PC Basics and the Net

1. PC Basics and the Net

2. Our goals... • Discover how your hard drive, RAM, and Internet connection actually work • Learn what each of these things has to do with the others • Find out how you can speed up your Internet connection • DO ALL OF THIS IN ENGLISH!

3. Your Computer Is Like a Kitchen

4. Three Parts of Your Kitchen • Your refrigerator. • Your stove. • Your sink. You probably have more stuff than this, but almost every kitchen in the world has at least these three things.

5. The Fridge! • Where you hold your food until you are ready to cook or eat it ... or until the food starts turning into a new life form. • The key measurement of a refrigerator is how much food it can hold ... its storage capacity.

6. Some Refrigerator Questions • Will getting a bigger refrigerator increase the amount of food you can store in your refrigerator? • Will getting a bigger refrigerator increase the speed at which you can cook that food on your stove? • Will getting a bigger refrigerator increase the speed at which water flows into your kitchen sink?

7. The Stove • Where you cook your food. • The key measurement of a stove is how many things it can cook at once ... its size.

8. Some Stove Questions • Will getting a bigger stove – one with more burners – increase the amount of food you can store in your refrigerator? • Will getting a bigger stove increase the speed at which you can cook food on your stove?

9. Why Size Matters • How many things can you simultaneously cook on this stove? • What would happen if you had to cook more than four things at once?

10. Law of Diminishing Returns • Is a four burner stove twice as good as a two burner stove? (Maybe ... it depends on how much you cook). • Is a 16 burner stove four times as good as a four burner stove? (Heck no ... who needs SIXTEEN burners?). • The key is to find a balance between how much you have to cook and how many burners you have.

11. Back to the Stove Questions • Will getting a bigger stove – one with more burners – increase the amount of food you can store in your refrigerator? • Will getting a bigger stove increase the speed at which you can cook food on your stove? • Will getting a bigger stove increase the speed at which water flows into your kitchen sink?

12. ... and the Kitchen Sink! • Where water comes into your kitchen for cooking and cleaning. • Dish-holding capacity is important, but in this analogy the key measure of a kitchen sink is the speed at which water flows into it ... its water pressure.

13. Some Sink Questions • Will getting a bigger kitchen sink – one with more dish-holding capacity – increase the amount of food you can store in your refrigerator? • Will getting a bigger kitchen sink increase the speed at which you can cook food on your stove? • Will getting a bigger kitchen sink increase the speed at which water flows into your kitchen sink?

14. So How Can You Increase Your Water Pressure? GET BIGGER PIPES!

15. Three Parts Revisited • Your refrigerator, where you storefood until you need it • Your stove, where you cook your food • Your sink, where water flows into your kitchen

16. What on Earth Does This Have to Do with My Computer? So go ahead and ask…… A lot, actually ...

17. Three Parts of a PC • Your hard drive • Your RAM • Your Internet connection You have more stuff than this, but these are the three most important things to know about ... they’re the stuff you can easily change

18. Your Hard Drive Your hard drive is the computer equivalent of your refrigerator.

19. Your Hard Drive • Where you hold your programs, folders, files, data, and other stuff until you are ready to use them • The key measurement of a hard drive is how much stuff it can hold ... its storage capacity.

20. Accessing Your PC’s Hard Drive • Double-Click on “My Computer” • Use Windows Explorer (Windows Key + E) • This shows you all the drives, folders, programs, and files on your PC.

21. Remember ... • Your hard drive is the computer equivalent of your refrigerator. • It is where you hold your programs, folders, files, data, and other stuff until you are ready to use them. • The key measurement of your hard drive is how much stuff it can hold (usually measured in gigabytes.)

22. Your Random Access Memory(RAM) Your RAM is the computer equivalent of your stove.

23. Your Random Access Memory(RAM) • Where stuff is held while it is cooked • The key measurement of RAM is how many things it can “cook” at once ... its size.

24. Accessing Your PC’s RAM • You can’t really “access” it. • You can see all the stuff that is running in your RAM by hitting Ctrl + Alt + Delete ONCE.

25. Remember ... • Your RAM is the computer equivalent of your stove. • It is where your programs run ... where they are “cooked.”

26. Remember ... • Your stove is measured by how many things it can cook at once – its size. The same is true for RAM. • The key measurement of RAM is how big it is ... how many things it can cook at once ... its size (measured in megabytes.)

27. Your Internet Connection Your Internet Connection is the computer equivalent of your kitchen sink (water pressure)

28. Your Internet Connection The key measurement of your Internet connection is how fast you can get stuff off of the Net ... its speed (or “bandwidth.”)

29. Three Parts of Your PC • Your hard drive, which is like your refrigerator (it holds stuff) • Your RAM, which is like your stove (it cooks stuff) • Your Internet connection, which is like your sink (it’s your access to the “stream”)

30. HD Increases Storage? • Will getting a bigger hard drive increase the amount of stuff (programs, documents, pictures, and so on) you can store on your computer? • Yep

31. Your Hard Drive Is Just Storage Space ... A place to keep your stuff until you need it.

32. HD Increases PC Speed? • Will getting a bigger hard drive increase the speed at which you can “cook” stuff on your computer? In other words, will it speed up your computer? • NO!

33. Getting a Bigger Hard Drive Will NOT Speed Up Your Computer ... any more than getting a bigger refrigerator will speed up your cooking times. All your hard drive does is store stuff.

34. HD Increases Net Speed? • Will getting a bigger hard drive increase the speed at which you can access, or download stuff off of, the Internet? • NO!

35. Getting a Bigger Hard Drive Will NOT Speed Up Your Net Connection ... any more than getting a bigger refrigerator will speed up your sink. All your hard drive does is store stuff.

36. Everyone With Me? • Your hard drive, which is like your refrigerator (it holds stuff) • Your RAM, which is like your stove (it cooks stuff) • Your Internet connection, which is like your sink (it’s your access to the “stream”)

37. RAM Increases Storage? • Will getting more RAM increase the amount of stuff you can store on your hard drive? • NO!

38. Getting More RAM Will NOT Help You Store More Files on Your Computer ... it will only help you run more computer programs (like Microsoft Word, Solitaire, and so on) simultaneously.

39. RAM Increases PC Speed? • Will getting more RAM increase the speed at which you can “cook” stuff on your computer? In other words, will it speed up your computer? • Maybe, but only to a point.

40. Remember This? • How many things can you cook at once on this stove? (Four) • What would happen if you had to cook more than four things at once? (It would take a LOT longer to cook because you’d have to constantly swap pots.)

41. Law of Diminishing Returns • The key is to get enough RAM so that your computer is never swapping pots (“programs”). • But, it is possible to get too much RAM ... and like a 16 burner stove, too much RAM is just a waste of money. • How much RAM is enough?

42. The Biggest RAM Secret Even when you think you don’t have any programs hogging up your RAM, you have programs hogging up your RAM.

43. Remember • You can’t really “access” your RAM. • But you can see all the stuff that is running in your RAM by hitting Ctrl + Alt + Delete ONCE.

44. How Much RAM is Enough? • If you have Windows 95, 98, 98SE, or ME, get no less and no more than 128 Megabytes of RAM. • If you have Windows NT, 2000, or XP, get 256 Megabytes of RAM. • Get more ONLY if you work with videos, pre-press graphics, or “advanced” games.

45. Hard Drives v. RAM • If you run out of storage space on your hard drive, you need to either delete some files or get a second (or a bigger) hard drive. • If you keep getting “out of memory” errors or want to run a bunch of programs at once, you need to get more RAM.

46. RAM Increases Net Speed? • Will getting more RAM increase the speed at which you can access, or download stuff off of, the Internet? • NO!

47. Getting More RAM Will NOT Speed Up Your Net Connection ... any more than getting a bigger stove will speed up your sink.

48. What About the Net? • Getting a bigger hard drive won’t speed up your Internet connection. • Getting more RAM won’t speed up your Internet connection. • So how can you speed up your Internet connection?

49. GET BIGGER PIPES!

50. Internet Connections • Your connection to the Internet is often called a “pipe.” • There are a bunch of different ways to connect to the Internet, some faster than others.