Computers They're Not Magic! (for the most part)‏ Adapted from Ryan Moore

Acronyms PC  “Personal Computer” (very vague)‏  Most often means tower+monitor+etc running Microsoft Windows Laptop  small & portable PC Netbook  very small & portable PC

2 Basic Categories Hardware  Physical components of the computer Software  Not physical (stored digitally on a disk, for example)‏  Computer programs that let the user interact with the hardware

Hardware (rarely changes)‏ User Interface Devices  mouse, keyboard, microphone, speaker, monitor The Parts Inside the Computer  CPU  Hard disk  RAM  Power supply  Graphics card  Sound card

Software Operating System (OS)‏  Overall set of software that let user interact with mouse, keyboard, network, other programs, everything Application Software  What most people mean when they say “software”  Let the user do a specific task browse the Internet someone or type up a document

PC High Level View Monitor  shows the picture Tower  generates the picture Keyboard & Mouse  user controls Speakers (not shown)‏

A See-Through View

CPU – Central Processing Unit Does most of the “work” (add, move memory around, etc)‏ The heart & brain of the computer Interpret & perform instructions

RAM Temporary (but fast, somewhat small) storage Loses contents when power turned off

Storage “Permanently” store programs & data Lots of space Doesn't lose data when no power Slow (relatively)! Examples:  USB Flash Drive  Hard disk  CDs, DVDs

Storage Pictures

Other Devices USB ports  Universal Serial Bus – generic connector for tons of “stuff”  cameras, keyboards, mice, printers, flash drives  Firewire is a similar idea Ethernet port  typical high speed wired network connection VGA or DVI – video port (connect to monitor)‏ etc.

Software, in more detail Operating System (OS) Software  takes care of low level things that all programs might rely upon Application Software  Using OS, allows users do their work  Might use OS to find mouse position & clicks  Might decide to save the user's file (tell OS what data to write and where to write it [filename], OS controls the hard disk)‏

Interaction Application Software Operating System User Interface Hardware User Hardware

Microsoft Windows XP

Microsoft Windows 7

Mac OS X

Linux (Ubuntu)‏

Microsoft Office 2007 Word Excel Outlook PowerPoint Access Publisher

Microsoft Word Word processor  type and print reports, letters, papers, etc.  spell check, thesaurus, built in  automate common tasks create tables bulleted lists & numbered lists  Saves in.docx format

Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet application  Perform arithmetic and statistics across one or more cells (pieces) of data Using formulas and functions  Generate graphs  A change in one cell will automatically update any cells that depend on the changed cell  Saves in.xlsx format

Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation program  Slides of information for presentation  Each slide can have: graphics text  lists, paragraphs, etc. animation  Transition between slides  Saves in.pptx format

Microsoft Access Database program  Store data records in tables Like Excel rows of data, but specialized to the task at hand E.g., column 1 is always a date, column 2 is a number  Perform queries across the records E.g., find all customers who live in zip code Automatically hide all the information you don't want to see.  Good for businesses  Saves in.accdb format

Already Familiar With Office? Office 2007 Changed / Added:  Ribbon Interface  New document format Old versions of Office cannot by default read these Solution: save in old format when giving file to someone with an old version Ribbon Interface in Microsoft PowerPoint