PCs For Dummies Quick Reference - Softcover

Gookin, Dan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0470115262 ISBN 13: 9780470115268

Verlag: Wiley-VCH, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

All the PC essentials at your fingertips!
 
If you like your answers quick and your information up-to-date, look no further. This concise, superbly organized reference walks you through setting up a PC, the new interface and features of Windows Vista, using basic applications, organizing your stuff, getting on the Internet, networking (wired and wireless), burning CDs, upgrading your hardware, revving up your PC for high-speed game playing, and much more!

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for over 600 years. He has contributed articles to numerous high-tech magazines and written more than 100 books about personal computing technology, many of them accurate. He combines his love of writing with his interest in technology to create books that are informative and entertaining, but not boring. Having sold more than 14 million copies translated into more than 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes does seem to work.
Perhaps Dan's most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991. It became the world's fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times number-one best seller (although, because it's a reference book, it could not be listed on the NYT best seller list). That book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day.
Dan's most recent titles include Word 2007 For Dummies, Laptops For Dummies, 2nd Edition; Programmer's Guide to NCurses, and many more! He writes a blog and maintains the Wambooli Forums on his vast and helpful Web page www.wambooli.com.
Dan holds a degree in communications and visual arts from the University of California, San Diego. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he enjoys spending time with his boys in the gentle woods of Idaho.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

All the PC essentials at your fingertips!

If you like your answers quick and your information up-to-date, look no further. This concise, superbly organized reference walks you through setting up a PC, the new interface and features of Windows Vista, using basic applications, organizing your stuff, getting on the Internet, networking (wired and wireless), burning CDs, upgrading your hardware, revving up your PC for high-speed game playing, and much more!

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PCs For Dummies Quick Reference

By Dan Gookin

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2007 Dan Gookin
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-470-11526-8

Chapter One

PC Overview

In this part ...

  Basic computer science

  PC types and models

  Hardware expansion

  The operating system

  The Internet

  Files, folders, and your stuff

Welcome to Part I, where I introduce you to the PC, piece by piece. Here you'll find a visual tour, personal introductions, basic understandings, and a hint of what's to come as you uncover the basics of the ever-useful personal computer.

What You See: Basic Hardware

A computer is really the sum of its parts more than it is a single gizmo. The parts all have official, technical names, which you may know already. Some parts live inside the box; some dwell outside. Connecting everything are cables - vast, tangled, and ugly. All together, the pieces, parts, and cables make up your computer system.

The central item in the computer system, the hive of high-tech wonderment, the PC's bosom (as it were), is the console. Other items surround the console and connect to it. Those things are peripherals.

Despite the common elements, each computer system is quite unique, sporting different internals, different types and amounts of storage, and different software to make things go. I suppose that's why the things are personal computers and not generic computers. The basic PC setup - console and peripherals - is illustrated in Figures 1-1 and 1-2.

Here are some of the basic components you should recognize and know by their official names:

  Console: The centerpiece of any computer system. It's the box-o-guts! Also called the system unit and often mistakenly referred to as the CPU. See also Part II.

  Monitor: The computer's display. It can sit on top of or to the side of the console. This part of the basic computer system is necessary because it's how you see the information the computer displays, also known as output.

  Keyboard: The thing you type on, and one method for you to send information to the computer, also known as input. Despite all the computer's graphics, most of the time you spend using it involves typing. See also Part XII.

  Mouse: The gizmo that helps you work with graphical images that the computer displays on the screen. It's the second method you use for entering information (next to the keyboard), a second form of input. See also Part XIII.

  Speakers: The PC speaks! And squawks, and plays music, and often talks. To hear that stuff, you need speakers. They can be either external or part of the monitor. See also Part II.

  Printer: The device that puts your work down on paper - documents, copies of e-mail messages, charts, graphics, photos, or anything else your creative heart desires. The printer is the PC's second most popular gizmo for output. See also Part IX.

  Lots of ugly cables: Rarely seen in the showroom and never in ads, although they exist! Cables! Lots of ugly cables keep everything connected. They're usually found 'round back of the console and other components. Yes, even wireless systems have lots of cables. See also Part II.

A computer system can include a variety of other devices and gizmos beyond the basic items mentioned here. These peripherals include scanners, digital cameras, external disk drives, modems, and a host of other gadgets various and sundry.

What You See: Console - the Front

The console is the sun of your computer's solar system, the central hub of activity. Every other device, gizmo, or gadget in the computer system plugs into the console in one way or another. The console is also home to many of your PC's most important, secret, and forbidden parts.

Figure 1-3 shows important items on the front side of the console. These are things you should be able to locate and identify on your own computer, although their specific locations may be different from what you see here:

  CD-ROM / DVD drive: Part of the PC's storage system, and one of the main disk drives, the CD-ROM / DVD drive is designed for reading and, often, creating CDs and DVDs. Access to the drive may also be hidden behind a panel or door.

  Future expansion: You can add disk drives or devices to the console. They may be obvious or well hidden, thanks to a clever console design.

  Floppy drive: An ancient part of the PC's storage system, although rarely found on today's PCs, this drive is designed to read from and write to floppy disks. Not every PC sold today has a floppy drive, but if yours does, it appears somewhere on the front of the console.

  Air vents: The thing's gotta breathe!

  Secret door/connectors: Many consoles have special connectors on the front for USB, digital video (IEEE 1394), and audio devices. These may be obvious on the front of the console or concealed behind a door or panel.

  Buttons and lights: The console has at least one button and some lights. Additional buttons may appear on some consoles, as with additional lights. The following list highlights some of the more common buttons and lights:

Power button: This button is used to start up the computer, turn the computer off, or do other power-related things. See also Part IV.

Reset button: This button lets you take control during times of woe, by essentially forcing the computer to stop and start in one swift punch. It's a powerful button, although not every console has one.

Sleep button: This button appears mostly on laptop PCs and is used to put the system into a special suspended, or Stand By, mode. Few consoles have such a button, yet the sleep icon may appear as a light on the console, to indicate that the computer is not off, but, rather, is "asleep."

Hard drive light: This festive light flashes as the hard drive is being accessed. Because hard drives are often buried internally, the light provides a visual clue to whether the drive is alive or dead.

Power light: This is merely a light on the console that is on when the computer is on. If your computer doesn't make much noise, this light is often your only clue that the sucker is turned on.

This list doesn't cover everything you could possibly find on the front of your computer. For example, your console may also have an infrared port for communicating with a laptop or handheld computer. Even so, become familiar with those few items mentioned in the list. Many computer manuals and software instructions assume that you know where everything is and what it's called.

What You...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Wiley-VCH
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0470115262
• ISBN 13: 9780470115268
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 4
• Anzahl der Seiten: 242
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar