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

email 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 15216.

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