Local Contents

They're stupid

All they do is Process Input and Generate Output

Blame the computer
"Selection" and the implications of selection
The "Toggle"
"Defaults" and why you care

What is this page all about?

In order to keep the length of the main Computer Basics page at a manageable level and to separate off some of the stuff that not everyone may care about, we created sub-pages. Click on stuff that interests you, read as you will and click Back to Main Page Contents whenever you please.

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Why is learning computers so hard?

• Mystified
• Annoyed
• Frustrated

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Time...to learn computers!

Mental flexibility might be a part of the explanation. Fear-less-ness explain part of this as well. But the most complete explanation is:

Time

So our most important recommendation to you is: realize you have to spend the time in order to learn all about this tool!

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What's Wrong with Computers?

Here are some of the things that are wrong with computers. Can you think of more?

• Expensive
• Hard to understand or get the hang of
• More expensive
• They eat time
• Only good at repetitive tasks
• What else?

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What's Good about Computers?

• Repeated tasks.
• The electronic based "Find" alone is worth the price of admission
• Based on electricity, the *may* move at the speed of light
• They're the way things are now, for better or worseÖ.
• What else?

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The different Levels of Computer Use

• Get away, leave me alone!
• This is sort of a non-using method of computer use!
• Monkey see, monkey do
• "I've done this this way, don't show me any more!"
• "Hmmm, let's try this today.Ö"
• A willingness to explore new ways to do things.
• "It should do this, so why can't it?"
• A willingness to go out and *get* a way to accomplish a task.
• Work-arounds
• "Hmmm. So it won't do this. How about these steps to get this done?"
• Technical Level
Do you really want to know? ;-)   This gets very scary.

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Why run more than one program?

Here, for instance, is a rather full Applications Menu from the Mac I'm using to compose these web pages. I've annotated why I have each of these programs open. (Details on the Application and how to use it in the Mac Page for this topic.)

Claris Emailer v2.0
Why, for e-mail, of course! Gotta have e-mail available!

Finder
This is the "desktop" on the Macintosh. Where I manage files, folders and volumes. You can't not have this running on a Macintosh.

Microsoft Word
Just in case I need some word processing power!

Netscape Communicator
I'm using the Composer part of Netscape Communicator to write these web pages.

Now Contact
This is my contacts manager--the software that stores my phone numbers and such. In case I get calls or need to call a client.

Now Up-To-Date
My calendar program. So I know what I'm doing and need to do next!

Remote Access
The software that manages my dial-up access to the Internet so I can get e-mail, upload these web pages, etc.

Virtual PC
This program creates a complete Windows computer environment, in software, on my Macintosh computer! Really! How do you think I get screen shots and explanations for both Macintosh and Windows?
 

Of course, to run all this stuff I have a Macintosh PowerBook G3 (now about 2  years old) with 192 mb of RAM and a 4,000 mb hard disk. And with all these programs running I have only about four mb unused at the moment!

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How do computers work?

• You give information in certain ways...
• ...The computer processes this input...
• ...And shows its results (output)

They do what you tell them, not what you mean!

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The Two Parts of Computers

Hardware is:

• Unchanging and expensive
• The physical pieces of the computer which
• Collect and carry the input, process the input and "output" the results of that processing

Software is:

• Changeable and cheap(er)
• Files which you load onto a computer

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The five basic principles underlying how computers work

They're stupid

Now, computers are very fast. And the instructions they execute are set up by some very clever people. But that does not mean they "think" and it does not make them smart.

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Blame the computer

It makes me crazy when someone does something on a computer and they get an unexpected result (seems to be all the time when you start out, isn't it?!) the draw back and fear they've done something wrong. The best attitude to take is: "Well! What has this stupid computer done to me now?!"

Doesn't that feel better? Try it!

And you can't hurt its feelings. It doesn't have feelings!

"Selection" and the implications of selection

Understanding what this means and its implications means you've understood a lot about how computers work.

If you want to change something, let's say add italics formatting to the word Zanzibar in this sentence, you better know how to select the word Zanzibar and only the word Zanzibar. Because What You Select Is What You Affect. (By the way, here is the word Zanzibar in italics, in case you're interested.)

So the first thing you need to understand about computers is that you need to learn how to select stuff in the program application you want to use in order to make things happen. Hence, in these lessons, you learn how to do things with the mouse by clicking in order to select....

here's a link to another example of how Selecting can unexpectedly explain stuff: A cutting example of Selection and Menus

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The "Toggle"

One of the underlying principles of computers is the toggle. Like a light switch: either something is on or it's off. And it stays on until turned off and vs. versa.

As an example: Let's say I'm halfway through the word Zanzibar and, between the Z and the I we "toggle on" the Italics formatting. Here's how that would look: Zanzibar. You see how it changed right in the middle? OH! I'm still in italics! Let me toggle that off now in order to get back to regular typing.

And that illustrates the major problem with toggles. If you forget they're in effect or don't understand that you may need to toggle a change in some setting you'll continue to be affected by something without wanting to be affected by it....

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"Defaults" and why you care

1. If you don't change a setting it remains the "default"
2. If the computer can't do what you want it to it goes to its "default"

Default Settings

1. Understand about settings and defaults,
2. have a program application where I could adjust this default (not all programs allow you to adjust all defaults) and
3. spend some time hunting around until I found where that default lived and then
4. change that default.

"When it can't do what you want"

Since the program can't display the typed text in the font the document expects, it would show up in the default font--whatever that is for that program.

This is what I mean when I say "What the computer does when it can't do what you want it to do."

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Anything can happen once

Unnerving, isn't it?

Worse than that, the thing that happens might be a bad thing. OK, OK, you're right: it could even be catastrophic. But worse than that: No one can guarantee that a) we can make is to it won't happen again or b) we'll even understand what happened. But this isn't a computer thing: it's a complex systems thing.

Think your automobile (or the busses / trains you ride). When you're done reading this and go to your next doing you'll put the key in and go, right? Weeeeelllllll.... You can say "it's always worked until now" or "it's highly likely it'll work"; those things may be true. But no, you can't say "it will work". Sounds like a complex system to me.

Think of the Human Body. It's made up of all these organs and processes. How well will any one individual body work? The only sensible answer is: as well as it does. Might something stop working or stop working right at some time? Absolutely. How likely is it? Weeeeellllll.... As likely as it is. Sounds like a complex system to me.

What I'm trying to do is warn you off (some) of the emotional distress of working with computers. I have gotten panicked calls from clients saying "My computer crashed!" I say, OK, restart it. These things do happen. Having something go wrong with your computer does not mean you're a bad person or have lived a bad life. These things just do happen!

Now we drop the other shoe: People who set up complex system spend a lot of time and money making them more reliable. That's part of why computers and cars cost so much. And why it took millions of years to make the human body.

But things will go bump in the night. That's the only thing I can guarantee!

Now we drop the OTHER other shoe. Anything can happen once but if we can discern a pattern, then we can take actions to make the problem go away. So track as exactly as you can what happens and is going on when bad things happen with your computer. Saying things like: "it doesn't work right" isn't enough to go on....

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