One of the best ways to protect your computer against attacks and help it keep running properly is to get to know your machine.

Okay, that doesn’t mean take it out in the evening, or introduce it to your parents, but just get to know it’s little ways, because what people fail to realise, is that a personal computer won’t stay shiny and uncorrupted for long.

A modern PC will come hot foot from the factory bursting with energy and life, and then as soon as you start loading on applications, emailing and searching the internet, it will begin to change, and not usually for the better. It will literally slow with age and although this might be imperceptible at first, it will gradually get worse as your computer gets loaded with more data and more jobs to do. And, as it moves out into the real world via the internet, it will be prone to some of the most vicious cyber attacks, and it’s up to you to keep it safe.

So the more you can get to know your computer’s foibles and mannerisms, then the better, as computers, like humans, tend to make quite a noise when they are poorly. Either that, or they make no noise at all, and they are stone dead, again, just like humans.

Right, and forgive me for stating the obvious for those that do understand computers, but it’s best to start right at the beginning.

A PC, or personal computer, generally refers to those computers that operate via the Microsoft Windows-based operating system. And although the principles are the same with Macs, as they are computers as well, they have a different operating system, so the commands will not be exactly the same.

And PCs are then usually broken down into desktops and laptops. The latter are just really portable versions of the big things that sit on your desk; they have the same innards.

A computer is basically a lump of hardware and a bundle of software. The hardware is a collection of bits and pieces that make up the physical computer. So the box, keyboard and mouse are the main components. The computer needs a screen of course, so that you can see what you’re doing, and these come in all shapes and sizes these days.

Now the computer’s box basically contains all its innards and although most people never open this up for very good reasons, it’s best to know what’s inside. It may look complicated, and it is indeed quite complicated, but there are comparatively few bits inside a computer’s box. The main bit is the motherboard and this is simply a printed circuit board which is home to the processor and memory (in effect the computer’s brain).

As well as the motherboard there will be one, or two fans (to keep everything from over-heating); a hard drive (a computer’s filing system); a disc drive (a data entry, or exit point); a number of ports (for the monitor, USB, microphones, speakers etc); and, a power pack which steps down the electricity to drive the computer. And that, in a nut shell, is that.

To make all these bits of hardware work, you need an operating system, or OS as it’s called, and this will be known as Windows Vista (the latest Microsoft OS) which was preceded by Windows XP (still the main OS in use at the time of writing), Windows ME, Windows 98 and Windows 95. Although it was first introduced in 1995, Windows 95 is still powering a number of computers, but it would struggle to drive some of the big applications around nowadays. And the reason why people bang on about Microsoft operating systems, is that they dominate the market with a 90% share, which might explain why their founder is one of the richest, if not the richest, man in the world.

So, you’ve got the hardware and some of the software. And this is where people do often get caught out when buying a computer. They buy the computer, see that it’s equipped with Windows Vista, slap it on, then expect to get started with a little word processing activity. No can do, unless the computer has been ordered with, and preloaded with, the appropriate applications.

It’s a bit like buying a car and been given all the bits, and it will start, but to drive off and use it to its full capacity, you need something else to get it moving.

So, software applications – for example word processing, spreadsheet and presentation tools – get put on usually as part of an Office Suite of software which is not integral to the OS. But the computer won’t run without the OS and the applications won’t run without the OS, and guess who provides most of the world’s applications? Yes, you’ve guessed it, Microsoft? So you will need to have at least a number of key packages, including Word (word processing); Excel (spreadsheets) and PowerPoint (slide presentations).

Right, you have your box with all the right bits, the OS and the software, you’re ready to go. Hang on though, what’s all this about Processor Speeds, RAM, gigs, etc?

Move to Getting To Know Your PC – Part II to find out.

Getting To Know Your PC – Part I – Recap

Remember:

• get to know your machine;
• computers age quickly;
• it will be prone to external attacks;
• PC equals personal computer;
• hardware are the bits you can usually pick-up;
• software is bits of code which makes things work;
• OS stands for operating system, for example, Windows Vista and Windows XP;
• an OS does not give you word processing, or spreadsheet, or slide making capabilities;
• software applications are things like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, and allow you to create documents.