by Bob Reeves

Computers have come a long way in the last few years. They are not necessarily easy to use but they are certainly easier to use than they were a few years ago. When you switch the computer on it whirrs away for a few seconds while it loads what is called the “operating system”. The most common operating system is called Windows although there are others available.

Windows is what we (the “user”) have to use to make our computer do what we want to do. Commonly users want to do things like go on the internet, send email or type letters. We can do all of these things and more by clicking on things on the screen. When Windows is ready you are faced with what is called a ‘desktop’. Think of this like a real desk top with things on it. On the computer, the things on the desktop are little pictures called ‘icons’. Different icons do different things. So we might click on an icon to go onto the internet or click on an icon to type a letter.

You will quite quickly get to recognise which icons you need to click on to get to do the things that you most want to do. In fact despite all of the different things that computers can do, all of the different programs tend to work in a similar way. This means that the skills that you learn in one place are useful elsewhere. With just a few skills, such as moving and clicking the mouse in different ways and typing into the keyboard, you will quickly get to grips with your computer.



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