A Beginners Guide to Computers

A Beginner’s Guide to Computers Learn All About Computers ChaptersWhat Are The Parts of a Computer?The History of ComputingUseful Computer HardwareThe World’s Most Famous ProgrammersStep-by-Step Instructions for Creating a Facebook Account“When you’re dealing with computers, you should be like ducks… Appear calm on the surface and pedal like crazy underneath.” -Richard LallementWhether you want an introduction to computers, become a software developer or take programming courses - there are many reasons you might want to known more about computers and their history. Either way, computer engineering wasn’t invented in a day and continues to require a lot of work.It’s fairly easy to naviguate the Web, but have you ever asked yourself how it is even possible? From the first electronic circuits, the building of the first computer, must-have computer gadgets, well-known coders and how to sign up to Facebook, find out everything you need to know about computers.Wikipedia is founded2004: Mozilla Firefox comes outThe shared-data era20 08: First appearance of the term MOOC (Massive Open Online Course)2009: Archos launches the first touch-sensitive tablet2010: first cloud-based data storage developed2011: smartphone sales overtake computer sales2014: more than a billion websites2016: Google Chrome surpasses Internet Explorer in market sharesA USB key: shock-resistant, lightweight and compact, it allows you to stock files and transport them anywhere from £3 for tiny (and rather obsolete) 2GB memory sticks to over £700 for encrypted keys capable of storing over 100 GB.External hard drive: to augment your computer’s memory or backup your data, you should count somewhere between £20 and £70 depending on its data storage capacity.7Learn more about IT by taking computer courses. or follow one of the many online computer courses.The World’s Most Famous ProgrammersBefore learning to program and throwing yourself heart and soul into IT, why not look at others who have shaped the history of computers. Programming suc h as we know it today could not exist without some exceptional people. Here are some of the most famous programmers.Grace Hopper: nicknamed Amazing Grace, she invented the first UNIVAC compiler in 1950. This compiler allowed computer engineers worldwide to understand the computer languages of the time.Mark Zuckerberg: founder and president of Facebook since 2004, he’s the fifth most wealthy man on the planet. Though he seems to have lost his coding edge, he was the one who wrote the first lines of code for the famous (and infamous) social media siteMaybe he should take refresher coding courses with Superprof!Margaret Hamilton: she corrected the programming for the Apollo 11 mission - by hand. Without her minutia and attention to detail, men would never have walked on the moon in 1969Louis Pouzin: French computer engineer, he developed a datagram that later allowed for the creation of the Internet. He is now helping to re-invent it!Larry Page: an American computer engineer, he desi gned the Google search engine. His father was one of the founders of eGroups, Yahoo’s forerunner.This list is, of course, far from exhaustive, but it gives you a small idea of what programming can entail: an opening for the future and a thirst for change.Step-by-Step Instructions for Creating a Facebook AccountFacebook saw the light of day in 2004 through the agencies of Mark Zuckerberg. The social network is accessible to all since September 2006. It is the third most visited website behind Google and YouTube and has passed the 2 billion user mark since July 2017.Facebook can help you stay in touch with friends and family and connect with new people. Photo on VisualHunt.comThe name Facebook comes from start-of-year handouts with pictures and names of staff and students handed out at American universities. This social network lets you post pictures, texts, videos… Its goal is to connect its users so they exchange information.Creating a Facebook account is free and easy. You just need to follow these steps after landing on the www.facebook.com page:Fill in a sign-in form with you first and last name, e-mail address, password and date of birthConfirm the account by clicking on a link sent to your e-mailFind friends already on FacebookAdd a profile picture and a header picture if you wantModify your profile by entering personal information: job, schooling, place of birth, family…Post content from your profile or your newsfeed.As you can see, you don’t need to be a programmer to create a social media account! Now it’s up to you to choose what you want to post.In summary:The central unit is the most important element to the computer’s functioning. The screen, keyboard and mouse simply serves as an interfaceComputers would be nothing without maths and particularly algorithms. Many men and women contributed to the construction of computers as we know them today.It might be useful to get a combination printer-scannerLook to programmers and computer enginee rs for inspiration: Grace Hopper, Larry Page or Bill GatesAnd finally, if you still don’t have a Facebook account, don’t panic: they are easy to create by following simple step-by-step instructions.