05-11-2016, 04:32 PM
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Introduction
This book contains courses’ lessons held at the Free University of Bolzano Bozen. It contains only the first
part of the courses, namely the lessons on:
computer introduction,
Microsoft Windows,
computer networks,
computer dangers and security.
It does not contain the parts on Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, financial functions, Microsoft Access,
computer algorithms, SPSS, Visual Basic for Applications, which are very well covered by the respective
courses’ suggested books.
This book is usually updated every year, please take a look at the edition date.
Disclaimers
This book is designed for very novice computer users. It often contains oversimplifications of reality and
every technical detail is purposely omitted. Expert users will find this book useless and, for certain aspects,
partially wrong.
This book supposes that the user is using Microsoft Windows 8 operating system in English language.
However, most of the book is perfectly readable with other Windows versions, while some menus and
instructions can be rather different if the language is not English (Windows language may be changed on
multi-language installations).
The novice user in this book is, for simplicity, always considered male. This is not meant to be gender discrimination.
Computers
This chapter presents with a brief description of computer main components, of the most common devices
and of the typical software components for novice user.
1.1. Storage
1.1.1. Measures
Before starting with the computer description, it is useful to become proficient with the data size
terminology, which will often be used in this book.
Computers have a very elementary way to store data: they can remember only 0 or 1. A value of 0 or 1 is
called bit and all computer data are stored as sequences of bits. A sequence of 8 bits is called a byte, which
is a quantity large enough to store usually a letter or a digit (even though sometimes 2 bytes are necessary).
Modern computers are able to deal with enormous quantity of bytes, forcing us to introduce other
quantities:
Kilobyte (KB), approximately 1,000 bytes,
Megabyte (MB), approximately 1,000 KB or one million bytes,
Gigabyte (GB), approximately 1,000 MB or one billion bytes,
Terabyte (TB), approximately 1,000 GB or one trillion bytes.
Usually the unformatted text of a whole book can fit in some KB, while for an image in a good resolution
(let’s say ready to be printed on A4 paper) or for a modern song some MB are required, while a film in high
quality needs some GB.
1.1.2. Moore’s law
Over the last 40 years, computer hardware has been continuously improving its performances with an
exponential growth. This growth is summarized by the famous Moore’s law which says that the number of
transistors in a processor doubles every 18 months. This law can be extended to almost every aspect of
hardware and we may say that the performance (be it speed or capacity) of hardware doubles every 18
months, thus leading to a general exponential growth. Unfortunately software’s performance does not
increase with the same rate.
1.1.3. Devices
The computer uses several devices to permanently store and move data, which vary a lot in terms of
capability, cost, speed and portability.
The most used is the internal hard disk, which usually is inside the computer box and
cannot be moved. Its size currently ranges from 1 to 2 TB. On the other hand, an
external hard disk is outside the computer, has the same size and obviously can be
moved. Its only disadvantage is being slightly slower.
SSD Solid State Drives are starting to invade the market and will soon replace traditional
hard disks. They are not disks at all, but very large memory cards shaped like a hard disks which can entirely
replace the internal hard disk. Their main advantages are that not having moving parts (they do not rotate
at high speed like hard disks) are more robust and that in most situations they are faster than hard disks
(up to 10 times faster). Their disadvantage is the limited size which currently is 500 GB and their high price.
Basic Computer course book Dr. Paolo Coletti
Edition 8.0 (01/03/2016) Page 3 of 33
CD, DVD and Blu-ray are an alternative way to store data. They contain about 700 MB, 4 GB
and 25 GB, respectively. They required an appropriate reader to be read, which is available
on many computers, and an appropriate writer device to be written, which is available only
on some computers. This technology is, however, rapidly fading, as disks are much larger
and easier to damage compared to USB pen drivers or memory cards.
Memory stick or USB pen drive is the most used way to temporary store and move data. Its
size is now up to 128 GB, however its reliability is not perfect, therefore
it is used mostly to move data.
Another common way to store and move data is through a memory
card, used by external devices such as photo cameras or to expand mobile phones’
memory.
1.2. Software
Software can be divided into three big categories: operating systems, programs and data.
The operating system takes care of controlling computer hardware and human-computer interaction. There
are currently three widely used operating systems:
Microsoft Windows, which is the market leader,
Macintosh computers have their own operating system Mac OS X,
Linux (it is a family of very similar operating systems), which is a costless operating system,
Android, a family of very similar Linux-based operating systems for mobile devices,
iOS, for Apple mobile devices,
Windows Phone, Microsoft’s operating system for mobile devices.
Programs are software which is used to do particular tasks, e.g. Word for document writing, Explorer for
Internet navigation, the Calculator for mathematical operations.
Data is everything which is produced either by the user or by programs (sometimes even by the operating
system) to store information, e.g. a document file produced by Word is data, a downloaded web page is
data.
1.2.1. Software licenses
Software can be divided, from a commercial point of view, using two features: the cost and the permission
to be modified.
Subdivision by cost is:
freeware, software which is completely costless. The producers of this software are either public
institutions such as universities, or developers who do it for personal interest or advertisement or
private company who do it for dumping reasons. Some examples are Skype communication
program or Linux operating system;
shareware, software which is initially costless but after a certain period the user is asked to pay a
fee or delete it; or software which has two versions: a free one, but incomplete or with
advertisement banners, and a complete advertisement-free one, for which the user must pay. The
most popular examples are mobile phones apps;
commercial, software for which the user has to pay a license to use it. Common examples are
Microsoft Windows operating system or Photoshop image editing program;
subscription-based, software for which the user pays a periodic fee to use it. This software typically
is also offered on the web and in this case the user does not have to care about installation nor
updates. Example are Microsoft Office 365 and Photoshop Creative Clouds;
private, software uniquely built, under payment, for a specific customer to fit his needs. Only the
costumer may use it. A typical example is the university’s students-courses-exams-professors
database system.
The permission to be modified can seem a trivial question for the novice user, however for program
developers and computer experts being authorized to modify a software is a great advantage since it can
be improved, checked for errors and tailored to specific needs. The “open source versus proprietary
software” is a strong ethical and economical debate in the computer scientists’ community. Subdivision by
permission to modify is:
open source software may be studied, used and especially modified by anyone. The software
developers at the same time legally authorize any modification and they distribute the source of
the software to put other developers in a condition to easily modify it. Open source software is also
automatically freeware. The most typical example is Linux operating system.
copyleft software is open source but carries the restriction that any modification must be
distributed as open source and copyleft, thus impeding that software becomes, after a
modification, proprietary. The most famous copy left contract license is the GNU Public License (see
http://www.gnulicenses/gpl.html).
proprietary software is distributed (costless as Adobe Acrobat Reader, or as a shareware as WinZip,
or most often sold as commercial software as Microsoft Office) with the explicit legal warning not
to modify it and technically locked to prevent other developers to see or modify its source.
1.2.2. Software naming
Software is usually identified by a name, for example “Linux” or “Microsoft Office”, sometimes by a
distribution/edition name “Linux Ubuntu”, “Microsoft Office Professional” and very often by a version
number, a sequence of numbers, points and letters (sometimes, as for Windows, commercial names) which
distinguishes the changes made by developers with time, such as “Linux Ubuntu 13.10” or “Microsoft Office
Professional 2013”. Obviously the version numbers of open source software changes rapidly, due to the
many developers working on them.
1.2.3. Data format licenses
Data need to be saved with a certain structure, called formats. For example, a plain text file may be simply
saved as a sequence of letters and symbols, which corresponds to the TXT format. More complex
structures, such as images, videos, but also formatted texts, need more elaborated formats to be stored.
These formats may be:
closed proprietary, a format owned by a software company and kept as a trade secret. In this way
only programs build by that company can use those data files and no other company is able to endanger its monopoly. A famous example is DOC format which, until 2007, was kept secret by
Microsoft, thus preventing competitors from building alternatives to Microsoft Word program.
open proprietary, a format publicly available but whose improvements and control are under the
ownership of a software company. A typical example is the new Word format DOCX.
open, a publicly available format which follows official standards whose control is under ownership
of public organizations, such as American ANSI, German DIN or Italian UNI. Typical examples are
image’s format GIF or formatted text’s format PDF or web page’s format HTML.
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is currently the market leader operating system, it is the usual interface which appears
when the user turns on a personal computer with Windows operating system.
2.1. Versions and editions
Microsoft released Windows 7 in 2009, which is the currently more widespread Microsoft operative
system. It is installed on approximately 46% of computers. Enterprise edition is currently (November 2015)
installed on some UNIBZ computers.
Microsoft released Windows 8 in 2013 with a new user interface designed
for tablets with touch screen, which was not welcomed by many
professional users, in order to increase compatibility with its mobile device’s
operating system Windows Phone 8. With its first update Microsoft decided
to change name to Windows 8.1. It is installed on approximately 17% of
computers. It is available in only three editions. Enterprise edition is
currently (July 2015) installed on all UNIBZ computers.
Microsoft released Windows 10 in July 2015 and its installation has been
strongly suggested to Windows 8 users. It is basically Windows 8 with few
extra features. It is currently installed on 13% of computers. It is available in
only three editions. Education/Enterprise edition is currently (November
2015) installed on some UNIBZ computers.
At unibz some computers have a multi-boot system. When the computer is switched on, it asks the user
which operating system he would like to use and, after a short time, it starts with the default operating
system. In case the user wants to use a different operating systems, he obviously must restart the
computer.
2.1.1. Computer locking problem
Microsoft Windows sometimes becomes unstable: it can unpredictably, without any warning and when the
user does not expect it and typically when he is doing something very important and urgent, lock and
refuse to respond to user’s actions. When this happens, it is usually caused by the program that is used and
therefore the first thing to do is to try to close the current program. If this does not improve the situation,
the only other solution left is to turn off the computer. The list of operations to try until the computer
answers to user’s commands is:
Introduction
This book contains courses’ lessons held at the Free University of Bolzano Bozen. It contains only the first
part of the courses, namely the lessons on:
computer introduction,
Microsoft Windows,
computer networks,
computer dangers and security.
It does not contain the parts on Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, financial functions, Microsoft Access,
computer algorithms, SPSS, Visual Basic for Applications, which are very well covered by the respective
courses’ suggested books.
This book is usually updated every year, please take a look at the edition date.
Disclaimers
This book is designed for very novice computer users. It often contains oversimplifications of reality and
every technical detail is purposely omitted. Expert users will find this book useless and, for certain aspects,
partially wrong.
This book supposes that the user is using Microsoft Windows 8 operating system in English language.
However, most of the book is perfectly readable with other Windows versions, while some menus and
instructions can be rather different if the language is not English (Windows language may be changed on
multi-language installations).
The novice user in this book is, for simplicity, always considered male. This is not meant to be gender discrimination.
Computers
This chapter presents with a brief description of computer main components, of the most common devices
and of the typical software components for novice user.
1.1. Storage
1.1.1. Measures
Before starting with the computer description, it is useful to become proficient with the data size
terminology, which will often be used in this book.
Computers have a very elementary way to store data: they can remember only 0 or 1. A value of 0 or 1 is
called bit and all computer data are stored as sequences of bits. A sequence of 8 bits is called a byte, which
is a quantity large enough to store usually a letter or a digit (even though sometimes 2 bytes are necessary).
Modern computers are able to deal with enormous quantity of bytes, forcing us to introduce other
quantities:
Kilobyte (KB), approximately 1,000 bytes,
Megabyte (MB), approximately 1,000 KB or one million bytes,
Gigabyte (GB), approximately 1,000 MB or one billion bytes,
Terabyte (TB), approximately 1,000 GB or one trillion bytes.
Usually the unformatted text of a whole book can fit in some KB, while for an image in a good resolution
(let’s say ready to be printed on A4 paper) or for a modern song some MB are required, while a film in high
quality needs some GB.
1.1.2. Moore’s law
Over the last 40 years, computer hardware has been continuously improving its performances with an
exponential growth. This growth is summarized by the famous Moore’s law which says that the number of
transistors in a processor doubles every 18 months. This law can be extended to almost every aspect of
hardware and we may say that the performance (be it speed or capacity) of hardware doubles every 18
months, thus leading to a general exponential growth. Unfortunately software’s performance does not
increase with the same rate.
1.1.3. Devices
The computer uses several devices to permanently store and move data, which vary a lot in terms of
capability, cost, speed and portability.
The most used is the internal hard disk, which usually is inside the computer box and
cannot be moved. Its size currently ranges from 1 to 2 TB. On the other hand, an
external hard disk is outside the computer, has the same size and obviously can be
moved. Its only disadvantage is being slightly slower.
SSD Solid State Drives are starting to invade the market and will soon replace traditional
hard disks. They are not disks at all, but very large memory cards shaped like a hard disks which can entirely
replace the internal hard disk. Their main advantages are that not having moving parts (they do not rotate
at high speed like hard disks) are more robust and that in most situations they are faster than hard disks
(up to 10 times faster). Their disadvantage is the limited size which currently is 500 GB and their high price.
Basic Computer course book Dr. Paolo Coletti
Edition 8.0 (01/03/2016) Page 3 of 33
CD, DVD and Blu-ray are an alternative way to store data. They contain about 700 MB, 4 GB
and 25 GB, respectively. They required an appropriate reader to be read, which is available
on many computers, and an appropriate writer device to be written, which is available only
on some computers. This technology is, however, rapidly fading, as disks are much larger
and easier to damage compared to USB pen drivers or memory cards.
Memory stick or USB pen drive is the most used way to temporary store and move data. Its
size is now up to 128 GB, however its reliability is not perfect, therefore
it is used mostly to move data.
Another common way to store and move data is through a memory
card, used by external devices such as photo cameras or to expand mobile phones’
memory.
1.2. Software
Software can be divided into three big categories: operating systems, programs and data.
The operating system takes care of controlling computer hardware and human-computer interaction. There
are currently three widely used operating systems:
Microsoft Windows, which is the market leader,
Macintosh computers have their own operating system Mac OS X,
Linux (it is a family of very similar operating systems), which is a costless operating system,
Android, a family of very similar Linux-based operating systems for mobile devices,
iOS, for Apple mobile devices,
Windows Phone, Microsoft’s operating system for mobile devices.
Programs are software which is used to do particular tasks, e.g. Word for document writing, Explorer for
Internet navigation, the Calculator for mathematical operations.
Data is everything which is produced either by the user or by programs (sometimes even by the operating
system) to store information, e.g. a document file produced by Word is data, a downloaded web page is
data.
1.2.1. Software licenses
Software can be divided, from a commercial point of view, using two features: the cost and the permission
to be modified.
Subdivision by cost is:
freeware, software which is completely costless. The producers of this software are either public
institutions such as universities, or developers who do it for personal interest or advertisement or
private company who do it for dumping reasons. Some examples are Skype communication
program or Linux operating system;
shareware, software which is initially costless but after a certain period the user is asked to pay a
fee or delete it; or software which has two versions: a free one, but incomplete or with
advertisement banners, and a complete advertisement-free one, for which the user must pay. The
most popular examples are mobile phones apps;
commercial, software for which the user has to pay a license to use it. Common examples are
Microsoft Windows operating system or Photoshop image editing program;
subscription-based, software for which the user pays a periodic fee to use it. This software typically
is also offered on the web and in this case the user does not have to care about installation nor
updates. Example are Microsoft Office 365 and Photoshop Creative Clouds;
private, software uniquely built, under payment, for a specific customer to fit his needs. Only the
costumer may use it. A typical example is the university’s students-courses-exams-professors
database system.
The permission to be modified can seem a trivial question for the novice user, however for program
developers and computer experts being authorized to modify a software is a great advantage since it can
be improved, checked for errors and tailored to specific needs. The “open source versus proprietary
software” is a strong ethical and economical debate in the computer scientists’ community. Subdivision by
permission to modify is:
open source software may be studied, used and especially modified by anyone. The software
developers at the same time legally authorize any modification and they distribute the source of
the software to put other developers in a condition to easily modify it. Open source software is also
automatically freeware. The most typical example is Linux operating system.
copyleft software is open source but carries the restriction that any modification must be
distributed as open source and copyleft, thus impeding that software becomes, after a
modification, proprietary. The most famous copy left contract license is the GNU Public License (see
http://www.gnulicenses/gpl.html).
proprietary software is distributed (costless as Adobe Acrobat Reader, or as a shareware as WinZip,
or most often sold as commercial software as Microsoft Office) with the explicit legal warning not
to modify it and technically locked to prevent other developers to see or modify its source.
1.2.2. Software naming
Software is usually identified by a name, for example “Linux” or “Microsoft Office”, sometimes by a
distribution/edition name “Linux Ubuntu”, “Microsoft Office Professional” and very often by a version
number, a sequence of numbers, points and letters (sometimes, as for Windows, commercial names) which
distinguishes the changes made by developers with time, such as “Linux Ubuntu 13.10” or “Microsoft Office
Professional 2013”. Obviously the version numbers of open source software changes rapidly, due to the
many developers working on them.
1.2.3. Data format licenses
Data need to be saved with a certain structure, called formats. For example, a plain text file may be simply
saved as a sequence of letters and symbols, which corresponds to the TXT format. More complex
structures, such as images, videos, but also formatted texts, need more elaborated formats to be stored.
These formats may be:
closed proprietary, a format owned by a software company and kept as a trade secret. In this way
only programs build by that company can use those data files and no other company is able to endanger its monopoly. A famous example is DOC format which, until 2007, was kept secret by
Microsoft, thus preventing competitors from building alternatives to Microsoft Word program.
open proprietary, a format publicly available but whose improvements and control are under the
ownership of a software company. A typical example is the new Word format DOCX.
open, a publicly available format which follows official standards whose control is under ownership
of public organizations, such as American ANSI, German DIN or Italian UNI. Typical examples are
image’s format GIF or formatted text’s format PDF or web page’s format HTML.
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is currently the market leader operating system, it is the usual interface which appears
when the user turns on a personal computer with Windows operating system.
2.1. Versions and editions
Microsoft released Windows 7 in 2009, which is the currently more widespread Microsoft operative
system. It is installed on approximately 46% of computers. Enterprise edition is currently (November 2015)
installed on some UNIBZ computers.
Microsoft released Windows 8 in 2013 with a new user interface designed
for tablets with touch screen, which was not welcomed by many
professional users, in order to increase compatibility with its mobile device’s
operating system Windows Phone 8. With its first update Microsoft decided
to change name to Windows 8.1. It is installed on approximately 17% of
computers. It is available in only three editions. Enterprise edition is
currently (July 2015) installed on all UNIBZ computers.
Microsoft released Windows 10 in July 2015 and its installation has been
strongly suggested to Windows 8 users. It is basically Windows 8 with few
extra features. It is currently installed on 13% of computers. It is available in
only three editions. Education/Enterprise edition is currently (November
2015) installed on some UNIBZ computers.
At unibz some computers have a multi-boot system. When the computer is switched on, it asks the user
which operating system he would like to use and, after a short time, it starts with the default operating
system. In case the user wants to use a different operating systems, he obviously must restart the
computer.
2.1.1. Computer locking problem
Microsoft Windows sometimes becomes unstable: it can unpredictably, without any warning and when the
user does not expect it and typically when he is doing something very important and urgent, lock and
refuse to respond to user’s actions. When this happens, it is usually caused by the program that is used and
therefore the first thing to do is to try to close the current program. If this does not improve the situation,
the only other solution left is to turn off the computer. The list of operations to try until the computer
answers to user’s commands is: