COMPUTERS

What Do I NEED To Know About Computers?

Do you absolutely need to know about computers to use them?
        No, not really.. that's what great about them.
Will it help you to be able to understand how a computer works?
        Of course. It's a tool, and to use any tool effectively, you need to know something about it.

What IS this Beast??

It's a machine, originally designed "to compute" or work with numbers.
The bare bones of the hardware consists of a processor, keyboard, and monitor.

• Inside the "black box", the processor chip is the brains of the machine, far beyond my capability to explain it, except that it does the "processing" of all the information. These just keep getting faster and smarter.


• The keyboard (and the mouse) are called input devices.. because that's where humans can input information. There are others, like the game "joystick".


• The monitor is an output device to show on a screen the desired results. Speakers are the output devices for the blind.

After the generations of improvements, some of the many functions we now can do with the computer are:

• writing,
• reading,
• communication,
• connection with individual people and groups,
• news,
• learning,
• teaching,
• games,
• finance,
• buy and sell,
• information storage,
• and .. oh yes, mathematics, where it all began!

If you'd like to learn more complete information on how it works, go to this website: How Stuff Works. It's very interesting.

I think most of us want to know how to choose the right one for us, which I talk about on Buying a Computer.

We also need to know how to change the different settings of the computer, so please read about your "Desktop" and how to set "Your Home Page".

We need to know how to use the computer peripherals, such as printers, speakers, scanners and cameras in order to do more of what we want to do.

If we have some physical disadvantages, such as arthritis, or poor vision, we definitely need to know about accessibility aids.

Very important to know is computer maintenance, to know what we need to do ourselves regularly to save money and time, and what kind of professional servicing and repairs may be needed time to time.

Behind the Scenes

Software products help the computers produce the result you want.
The Operating System is the connection between human thoughts and computer actions. These and other programs are written by a special breed of people with "superior intellect" called "programmers" kept in little cubicle workspaces, and understood by no one else.
(That wasn't really sarcasm..because it's pretty true!)

After the operating system is installed, then we need other software programs, known as "applications". "MS Word" is for word processing, "Excel" is for number-crunching, and a lot of people use "Quicken" to keep track of their finances. Some programs send and receive your email, some programs are games like Solitaire.

Originally, they were purchased in a retail store, but more often now, you buy them online, and they are downloaded to your computer instantly. Sometimes they are offered "Free", but these are usually 30-day trials only.. or there's some other benefit to the company. As always, "Consumer Beware!"


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