As a senior citizen just being introduced to the
computer world, you will have to learn a whole new language of funny
words connected with this new phase of your life...words that have a
far different meaning than what you normal think they mean.
Additionally, you will find strange new words such as "bits, bytes,
megabytes, megahertz" and so on, but you may not have to worry about
all of them.
When you are working a computer program, you may use
a "mouse" which is not the four-legged type but a device with a hard
rubber ball on the bottom (or even just a light) that helps move a
"cursor (a pointer, that is, not one that uses foul language) on the
"monitor" (not a teacher who watches you when taking a test, but a TV
picture tube or flat screen nowadays) of the computer that shows you
what you are typing or drawing or moving. You move the mouse with your
hand (or finger if you are using a laptop (a portable computer) and
"click" (attach) the pointer to a specific object to tell the CPU
(computer processing unit) to do something.
Other terms peculiar
to computers are "CD Rom, discs, hard and optical drives, desktops,
laptops, notebooks, spread sheets, mother boards, Pentium families, dot
matrix-ink, jet-bubble jet laser printers." There is also DOS and
Windows 95 or XP to add to the new vocabulary...and new ones
practically every time you look around.
Right now the "in" thing
is to "Surf the Net" (that's the worldwide Internet, and you don't use
a surfboard to do that)...it's a compendium of interesting facts,
business and social relationships, news sources (such as this web site
and not connected with a spider if you please) which you can reach
through a "modem" (computer connections via a phone and online service
that you have to pay for) at "baud rates (rates of speed including
"broadband" which is the fastest one right now and will probably change
in the future!).
Repairing a computer when it breaks down
(freezes or crashes) may require calling in or seeing a "hardware"
(equipment) or "programmer" person.
"Hard copy" is exactly what
it means: however, with computers it means "print out" on a piece of
paper from a "printer" (laser, ink jet or otherwise) of what is shown
on the "monitor."
One word after a particularly bad session when
things go wrong in "cyberspace" we understand quite easily..."Exit" or
"Quit" or "Escape", while another is "Save" (And we also understand the
mental anguish when we don't do that and what you have done is wiped
out and you have to do it all over again unless you can "revert" back
to what you just did which is possible.) The temptation to punch the
computer's monitor is an experience we all go through while enjoying
the attributes of a computer system and the help it gives us.
And
"help" is the one attribute the computer has done for us. When I first
started out in the printing business all type was set with metal
individual pieces of type to form articles that were printed on a
press. Today, if there was a mistake in this column, for example, it
probably would take an hour to make the correction--something that
takes a few seconds with the current computers.
The latest social
words in cyberspace are "YouTube", "Facebook" and the newest, "Twitter"
(and we do it too) which makes it a whole new "another" world in social
communication.
This writer's last comment: Just enjoy the
wonderful world of cyberspace...and surf to your heart's content on the
Internet, even without a surfboard!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bernard_Block
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