -Don't ignore these messages!

Shut down your system. Then, check the connection between the computer's mouse ports (located on the back of the System Unit), and the mouse itself. If the mouse is not connected, then line up the arrows on the mouse cable and mouse port. Then, gently but firmly connect the two. Turn on the power.

Check to see if the power supply fan is spinning. (If it is not, then there is no power to the computer at all).

Shut down computer, power off, unplug power to the power supply. Check the Mouse and Keyboard plugs to the back of the computer, if reversed (plugged in the opposite ports) this will halt the computer at the Splash Screen, try reversing the plugs. Plug in the power and reboot the computer.

If you are getting Windows Random Lock-ups or freezes or get non-specific error messages, try the following basic system maintenance steps:

* When it is done searching, hold down the CTRL key and hit A. This will Select all files found. Hit the DELETE key on your keyboard.

* Again hit CTRL-A to select all files found and hit the DELETE key. Close the FIND box.

* Click on the button labeled VIRTUAL MEMORY, click in the white circle next to "Let me specify my own virtual memory settings". This will light up the rest of the screen.

* Change both the MINIMUM and MAXIMUM values to zero. Click OK in the VIRTUAL MEMORY box. Click OK in the SYSTEM PROPERTIES box.

* During the reboot, you may notice the system is running very slow, or you may get an error or two. This is normal. Just click OK to any error messages that may appear.

* When the system is finished rebooting, go back into the VIRTUAL MEMORY settings and change the option back to "Let Windows manage my virtual memory settings". Click OK. It will prompt you to restart again. Click OK.

This will fix most random lock-up problems or errors. Test the system now and see if it worked. If the problem is still there, refer to a qualified service technician.

Here is something else you can try: Be brave, and follow the steps precisely and you won't get into trouble. Start Windows in what is called "Safe Mode". Pressing the F8 key a few times does this, when the computer passes the BIOS screen. You may have to try this a few times to get it at the right time. You should be presented with a screen with boot-up options. We are only interested in selecting Run Windows in Safe Mode, usually number 3 on the list. This will load up Windows without loading the drivers (special programs that let the computer know exactly what devices are connected to it) Don't worry if the display looks blocky (that's because it's loading the default display driver}. When the Desktop is displayed, you should see a box letting you know you are in a special diagnostic mode. Click OK, and right click on the My Computer icon and select Properties, then Device Manager. Do any Icons of the devices in the list, have a large yellow ? over them? If so, remove them by clicking on the Icon and clicking the button at the bottom of the page called "Remove", then confirm your action. Now, try rebooting the computer normally. If this does not solve the problem, you will have to refer the computer to a Windows specialist.

Note: The above only works if you have a PS/2 mouse. If you have a USB mouse, it will not work in Safe Mode.

There are other things that can go wrong with computers that have not covered in this book so far. We expect our computers to last for 10 years or more. Apart from pouring drinks into them or being hit by Power Surges, computers have very few moving parts-but they do wear out and become less reliable as they get older. The hard disk is the most important part because you that's where you store your valuable data. Nevertheless, hard disks have motors and moving parts inside them, and mechanical failure does occur, so it may be impossible to retrieve the data on your hard disk. You must back up your data regularly.

After you have had your computer a while, you may want to add hardware e.g. DVD-ROM. Always check the system requirements of the part you intend to buy-before you buy it. Make certain your computer meets the specifications. If there is a problem, it may be difficult to return a working unit, just because you didn't check if it would work on your PC. Some manufacturers may void warranty when you open the case and add equipment-check first. Always ground yourself before you work on your PC. (An anti-static strap connected from your wrist to a ground--earth)

As computers get older, the electrical contacts become poor and may cause some stray Static Electricity to jump from one component to others inside the PC-causing damage. The results can be very unpredictable from destroying components to damaging the Windows Operating system files.

I am often asked why older computers can't run the latest programs. If you think about it, the new software simply didn't exist when your computer was built. So the software manufacturer made their software work with all new equipment, but due to testing costs, could not ensure all previous hardware ran with it. As newer software is developed your chance of having problems with older computers, (3 years or more) is significantly increased. Even Microsoft have tried to cater for old computers, but software uses the hardware in a way it just wasn't designed to, as the previous programming techniques have long been replaced with new procedures and methods.

Loading new-release game programs can cause lockups. Always check that the game is designed to run on your computers. This is usually printed on a section called "Minimum System Requirements" or something similar. Quite often, you need to get a software fix from the Internet to run the program. Go to the manufacturer’s web site and find the Support section.

Quite often software doesn't run the way it should. We call these "Software Bugs" not to be confused with viruses. Software developers may make mistakes in programming. Windows may encounter the flawed program and shuts down the offending program. Most reputable software manufacturers provide good support on their web sites, to obtain "bug fixes". Stay away from unknown software companies as you may not be able to get the support you need when such a problem occurs.

Computer viruses are programs, usually very small programs, written by people with warped minds, for the express purpose of causing some bad behavior to your computer and replicating itself so it can survive to infect other computers.

Not all viruses do damage, some just come up with funny messages, but they are annoying and alter the behavior of your computer. Other viruses steal passwords; wipe or scramble data on hard disks. We have now seen the emergence of "Smart Viruses", which can modify themselves depending on how your computer is set up. These can turn off your Anti-Viral Software so it can't be detected. There are other viruses that corrupt the BIOS chip, and if the chip is not removable then you have to buy a new motherboard.

Here are some examples of virus-like behavior: Icons disappearing, shivering across the screen when you try to click on them; computer freezing; strange system error messages. Some viruses monitor your most regularly used programs and attach themselves to all the data files, so when you email your friend a funny movie file, it may be an infected virus, which will automatically email itself to everyone on your E-mail Address list, it will in turn email itself to everyone on the receiver's email list. That is how the Love Bug virus spread itself to almost every computer worldwide in less than 12 hours in 1999.

Don't think the Anti-Virus software that came with your computer 12 months ago will protect you from viruses written today—it won't. Think about it. How could your computer scan for and detect a "Virus Signature" (a unique signature the virus leaves, which is detected by the Anti-Virus software) that wasn’t written when you bought your computer? Anti-Virus software can monitor for "virus-like activity", but the virus creators are getting smarter and learning how to hide the viruses from previous generations of Anti-Virus software. Keep the virus definitions up-to-date to avoid the stress.

Enough stories, I could tell you about many, many more. Currently there are more than 45,000 identified viruses and variants, and they are growing at an alarming rate. Don't take chances—scan your computer regularly.

Unless you see a message like "Your PC is Stoned!" or the anti-Virus software sounds an alarm, don't automatically assume it is a virus. Some software problems can resemble virus-like activity.

* Invest in a quality Anti-Virus software program. (AVG is my favorite, found at http://www.grisoft.com). At this writing the personal edition is free.

* Keep the Anti-Virus program (definitions) up to date-by regularly downloading them. Out-of-date virus software may give you a false sense of security.

* Scan all of your floppy disks, CD-ROMs, Zip disks already in your possession (including commercial diskettes).

* If you hear news broadcasts warning about a virus that will effect computers on a certain day, stay off the computer if at all possible.

* Pay attention to official warning emails and newsletters from your Anti-Virus software vendor only—there are plenty of hoax virus warnings around.

* Never assume a computer that has had a virus is now virus-free just because it is not acting up anymore. Some viruses are programmed to hide themselves and start attacking later. Make sure the latest virus definition is installed when you remove the virus, to be certain you are indeed virus-free.

Don't let the virus creators spoil your fun with a computer, or get you so scared you won't use it. Simple measures will protect you—so have fun, but be careful!

So what are Acronyms? They are words or expressions, which are made by combining letters-usually the first letter of each word. For example ASCII is the acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. The ones listed are not all necessarily used in this book, but should be a helpful place to find abbreviations long after the course is finished.

A button does some command in a program when it is clicked. Buttons usually have a 3-dimensional look, although you may have to move the mouse over the button for it to look 3 dimensional. You should single-click on buttons (do not double-click).

To press and let go of the mouse button quickly (after first pointing the mouse cursor at an object on the screen). See also: double-click and right-click.

The clipboard is a temporary storage area inside the computer. It is used to copy or move data from one program to another, or from one area of a document to another.

To close a program means to end a program. Click the X button in the top right corner of a window to close that program. When you close a program, it is no longer active. If you have not saved a file when you close a program, the program will first display a dialog box asking if you would like to save your file before closing the program. If you choose YES, the program will save the file, then close. If you choose NO, the program will not save the file, but the program will still close (you will have lost the unsaved data). If you choose CANCEL, the program will NOT close.

Select a piece of text or object and then press Control-C to copy the contents to the clipboard. You may also right-click on the selected (black) area and select Copy.

Select a piece of text or object and then press Control-X to Cut the contents to the clipboard. You may also right-click on the selected (black) area and select Cut to remove it to the clipboard.

The default setting is the setting, which will be assumed unless you change it. For example, the default color for text in most web browsers is black, however, I can make text green or any color I want (by overriding the default). Another example, programs will install by default to hard disk C (the first hard disk), but most programs will allow you to install to another hard disk.

This is what you see on your computer screen when you have no windows open. It may be a solid color, or it may be graphics. On the desktop, there will be icons, including one called "My Computer" and "The Recycle Bin."

This is a small window that is demanding your attention. You must respond before you can continue using the program that displayed the dialog box. A dialog box does not have a minimize or maximize button and does not show up on the taskbar. It is only a portion of its "parent" program. Most dialog boxes have a cancel button or you may press the Escape key.

Move your mouse pointer over the object, then press the left mouse button twice in a row quickly. Be VERY careful to not move the mouse as you double-click. If you move the mouse while trying to double-click, you may end up dragging (moving) the object instead of double-clicking it.

Move the mouse pointer over the object you wish to drag, then hold down the left mouse button. While holding the mouse button, move the mouse pointer (and the object) to the location you want it, then let go of the mouse button. This will move or copy the object to the new location, depending on the context.

A file is a long sequence of bytes, which represent data. Each file has a name and an extension, which are separated by a dot (a period). The name, of course, identifies the file. The extension tells the computer what type of data is contained within the file. For example, a file called "Letter to George.DOC" is a Microsoft Word DOCUMENT. The file you are reading now is called "glossary.html". HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, and it is the file type for web pages.

A folder can be thought of as a location on your hard disk or floppy disk. Folders used to be called directories/subdirectories. A folder contains files and can contain nested folders (subfolders). Folders and subfolders are used to organize your hard disk. For example, you probably already have a folder named "My Documents" on your hard disk; you could place a subfolder named "Work" under "My Documents", and place all your work documents within this subfolder. This way, you can keep your work documents separate from your personal documents.

Text formatting refers to the attributes of text other than the actual text itself. For example, bold, italics, underlining, color, and size, are all formatting attributes of text. The location of text can also be considered part of the formatting. Text can be automatically centered, indented, or positioned in other ways. When you wish to change the format of text, you usually have to select the text, then do the formatting by clicking the appropriate buttons. Occasionally, there are exceptions to the select-then-do instruction. In Microsoft Word, there is a feature called Format Painter with which you click some already formatted text, then click the Format Painter toolbar button, and then drag the mouse cursor across some other text. The other text will be "painted" with the formatting of the original text selected. If you double-click the Format Painter button, then it will be "locked" and you can paint lots of text. When you are done, click the Format Painter button again to turn it off.

A storage device inside your computer. The letter C represents your hard disk. You cannot physically see your hard disk without opening up your computer, however there is usually a light on the front of a computer, which shows when the hard disk is being accessed. Modern hard disks can store more than a thousand times as much as a single standard floppy disk. A hard disk is what permanently stores all the data and programs in your computer. A hard disk is not the computer's memory, however.

An icon is a picture used to represent an object. Some example objects are: data files, program files, folders, email messages, and drives. Each type of object has a different icon. That means that different types of files each have an icon representing its file type. MS Word files will have the MS Word icon; MS Excel files will have the MS Excel icon; Etc.

Established in 1969 by the US military unit called DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) as a military response to thermonuclear global war. The idea is, that when a server (computer which serves information and lets other users connect to it), was hit by nuclear attack, the searching server would keep trying all the other servers around the world until it bypassed the downed server-thus keeping communications open. Thankfully, the Internet has never had to perform that task, however the concept remains the same today.

A keyboard is a device for entering text into a computer. Important: The letters you type will appear wherever the focus (the text cursor) is on the screen, not the mouse. In other words, you cannot just move the mouse somewhere and start typing, you must click to move the focus, and then you may type.

Maximize means to make a window take up the full screen. To maximize, click once on the button that has a picture of a square. It is next to the X (Close button) in the top right corner of a window. If it looks like two overlapping squares, then the window is already maximized, and that button is now the restore button. Once a window has been maximized, you can no longer resize it without restoring it. Do not get restore and minimize mixed up.

The word memory, used on its own, refers to random access memory (RAM). See RAM.

Minimize means to shrink a program down so that it is only displayed on the task bar. To minimize, click once on the leftmost button of the three in the top right corner of a window. It looks like an underscore [ _ ]. When you minimize a program, it remains active. You can bring it back by clicking on the task bar button with the program's name on it.

A modem is a device that allows your computer to communicate with another computer over phone lines. Usually you will have a modem inside your computer (internal), but there are external modems that plug into the back of a computer. A modem is used to connect to an Internet Service Provider that provides access to the Internet. All modern modems are also capable of sending and receiving faxes, but you must have fax software running to do either. So what does modem stand for? Answer: It stands for MOdulator/DEModulator!

Your monitor is the display (the computer screen). Common monitor sizes are 15", 17" and 19". It may be standard screen, flat or LCD (Liquid Crystal Display).

Often, we may use the word mouse to refer to the mouse cursor. A mouse, in computer terminology, is a device you can move to select items on the computer screen. On the screen, you will see a mouse cursor, which you can move by moving the mouse.

The mouse cursor is a little picture that represents the location on the screen you want to select. You can move the mouse cursor by moving the mouse device. Once the mouse cursor is over the item to want to interact with, you can click or double-click to activate that item. In many cases, the picture you see for the mouse cursor will change, depending on what is underneath it. For example, if you move the mouse cursor over this link, the mouse cursor will probably change into a pointing hand (depending on your software). This indicates that you can single-click to go to that link.

Please note that there is a separate text cursor that shows where text will appear as you type. You cannot just move the mouse cursor to where you want text and start typing; you must first click to move the text cursor to that location.

You must open a file to view or edit it. When you open a file, it is copied from the hard disk into the computer's high-speed memory. Memory is temporary workspace only. If you change the file, you must save it (which copies the file back to the permanent hard disk).

OS stands for Operating System. The operating system is the program that runs a computer. The operating system takes care of managing files and folders (such as renaming, moving, copying, and deleting files). It also provides you the ability to start the other software you have on your computer. In addition, any modern operating system usually provides many APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that make it easy to write advanced programs without reinventing the wheel. For example, any modern graphical operating system will include the ability for a program to create a button. Operating Systems also usually include many programs, such as a text editor, that are almost essential to have on every computer. Windows 98 is the most common operating system for modern computers.

Once the data is on the Clipboard, you position the Insertion Point where you want the contents of the clipboard to be pasted, then press Control-V. Or you may select Paste from the Edit pull-down menu.

A program is a set of instruction sequences for a computer. Each sequence provides the program with a particular function (for example, most programs have a print function). Altogether, these instruction sequences make up the entire application. One application, for example, is a word processor. A word processor will have a File | Open function which you can access by clicking the file menu, then clicking open (referred to as the open command). It will also have a file save function, a print function, a spell check function, and many more.

A protocol is a method of communication between two devices. You can think of it as the language the devices use to communicate with each other, although it is not the same as a programming language (by which a human programmer controls a computer). Different brands of printers, for example, each use their own protocol (or "language") by which a computer can communicate with the printer. This is why a driver program must be written for each printer.

RAM is short for Random Access Memory, usually just referred to as memory. A computer's memory is not like its hard disk, which is permanent storage. Memory can only store information while the computer is on, however it is much faster than a hard disk. A hard disk is a mechanical device, but memory is on computer chips, and information can be accessed from anywhere on the chip almost instantly. When you open a document, it is copied from the hard disk into the computer's memory. There, it can be easily edited; words can be inserted into a letter, and the rest of the document quickly shifts to accommodate the new words. When you save the document, all your changes will be copied from the computer's memory to the hard disk (overwriting the old version on the hard disk).

Restore means to make a window smaller than full screen, so that it can be resized. This way you can open multiple Windows and have them displayed at once. We call this multi-tasking. See also: Maximize.

ROM stands for Read Only Memory. Generally, it refers to computer chips that contain data, but computer compact discs are abbreviated CD-ROM in order to differentiate them from ordinary music CDs. Compare to: RAM.

You must save anything you create on a computer if you want to be able to access it later. While you are working on a document, it only exists in the computer's temporary memory (except for the previously saved copy). When you save the document, it is copied to the hard disk, which is permanent storage.

Select means to highlight data. To select text, for example, hold down the mouse button at the beginning of what you want to select, then move the mouse to the end of what you want to select (and let go of the mouse button). The selected text will now be in inverse (opposite) colors. This is only to show what text is selected, it does not affect the printed document.

If you want to change data in a document, you must first select the data, then do the command. For example, if you want to make some text bold, you must first select the text, then click the bold button. You cannot click bold then select the text. Select-then-do may seem backwards, but it is actually easier. Suppose you also wanted the text to be italicized. Since the text is still selected from when you made it bold, all you have to do is click the italics button.

Before you turn off your computer, you should issue the shutdown command so that any data in memory can be saved to disk. To do this, click the "Start" button on your taskbar, then click shutdown, then click "yes".

This is the portion of your screen including the Start button, the time display, and everything in-between. The start button gives you access to the programs installed on your computer, your system settings, a shut down command, and more. Immediately to the right of the start button are buttons for each program you are currently running. You will probably also have little icons to the left of the time display for miscellaneous programs that make the computer work. For example, you most likely have a speaker icon for your sound, maybe an icon for anti-virus software, and others. Try double-clicking any of these to see what they are.

The text cursor is the location that text will appear as you type it. It is also called the insertion point. With modern software, it is usually a blinking vertical line. It will normally be at the end of the line of text that you are typing, however it could also be placed between two characters of text. You can press backspace to erase a character to the left of the text cursor, or you can press delete to erase a character to the right of the text cursor. Do not get the text cursor mixed up with the mouse cursor. You cannot just move the mouse cursor to where you want text, then start to type. You must first click (where you want to change text), then the text cursor will appear. You can then type or delete text. Although you can click wherever you want the text cursor to be, you can also move it with the arrow keys, page up, page down, home, and end.

A toolbar is a collection of buttons, usually organized by category. Some programs allow you to turn individual toolbars on and off (to display or hide them), and you may even be able to customize the toolbar by changing what buttons are shown (or even add your own buttons). Often, you can drag a toolbar (by dragging from an edge of the toolbar where there is no button) to move it to a different location on the screen. If a novice user does this, though, the user may not know what he or she did and may "lose" the toolbar. Usually, you can turn toolbars on and off by clicking the "view" menu, then choosing "toolbars".

A web browser is a program that you use to view web pages. The two most popular web browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.

A web page is a rich document that can contain richly formatted text, graphics, animation, sound, and much more. Every web page on the Internet has a unique address, which starts with the name of the computer that holds that page. Within a web page, words and pictures can be linked to other pages. When you activate a link, you will be taken to another page automatically.

A window is a rectangle portion of the display, which is being used for a specific program. Each program has its own window. It is possible to have more than one window on the screen at one time. The word windows with a lower case 'w', refers to more than one window; with an upper case 'W', it refers to Microsoft Windows, the operating system for most personal computers.

A windowpane is simply a rectangular portion of a window. For example, a window may be divided in half vertically. In this case, you would have two windowpanes, one on the left, and the other on the right.

Microsoft Windows is the name of the program which runs your computer if you use a standard PC. It allows you to run other programs, each in their own window. It also allows you to view and manage the files on your disk drives using icons to represent each item. Windows XP is currently the latest version of this program.

Microsoft Windows 98 is the latest version of Microsoft Windows. It adds much improved Internet software, support for TV and DVD, and more. It is also supposed to start itself and other programs faster than Windows 95. It is still backward compatible with Windows 3.1 & DOS.

WYSIWYG stands for What You See Is What You Get. It is pronounced "wizzy-wig". It means that what you see on your screen while you edit your file, looks the same as what you get when you print the file. Some older word processors were not WYSIWYG, and formatting (such as bold or underline) would show up on-screen as strange codes (but look fine when printed). Today, ordinary word processors are almost always WYSIWYG