If you are fairly new to computers you may think you know what these terms mean. Read them and you might find that you don't. This stuff is not in alphabetical order because I didn't think of it in alphabetical order.
Computer - The box with the on/off switch and slots to put disks in. Anything not physically inside that box is not a computer. Don't point to your monitor and say, "That's my computer." It's not.
Monitor - The TV thing you see stuff in. A monitor is not a computer. It is a TV thing you see stuff in. It is an output device. It outputs information from the computer so you can see it. Without a monitor, government employees could still download porn but they couldn't see it.
Keyboard - The thing you type on. It is not a computer. It is an imput device used to put data in the computer. A keyboard requires the user to have an opposable thumb (a beak will work but not as well).
Mouse - The little oblong thing with buttons that you click, a roller on the bottom and a wire that plugs in the back of the computer. It will always have at least 2 buttons, a left one and a right one. It is an imput device. More than one computer mouse are called mice or mouses...no one knows for sure. A mouse (notice that I'm trying not to use the plural cause I don't know how) may not have a roller on the bottom.....it may be an optical mouse. You don't need to know what that means.
Printer - The thing that prints. It is not a computer. It is a peripheral that plugs in to the computer. It is an output device used to display (output) data from the computer. If you have an HP All-In-One printer/scanner/fax and you upgrade to Windows XP, you're screwed.
Scanner - The thing you put stuff in or on that you want scanned....duh! It is not a computer. It is a peripheral. It is an imput device. There is no need to explain scanners cause, if you're new to computers, you shouldn't be messing around with them.
Program (application) - Set of instructions that you use to tell the computer what to do. A Word Processor is a program. You use a program to send email and so on. The computer won't do anything without a program to tell it what to do. When you open a program you see a gooey on the screen..... yes, it's called a gooey.....really. A gooey is a GUI (graphic user interface). Everything you see on your screen is a graphic (picture). A gooey allows you to see and use the instructions in a way humans can understand. In other words, the "user" uses "graphics" to "interface" with the programs. Not all humans understand.
Click - To tap one of the mouse buttons. If clicking doesn't work, try 2 quick taps (double-click). In some instructions, click may mean double-click. If one click doesn't work, try double-clicking. Some mice....mouses..whatever, have more than 2 buttons. I don't care what those other buttons do.
Right-Click - Clicking the right mouse button while your pointer is resting on something (an icon or whatever) will almost always give you a menu that affects whatever your pointer is resting on. For instance, you can almost always delete something by right-clicking on it and choosing "Delete" from the menu that appears. Same with "Copy" and "Paste" and other options depending on what you right-click on. Somebody told me there was a program that allowed you to right-click on pictures of women and it removed all clothing from the picture. Does anyone know the name of that program?
Windows - A gooey (again, I'm serious....if you call it a g-u-i, computer people will laugh at you - I know I would...if you say it around non-computer people they will laugh at you to...personally, I never say it at all just to be safe). Windows is an OS (operating system). It gives you tools and commands to use on your computer in the form of pictures you can click on so you don't have to type C:dir*spit/fart/belch:;del:tr/get*bark,,comattrib,>disprt at the dos prompt in order to instruct your computer to open a program. There are other operating systems besides Windows for home computers but why and who cares?
XP - The latest version of Windows. It allows you to say, "I have the latest version of Windows." Luckily, it can be configured to look and work just like the older versions of Windows.
Desktop - When your computer is on, and no programs are open, you are looking at your Desktop. If you work in an office at some boring, life-sucking, dead-end, miserable job, you probably have a desk in your office. On that desk's top are all the pitiful devices that represent the endless string of nothing days and hopeless dreams that have left you empty and taken away all the beauty in your life and all the shining brightness you had ever hoped for. Your computer Desktop is like that desk top except the things you see on it are exciting and fun. That's why you're so happy when you get off work and can come home to your computer.
Resolution (screen resolution) - The screen is the front of your TV thing. It shows you pictures and stuff by making little dots glow in different colors. There are a lot of dots on there. The dots are called pixels, which is stupid cause they're just dots. I call them dots just to aggravate my snooty, computer geeky friends. Depending on your video card ( later), you can say, "My screen resolution is blahblah X blahblah." The first blahblah is how many dots will fit across your screen horizontally and the second blahblah is how many dots will fit on your screen vertically or, as I like to say, "up your screen." Older computers had a screen resolution of 640X480. Then came 800X600. Newer ones are 1024X756. They're getting bigger every year. That's why you might have to scroll to the right to see all of some websites that were created to be viewed at higher resolutions than yours. They do that to make fun of people with older computers. Screw em!
Bytes and Bits - People who know about these are no fun. They're nerdy, boring, they know a lot of crap they don't need to know and they suck! Ok, if you must know. Bites hurt, bytes don't. Bytes are made out of bits. There is no reason in hell for you to know what a bit is. Bytes are pieces of information. It takes so many bytes to do anything that we never say "a byte." We refer to bytes in the thousands (kilo) or millions (meg) or billions (gig). You may have a 20 gig hard drive. It will store 20 billion bytes of information. You may have 256 megs of ram that will keep 256 million bytes of information at the ready instead of having to search your hard drive for it. You may have a picture or text file saved in a folder that is 30 kb in size. You may have a 56k dialup internet connection which means 56 thousand bits of information can come from the internet into your computer every second in which case your friends hate you cause your phone is always busy. Get broadband bozo. Incidentally, none of this is true.
Broadband - A very fast internet connection. That's all......that's all it means....don't try to get fancy with the definition. It just means fast download and upload speeds. Webpages load almost immediately, files that take an hour to download with a dialup connection only take a few minutes with broadband. Cable and DSL (digital subscriber line) are broadband connections. With a broadband connection you never have to logon to the internet - your computer is always connected to the internet....unless you have AOL (that's another story).
AOL - An internet service provider (ISP) for small children and people with learning disabilities. Does not require users to have opposable thumbs.
Hard Drive - If you remove the hard drive from your computer you will have a computer without a hard drive in it. That's a dumb thing to do so if you do that - put it back in. All the information in your computer is on your hard drive....well, sorta. There is information stored other places but I don't like to talk about that. There was a time, not so long ago, when a great hard drive could store 250 megs of information (bytes) or files. A lot of animals that were alive then are extinct now. Windows XP is bigger than that and wouldn't fit on one of those old ones. Today, new computers come with, at least, 20 gig hard drives. Every time you save something it gets stored on your hard drive. An operating system (like Windows), 4 or 5 big games, Microsoft Office, a graphics editor, your grandmother's genealogy program and Aunt Cassandra's astrology program (all made out of bytes) can start filling up a hard drive pretty fast. So, the bigger your hard drive, the better.
Ram - (random access memory) Some chips (called sticks by really cool people) that scoop some information off the hard drive and hold it out front for quick use so the computer doesn't have to search through the hard drive so much. It only scoops up stuff related to what you're doing at the time. You can't have too much ram and you never have enough. Buy more, more, more....it's cheap and just plugs into the motherboard. You can easily install it yourself but you'll probably break it.
Motherboard - (called mobos by cool computer people - you're not cool yet so don't call them that) If you picture a computer repair man with a soldering iron and little wires and resisters and capacitors and stuff, forget it. Nowadays, everything in there is a component....if it goes bad you pull it out and stick in a new one. If you have a 1/4 inch nut runner and a phillips screwdriver you can fix anything that goes wrong with your computer. Most things in there are held in place by one screw. Just take off the case, pull out every thing that's plugged into the slots in the motherboard and throw it away, then replace it all with new stuff. Of course, I would never do that.
Video card - If I have to tell you what video means then you're amish and don't have a computer anyway. A video card is a plug in circuit board that makes the video work. Video cards have those meg things we talked about. More megs equal better display on your monitor. I have some old computers with 2 meg video cards. If you don't play games, they're fine but newer computers come with at least 32 meg cards which show naked women in much better detail. This is important to me. If your video card goes bad, pull it out and stick in a new one. How do you know which card it is? It's the one your monitor plugs into....duh!...you know...like video?
Sound card - Like the video card but for sound....it's the one your speakers plug into. If it goes bad jerk it out and shove in a new one....hey...changing these cards is easy...if you think you have a bad one just do it.
Modem - Another card. It's the one your phone plugs into. It allows you to connect to the internet at a speed 3 times slower than cold molasse.
Lan card (ethernet card) - Another card. It allows you to use broadband (faster than molasse) to connect to the internet. It also allows you to connect several computers together in a network. They range in price from about $10 to $200. The ten dollar one works fine. The two hundred dollar one has the advantage of being much more expensive.....I don't know why.
Software - Things like pillows and quilts and computer programs. Physical components aren't software cause they're hard.
Hardware - Anything that's hard. Programs aren't hardware cause they're not hard......well, some are.
Files and folders - Let's say you have a file cabinet with only one drawer. You want to see the files from the Jones account. You open the drawer, choose the folder for Jones and in it you find all the Jones files. Each letter, picture, invoice, every piece of paper in that folder is a file. If you want to add a file to the Jones folder, don't just shove it in the drawer. Make sure you put it the Jones folder or you will have a hard time finding it again. Computers are file cabinets with one drawer. When you turn your computer on you have opened the drawer. Inside the drawer you see folders. Inside the folders you see files. Each letter, picture, everything you save and all the different instructions that make up programs are files. I have saved a picture (file) named "Beach" on my computer and I want to see it. It is located in a folder named "Vacation" that I have created on my Desktop. If I open (click on) the folder I will see the file named "Beach." If I click on that file it will open and I will see the picture. I love nude beaches.
more on folders
Path - Everything on my computer is on my hard drive. The name of my hard drive is "C:" The name of my OS is "Windows." I have a folder named "Vacation" on my "Desktop." In that folder is the picture (file) named "Beach" (same one). If someone was using my computer and asked me where the pictures of naked women were I would tell them the path is C:/windows/desktop/vacation/beach. Someday you may run across something that requires you to use paths. You probably won't know how.
Save - Save As - Pay attention. This is the number one thing that newbies screw up. Newbie -"I saved a file and now I can't find it.....whine, whine." Trained Monkey - "Well, where did you save it?" Newbie - "I don't know." Trained Monkey - "Well, you have to save things where you can find them and you didn't...that's why you can't find it...how about a nice banana?" Listen up newbie...this is how you save something. You just typed a letter in Wordpad cause you can't afford Microsoft Word and your crappy friends won't give you a copy they cracked off an internet hack site. You're finished with it and it's time to save it. In Wordpad (yuck), click "File." In the menu that appears click "Save As." I'm gonna say that again. In the menu that appears click "Save As." A box named "Save As" (surprise!) will appear. Near the top of the box will be a field (white area with type in it) with the words "Save in" at the left of it. In that field will be the name of a folder. What you're saving is going to be saved in that folder. If you don't want it saved in that folder then click the little arrow button (looks like a tiny upside down triangle) at the right of that field. Choose the folder you want to save it in. Now......near the bottom of the box is a field named "File name." Type the name you want it to have or keep the name that is already there. Now you can click on the "Save' button. Newbie - "Hey! I did that and now I can find it." Trained Monkey - "Great. Have another banana." No matter what you save or where it comes from....do that. If you download something from the internet you're gonna see the same "Save As" box. Use it correctly and you will never lose a file. So, when do you use just plain "Save?" If you open an existing file, that's already saved in the folder where you want it, and you make some changes, you can use just plain "Save" to save the changes. The file will remain in the folder you opened it from and will keep the same name.
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There's lots more terms but I don't know what most of them mean and anyway I wanna go cook some chicken wings with hot sauce and drink beer. Why don't you go have sex or something. Click Here for important internet information.
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