Our world is going global. This may seem redundant, but really, how we communicate and interact with each other has changed. From vlogging and blogging to e-mails and Skype
, our world is getting smaller. As little as 10 years ago, the Internet was just revealing itself as a staple tool for conducting business, and along with the business world, our personal lives felt the change.
Yahoo!, MSN and AOL released Instant Messenger services in the 1990s. People could communicate via text instantly with each other, no matter where in the world they were. E-mail had transgressed to instant messages, and today, we have video messenger. Not only can we now talk with the people we love and the people we work with, but we can look at them, as well. The Internet is literally helping to bring businesses and people closer together.
Not only is telecommunicating great for business, it’s great for the environment! More people are now able to work from home and help with carbon emissions by not driving to work. Rather than flying across the country for a meeting, people can now have video meetings and send presentations over the Internet. With less people flying, our atmosphere improves. Documents can be e-mailed and edited online rather than on paper, thus saving trees and saving the company money.
And how have computers affected our personal lives? Take online shopping into consideration. People today no longer need to drive to the mall, wasting gasoline and time. Online shopping allows us to shop from the comfort of our homes, freeing us from holiday traffic and keeping our gas tanks fuller. E-cards have become a popular way to invite people to parties, wish them good luck or congratulate them on accomplishments. E-cards are great because they save paper, you don’t need to go to the post office and your recipient gets them instantly.
Computers today are changing and evolving right before our eyes. New computers are being developed that are solar powered, more energy efficient, and have better and stronger capabilities. While most of the world has embraced this trend, there are still many individuals who have not learned how to use a computer. This is a problem that not only the older generation, but the younger generation faces, as well. John W. Scherer, CEO and founder of Video Professor, has donated his computer learning tutorials to underprivileged kids across America. He hopes that one day every person will be able to use and operate a computer on his/her own. A more tech-savvy world could one day mean a cleaner and safer world for us all to live in.
Video cards have many different names. You might know them as a graphics accelerator cards, display adapters or graphics cards. But, simply put, understanding video cards is key to understanding your computer’s displays and abilities. A video card is a part of your personal computer hardware, and its function is to generate and output images to a display (your monitor). It operates on similar principles as a sound card (if you are at all familiar).
Video cards usually refer to a separate expansion card that is plugged into a slot on the computer's motherboard. Some video cards offer added functionalities, such as video capture, TV tuner adapter, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 decoding or even FireWire, mouse, light pen, joystick connectors, or even the ability to connect two monitors. Video cards are not used exclusively in IBM type PCs; they have also been used in many video game consules.
Video card history dates back to the 1970s, when printers were replaced with screens as visualization elements. Video cards were necessary for capturing images. The first video card was released with the first IBM PC in 1981. It had a 4KB video memory and just one color.
In 1995, Video cards improved vastly with the release of the first 2D/3D cards, developed by Matrox, Creative, S3 and ATI, among others. Those video cards incorporated 3D functions.
Today, Video cards are powerful, functional and easy to find. Go online and chances are, within seconds, you will have found scores of sites that sell, repair and can help you find the perfect video card. Ranging from the moderately to extravagently priced, a Video card can be as powerful as you need it to be. If you are interested in online gaming and dedicate a lot of time to it, a better video card will give you better graphics. If, for your job, you work with graphics displays, a powerful video card can be the difference between a project done well and a project done expertly.
Here are a few sites to check out:
http://www.newegg.com/
httP://www.bestbuy.com
http://www.computerhope.com/help/video.htm
Cheers!
Beryl S.
An external hard disc drive is a type of hard disc, which is externally connected to a computer. They are usually connected through USB drives or FireWire drives. These are portable so, rather than bringing your entire computer on trips, you can bring your hard drive and connect it to a computer at a library, internet cage or any other place that you will have access to a computer. I recently purchased my first external hard drive. It has 100 GB of space and is great for me because I keep all my music and photos on it. By doing this, I save space on my laptop, and my computer overall runs much faster and smoother.
Over the years, external hard drives have not only increased their storage capacity, some holding up to 750 GB of information, but they have also improved on their usability and their speed. The first external hard drive held around 40 MB of space and was very slow; meaning that it took awhile to get information from the hard drive to the computer. As technology and computers have gotten faster, smaller and better, so have portable hard drives. Portable external hard drives are about the size of a paperback book, and the smallest models are about the size of a deck of cards. These smaller drives usually connect with a USB cable and come in capacities of 6GB to 250GB. They are small enough that they can usually pull all the power they need through the USB port, so you don’t need an external power supply.
With this in mind, let’s take a look at some portable external hard drives available on the market today:
LACIE Mobile Design by F.A. Porsche
This hard drive is made with a durable exterior to withstand life on the go. This portable drive is USB and FireWire bus-powered, so you will not need any cumbersome AC adapters. There is also no software to configure on Windows 2000, Windows XP or Mac OS X because it’s driver-free. It’s preformatted for immediate use on a PC or Mac. It can hold up to 250 GB of information and it’s dimensions are 5”x 3”x 0.7”.
Iomega Silver Series
Iomega’s limited edition desktop hard drive is an affordable way to save and store data. With 500 GB of space you can save up to 2,000,000 pictures, 9,250 hours of music or 750 hours of video. Not only is this drive economical, but it is very easy-to-use and preformatted for simple set up. Just plus and play! It’s dimensions are 1.4”x 4.8” x8.8”.
Seagate FreeAgent Pro
The Seagate FreeAgent Pro is easy-to-use, versatile and reliable. Reviewers generally agree that speeds are good, and reliability is above average. Six versions are available with capacities from 320 to 750 GB. All have USB 2.0 and eSATA connectors. Three versions add FireWire connectors. The drives work with PCs and Macs, but the software is Windows only. The 5-year warranty distinguishes Seagate from other brands.
Good luck in your search! A portable external hard drive will help your computer run faster, and they are great as information back ups on your computer!
Cheers!
Beryl S.
So, last week we took a look at the computer’s life cycle starting in 1936 and ending in 1960. With the 1960s came the development of the integrated circuit (IC), which formed the basis of the first computer kits and home computers in the 1970s. Examples of this include the MITS Altair, Apple II and Commodore PET. From these early system computer engineers and designers were able to create and power personal and business computers such as the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh in the 1980s.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s computer companies sprouted up all over the place. Literally, hundreds of computer hardware companies were founded (many of which have since gone out of business). But, some companies, like Dell and Apple did well and are still in existance today.
By the mid 1990s companies like Compaq, HP, Gateway and Dell were in nearly complete control of the market. Microsoft Windows was the basic operating system of choice, making the Macintosh a minority in the market. Today, in 2007, HP is the largest manufacturer of personal computers in the world.
1964- Douglas Engelbart invented the computer mouse. It was named a mouse because of it body shape and cord-like tail that connected it to the computer.
1970- Intel introduced the original RAM chip changing the once understand notion of a computer’s memory.
1971- Faggin, Hott and Mazor created the world’s first microprocessor, doubly named the Intel 4004 Microprocessor. In this same year Albert Shugart developed the first floppy disk and floppy disk drive.
1979- Seymour Rubenstein and Rob Barnaby created the first word processor with the company Wordstar. These men were nicknamed the “typewriter killers.”
1981- IBM came out with the first personal computer that you could use from home, and Microsoft came out with their MS-DOC computer operating system.
1982- The CD-Rom is introduced as a built-in appliance in computers.
1983- Apple came out with the first personal computer with a graphical user interface.
1985- Windows operating system came on the market and began its life-long duel with Apple.
1986- The 32-bit Intel 80386 microprocessor was released, and the first '386-based PC/compatible was the Compaq Deskpro 386.
1990- The NeXTstation workstation computer went on sale, for "interpersonal" computing. The NeXTstation was meant to be a new computer for the 1990s and was a cheaper version of the previous NeXT Computer.
1994- The zip drive was introduced by Iomega as a medium-capacity removable disk storage system. Its purpose was the replace the floppy disc, which at the time, it failed to do.
1999- The first PC motherboards that supported Rambus RDRAM (Rambus Direct DRAM), a type of synchronous dynamic RAM cmae out onto the market.
2002- Hewlett-Packard purchased Compaq. This acquisition made HP the world's largest manufacturer of personal computers.
2005-today- Macintosh reinventured its commercail image by releasing new models and designs boosting sales to new heights.
So, there you have it! We are now caught up! After all these dates and facts do you still think that one person invented the computer? Decide for youself, comment if you like!
Cheers!
Beryl S.
Who Invented The Computer?
Many people tend to ask questions that they think have a simple answer. For example: Why do birds fly south for the winter? Answer: Warmer climate and more food resources. But a question like who invented the computer is tricky. A computer is not a single entity; in fact, a computer is comprised of many different parts, all of whom have their own inventors. So, in this edition, I will be discussing computer innovation up until 1960:
1936 - Konrad Zuse invented the Z-1 computer in Germany. This first computer was freely programmable by punched film stock. It was the first working machine that could do binary arithmetic, including floating-point arithmetic.
1941 - Two Americans by the names of John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry developed an electronic binary computer known as the ABC computer that used vacuum tube based computation, binary numbers and a capacitor memory.
1944 - In the UK, a British man by the name of Howard Aikken developed an electronic, partially reprogrammable computer known as the Colossus. It was used for breaking German war-time codes.
1944 - America also saw a new advance with the invention of the Harvard Mark computer, it was a large-scale electromechanical computer, programmable through punched paper tape.
1953 - IBM enters the computer scene with its International Business Machines. The IBM 701 EDPM was revolutionary as a defense calculator. The computer used electrostatic storage and was comprised of 72 Williams tubes.
1955 - The first computer for the banking industry was released. Used by Bank of America, this computer was developed by Jerre Noe and was considered a great success. At this point, General Electric was contracted to build 32 more machines. Because of the ERMA (electronic recording machine, accounting) Bank of America became one of the world biggest banks by 1970.
1958 - Jack Kilby, inventor of the integrated circuit (IC) first proposed the idea to the U.S. military in 1957. The first Ics were manugacted by Jack Kilby himself and Robert Noyce. An IC has memory blocks and lets information travel quickly from one space to another.
So, there you have it, next week we will continue on in the hopes of answering the question, “Who invented the computer?”
Cheers!
Beryl S.
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