| COMP 101 |
| Computers hold a great sense of mystery to many of us – a mystery born more out of a lack of understanding than anything else. It’s natural to fear what we don’t understand. At least that’s what I believe. It’s because of this belief that I’m creating this series of basic computer understanding modules that I hope will help remove the shroud, as it were, and expose the computer for the wonderful tool that it really is and help you realize that it’s not magic and really isn’t that hard to learn how to use to support and enhance our everyday lives.Like Dorothy discovered in the Wizard of Oz, the great, all powerful Oz was nothing more than a man whom knew how to work the controls of the machine. Learning and actually mastering the computer is nothing more than learning how it works, why it works the way that it does and how to make it do what you want it to do. It’s nothing more than pulling back the curtain.Each section will be divided into two parts. The first part will offer a very broad, yet basic, understanding of that section whereas the second part will offer a little bit more of a peek into the inner workings; into the geek-speak for those that want to learn a little more of what really goes on behind the scenes.Now, I will be the first to profess that I am not a know-it-all and there might be a few things of interest that I skim over or even overlook and in my desire to not become overly complicated. If you find that to be the case please drop me a note and I’ll consider adding the information to the module.I’ll be using a lot of analogies as we progress through the modules. This is a method which will helpfully allow us to make something a little foreign a little more understandable.So…we go forward. I hope that you’ll find the information not only useful but enlightening as well.Tom |