How Does Wireless Internet Work - A Simple Explanation

In this article I'll help you understand the answer to a computer terminology question I find a lot of people asking: "How does wireless Internet work?".

Before I can answer this question, I have to mention that there are two basic types of wireless Internet: a wireless Internet connection through a device called a router (this type of wireless Internet is called WiFi), and then there is wireless Internet access through the cell phone network.

Wireless routers are very common in homes, offices, and "wireless hotspots" like you find at coffee shops, airports, and elsewhere. These are basically just small electronic "boxes" that hook up to your Internet connection so you can share the connection between several computers, or simply to give you the freedom to place your computer wherever you want, and not just next to the cable or phone outlet.

The cell phone data network (wireless Internet through the cell phone network in other words) of course is very widespread -- pretty much everywhere where you can get a cell signal -- and can be used not only with a cell phone but also with a growing number of computers.

Now if you want to get really technical, these two types of wireless Internet work differently. But in a general sense, if you simplify things and explain them in a basic way that will make sense to the average person, they both work along the same general lines.

So how does wireless Internet work? One way to think of it is by comparing it to a portable phone.

With a portable phone, something most of us have in our home, the phone has two parts: a handset and a cradle.

The cradle gets plugged into the phone line -- the connection to the phone network -- and takes that connection and broadcasts it via radio waves more or less in all directions.

If the handset is within range of the signal, it picks up this signal and relays the telephone connection so you can make or receive a call.

Wireless Internet, whether its via a cell network or a wireless router, works the same basic way: you have a connection to the Internet, which is sent out wirelessly to a receiver of some sort, very much like a portable phone cradle sends out the telephone connection to the handset.

The broadcast can come from a wireless router hooked up to a cable or DSL Internet connection, or the broadcast can be from a cell phone tower hooked into the cell phone network and relaying the Internet connection.

On the other end you have a "handset", which is a receiver in a computer, smart phone, or other device. This could be a WiFi card in a laptop or desktop computer for the one type of wireless Internet, or a receiver in a cell phone or laptop using the cell data network.

So that basically answers the question "how does wireless Internet work".

What is An Operating System or "OS" - A plain English explanation

What is an operating system? In this article I'm going to help you finally make sense of what for most people is one of the most confusing and least understood computer terms around: "operating system", or "OS".

This is actually a pretty easy idea to get when it's explained right.

Now what is an operating system, or OS? First off, it's is a type of software. To recap my explanation from my last newsletter article:

"Software" is all of the parts of the computer that you can't really see or touch. Software would include things like Microsoft Word, your email program, Windows or the Mac OS, plus all of your personal files like letters, photos, music, and more.

One way to think about it is like this: hardware is like your brain, the physical part of your body, while software is like your mind or your thoughts -- the non-physical part of yourself.

Software runs on hardware, just like your thoughts "run on" your brain.

Make sense? So let's get to the OS specifically.

First off, let me give a couple of examples: the two best known operating systems right now are Windows, and Mac OS X (pronounced "Oh Ess Ten" -- as in the Roman numeral ten).

Windows XP and Windows Vista are a couple different versions of the Windows operating system. While Mac OS 10.4 (also called "Tiger") and the newest Mac OS 10.5 (or "Leopard") are two different versions of Mac OS X.

So what *is* an OS?

Think of it this way: when a baby is born, they have the instinct to eat, breathe, and so on, and also the instinct to watch, listen, and absorb what's going on around them.

In time, a young child learns to talk and walk by learning from others, and as they get older, they also learn more fundamental skills like reading and writing, hand-eye coordination, and so on.

So in other words, they go from being able to do not a lot except eat, sleep, and fill diapers, to physical and mental maturity where they have all the general skills they need to learn more specific skills like driving a car, playing a sport like football, writing a paper for school, working a job, etc.

In many ways, when you turn a computer on, it's just like a newborn baby. It has the ability to turn on, and show an image on the screen, but that's about it.

The only other thing it can do is look at the hard drive, and if there is an operating system installed on it, the computer knows to start running the OS.

That process is called "booting", which is what happens between when you turn the computer on, and when you can actually start using it.

And the best way to think about it is that it's just like a child being born and growing up: the operating system contains the "life experiences" and lessons that give a child all the basic skills like walking, talking, reading, writing, and so on, that make everything else possible.

So in a sense, it's like your computer is born and "grows up" in the space of 30 seconds to a minute or so (or longer for some computers) that it takes to "boot" the operating system.

So in other words, the operating system is like those basic skills we all have and learned as children. More specifically, it's the software on the computer that creates the desktop, the icons on it, moves the little mouse pointer around on the screen when you move your mouse around, lets you view files and open, lets you type, and so on.

Without it, you couldn't do anything with the computer but turn it on and see an error message like "non system disk or disk error" on a Windows PC, or a flashing question mark on a Mac.

So even though a lot of people don't really understand what an OS is, or what it does, you couldn't use your computer without it.

Hope that makes sense.

Until next time, enjoy,

Worth Godwin

What Is Spyware & Adware and What Is Malware

Has your computer been been running more slowly recently? Has it been crashing? Do you get pop-up ads for no apparent reason?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may have fallen victim to malicious types of programs called "malware", a term which includes both adware and spyware.

Adware (advertising software) is a type of program which delivers ads to your computer screen. These adware programs run in the background whenever your computer is on.

This can be annoying because the ads pop up from nowhere, and often contain offensive images, but can also cause conflicts and potentially crash your computer.

There are several ways these programs can get into your system. In some cases you find a shareware program which, for example, delivers up-to-date weather reports to your computer. You download the program and install it, and while it does give you weather reports, it also watches what websites you visit and based on the profile it builds about you delivers targeted ads to your computer screen.

In other cases, the adware program is a completely separate program which is attached to a a program you choose to install. This is almost universally the case with file-trading programs (see my article on file trading risks).

Many adware programs also get installed just by visiting certain websites, as the sites are designed to take advantage of security holes in your web browser, especially those in Internet Explorer.

An even bigger problem is that many of these hidden programs are also spyware — spyware gather information from your computer.

Most commonly they monitor web sites you visit, but some spyware programs are what is known as "keyloggers," which is short for "keystroke loggers." These programs literally record everything you type into your computer, harvesting passwords, credit card numbers, and social security numbers.

This personal information can then be sent off without your knowledge and can be used for identity theft, potentially embarrassing you or even robbing you of thousands of dollars and your good name and credit.

Having spyware on your system is like inviting a stranger into your home and never noticing as he snoops through your drawers, writes down your credit card numbers, and watches your every move.

Most Windows PCs with internet access turn up one or more of these programs lurking unseen. I would personally estimate 80% or more of the Windows machines I look at have adware or spyware installed. According to Symantec, maker of Norton Internet Security, it may be 91% or more. In most cases, the computer users have absolutely no idea their machine is infected.

Fortunately, there are ways to clean up your system if it is infected, and ways to protect yourself from future infections. There are a number of anti-spyware programs out there, but be warned: many of them are scams which actually install more spyware and adware on your system!

Most people find the easiest way to learn how to get more out of their computer and be safe at the same time, is to be shown, step by step, how to do it. Aside from spyware, there are a lot of threats to Windows users that can be very complicated.

But it can be a lot easier than you think with the right help.

My free computer tips email newsletter explains a lot of this in plain English articles, plus when I made my easy computer lesson CDs, I made a big point of including a lot of my quick, easy step by step video lessons on making it easy to protect your computer whether it's a Mac or Windows PC.

Take a look if you feel you need more help.

What is Shareware & Freeware - Understanding Different Types of Software

There is a huge variety of software available to run on personal computers, from business applications, to games, to screensavers.

Most people are aware of commercial software — software you buy in a box at a store — but many internet users have also heard of shareware and freeware programs.

Freeware, as the name implies, is software you can use for free. It can usually be copied to anyone as long as it’s not changed.

More common is shareware: software that you can also copy freely, but which comes with a trial period after which you are supposed to either pay for it or stop using it.

Some shareware programs will allow only limited features during the trial period to give you a taste of what you can get for the full price, others give you all features but you must wait through a time-delayed message asking you to register. Many of the full-featured shareware programs stop working if you keep trying to use them afer the trial period.

Commercial software tends to be written by a group of professionals with a lot of testing done before release to ensure quality and compatibility. Shareware and freeware, on the other hand, often tends to be written by one or two people in their spare time to make some extra money, to practice their software writing skills, or even as a way to show their skills off to get a job.

Because of these factors, there is a large difference in quality from one program to another, which sometimes means they can cause problems on your system if your download and install them, especially screensavers and programs that are always running in the background.

Downloading, as you may know, is the process of copying a file from a different computer to yours over a network.

It is always important to scan any software you download for viruses — some copies of legitimate programs can be infected by viruses, and creators of viruses sometimes disguise their malicious programs as useful ones.

You also should scan programs to make sure they aren't adware or spyware. If you're not aware of adware and spyware programs, they are malicious programs which can cause problems as serious as viruses and worms. I suggest you read my article on adware and spyware which is elsewhere on this site.

There are, however, some very high quality programs available for download. These include, among many many others, WinZip, Stuffit Expander, GraphicConverter, Apple's iTunes (which runs on both Macs and PCs) and Ad-Aware (a spyware & adware removal tool).

If you're looking for software to download, you can find different programs, rated by other computer users on Shareware.com and Versiontracker.com, and other sites. �

For help on downloading and installing programs, plus tips on avoiding installing risky software, take a look at my basic computer lesson CDs for Windows and Mac.

What is a definition of the World Wide Web & who started the phrase World Wide Web

What is a definition of the World Wide Web & who started the phrase World Wide Web

In this article I'm going to address two related questions I've gotten: "what is a definition of the world wide web" and "who started the phrase world wide web".

First off, let me give you a definition of the World Wide Web -- which these days is usually just called The Web.

The Web is made up of millions and millions of pages of information that are linked together across the globe.

When you look at a web page, which you're probably doing right now (unless you're reading this in my free computer email newsletter and not on my archive of my computer articles or on one of the free article sites I've submitted the article to) you'll find that the page has "links" that you click on to take you to different pages.

If you could see a picture of all of the web pages on the Internet, you could imagine that it might look like a spider web, with many strands connecting one point to another.

This is just how a guy named Tim Berners-Lee imagined it when he came up with the phrase World Wide Web. The links are the strands, and the web pages are the points where the strands come together.

Tim Berners-Lee, with help from a man named Robert Cailliau, created the Web based on something called "hypertext".

Hypertext was an idea where you could have "hyperlinks" (which we now just call "links") that would allow you to read information and easily move between related topics.

So if you were reading about, for example, the first printing press, the Gutenberg Bible would probably be mentioned because it's one of the best-known books to be printed on the first printing presses.

With hypertext, when you saw the words Gutenberg Bible, they would be a link to an article that would go into more detail about that book.

Berners-Lee wanted to bring this idea to the Internet, allowing people to "browse" around, using these links to move from one place to another.

Before this, you had to go to a specific address, then go to another specific address, and not browse the way we are used to today.

And as you've probably guessed by now, Berners-Lee was the person who started the phrase World Wide Web in the first place.

So another way to explain what is a definition of the World Wide Web is a way of looking at the Internet as a series of "pages" of information -- words, pictures, sounds, or video -- that link from one to another to another, forming a giant "web" of information that covers and connects the world.

One more point, to clarify a common misunderstanding. The Web is *part* of the Internet, just like email is *part* of the Internet -- a lot of people think the Internet is exactly the same thing as the Web, and that email is somehow completely separate from the Internet. This is not the case.

I have another article, available by clicking the following link which explains the computer terms Internet and email, if you need more help with those computer terms.

How RAM affects the speed of a computer & the advantage of having enough computer RAM.

How RAM affects the speed of a computer & the advantage of having enough computer RAM.

In this article I'm going to talk about RAM, also known as computer memory; how RAM affects the speed of a computer, and what exactly is the advantage of having enough computer RAM.

A lot of people don't really understand what RAM is, which is nothing to feel bad about, since it's rare to hear a really easy, understandable explanation.

I have a very simple way of explaining the computer term memory that will make sense to anybody, no matter how little you may understand computers.

By the end of this explanation, you'll understand what computer RAM is and you'll also understand how RAM affects the speed of a computer and just exactly what is the advantage of having enough computer RAM.

First off, just in case you didn't know, RAM stands for Random Access Memory. It's not important to remember that, just understand that the computer terms RAM or memory mean the same thing: the temporary working area in a computer.

It's temporary because when you turn off the computer, everything in RAM vanishes instantly. This is unlike a hard drive, or "flash memory", both of which store whatever is on them even when the computer is off.

Just for the sake of clarity, "flash memory" and "memory" (i.e. RAM) are not the same thing, so when you hear someone talking about memory --assuming they're using the term correctly -- they're probably not talking about flash memory (which is like the card in a digital camera, or in the smaller iPods, thumb drives, etc.).

So best way to think of computer RAM is this: think of RAM like a table, or work bench.

If you're working on a project -- it could be a student studying for a class, it could be a carpenter working on a bench, or almost any project -- you need a space to work on the project, like the space on a table, or on a workbench.

You take out all of your materials (books, or carpenter's tools, or whatever), and you spread them out on your work space. You work on the project, and when you're done, you put everything away again.

This is exactly how a computer's RAM works -- you open a program like your email program, Word, or whatever, and it loads this into the RAM. When you're done, you close the program, and the computer takes the program out of memory (out of the computer RAM) and stores it back on the hard drive.

So if you think of RAM like this, you can start to see how RAM affects the speed of the computer, and you can begin to understand the advantage of having enough computer RAM.

Not sure where I'm going with this yet? That's OK. We're almost there.

Imagine you have a work bench, or a table that you're sitting at trying to do a project on, and the table or bench is only a foot across. Wouldn't be very easy to get much work done, would it?

You'd end up wasting a lot of time trying to make room by moving stuff onto the bench, then moving it back off again to make room for the next thing you needed, right?

It's just like that with computer RAM: if your computer doesn't have enough RAM, it doesn't have enough space to work with, and so it's constantly forced to move stuff on and off the "bench" to get things done.

So there's a big advantage to having enough computer RAM: it gives your computer enough "room" to get the work done. The more RAM you have, the more "space on the bench", and the more efficiently the computer can work. The less "space on the bench" the more time it wastes just trying to work without any elbow room.

Does that make sense?

So now you can understand how RAM affects the speed of a computer, and understand exactly what the advantage of having enough computer memory is.

One last thing -- to find out how much RAM your computer has, here are the basic steps:

• Mac OS - Go to the Apple Menu, and click "About This Mac" and you'll get a window with some information about your Mac, including how much memory or RAM you have
  
• Windows XP - right-click on the My Computer icon (on your desktop or in the Start Menu) and click Properties in that menu and you'll get a window with the amount of memory or RAM in your PC
• Windows Vista -- same steps as XP, except the My Computer icon is now just titled Computer.
  

If you enjoyed this explanation of computer terms, you'll find more like it in my free computer tips newsletter, and also on my easy computer lesson CDs for Apple Mac and Windows computers.

Computer terms explained: Understanding what a "OS" or "Operating System" is

OK, in this article I'm going to help you finally make sense of what for most people is one of the most confusing and least understood computer terms around: "operating system", or "OS".

This is actually a pretty easy idea to get when it's explained right.

Now an operating system, or OS, is a type of software.

To recap my explanation from my last newsletter article:

"Software" is all of the parts of the computer that you can't really see or touch. Software would include things like Microsoft Word, your email program, Windows or the Mac OS, plus all of your personal files like letters, photos, music, and more.

One way to think about it is like this: hardware is like your brain, the physical part of your body, while software is like your mind or your thoughts -- the non-physical part of yourself.

Software runs on hardware, just like your thoughts "run on" your brain.

Make sense? So let's get to the OS specifically.

First off, let me give a couple of examples: the two best known operating systems right now are Windows, and Mac OS X (pronounced "Oh Ess Ten" -- as in the Roman numeral ten).

Windows XP and Windows Vista are a couple different versions of the Windows operating system. While Mac OS 10.4 (also called "Tiger") and the brand new Mac OS 10.5 (or "Leopard") are two different versions of Mac OS X.

So what *is* an OS?

Think of it this way: when a baby is born, they have the instinct to eat, breathe, and so on, and also the instinct to watch, listen, and absorb what's going on around them.

In time, a young child learns to talk and walk by learning from others, and as they get older, they also learn more fundamental skills like reading and writing, hand-eye coordination, and so on.

So in other words, they go from being able to do not a lot except eat, sleep, and fill diapers, to physical and mental maturity where they have all the general skills they need to learn more specific skills like driving a car, playing a sport like football, writing a paper for school, working a job, etc.

In many ways, when you turn a computer on, it's just like a newborn baby. It has the ability to turn on, and show an image on the screen, but that's about it.

The only other thing it can do is look at the hard drive, and if there is an operating system installed on it, the computer knows to start running the OS.

That process is called "booting", which is what happens between when you turn the computer on, and when you can actually start using it.

And the best way to think about it is that it's just like a child being born and growing up: the operating system contains the "life experiences" and lessons that give a child all the basic skills like walking, talking, reading, writing, and so on, that make everything else possible.

So in a sense, it's like your computer is born and "grows up" in the space of 30 seconds to a minute or so (or longer for some computers) that it takes to "boot" the operating system.

So in other words, the operating system is like those basic skills we all have and learned as children. More specifically, it's the software on the computer that creates the desktop, the icons on it, moves the little mouse pointer around on the screen when you move your mouse around, lets you view files and open, lets you type, and so on.

Without it, you couldn't do anything with the computer but turn it on and see an error message like "non system disk or disk error" on a Windows PC, or a flashing question mark on a Mac.

So even though a lot of people don't really understand what an OS is, or what it does, you couldn't use your computer without it.

Hope that makes sense.

Until next time, enjoy,

Worth Godwin

Understanding the Computer Term: A Driver

In this issue of my computer tips newsletter, I'm going to explain a computer term that, like so many computer terms, isn't very well understood by most people. And in many cases, isn't understood at all.

Of course, as always, remember that's not a criticism -- if you didn't understand what a driver was before this, it's just because it was never explained to you the right way before.

Let's see what I can do to fix that.

A driver is a special type of software that's needed to get different pieces of hardware to work right with your computer.

Didn't make sense yet? Bear with me.

First off, just to make sure we're all on the same page, let me briefly explain the difference between the two basic computer terms "hardware" and "software".

It's actually pretty simple -- "hardware" refers to all of the physical pieces of equipment, like your mouse, your computer's screen (or monitor), the hard drive, etc.

"Software" is all of the parts of the computer that you can't really see or touch. Software would include things like Microsoft Word, your email program, Windows or the Mac OS, plus all of your personal files like letters, photos, music, and more.

One way to think about it is like this: hardware is like your brain, the physical part of your body, while software is like your mind or your thoughts -- the non-physical part of yourself.

Software runs on hardware, just like your thoughts "run on" your brain.

Make sense?

Now let's talk more specifically about drivers. Here's the easy way to think about the computer term driver:

Imagine that every piece of hardware, including your printer, your mouse, and so on, speaks a different language. So one speaks French, another one speaks Italian, another one Cantonese, and so on.

So when you plug in a new printer and turns it on, your computer says "hi" and the printer answers in a foreign language the computer doesn't understand.

So it needs an interpreter.

And when I say interpreter, I mean just like in the real world, like if a foreign diplomat comes to the country but doesn't speak the local language. They need an interpreter to help them communicate with the locals.

That, basically speaking, is what a driver is -- an interpreter that helps your computer talk to a specific piece of equipment. And you need a different interpreter for each piece of equipment (or each general type) that you hook up to the computer.

Make sense?

Now in some cases, the driver may be "preinstalled" on your computer (in other words, the computer already has the interpreter ready and waiting in case it's needed) and in other cases, it needs to either be installed from a CD, or downloaded off the Internet, and then installed on the computer.

But either way, the computer needs that driver before it can talk to the printer or whatever other type of device you may have hooked up to the computer.

Hope that makes sense.

Until next time, enjoy,

Worth Godwin

Understanding the Computer Terms Web, Internet & Email

In this article I want to help you understand the computer terms Web, Internet, and Email.

Now you may think you know what these computer terms mean, but I've found that in fact, most people misuse and misunderstand 2 or 3 of those words every day!

Now please understand me -- it's not your fault if you sometimes get computer terminology wrong. It's just never been explained to you the right way for you to really get it, and chances are, you've been hearing other people misuse the terms too, since it's pretty common to mix them up.

Let me see if I can make it easier for you.

Let's start with email -- this is the one that most people get basically right, although they still misunderstand one important thing about it (more on that in a minute).

Email is, of course, "electronic mail" -- a pretty simple concept to get. Its the computer equivalent of a traditional letter. Traditional mail through the post office is often called "snail mail" these days because it takes days to get to the person you're sending it to, unlike email which can take seconds (although sometimes can take hours).

Even snail mail is pretty amazingly fast compared to how it used to be back in the day, when it could take weeks or months to get to someone.

Just like regular mail, email has a sort of post office that it goes through - something called a "mail server".

There are two types of mail server - POP and SMTP. But I prefer to use the terms incoming and outgoing because it makes more sense than the technical terms.

Don't worry about what the letters POP and SMTP stand for. Just remember:

POP = incoming, for mail that's coming in to you

and

SMTP = outgoing, for the email you're sending out.

Let's talk about the word "Web" now.

The Web is what most people think of as "the Internet" -- it's the web pages, or pages of words, pictures, and sometimes sounds and videos even, which you go and visit using your "web browser".

A web browser is just a program that lets you look at web pages -- most Windows people click on the blue E, which is Internet Explorer (made by Microsoft and given away with every copy of Windows, which is why most people use it. NOT because it's the best option).

Most Mac people with fairly new Macs use Apple's web browser Safari, which looks like a little compass.

Other people, both Mac users and Windows users, use a different program called Mozilla Firefox.

For a lot of good reasons, I strongly strongly recommend that Windows users do NOT use "the blue E" -- Internet Explorer -- the main reason is because it is very unsafe and is almost a guarantee that your PC will get infected with something nasty.

Mac users should not use "the blue E" (Internet Explorer) either, but more because it's very out of date and just doesn't work with many modern websites anymore.

One way to think of a web browser is like a car that lets you drive around on the "information super-highway" as they used to call the Web back in the 90s.

Some brands of cars are safer than others -- you could almost think of Internet Explorer as one of those old Poison Pintos, and Mozilla Firefox as a Volvo -- not a guarantee to save you from harm, but a lot safer than a Pinto!

One point of confusion some people have is that sometimes you can use web browsers to read your email. Like if you use Yahoo mail or Hotmail.

In that case, you are looking at your email through what's called "webmail" because you are using Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or Apple's Safari to view your mail.

It's kind of like going to the post office and reading your mail there. Throwing some of it away, and then putting the stuff you want to keep back in the post office box for storage.

Using an email program like Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora, or Apple's OS X Mail, is more like reading your mail at home, and storing the stuff you want to keep at home instead of at the post office.

Now let's talk about the last term: the Internet.

This may be, out of the three terms I've been talking about, the one that is most mis-used.

Here's the thing: the Internet contains BOTH the Web AND email.

But many many people, probably most people in fact, talk as if the Internet was a separate thing from email or the web, when in fact the web and email are both just *parts* of the Internet.

Or another way to put it is that the web and email are just certain ways of looking at all of the information that's available on the Internet as a whole.

The Internet is really just a big "network" of interconnected computers that talk to each other and share information. Some of it is presented as web pages, some of it as email, and so on.

Hope that all makes sense.

Thanks for reading,

Worth Godwin