UNDERSTANDING FILES AND FOLDERS

ORGANIZATON COMPUTER HARD DRIVES HOLD AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF DATA OR INFORMATION. KNOWING HOW A COMPUTER’S ORGANIZATION SYSTEM WORKS WILL HELP YOU FIND WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR. COMPUTERS USE FILES AND FOLDERS TO ORGANIZE DATA.

WHAT IS A FILE? A FILE IS A COLLECTION OF DATA THAT IS STORED TOGETHER FILES CAN BE STORED ON A HARD DRIVE, A FLOPPY DISK, OR A CD. EVERYTHING THAT A COMPUTER DOES IS BASED ON DATA STORED IN FILES YOU CAN DO LOTS OF THINGS WITH FILES – CREATE NAME RENAME SAVE DELETE CERTAIN FILES CAN EVEN BE LOOKED AT, LISTENED TO AND RUN.

COMPUTER FILES IN SOME WAYS, FILES ARE LIKE TELEVISION SHOWS. ALL TV SHOWS HAVE 3 THINGS NAME LOCATION LENGTH

FILE NAMES FILE NAMES CONSIST OF 2 PARTS NAME TYPE COMPUTER FILES COME IN DIFFERENT TYPES TEXT FILES GRAPHIC FILES PROGRAM FILES FILES IN MANY COMPUTER SYSTEMS, FILES ARE NAMED SO THAT YOU KNOW WHAT TYPE OF FILE IT IS JUST BY LOOKING AT THE ABBREVIATION BEHIND THE NAME. A PERIOD IS USED TO SEPARATE THE NAME FORM THE TYPE LIKE THIS: NAME.TYPE

FILE EXTENSIONS ONE IMPORTANT THING THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT FILE TYPES OR EXTENSIONS IS THAT THEY ARE ALWAYS WRITTEN AS ABBREVIATIONS, USUALLY WITH 3 LETTERS FOR EXAMPLE.TXT IS FOR A TEXT DOCUMENT.DOC IS FOR MICROSOFT WORD.EXE IS FOR AN EXECUTABLE PROGRAM

GRAPHICS.JPG – SAY “JAY-PEG” COMPRESSED IMAGE COMMONLY USED FOR STORING DIGITAL PHOTOS.GIF – GIFS ARE COMMON FORMAT FOR WEB GRAPHICS.BMP - ALSO KNOWN AS A “BUMP” FILE.

TEXT.PDF – PORTABLE DOCUMENT FORMAT, STANDARD FOR DOCUMENT EXCHANGE.HTM OR.HTML – USED TO DISPLAY TEXT AND IMAGES IN A WEB BROWSER..DOC – MICROSOFT WORD DOCUMENT

COMPRESSED FILES COMPRESSED FILES USE FILE COMPRESSION IN ORDER TO SAVE DISK SPACE..ZIP – A ‘ZIPPED” FILE IS A COMMON TYPE OF COMPRESSION IN WHICH EVERY FILE IS COMPRESSED SEPARATELY.SIT – COMPRESSION FORMAT USED ON MAC SYSTEMS

LOCATION FILES ARE STORED IN CERTAIN PLACES WITHIN YOUR COMPUTER, MUCH LIKE TV PROGRAMS ARE SHOWN ON CERTAIN CHANNELS. SO, TO FIND A FILE YOU MUST KNOW WHERE IT IS LOCATED, JUST LIKE YOU MUST KNOW ON WHAT CHANNEL TO FIND YOUR FAVORITE TV SHOW. IF YOU FORGET WHAT CHANNEL A TV SHOW IS ON, YOU CAN EITHER FLIP THROUGH CHANNELS UNTIL YOU FIND THE PROGRAM OR YOU CAN LOOK IN A TV GUIDE TO FIND THE INFORMATION YOU NEED QUICKLY.

SEARCH THE QUICKEST WAY TO FIND FILES ON MOST COMPUTERS IS TO SEARCH THIS IS A TYPE OF SEARCH PROGRAM WHERE YOU CAN TYPE IN THE NAME OF A FILE AND THE COMPUTER WILL SEARCH AND TELL YOU WHERE THE FILE IS LOCATED. IF YOU USE A WINDOWS OPERAT9ING SYSTEM, SEARCH IS LOCATED ON YOUR START MENU

MINUTES VS BYTES TV PROGRAMS, LIKE FILES, HAVE SPECIFIC LENGTHS. TV SHOWS MAY BE 30 MINUTES LONG, 1 HOUR LONG, OR SEVERAL HOURS LONG FILES ARE NOT MEASURED IN TIME, BUT IN BYTES. A BYTE IS A MEASUREMENT OF STORED DATA LARGER FILES MAY BE MEASURED IN KILOBYTES (KB) OR MEGABYTES (MB). THE LENGTH OF A FILE TELLS HOW MUCH STORAGE SPACE THAT FILE IS USING WITHIN THE COMPUTER.

FOLDERS OR DIRECTORIES WITH SO MANY THOUSANDS OF FILES STORED INSIDE A COMPUTER, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO KEEP THEM ORGANIZED. FOLDERS, ALSO KNOWN AS DIRECTORIES, KEEP FILES ORGANIZED BY GROUPING THEM TOGETHER.

FOLDERS MANY TIMES, THE COMPUTER WILL AUTOMATICALLY STORE FILES IN CERTAIN FOLDERS IN ORDER TO KEEP ITSELF ORGANIZED. HOWEVER, WHEN YOU CREATE NEW FILES, YOU MUST DECIDE WHICH FOLDERS TO PUT THEM IN. YOU CAN EVEN CREATE NEW FOLDERS TO STORE YOU FILES…

UNDERSTANDING AN ADDRESS ON A PC, THE ADDRESS MIGHT LOOK LIKE THIS: C:\\MY DOCUMENTS\ADAM\STORIES\ALIEN TAP DANCING.TXT IN THIS CASE, THE LETTER “C” INDICATES THE HARD DRIVE, AS MOST PCS ASSIGN A LETTER EACH DRIVE IN THE SYSTEM. NOTE, THAT THE FILE ADDRESS ALWAYS INCLUDES THE DRIVE, FOLDER(S) AND FILE NAME IN EXACTLY THAT ORDER.

BE A RESPONSIBLE COMPUTER USER NEVER DELETE, MOVE OR RENAME A FILE UNLESS YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY SURE OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING! A COMPUTER RELIES ON MANY FILES TO KEEP ITSELF RUNNING CORRECTLY, SO CHANGING OR DELETING THOSE FILES CAN CAUSE MAJOR COMPUTER MALFUNCTIONS. WHEN IN DOUBT ASK AN EXPERT FOR ASSISTANCE.

A FOLDER ICON CAN LOOK LIKE

A FILE IS SHOWN AS THE APPLICATION USED

A MESSY FOLDER

A CLEAN FOLDER

LETS PRACTICE OPEN MY COMPUTER (START > MY COMPUTER) FIND DOCUMENTS

CREATE A FOLDER FOR YOU RIGHT CLICK CLICK ON NEW CLICK ON FOLDER TYPE YOUR NAME. THIS IS NOW YOUR FOLDER

CREATE A SUB FOLDER MAKE SURE YOU ARE IN YOUR FOLDER MAKE A NEW FOLDER (RIGHT CLICK>NEW>FOLDER NAME THE FOLDERS NUMBERS

CREATE ANOTHER SUB FOLDER IN THE NUMBERS FOLDER CREATE 2 NEW FOLDERS NAMED ODD AND EVEN

NOW LETS PRACTICE SAVING OPEN A BLANK WORD DOCUMENT

TYPE THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first humans, Americans Neil Armstrong ​ and Buzz Aldrin, on the Moon on July 20, 1969 ​. ​

SAVE AS ELEVEN IN THE ODD FOLDER FILE > SAVE AS > BROWSE > DOCUMENTS > YOUR NAME > NUMBERS > ODD > SAVE Close when finished

TYPE THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE The Three Musketeers is a novel by Alexandre Dumas. It is about a young man who he leaves home to go to Paris, to join the musketeers of the guard.

SAVE AS THREE IN THE ODD FOLDER FILE > SAVE AS > BROWSE > DOCUMENTS > YOUR NAME > NUMBERS > ODD > SAVE Close when finished

TYPE THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE There are 50 fifty stars on the flag of the United States, one for each state.

SAVE AS FIFTY IN THE EVEN FOLDER FILE > SAVE AS > BROWSE > DOCUMENTS > YOUR NAME > NUMBERS > EVEN > SAVE Close when finished

TYPE THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE There are four presidents on Mount Rushmore: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

SAVE AS FOUR IN THE EVEN FOLDER FILE > SAVE AS > BROWSE > DOCUMENTS > YOUR NAME > NUMBERS > ODD > SAVE Close when finished

NOW LETS ORGANIZE SUMMER SCHOOL FIRST MAKE A FOLDER CALLED SUMMER SCHOOL 2016 OPEN THE FOLDER AND MAKE 4 SUBFOLDERS FOR EACH OF YOUR CLASSES EXAMPLE COMPUTER TECH FINANCIAL LITERACY MATH ENGLISH

LETS ORGANIZE YOUR COMPUTER TECH FOLDER IN YOUR COMPUTER TECH SUBFOLDER CREATE FIVE MORE SUBFOLDERS BASICS INTERNET WORD EXCEL POWERPOINT

LET’S MOVE STUFF AROUND FIND THE NUMBERS FOLDER FROM EARLY. PUT IT IN THE COMPUTER TECH > BASICS FOLDER.

ASSIGNMENT 1.CREATE A FOLDER CALLED CONTINENTS PUT IT IN YOUR COMPUTER TECH > BASICS FOLDER 2.CREATE A SUBFOLDER FOR EACH OF THE 7 CONTINENTS EUROPE AFRICA ASIA NORTH AMERICA SOUTH AMERICA AUSTRALIA ANTARCTICA 3.FIND A PICTURE FROM EACH CONTINENT AND SAVE IT IN THE CORRECT FOLDER.

NOW WE HAVE TO SEND IT IN IN ORDER TO TURN IN THE FOLDERS WE HAVE TO ZIP THEM UP INTO NICE TIDY FOLDERS WITH THE MOUSE OVER YOUR CONTINENTS FOLDER RIGHT CLICK. SELECT SEND TO SELECT COMPRESSED (ZIPPED) FOLDER RENAME THE ZIPPED FOLDER AS 1_LAST_FIRST_CONTINENTS

DO THE SAME THING WITH YOUR NUMBERS FOLDER WITH THE MOUSE OVER YOUR NUMBERS FOLDER RIGHT CLICK. SELECT SEND TO SELECT COMPRESSED (ZIPPED) FOLDER RENAME THE ZIPPED FOLDER AS 1_LAST_FIRST_NUMBERS