More Hardware & Software
Other hardware
Other components in a computer are:
- Power supply. Takes in mains voltage and produces the different voltages required by the computer. A warning: if you add more hardware, you may need a more powerful supply.
- Hard disk drive(s). This is storage for your programs and documents, pictures and so on.
- Optical drives: CD drive, DVD drive or Blu-ray drive
- Floppy disk drive. Although these are obsolescent. They are limited to 1.4MB of storage, while the newer USB 'drives' use solid state memory and have capacities uo to 16GB.
- Loudspeaker. This is a hangover from earlier times before computers had a sound system. They were used to beep at you if something went wrong on start-up.
- Modem and wireless networking
- Television tuner
Software
Computers have some program material built in in the form of read only memory (ROM). When you switch a computer on, the program in ROM moves some program steps to read/write memory (RAM), does some tests and loads the operating system, usually Windows. The operating system sets up the desktop and some other chores; then waits for your instructions, in the form of mouse clicks. Linux is another operating system which is gaining ground in popularity.
Some other categories of software are shown here:
- Security/AntiVirus: In these days of rampant malware, there are programs you should have for security. See Security & maintenance and some subsequent pages.
- Business/Office: These vary in price from nothing up to several hundred pounds. My own choice for value Open Office. If you are firmly wedded to Microsoft, Microsoft Works is the obvious choice for most users. Of course, your computer may come with an office suite built in. If, however, you don't want to spend a lot, there are a number of cheaper of alternatives. The best value, because it is good as well as being free is Open Office. Tutorials for Open Office can be found here,
- Education/Training: There are some good computer training programs. One warning though. Make sure that it applies to exactly what you want to learn about. There are different courses for different versions of the same program.
- Network
- Graphics & Video: There are many programs. Paint dot net is free and it does a lot of what you may want to do. Many of the illustrations for these courses were prepared using it. Paint Shop Pro is a good commercial alternative.
- Geography: Download Google earth.
- Encyclopedias & Dictionaries: Encyclopedia Brittanica is up there, but try looking on the internet at Wikipedia.
- Computer maintenance: See Security & maintenance and some subsequent pages.
- Programming - Languages: There are many different programming languages. A fairly good one to try out first. 'Liberty Basic'.
You will find references to other programs in both the Silver Surfers course and the Web writing course