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Showing posts with label mouse-computer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mouse-computer. Show all posts

Thursday, July 21, 2011

How-To change mouse cursor or pointer

3 Comments so far Posted by Hannah on 6:27 PM

mouse-properties-screen
In the last couple of lessons we have spoken about the mouse options.  We started with right click, left click, double click, etc.

The last time in our tutorial I spoke about the mouse pointers, or computer pointers.

Today’s How-To Guide for the Computer Beginner lesson is normally asked one of these ways:

How do you change the mouse cursor?

How to change your computer cursor?

How to change the computer pointer?


As you can see people call it different things.  I normally refer to it as a computer pointer.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Names for mouse cursors, pointers or arrows

Be the first to comment! Posted by Hannah on 12:07 AM

POINTERS
I’m sure most have noticed some of the images pictured in the oval.  These are computer pointers.

  I have also heard it referred to as computer arrow, or computer cursor.



Today’s How-to Guide for the Computer Beginner is about

computer pointers.


computer pointer
This is just a standard computer pointer.  There are variety of different looks to computer pointers, and you can even download different ones online if you wish.   When you see this standard computer pointer everything would seem fine.  It normally appears on your desktop once you computer is done loading itself completely.  This pointer is what you use to select and execute files, programs, etc.

Monday, July 18, 2011

How-To Use The Computer Mouse

Be the first to comment! Posted by Hannah on 6:14 AM

How-To Use a Computer MouseToday’s How-to Guide for the computer beginner is about the computer mouse. 

 

More Specifically, how you use your computer mouse.

 

Once upon a time in computer history everything was done by keyboard, and a mouse was unheard of.  Today most people use a click of the mouse to get their tasks done quickly, and some use a combination of keyboard shortcuts and the use of the mouse.

Lets talk MOUSE MEASUREMENT!

I have to admit at first when the mouse came out I had to get used to how to MOVE it.  I don’t know about anyone else, but when I moved it I overshot my target.   Lets say, I wanted to move 3 inches to the left.  So I would move my mouse over 3 inches.  I would then look at my monitor with curiosity, because the mouse pointer was GONE!  The mouse pointer moved WAY more than 3 inches.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

What are the different types of computers?

3 Comments so far Posted by Hannah on 6:29 PM

Imges of different types of computers - IBM
Image via Wikipedia
What are the different types of computers?
Goodness knows there are enough of them!

As you may have guess today’s How-To Guide for the Computer Beginner is to go over the different types of computers.

I will go over various types of computers today, and show you different photos of different types of computers so it will be easier to visualize.

I will go down a little personal history lane as well to remind you how far we have come with the different types of computers!

Desktop Computer or Desktop PC
Types of Computer - Desktop Computer
This is the type of desktop computer years ago, and you really thought you were doing great!

I remember those ugly screens, and those green letters on the monitor. 

If you look below the monitor you will see the floppy drive.   The 5 1/4 floppy disks were extremely fragile, and yet you needed to make sure you stored your important files on them.Photo of desktop computer

I have to wonder if these older computers are part of the reason I wear glasses today!  When I look at the newer desktop computers today?  WOW what a difference!

YIKES have we come a long way!

PC = Personal Computer

This last picture could also be part of a work station, but we will talk about that later.

These can also be referred to as a personal computer.

Computer Tower

Picture of Computer Tower
One of the different types of computers is something you may have already.  The computer tower I have pictured here is a bit older.  It still has the 3.5 floppy drive.  Today those drives are not even used anymore, nor do computer towers even COME with them most of the time!

The computer tower was a different type of computer than the past.  It was tall, and you could add more than one hard drive, floppy drive, CD Rom, etc.  It was the wave of the future!  If you wanted the CD rom on a computer?   You would have updated to one of these computer towers.  The early desktop computers didn’t have them from what I remember.

Today’s computer towers you don’t have your floppy drive, and at the time if you wanted to be cutting edge (with the old computer tower) you wanted different CD rom drives to lets say burn information, or make videos.   Its quite amazing now because the CD rom drives of today will even burn in image with lasers onto your DVD or CD roms instead of having the write the title on them now.

Your CD rom was great for storage of your files, and whepicture of type of computer towern you got your NEW computer tower?  You had a CD rom for each and every program in the past.  If you ran out of memory or hard drive space?  The towers of old – just as today – were meant to be able to expand.

Computer towers started to take over the traditional desktop you see above.   Although you do see the desktop computers they aren’t as popular as they once were.

The Technology advanced so much I’m sure we could put your entire blocks old computer tower information into ONE home personal computer today.

Laptop Computer
Types of computer the laptop

You also have your laptop computer. I have seen most young adults take these to college with them.

What I would have done to get my hands on THIS laptop compared to the green fonted monster pictured above from IBM.

Laptops are meant for portability, and they are not as powerful (most of the time) as desktop computers.  Everything has to be more compact.

PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)


 type of computer PDAMost people refer to this type of computer as a PDA.

PDA Stands for Personal Digital Assistant.

Generic term for handheld devices such as Palm Pilots that are commonly used to store address and calendar information. Newer models include networking features.


Years ago I had one, and it was nice…but the battery life was awful.
Palm Pilot various types of computers


I had my calendar, contacts, etc online, and I would ‘sync’ as they called it when I got home.  Basically you hooked up the device with a cable to your computer, and executed some software

The software would look for changes, and update both locations – the PDA and the online location.  It was nice when you placed notes in the device while you were away from the office.  You also had a copy of your most recently notes from the computer WITH YOU to make appts, notes, and update address information.

Today?  Everything is wireless, and I’m sure sync software is obsolete.  When I think of the history of the personal digital assistant?  Its really neat to think how powerful they are today.

handheld pc different type of computer
This different type of computer is also called handheld computer.

Personally, this would drive me up a tree! I don't want to type on something this small, and because my sight isn't the best. That screen would drive me nuts! There are people that love this type of computer, but its NOT for me!

It reminds me of the new and improved cell phones doesn’t it?  Our new and improved cell phones could be considered a PDA.

Tablet PC

This image with is different looking computer isn’t it?  This is the tablet PC.

With a Tablet PC you use an electronic stylus to write on the screen, just like with a pen and paper, only your words are in digital ink.
Picture of Tablet Computer
The Tablet PC saves your work just like you wrote it (as a picture), or you can let the Hand Recognition (HR) software turn your chicken-scratches into regular text.

Yes you can also put the button with your stylus like a keyboard as well.  Its neat to look at the progress that the tablet PC has made with time.


The Computer Workstation
Different picture of workstation computer They refer to this as a computer work station. The workstation to me is basically the whole complete package. Monitor, tower, keyboard, mouse, etc. Workstation is also connected to a network.


When talking about PC computers, most people probably think of the desktop type, which are designed to sit on your desk.

PC stands for Personal Computer. The tower and the smaller mini-tower style cases have become popular as people started needing more room for extra drives inside – as we talked about.

The Workstation is computers that are all connected together.

Computer networkA workstation that is part of a computer network and generally would be expected to have more than a regular desktop PC like memory, storage space, and speed.

If you see the picture networked means they are also connected together, and they share things like the printer or the scanner.



MainFrame Computer

What is a mainframe
This is called a mainframe computer. A main frame is the heart of a network of computers or terminals which allows hundreds of people to work at the same time on the same data.

It requires a special environment - cold and dry.

Example of Use:
Larger companies use this to hold on to information regarding your orders, contact information, etc. You may be talking to customer service but your information lands in one of these guys!   If you call one morning and speak to a representative in Illinois, and the next day call back and speak to California?  Chances are they are using the network hooked up together, and possibly on the same main frame.

In the early days of computing, mainframes were huge computers that could fill an entire room or even a whole floor! As the size of computers has diminished while the power has increased, the term mainframe has fallen out of use in favor of enterprise server. You'll still hear the term used, particularly in large companies to describe the huge machines processing millions of transactions every day.

SuperComputer

Supercomputer This is an example of a supercomputer. We are talking HUGE companies that use these. These are used for jobs that take massive amounts of calculating, like weather forecasting, engineering design and testing, serious decryption, economic forecasting, etc. Top 500 supercomputer site will show you these big daddies of the computer world!

Picture of Server part of computer workstation

The Server

When you talk about the various types of computer we shouldn’t leave out the server.

Have you ever called a company, and they told you they can't help you right now because their server went down? This is a picture of a server that might be used in smaller companies or home networks.

There are a couple of different types of servers, Computer Networkand here is a link to some computer definitions of server.

A computer that has been optimized to provide services to other work station computers over a network. Servers usually have powerful processors, lots of memory and large hard drives.   In this picture the brown tower would be the server.


Wearable Computers

Different type of computer wearable
NOW you can be ahead of some of your friends! THIS is called a wearable computer! Can you believe it?

According to Wikipedia®




Wearable computers are computers that are worn on the body. They have been applied to areas such as behavioral modeling, health monitoring systems, information technologies and media development. Wearable computers are especially useful for applications that require computational support while the user's hands, voice, eyes or attention are actively engaged with the physical environment.



One of the main features of a wearable computer is consistency. There is a constant interaction between the computer and user, ie. there is no need to turn the device on or off.

Another feature is the ability to multi-task. It is not necessary to stop what you are doing to use the device; it is augmented into all other actions. These devices can be incorporated by the user to act like a prosthetic. It can therefore be an extension of the user’s mind and/or body.  Amazing isn’t it?

Well! There you go with some of the different types of computers!   I’m sure with time we have to revised this article again.  The industry just keeps changing.

I hope you learned something today with out How-To Guide for the computer beginner lesson on ‘different types of computers’.

If you have any questions, comments, or don't understand something please use the comment section at the top of the lesson. How do you do that?? Click HERE to see how to comment on a blog!

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Saturday, June 7, 2008

Basics about the computer mouse, and how to clean it!

Be the first to comment! Posted by Hannah on 9:30 PM



EWWWWWWWW! Yuck!!! IT is FUNNY........tee hee!

I wanted to go over some parts of the mouse, and I'm sure you know some of this already! First this start with some basic terms that you will hear alot.


Point

The end of your cursor is what you use to POINT! You POINT the end of your cursor on whatever item you are dealing with!

Click

Point to something with the end of your cursor (icon, program, etc), and then press and release your left mouse button.

You can also point and click in a document to add or remove things!

Try NOT to move your mouse around with you do this! I have moved objects around when I did that!

Right Click

Its basically the opposite of click because you will be using your RIGHT button, instead of our LEFT button that you will use most of the time!

Typically you use the right click to view menus for applications you are using.

Double-click

Double-click is clicking twice, but you will do this pretty quickly! You don't want to move the mouse for this option either! I remember the first day I tried a mouse, and even to this day at times I might not DOUBLE-CLICK fast enough! It happens to the best of us!

Normally you are executing something when you double-click! For example, opening a program!

Drag

Point to an object, and then HOLD DOWN the left button (don't release it) while moving your mouse (and the object) at the same time!

You will use this if you are trying to select text for example, and if you are working on a drawing.

Goodness knows there are enough of the different types of computer mouses out there, and I will try to touch on few a few!


This is a typical 2 button mouse.





This mouse has a wheel in the center.

They both work the same pretty much the same thing.

The center button (depending on the type) you can rotate the wheel, and at times CLICK it as well!

Depending on the application you are using you can scroll UP and DOWN the screen using that center button.

You can zoom in or out while you hold down the CTRL key and rotate the wheel.

Those are few examples. Myself - I don't use it very often at all!

Depending your mouse type - it is said that some mouses may not need this - you will need to clean the mouse.

The first thing you may notice is your mouse just isn't moving along the way it used to. It won't move where you move it, or just plain just sits there!

The first time this happened to me I thought it was broken!

Flip the mouse over, and look at the bottom. At times you can really collect alot of JUNK there. All kinds of debris collects under there, and I would say wiping it off cures this mouse issue 90% of the time!

I normally don't spray any cleaner directly on the mouse itself. I may take a rag, and spray a little cleaner on it to remove the debris. It wouldn't take that much to clean it off.

My mouse has a spot where you can see a red light, and I make sure that is cleaned out as well.

Some of you may have different types of computer mouses. You may use a ball to move the cursor around, or you may have a ball literally on the bottom of you mouse!

I felt a visual would be best for this type, and I could a good video on Expert Village for that!

Pretty simple huh?

Don't forget if you have any question or comments use the top of this post to start the discussion! If you don't know how to do this I have also written about that! How do I comment!
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