Very basic computer stuff

A checklist: much of what follows is known by many — but not by all.

1. Internet

World wide web or “www”: well, we all basically know what this is — commonly known as the Web, it is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.

The internet: all the interconnected worldwide networks that enable computers and servers to communicate effectively via a common communication protocol.

IP address: IP stands for “Internet Protocol” and an IP address is a globally unique number, like 93.31.177.99, that uniquely defines a computer network.

To know the IP address that you are using, just google “what is my IP address”.

Website: a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server.

When browsing the web, clicking on the site logo (nearly always) brings you back to the website homepage.

Websites often place small files on your system, called cookies. Such cookies are used to store and retrieve information about your preferences, sessions, and behaviour — to enhance the browsing experience and provide personalized content. If you want to browse a website without being encumbered by cookeys (a fresh look), use the incognito mode. Also, you can remove cookies from your browser settings.

URL or domain name: the easy-to-understand address of a website, like the URL for this website is “qoolcat.com”.

Portal: loosely speaking, a portal is a website that users can log into and interact with.

Subdomain: a prefix added to a domain name, separated by a dot, which is then a separate website usually associated with the prime site. For example, if I wanted a new website that teaches video, I might put this in a subdomain called “video.qoolcat.com”.

Host: a place where a website resides (where it is hosted). The files contained in this website “qoolcat.com” resides at a website host, and I have rented server space at a host.

Registrar: an organisation where you register ownership of a domain name, for example I registered the ownership of this website address “qoolcat.com” with the registrar Gandi. Often, a company that offers registration also does internet hosting.

Browsers, like Chrome by Google, Safari by Apple, Edge by Microsoft, Firefox, Brave, and Opera: are simply application software for accessing the web, in particular websites.

VPN Proxy: VPN stands for a virtual private network. A VPN Proxy is an online service that hides your IP address by rerouting your internet traffic through a remote server. If you were living in a totalitarian country you might use a VPN to hide your internet activities from the authorities. You might decide to use a VPN proxy simply because you do not like websites to know where you come from. I have heard of students who use a VPN to access Netflix movies that are not available in their country.

To know the speed of your Wifi connection, go fast.com. To see more detailed information click on “Show more info”. For browsing the Internet, a download speed of 20 Mbps (megabits per second) is sufficient; for gaming or downloading large files, 100 Mbps is probably okay.

2. Electronic messaging

Electronic messaging is messages or information sent through electronic devices or digital platforms. Examples include email, text messages, and social media messaging.

Never send a password via traditional email because such emails are not encrypted.

Etiquette: always soon acknowledge receipt of “important” or “half-important” emails, otherwise the recipient is not sure that you have received the message (“Dear John, thank you for this email. We will look into this and I endeavour to reply by the end of Friday…”)

3. Voice-over-IP, video chat, etc.

Voice-over-IP (VoIP) simply means voice communication over the internet like internet phoning, for example I use WhatsApp for international calls.

Audio messaging is also voice-over-IP, and is becoming popular.

Video chat allows people to see and hear each other in real-time using the internet. Examples include video conferencing like with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Apple FaceTime and Google Meet.

4. Social media

We all know what social media is: digital platforms and tools that enable us to create, share, and exchange information, ideas, and content in virtual communities and networks — think of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube.

In modern times, social media is an integral part of the market communication mix.

Most business and creative professionals have a LinkedIn profile on a LinkedIn account — a de facto standard

5. Computer hardware: “things you can touch”

• Personal computing devices: smartphone; tablet; laptop; desktop
• Big computers: mainframe; server
• Input/output devices (the interface between you and a computer): examples include a monitor; keyboard; pointing device (like mouse and trackpad); microphone; speaker
• Storage: where data is kept, like flash, magnetic, and optical (like DVD) — examples include USB key, memory card, external hard drive
• Memory: the thinking or calculating part of the computer (memory is a misleading term; memory is often confused with storage)
• USB-C is the next big thing: fast data transfer and fast charging all in one — new European law decrees that all smallish new devices have to be USB-C compatible, and this will reduce the proliferation of required chargers and cables. Good for the environment; good for convenience.

Performance is a complex subject: while a Ferrari is faster than a bus by virtue of having a (much) higher top speed, what if you need to transport 100 people to market; what if there’s heavy traffic?

6. Computer software: “instructions”

Software is the internal instructions — the programs — that make a computing device work, including application software and system software.

7. Computer files

Computer files and placed in folders (also called directories). Directories are typically organised like a tree, with branches and sub-branches: computer → drive → folder → subfolder → computer file.

Files and directories can have tags assigned to them, which is independent of the tree structure.

A file’s format is designated by the characters after the last dot in the filename, like .txt, .docx, .html, .pdf, .jpg, .png…

Such a file format is the structure of its code so that it can be understood by specific applications.

Never use the following characters in a file name, because certain platforms (Windows for example) do not accept them:

8. The Cloud

The Cloud is essentially the on-demand availability of remote computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user.

Your computer storage should always be automatically synced with cloud storage — and this you should set up as the default. So, for example, if your computer has a catastrophic hardware failure — in modern times this is not an excuse for losing any of your data.

Most students, managers, and professionals use Word and Excel, meaning they have access to a Microsoft Office 356 subscription — which includes a 1TB (1024GB) cloud storage subscription. You can synchronize your computer (or more than one computer) to the cloud. You can auto-upload your smartphone media to the cloud. You can choose to have some files/directories only in the cloud although you still see these (files or directories) on your computer.

Alternatively, there are many cloud storage vendors, like Dropbox. And Apple and Google offer cloud storage too.

NAS is an acronym for “network-attached storage”: a hard drive that can be accessed via the internet — not quite the cloud but useful. An external hard drive you might attach to (plug into) your computer; a NAS you attach to the internet.

9. Data backup / sync-ing / version control

Repeating the importance of syncing with cloud or remote NAS storage: If your computer falls into a river, or your home is robbed clean of all your hardware, or your office burns down: this should be nothing more than costly and inconvenient because all your important data should be safe somewhere else.

Version control: With a version control enabled hard drive plugged into your computer, incremental backups (snapshots) of your computer’s files are periodically undertaken, so that you can revert to previous versions of files or directories. This can sometimes be a lifesaver! For a version control application, Time Machine is bundled with Apple and File History with Windows.

10. Passwords / security…

Never use obvious passwords. Never use the same password periodically. Change passwords frequently (or at least sometimes). Never send a user ID and password in the same message. Never send a password by email.

I use the open-source Bitwarden to keep track of passwords and this is synced on all my devices — and I find this excellent. There are many other good tools and applications for this as well like 1Password and iCloud Keychain.

11. Odd useful things

• Context menu — or the “mouse right-click”:
  In most applications, so-called right-clicking generates a drop-down context menu that shows really useful menu items pertinent to what you are doing at a particular place in the application — you should get into the habit of always using this. On an Apple computer, you have to define the mouse right-click in Settings. If you are using a trackpad instead of a mouse, you can set the right-click command, but by default might be control+click (that is click on the trackpad) or a two-finger tap on your trackpad
• For a new line, press [shift]+[enter] (⇧↩); a new paragraph is just [enter] (↩)
  For example, this new line typed into this website is a new line and not a new bullet; a new paragraph would be a new bulleted line. In another example, if you are composing a WhatsApp message, a new paragraph (↩) will transmit the message; a new line (⇧↩) will go to a new line
• The non-breaking space: on Apple ⇧⌥spacebar, on Windows if you have a keypad hold ALT then type 0160, or press Ctrl+Shift+Spacebar. A non-breaking space is useful to “glue” two words together so that (for example) “St Martin” or “150 cm” are on the same line — more about this later
• Double-click, and sometimes triple-click — particularly for selecting texts
• Common shortcut keys (⌘+… — you hold down ⌘ and simultaneously tap a character key) that you should be using all the time by habit: New document, new Tab, select All, Find, undo (Z), Bold, Italic, Save, Print, close Window, Hide application, Quit application, and of course Copy, paste (V) and cut (X)

For APPLE users…

• Short dash “-” vs long dash “—” (the long dash is ⌥⇧-, where “-” is a dash or minus sign)
  “We travelled at speeds of 120-160 km/hr — so cool!”
• To take a screenshot of the whole screen go ⇧⌘3; or for a part of a screen go ⇧⌘4 then drag
• Having access to the keyboard viewer is useful, for example how would you type a copywrite sign “©” on your keyboard:
  To have access to the keyboard viewer (on Mac OSX version 13 Ventura or later) go Apple menu » System Settings, then click Keyboard in the sidebar (you may need to scroll down). Go to Text Input on the right, click Edit, then turn on “Show Input menu in menu bar”.
  Then with the keyboard view open, click on ⌥ (alt) and then separately click on ⇧⌥ (shift+alt). Try this (easier to try than to explain) and see for example why “©” is accomplished by pressing ⌥G
  (In InDesign you can use Glyphs to access all the characters in a font set — more about this later.)
• Auto-hide the dock to get more usable screen space (the dock is the strip at the bottom of your screen that shows applications):
  In System Settings, go to “Desktop and Dock” and switch on “Automatically hide and show the Dock”
• And a bit more radical for more screen real estate is to auto-hide the menu bar (I do this):
  In System Settings, go to “Desktop and Dock” and set “Automatically hide and show the menu bar” to “Always”
• If you have an Apple Laptop with a retina screen (you probably have this), you can make the monitor display denser and hence win more effective screen space:
  In System Settings, go to “Displays” and click on “Resolution Scaled”, and click “More Space”
• To scroll through all your open applications, hold down the ⌘ key with your thumb, then click on the ⇥ (tab) key repeatedly
• To force quit an application, hold down ⌘⌥ then (while still holding down the two keys) press on the Escape (“esc”) button — that’s the button top right, and a menu will open asking you which application to force quit
• Zipping a computer file is often useful to compress and reduce the file size for easier storage or faster transfer. Zipping a computer directory (a folder) has the added advantage of creating a single file which is useful for storage and file transfer. A zip file has a file name that ends in “.zip”. To zip a file or directory, right-click and go “Compress”; to un-zip a zipped file (.zip) double-click to unzip it

Tips on how to set up a new Mac computer.

For WINDOWS users…

• Short dash “-” vs long dash “—”
  “We travelled at a speed of 120-160 km/hr — so cool!”
  To get the long dash, see the next point below
• For non-standard characters like the long dash (—), and others like ©, ™, Ç …, press the Win key and the dot (.) at the same time to get the emoji keyboard and navigate to the symbols menu (the omega icon at the top)

• To change your screen density, hence gain space (gain screen real estate by effectively having a denser monitor), go » System » Display and then increase the value of “Change the size of the text, apps and other items”. To have still more screen space, you can auto-hide the dock from System Preferences
• To take a screenshot of your entire screen, press the Print Screen key, which is often abbreviated as “PrtScn” — the screenshot will be copied to your clipboard. Use the “Snipping Tool” program, which is included with Windows, to capture a custom screenshot
• To scroll through all your open applications, hold down the ⌥ key with your thumb, then click on the ⇥ (tab) key repeatedly
• Go ⌥+F4to force quite an application
• Zipping a computer file is often useful to compress and reduce the file size for easier storage or faster transfer. Zipping a computer directory (a folder) has the added advantage of creating a single file which is useful for storage and file transfer. A zip file has a file name that ends in “.zip”. To zip a file or directory, right-click on the file and go » Send to » Compressed (zipped) folder; to un-zip a file or directory, right-click on the zip file and go » Extract All from the context menu

12. Other useful applications in the Adobe Creative Suite

In addition to what we have already mentioned: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Bridge, and Acrobat DC, there are other useful applications included in the Adobe Creative Suite, for example

• Lightroom, not to be confused with Adobe Lightroom Classic: for working with RAW files, which real photographers do all the time. Lightroom can be installed on your smartphone, tablet, and computer and is cross-platform. All photos that you take with your smartphone (using Lightroom) are taken in RAW and automatically synced for editing on your other devices via the Adobe Creative Cloud. So cool!
  (A camera RAW file is an unprocessed image format that contains the raw sensor data captured by a digital camera, allowing for greater flexibility in post-processing and preserving the original image data without any loss of quality or compression.)
• Lightroom Classic: has many similarities to Lightoom, and is also for working with camera RAW files but Lightroom Classic includes workflows for serious photographers
  
  You should shoot using camera RAW if you have a camera that permits this. Aspects of Adobe’s Camera RAW engine are covered indirectly in this course.

• Premiere Pro: for professionally editing video
• After Effects: for professionally editing individual video clips (motion graphics, visual effects…)
• Premiere Rush: for simply editing videos — very quick and easy to learn and use (similar to iMovie), cross-platform (Apple, PC, Android), and can be synced across all devices like computers, tablets and smartphones
• Dimension: a kind of Photoshop but for 3D
• XD: for designing, prototyping, and sharing user experiences like websites, apps, game interfaces…
• Express: a free online content creator for quickly making Reels and TikTok videos, flyers, resumes, banners, logos…

…and there are some more