Internet

Internet is a vast network of computers that connects many of the world’s businesses, institutions, and individuals. The Internet, which means interconnected network of networks, links tens of thousands of smaller computer networks. It enables computer users throughout the world to send and receive messages, share information in a variety of forms, and even play computer games with people thousands of miles away. Computers linked to the Internet range from simple and inexpensive personal computers, often called PC’s, to huge mainframe computers used by government institutions, educational institutions, and businesses.

Computers require special hardware and software to connect to the Internet. Necessary hardware includes a modem, a device that translates a computer’s digital information into signals that can be transmitted over telephone lines (MODEM). Required software includes a communications program that allows the transmission and receipt of messages. The Internet, often called simply the Net, began as a collection of text-based information. But the development and rapid growth of a part of the Internet called the World Wide Web (also known as WWW or the Web), transformed the presentation of information on the Net. In addition to text, the Web allows the use of photographs, moving pictures, and sound to create presentations approaching the visual quality of television and the audio quality of recorded music.

USES OF THE INTERNET

The major uses of the Internet include communication, research, publishing, and sales. Communication. Probably the most popular use of the Internet and the Web is e-mail, also called electronic mail. Virtually every Internet user is assigned an electronic address from which e-mail messages are sent and at which they are received. The Internet carries hundreds of millions of email messages each day.

Research. The Internet is like a vast library, containing as much knowledge on every subject as might be held in millions of books. Information is available in many forms, from files consisting only of text to multimedia files that combine text, photos, animation or video, software programs, and sound. Internet resources grow larger every day. Because of the ease with which information is stored on computers, and the speed with which it can be accessed, the Internet is a popular first stop for many people performing research. A businessperson might search Internet resources for help in developing sales or product information.

Students can access databases to find material related to homework assignments or courses of study. Physicians use the Net to compare medical treatments and to review advances in medical science. Scientists share research data on the Internet. Publishing. Publishers are increasingly using the Internet as a medium for presenting newspapers, magazines, and books. Because information on the Net is electronic, the publisher is freed from the costs of paper, printing, and distribution. More importantly, the publisher can update information instantly, making it possible to distribute far more current news than could be provided on paper. Sales. Many businesses use the Internet to carry on commerce. Retail establishments sell nearly every type of product over the Internet. Software publishers view the Net as a convenient and inexpensive way to distribute products. Over the Internet, users can buy new programs, sample programs before purchasing them, or receive upgrades to programs they already own. Users generally make Internet purchases with credit cards.

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Computer

Computer is a device that processes information with astonishing speed and accuracy. Computers process information by helping to create it and by displaying it, storing it, reorganizing it, calculating with it, and communicating it to other computers. Computers can process numbers, words, still pictures, moving pictures, and sounds. The most powerful computers can perform tens of billions of calculations per second.

The computer has changed the way we work, learn, communicate, and play. Virtually every kind of organization throughout the world conducts business with computers. Students, teachers, and research scientists use the computer as a learning tool. Millions of individuals and organizations communicate with one another over a network of computers called the Internet. Computer games entertain people of all ages.

Almost all computers are electronic digital computers. They are electronic in their use of electric current (a flow of electric charge) to carry information. They are digital in that they process information as units of electric charge representing numbers. The word digital means having to do with numbers.

To enable a computer to process information that is not numerical–such as words, pictures, or sounds–the computer or some other device must first digitize that information. A device digitizes information by translating it into charges that represent numbers. After the computer processes the digitized information by working with the charges, the computer or a device connected to the computer translates its results back into their original form.

Thus, an artist might use a machine called a scanner to digitize a photograph. The artist would next process the resulting electric charges in a computer to change the photograph–perhaps to add a border. The artist would then use a printer connected to the computer to produce a copy of the altered photo.

Digital computers are one of two general kinds of computers. The other kind are calculating devices called analog computers. An analog computer represents amounts with physical quantities, such as distances along a scale, rather than with numbers. The remainder of this article deals with digital computers. For more information on analog computers. The technology of computer hardware (the physical parts of computer systems) has advanced tremendously since 1946, when the first electronic digital computer was built. That machine filled a huge room. Today, a single microprocessor, a device the size of a fingernail, can do the same work as that pioneering machine.

The technology of software (programs, or sets of computer instructions and information) is also advancing rapidly. Early users of computers wrote their own software. Today, most users buy programs created by companies that specialize in writing software. Hundreds of thousands of different programs are available for businesses and individuals. Because of advances in hardware and software, the price of computing has dropped sharply. As a result, the number of computers in operation has risen rapidly ever since the first commercial digital computers were manufactured in the 1950′s. More than 10,000 computers were in operation worldwide by 1961. Ten years later, the number exceeded 100,000. By 1990, about 100 million computers were running. By the mid-1990′s, the number had reached about 200 million.

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Driver

Definition: A driver is a small piece of software that tells the operating system and other software how to communicate with a piece of hardware.

For example, all printers come accompanied with drivers to install that tell the operating system exactly how to print information on the page. Sound card drivers tell your software exactly how to translate data into audio signals that the card can output to a set of speakers. The same applies to video cards, keyboards, monitors, etc.

The drivers for each piece of hardware in your Windows computer are centrally managed from Device Manager, available in all versions of Microsoft Windows.

Operating System: Abbreviated as OS, it is a usually large program that controls and manages the hardware and other software on a computer.

The most popular operating systems today include versions of Microsoft Windows (like Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP), Apple's Mac OS, and flavors of the open source operating system Linux.

Hardware: in the computer world, refers to the physical components that make up a computer system. There are many different kinds of hardware that can be installed inside, and connected to the outside, of a computer.

Take a tour inside your PC to learn how all the hardware in your computer connects together to create the complete computer system you use everyday.

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