After watching my 76-year-old sister struggle with her first computer, I decided to start a beginner's series on de-mystifying a computer. We're going to start from the very beginning and if I move to fast or use terms you don't understand, please send me e-mail about it.
I hope this can make your computer more "user friendly" for you.
Even if you're not a beginner, you might know someone who is and point out this series to them. Over a period of several issues, I hope to decipher the language, destroy the myths and, perhaps, entice beginners to overcome their fears of computers and begin to use them more effectively.
First, and foremost, why would you buy a computer in the first place?
Most of us use them for little more than the ability to dial up the Internet, send a few e-mail messages and do some simple searches. Despite these small expectations, it's still a struggle for my sister to learn how to use the computer.
In watching her, here are some things I've noticed that she struggles with:
- Clicking and double clicking.
- The individual parts of a window, such as the scroll bars, thinking other information on a page or document is "hidden" from her or not on the page. (Remember when a small baby played hide and seek? Small children thought you actually "disappeared" until they got older. This is almost the same thing -- if you don't know where to look for the remainder of the page.)
- The difference between two separate Web sites.
- Why certain searches don't turn up a Web site ("That's what so and so told me to search for," she says when the search turns up empty, rather than considering that she might have "bad" information.)
A computer doesn't think in the way humans do -- it works in ones and zeros and that's the only way it processes data. It uses binary and hexadecimal numbers rather than our decimal system.
You might think that a computer can't reach high numbers using this system, but it can. By using just ones and zeros, a computer can count to incredibly high numbers and just loves to do so. A computer uses these numbers to "hand out" addresses to each part (such as a printer port) or program, so everything knows what street they're on when the operating system (or hardware) needs to reach them.
Ever had a program to "perform an illegal operation" or crash on you? This usually happens because one program tries to use an address already occupied by another program or piece of hardware. It's just like a bill that's delivered to the wrong address. The operating system is the part of the computer that handles the hard work behind the scenes: Handling communication between an application, such as Microsoft Word, and a printer. When a user clicks on "print" in a Word document, it's the operating system that intercepts and tells the printer (at its address) to print the document. A "device driver," usually from the printer manufacturer, does the chore but it's the operating system that handles the communication between Word and the printer. It uses memory addresses to keep order.
Microsoft Windows is an operating system. It comes in several versions. Although there are prior versions to Windows 95, most of us only know about Windows 98, Windows 2000 and XP. Windows NT is a heavy-duty operating system and is mostly used as a "Web" server -- a server (a beefier computer, with more high end parts than a desktop) that handles duties on the Internet.
Other operating systems include Macintosh (Apple), Unix and Linux, which is a version of Unix that runs on the same type of hardware that Windows uses. Unix runs on different hardware, as do Apple computers. Programs that run on Apple's hardware won't run on Windows computers and vise versa. Some special programs allow some programs that run on Windows to run on Linux.
The "hardware" part of a computer is the computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer and other devices. The "software" consists of the programs and the operating system. Examples of software include Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Word, a virus checker or Outlook Express, an e-mail client.
- 30 -
Questions, comments: comments@askcharlie.com
There is no restriction against any non-profit group using this article as long as it is kept in context with proper credit given the author. The Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an international organization of which this group is a member, brings this article to you.
Date Revised: 23 December 2003