What is the Internet

The Internet is a giant network of computers communicating with each other.Your computer connects to the Internet through a system of computers at your Internet Service Provider (ISP). The Internet Service Provider connects to other networks of computers to provide you with access to the Internet.
How the Internet Process Works

This is a very basic, simplified explanation of how the Internet works.

First of all there’s your computer.You have to have signed up with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to gain access to the Internet. The connection can be through dial-up (your computer dials a phone number to access the Internet),cable (your Internet connection is provided by your cablevision company and is connected at all times) or ADSL (your computer uses the phone line and is connected to the internet at all times).

When you choose a website to visit the request goes to your ISP’s computer network.It sends out your request to the next computer in the system of the Internet structure. Your request could travel all the way around the world to find the website you are looking for.

Once the website has been found,the location information is sent back through the Internet structure to your ISP then to your computer’s browser.

In an ideal situation this whole process is instantaneous.

How fast you get to the website will depend on:
How you connect to the Internet.

Dial-up will be the slowest. Cable is affected by the number of computers in the neighbourhood are on the same line.
Your computer.

If your computer is low on memory, the disk is full, you have too many programs and/or documents open or a poorly maintained computer the computer has to work harder to present the web page in the browser.
Your ISP’s system.

The ISP’s system of computers may have an internal problem that slows down the process of searching the Internet for the site you requested.
If the Internet structure computers and other hardware are not all working to their full capacity the whole process of finding the site and returning it’s location through to your computer can be slowed down.

One broken or slow spot in the path can slow down the whole Internet.
How well the website has been designed.

A poorly designed or coded website will be slow to load. The browser will have to work harder to render (present) the web page.

How to Make Folder in Windows

Create a Folder in Windows
On the desktop (main screen),right click the My Computer icon.
Select Explore from the list that appears.

The screen will change, exposing a window with two panes. On the left is a list of all your drives and on the right is a list of the drives sorted in categories.
To keep things simple we are going to create a folder in My Documents.Click My Documents.

The screen changes.The left side of the window lists all the folders already in the My Documents folder. On the right is a list of the existing folders in My Documents.
Right click in any empty space in the right pane.
Select New from the list and it will expand. Select Folder from the new list.

A new folder is created at the bottom of the list of files and folders with the name New Folder. It will be highlighted if you haven’t moved the mouse.
Type in a name for the folder.e.g. Letters
Hit Enter key and the folder will have the new name you typed.

That’s it. You are done.

Save File in Windows

Saving a file in Windows is quite simple.

Each program you have should have a top toolbar with a menu item called File on the far left of the toolbar. This is the menu item that you use to save a file and have control over where the files is saved and how it is named.

With the File menu item you can navigate to the folder you want to save the file to,name it whatever you like and change the file type if you wish.

Save a File in Windows

In the top toolbar click File.

Select Save As from the list that appears.

The Save As dialog box appears.

In the top of the Save As dialog box there is a dropdown list. Click the arrow on the right of the dropdown list and navigate to the folder you wish to save the file too.

At the bottom of the Save As dialog box there is a section with the label File name. In the box beside that label type in the name of the file. Include the extension to be sure it is saved in the correct format.

Some programs will add the correct extension to the end of the file name for you. Until you are sure your program is saving files with the extension you wish,I recommend add it yourself.

Click Save and you are done!

That wasn’t that hard, was it.

The hard part about saving files is remembering where you saved them. As a beginner I would suggest that you save all your files to the My Documents folder until you are more familiar with your computer.

Some programs will by default save files where they want to save them. You will have to consult the program documentation to see if/how to change this.

Once you have initially saved a file you can click the Save button or File/Save from the top toolbar. The file will be saved where you had the original.

Open File In Windows

Windows is a difficult program/operating system to learn because there so many ways to do the same thing.

Below are a couple of ways to open a file in Windows.You might have been shown another way to do this.It doesn’t mean what you have been shown is wrong. You were just shown a different way to do it.Open a File in Windows
Open a File from Within a Program

The program you are using should have a top toolbar with an item called File at the far left.
Click File in the top toolbar.
From the list that appears,select Open.

The Open dialog box appears.
At the top of the Open dialog box is a label Look in.Click the arrow on the right to navigate to the folder where the file is.

A list of files and folders within the selected folder will appear. If you don’t see the file you are looking for, change the File types list below the File name box to show All Files.
Click the file name from the middle box that you wish to open.

The file name should appear in the box beside File name.
Next,click Open.

The program associated with that file type should startup then, your file will open.

That wasn’t too hard.Now onto opening a file in Windows via My Documents folder.Open File from the My Documents Folder

On your desktop (the screen you see when the computer has warmed up) there is what is called an icon called My Documents.
Double click the icon on the desktop called My Documents.

Windows Explorer will open showing a list of files and folders within your My Doucments folder.
If the file is in a folder within My Documents, click the folder name to move into/expose the files in that folder.
Once in the correct folder,click on the file you wish to open.

Whether you have to double or single click a file or folder to open it will depend on how your computer is set up. If a single left click does not open the file/folder, then double click it quickly.

That’s it,you are done.

Computer Backup Tips

Here are a few tips when organizing your computer back up:
Keep in mind that a full back up being restored on to a new hard drive will require that the new hard drive be set up identically to the old hard drive or the software being used to restore your information may not work.
Keep your computer back up medium organized! If the back up is spanned across multiple disks for example, they have to be used in the same order when restoring as they were written in.
Always store your computer back ups in a safe place. In a business situation storing them off site would be a good idea in case of fire, flood or break in.
Back up on a regular basis. A computer failure can happen at anytime and without notice so being prepared will save you a lot of grief.
Schedule the computer back up for a time when you know the computer will be on! If you are going to use the schedule feature of the back up software, the computer has to be on at that time. This is something someone who is new to computers or not very familiar with computers tends to forget or does not realize. Yes the computer keeps time when it is off (there’s a little battery in the computer that does this besides a few other things which are beyond the topic of this post) but all scheduled updates and programs need to computer to be on and the operating system loaded to perform the tasks.
Keep the files you use the most often backed up more regularly. Files that change or are added frequently need to be backed up more often than other parts of the computer.A daily back up of these items might be prudent if you work on the computer a lot.
If you are using a computer back up program, have it verify the files once the back up is complete. This will check that the back up is a good working copy of the files.If the back up is faulty,it isn’t much use to you later when you need it.

If you have done the computer back up manually buy selecting specific files (e.g. Burning specific files to cd),just try opening them once backed up to make sure the copy works.

Hopefully you now realize why it is important to perform a computer back up, how to perform a computer back up,what is required to back up a computer and that having a regular computer back up schedule (manually or automatic) will save you from loosing important information on the computer and ultimately save yourself time and grief should you have to restore the computer.

Back Up Your Computer

Have you ever had your computer crash? Been infected with a virus, spyware or trojan? Or made the silly mistake of overwriting an existing file when you shouldn’t have? Installed a piece of hardware or software that made your computer malfunction? These type of things happen to everyone, experienced computer user or not.

If any of the above happens, you can loose everything. The operating system and programs can be replaced but your work (letters, pictures, etc.) can not unless you have performed a computer back up.
What is a Computer Back Up?

A computer back up is essentially a copy of the information on your computer. The copy can be a full back up,an incremental back up, a differential back up or a selective back up.
Types of Computer Back Up

As mentioned above there are different types of computer back up. Each will require a different amount of time to perform and may require a different type of back up medium.
Full Back Up

A full back up, as the name implies, is a back up of everything on the computer.The operating system, your settings,the software installed and your files are all backed up (copied) to another medium.

The full back up will take a long time to perfom (depending on the amount of information on the computer) and require the largest amount of back up medium.
Incremental Back Up

An incremental computer back up will back up only the files that have changed since the last back up was performed. The time to perform this type of computer back up and the amount of back up medium required will depend on how much has changed since the last back up.
Differential Back Up

A differential back up also backs up only the files that have changed but it keeps all the changes since the last full back up.

The differential back up time and storage requirements will also vary on the amount of changes since the last full back up.Seeing each change is added to the back up copy, the amount of back up storage required grows as time progresses.
Selective Back Up

With a selective computer back up, you select specific files and/or folders on the computer to be backed up.

Again, the time required and the amount of back up storage medium required will vary depending on how much has to be backed up.