What is a computer?

It's a little less obvious than it seems, actually. A computer is any machine that deals with information. That's a pretty broad definition, and it includes things like calculators, TVs, digital music players, mobile phones and even cars.

Each of these is specialised—it's only designed to do one specific thing: manipulate numbers; show moving pictures with sound; play music; talk to other people; and... deal with car stuff..., respectively. (What does an in-car computer do, anyway?)

Usually, though, when someone talks about a “computer” they mean a personal computer.

So what’s a personal computer, then?

Unlike the computers inside calculators and videos and things, a PC is a generic computer—it's designed to be able to do lots of different things: you can draw pictures with a PC, read prose, play games, record sound, play video, calculate pi, cure cancer...

A computer is the whole system: it's made up of lots of different parts, each with its own function. The central processing unit (CPU) is the main brain—it does most of the thinking; the memory (or “RAM”) stores the things the CPU is thinking about at the moment; there's also usually a long-term storage device, typically a hard disc, which holds everything that needs to be kept (so, all your stuff); there'll be a means for you to talk to the computer, typically a keyboard and mouse; and a means for the computer to talk to you, typically a screen (or “monitor”) and some speakers. (I'll go into more detail about each of these later.)

Convergence

Recently (in the 2000s), things that weren't generic computers have started to become more generic—everything's converging towards being a computer. For example, mobile phones used to only be able to make phone calls and send text messages; now they can also store notes, play music and video, browse the web, and transfer all kinds of information to many other devices.

The computing power of small portable devices is fast approaching the level that a full-blown desktop PC might have had not too long ago. My computer's about ten years old; apart from their smaller screens, many modern “smartphones” have very similar technical specifications to it.

It's this abundance of computing power that's allowed specialised devices to become more generic and more capable; and so a lot more things can nowadays be usefully considered a “computer”.

Your Mam’s Guide to Your Mam’s Guide to Computers & the Internet

Most computer guides give you a fish. (I'll explain this metaphor shortly.) They give you lots of steps to follow to accomplish a particular task. And that works, for that task; but it's useless when you want to do something slightly different.

And if the program on your computer isn't quite the same as the one described in the recipe, the menu commands they show you might not work (because the menus might be slightly different on your computer); and then you'd be stuck. Bummer.

This sort of thing isn't really teaching you anything—it's training you to follow instructions, like an instruction-following monkey. Now, don't get me wrong: being a monkey can be fun, but it's nice to think for yourself sometimes.

So this is where I come in and teach you how to fish. (There's that metaphor again.) I'm not gonna show you how to do stuff with your computer; I'm going to teach you about how it works.

I'm going to try to help you generally understand more about computers, and what all the stuff does, and what all the silly words mean. For example: “dongle”. Someone actually invented a piece of techno-kit and decided to call it a “dongle”. Can you guess what it's for? Of course not—bloody stupid name. So there's a lot of jargon. And a lot of things work in ways that aren't obvious unless you know a bit about the underlying technology.

That underlying technology is complex—that's why it's so powerful and also why it's so baffling. Fortunately, you don't need to know all the ins and outs; but it's very useful to understand what's going on.

An analogy involving microwave ovens

Microwave ovens are a wonderful example of pretty advanced technology being really easy to use. To use a microwave, you don't need to understand physics, which is bloody good news for most people; there's a complex physics-y process that goes on inside the box when you twist the knob or push the start button, but you don't need to care.

You do know, though, that when you start the thing running, microwave radiation fills the oven and heats the food (though, intriguingly, not the oven). The more power the microwave radiation has, the quicker the food cooks; and if you leave it in longer... well, it'll probably be a lot soggier.

Now, here's the point: when you're using a microwave, you don't think of it as a series of steps to be followed. It's not “press this button, then that one, then that one three times, and then that one”; you think “the power needs to be set that high, and it needs to be in for that long”.

So it's natural, and intuitive, because you actually understand what you're doing. Humans are really quite clever, and we work better when we know what we're doing.

Aaagh! Technobabble!

Technobabble's a waste of everyone's time (after all, you can't spell “technobabble” without “nob”, and nob jokes should really be beneath me); we've always been able to properly describe and explain everything to each other just using plain English, and computers aren't going to be any different (if I can help it).

But I'm not going to oversimplify things to the point of dumbing down, 'cos, y'know, you're not stupid (even if it sometimes seems that way when you're wrangling with a computer); I will, of course, avoid making things needlessly complicated.

Who’s this for? My mum?

Not just her. It's primarily for people who find computers really awkward—they can maybe use them to do some basic stuff, but it's a chore. Intelligent people who aren't technically inclined or just don't “get” computers. And who feel a bit crap for not being able to use this supposedly revolutionary piece of technology that their kids and grandkids think is so self-explanatory. It's not—they've just been using them since they were fœtuses.

And it's not that you're just a bit dense. Really. Einstein or Newton or Darwin or Shakespeare or Da Vinci wouldn't be able to use a computer until someone showed them a bit about how it worked. And that's what I'm gonna try to do.

A lot of IT “teaching” really just consists of training you how to use a particular program. So even if you've formally learnt about computers or been on a course or something, you're still probably missing some real insight.

If your mum happens to be a bit of a computer geek, she may still enjoy some of the subtler points, and particularly the higher-level entries. (I'll discuss levels in a sec.)

So why “Your Mam” then?

Mainly because it's aimed at people like my mum. And I do love a good, unnecessary “your mam” joke.

Unlike the Americans, who enjoy crap jokes involving the unexpected consequences of “yo momma”'s various negative attributes—such as “Yo momma so fat [something about gravity or whales or getting stuck in places]” and “Yo momma so ugly [something about throwing up or scaring children or paper bags over heads]”; in the North East of England, “that's what your mam said” or just “your mam” can serve as a suitable punchline for almost anything, particularly if it implies something a little bit inappropriate.

So it's basically just an excuse to repeat the phrase “your mam” willy-nilly. (See how this works?) And it's fairly memorable. And it's snappier than “Computers & the internet for people who aren't dummies but sometimes feel like dummies when people talk to them about computers”, or even “Technically-disinclined people who find computers awkward...’s Guide to Computers & the Internet”.

How are we gonna do this?

Basically, I'm gonna write some blog posts about computery stuff and you'll read them, and then you'll understand new stuff. And then you'll leave a comment asking a related question and I'll endeavour to come up with an explanation; and then everyone will become more awesome.

At the moment, I've got subjects for about a hundred entries (blimey!), almost all of which are essentially definitions of words; I will be going a little deeper than that, though, because to really explain what a word means you have to explain the thing the word refers to. So most of the entries will have titles of the form “What is a thingy?” and will start from that angle.

I've sorted the entries into five broad topics, and five levels of in-depth-ness (or perhaps subtlety). The topics are hardware, the user interface, software, documents and the internet. Don't worry if you don't know what these mean yet; you will soon enough.

The levels are numbered from zero to four, and can be described loosely as introduction, essential, basic, common and advanced respectively.

That numbering isn't just to be awkward, or because geeks like to start counting things at zero (as if the Babylonians are the trendiest mathematicians in town): it's because the level 0 entries are really broad overviews and introductions to each of the topic areas—there'll only be a few of them.

Some examples of likely entry titles to illustrate the levels and topic areas

• Level 0 Hardware: What is a computer? (this entry will probably be the first one)
• Level 1 User Interface: What are scroll bars? How do I use them?
• Level 2 Documents: What is a spreadsheet? How do I use one?
• Level 3 Internet: What happens when I go to a web page?
• Level 4 Software: What is source code?

So you can see that even level 3's pretty benign. Level 4's a little bit more techy and you'd be forgiven for skimming over those ones, but you might still find them interesting. Conversely, although level 1 may seem really simple to you, you might learn a few new tricks. (I am wearing sleeves.)

What were you banging on about before? With the fish?

You know that saying, “give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day; teach him to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime”? It's kind of like that; but with women too, and computers, and less killing (those hooks have got to hurt).

Give a person steps to follow and they'll be smart for five minutes. Teach them how the thing works and they'll be smart for a lifetime.

I could've gone for something like pushing a kid on a bike vs. teaching them to ride, but I thought the fish thing was more recognisable and made for a more absurdist opening.

But why’s it a blog?

There's a line of argument that says this should be in some format other than a blog, like a wiki or a static web site. The first reason it's as a blog is that it's easiest for me, which means I'll be able to write stuff more easily. This means more stuff. Stuff is good.

At first there'll only be little disparate nuggets of usefulness, and it's only after quite a while that it'll become a reasonably coherent whole (hopefully). I want those nuggety parts to be out there as soon as possible, so a static website is out of the question. And this will never be completely finished, much like a blog.

Wikis are built incrementally, a few words at a time, which is great for the writer but frustrating for the reader: finding fifteen different topics each with a couple of new sentences isn't going to make you bother coming back; but a new thirty-sentence entry on a new topic might.

But mainly, I want this to have the atmosphere of a blog: blogs are easy and personal and informal, and people have flaws and things are imperfect and they get improved upon and spread and corrected. People follow along and join in. Blogs get snarky comments from people who think they're awesome; and I want you to think you're awesome, because you will be 'cos you'll've learned some new stuff (easy on the snarky comments, though). I don't want it to be too flashy and authoritative; (begin cheese-stream) I want this to be your blog too (cease the cheesiness).

So

This isn't about training you to use a computer. It's about making you think “hang on, I actually know what I'm doing” and “yep, I know what that does” when you're using one.