PCs for non techies.

[Bob T]

Wrote this in response to the people who complained that my last thread was too technical. Enjoy.
If you think of the box that you call your computer as an office room then it will all become clear. In the office is a desk, a window, some cupboards and a little man.
Think of the desk as memory (or RAM). This is working space. Your computer may have 256Mb, 512Mb or 1024Mb (known as 1Gb).
The man is your processor or CPU, his name could be Pentium or AMD Athalon.
The cupboards are your hard disk. These can be various sizes and you can put more cupboards or a bigger one in of you like.
The man must speak a language that would be called Windows XP, or Windows 98 or even linux. These are operating systems. He has to read and speak one or the other as he needs to be able to read the labels on the cupboards.
The window in the room is your monitor where you see what the man has done. This could be and old bulky one or a flat LCD one, either will work.
You may also have a CD or disk drive, think of these as a cupboard on wheels that comes to the door of the office, a CD would be a big cupboard and a floppy disk a little one.
When you switch the computer on and tell it to do something the man will rush to the cupboard (hard drive) and get the files to lay on the table (memory) and work on them as instructed by you via the keyboard or the mouse. If the table (memory) is a small one and he cannot fit everything on then he will get some of the files but will need to rush back and forward to the cupboard (hard drive) to change files over. This can be slow. There are two solutions, give him a bigger table (fit more memory) or give him some roller skates (fit a faster CPU). The first option is the easiest. I would say that less than 512Mb of memory (table) needs to be upgraded.
The hard disk (cupboards) can also be upgraded if they are full most of the time. Hard disks vary in sizes form about 40Gb to 400Gb these days, but do not confuse these with memory (table). An 80Gb hard disk (cupboard) costs around €60 and can be fitted instead of, or in addition to the existing hard disk (cupboard).
You may ask about the internet, well this is like giving the man a telephone so that he can get stuff from another computer and put it on the table (memory) or on the hard disk (cupboard). If you give him a touch tone phone with a built in fax machine and a video line then that would be like ADSL, much quicker.
Hope this little story helps the non techies out there and does not offend those who know it.
If interested I could invent other little stories to explain techie stuff.

[Sue Dyer]

Thanks Bob.
I remember when I first started on computers and trying to get to grips with the directory/file system on Windows 3.1. Someone explained them like the main directory (now folders) was like the trunk of a tree. The sub folders were the branches that came off them. The branchers could also have other branches splitting off those. (By the way, I'm glad I got to grips with early Windows as I still remember so many keyboard shortcuts and could almost do without a mouse)

Your analogy rung a bell as the other week when I saw someone from the Alzheimers Society. She explained Dad's memory was like a database and as it was getting a bit older and fuller he was having to search harder through it to find things. She said at some point the database becomes full like a hard disc and no more information can be added to it. I asked her if there was any possibility of defragging dad's hard disc but to no avail!!

[Alan Knighting]

Sue,

I went through this with my own father. Using the PC analogy it unfortunately finishes up with “Access Denied�.

Fluffy

[Sue Dyer]

I know Alan. Both my laptop and Dad are at about the same stage. I should ask the consultant if I can upgrade dad to Windows Vista??

(Forgive my sense of humour, it is a coping mechanism!)

[paolo]

If interested I could invent other little stories to explain techie stuff.

Yes please, how does a fridge work?

[Alan Knighting]

(Forgive my sense of humour, it is a coping mechanism!)

Sue,

Life is far too serious to get serious about it, if you get my drift.

We should all have been born Scottish. That way we would all be Mac’s and they say Mac’s have far better memory management than do PC’s. Actually, I don’t think “PC� in any of its connotations is something to rely on.

At least the extreme Alzheimer’s sufferers don’t know they are suffering; it’s their loved ones who have to tough it out.

Chin up!

Fluffy

[Giddy Goat]

Bob T - thank you for being so patient and helpful - do you know anything about the vagaries of Macs? Or middle-aged women? (Can't go blaming my Mac for everything as there are one or two others here with them!) And why I should have lost Firefox and not be able to get it back?! I know enabling cookies is important in some contexts when one runs into difficulties, but how to do it is another matter; and yesterday I couldn't get into something (a PDF) to have a look, and it was so frustrating; it seemed to need QuickTime Player, which we have, but there was no scroll bar so I could only see the front cover of the document and none of the text!

PM me please, maybe?

[Bob T]

A Mac is not to different to a PC when you look into the component parts, but I don't have anything to do with Macs. In my experience they are more expensive and more difficult to deal with. If you consider the little man (CPU) in the first post being different in that he has one eye, eight fingers on each hand and has no knees. On top of that he cannot read English and only recognses the Chinese alphabet, then you will get the picture.
Apple macs were very popular in the publishing industry years ago as they had a Windows type look well before Microsoft started, but these days they can be matched in their functionality by a Windows PC.
To open PDF documents, you need Adobe reader, in this free program the side bars to scroll don't show on all machines. If you click on the page the cursor may change to a hand and you can then drag the page up to see the lower half. You should also have, at the bottom in the middle of the scree, a left and right arrow. If you press on these then you should go to the next page.
Fridges are quite simple. in that the compressor squashes the gas to make it warmer and then circulates it through the grill in the back allowing it to cool. It the unsquashes the gas which makes it cooler and circulates it inside the fridge. Simple explanation, I know. But when I trained to be an aircraft engineer, we spent months looking at aircraft conditioning systems which are just a big fridge!

[AndyLucia]

(Forgive my sense of humour, it is a coping mechanism!)

Like the man said "The only thing to remember in life is not to sweat the small stuff. By the way, it's ALL small stuff!" - problem is, it doesn't always feel that small!! We all cope the best way we can, you seem to be coping pretty well at the moment; but don't forget that the nice thing about this forum is that there are lots of people willing to listen when you feel the need to let rip!!

[AndyLucia]

I found the luggage analogy worked quite well with my parents, when their PC died recently and I shifted info from their old HD to the new PC.

A PC is like your car; the keyboard/mouse is the steering wheel, the screen is the window/mirrors (for the ladies, they can be used for checking the road as well as your make up!), the CPU/RAM etc is the engine and the hard drive is your luggage.

If the engine dies, all you need to do is transfer your luggage to the new car; it may not be possible to transfer the actual 'bag', but you can just move the contents to a new bag and drive on as though nothing had happened.

Unbelievably it seems to have stuck, as my Dad has extended the analogy to his new iPod (he's 75. That'll teach him not to make flip comments AND to make a crimbo list next year!!).

I liked you explanation on the other thread Bob, but you didn't say where the other cupboard was kept; is it in the shed next to that fireproof box you mentioned?

[Bob T]

AndyLucia,
You can put the other cupboard anywhere. It could be another one inside your computer, or attached to a modem router. By having it inside your computer with the original, it will get pinched should someone steal the computer, but if you have it attached to the modem router then it can be in a different room in the house.
You are correct in the luggage explanation. I would have fitted the old hard drive (cupboard) into the new computer so that it sits next to the existing hard drive. That way you have all the old information there for you.

[AndyLucia]

AndyLucia,
You can put the other cupboard anywhere. It could be another one inside your computer, or attached to a modem router. By having it inside your computer with the original, it will get pinched should someone steal the computer, but if you have it attached to the modem router then it can be in a different room in the house.
You are correct in the luggage explanation. I would have fitted the old hard drive (cupboard) into the new computer so that it sits next to the existing hard drive. That way you have all the old information there for you.

Bob, the old luggage was only cheap vinyl, so wasn't worth keeping; but dropping the analogies for a second, it had rubbish response times so I just pulled the info from it and then dumped it. There was another HD in the old machine, which I did transfer over for them, I use that drive for all their iPod stuff so as not to clog up the main drive.

[Sue Dyer]

Good thread Bob. Everytime i sit on an aircraft waiting for takeoff I marvel at how the plane is going to get off the ground.

Re fridges. The gas explaination is good. My sis had a house with no electricity and had a calor gas fridge. That used to boggle my mind. Gas Fridge!?!

My laptop is about 3.5 years old and it feels like the equivelent of an old cardboard suitcase tied up with string!!

Mac's. I had a stupid attachement to my old Mac which was my first machine many years ago. I felt really disloyal when I switched to P.C's.

[Bob T]

The only problem with a laptop is when it goes wrong. If it does just what you want it to do there is no problem, but should you want to upgrade it to do something new, you are quite restricted. You can for example put a bigger desk (memory) into it and can change the hard disk (cupboard) but cannot go much further than that.
If you have a desktop PC you can change things as your need changes. DVD writers and better graphics cards (the thing that lets you see into the window) can increase performance for editing photos and copying DVDs.

[Paul Carmel]

"Re fridges. The gas explaination is good. My sis had a house with no electricity and had a calor gas fridge. That used to boggle my mind. Gas Fridge!?!"

These are reasonably common on old boats, personally I wouldn't touch one with someone else's barge pole.