| What is Modem ? Modem (modulator-demodulator) is a device that allows a computer to transmit data to other computers via. telephone lines. If you are using computer only for internal office use then you may not go for modem. Almost all modems available in the market are also having a fax. With a fax/modem you can use your computer to send and receive faxes anywhere around the world. Unlike the normal fax machines, fax coming into your computer do not need to be printed. You can send a document or graphics from your screen to a normal fax machine. Speed of Modem : 28 Kpbs, 54 Kpbs, 128 Kpbs. What is Zip drive ? It is some what similar type as hard disk but it is portable and removable and stores data from 100 MB and more. The advantage of this drive is that it is removable like floppy disks. What is booting ? Two types of booting are Hard/Warm booting and Soft/cold booting. Booting means loading the operating system so that computer starts managing the resources and become ready to accept, analyse and execute the commands given by the users. While working with PC, user has to load MS DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System). Hard boot phase starts from switching on computer. After this instructions in ROM get executed. RAM size is checked then MS DOS operating system files are loaded into memory. Soft boot is done, if and when required after hard boot. This does not execute ROM instructions and memory check. This is done by pressing Ctrl, Alt, Del keys simultaneously. It will only refresh the memory and reload the operating system. What is hard disk ? Every computer system must have a hard disk drive. It is a device that magnetically stores information from the computer system on to a disk. Most of the hard disks are permanently mounted on the drive mechanism and made of Hard Aluminium material with magnetic material coating. The first commercially available hard disk were available in 10 MB - 100 MB of area. Today hard disks are available in 2.1 GB and 20 GB and 40 GB memory area. Physically size is almost 3�" diameter. What is Floppy disk ? A flat piece of rotating circular magnetic material. A device that magnetically stores information from computer system on to a diskette. In hard disk the disks are not flexible. In a floppy disks the disk is a circular plate made of flexible magnetic coated plastic sheet. These floppies need floppy disk drive. There are two types of disk drive and disks. 3�" drive and 5�" drive. Floppy of 3�" have 1.44 MB and 5�" drive uses 1.2 MB memory. Old computers work with both types of disks. At present 3�" are most used. But after CD-ROM drive, floppy drive use has become less. What is CD-ROM ? CD-ROM (Compact Disk Read only Memory). CD drive that can be added to the computer as one of its peripherals. This drive retrieves information from CDs. A storage disk iis like music CD but stores data. CD has 650 MB memory. It is made of plastic material having 4.7" diameter. Bottom surface of CD is aluminium + plastic material with spiral tracks having pitch 0.5 micrometer. CD-R compact disk recordable, CD-RW read write allows to record, erase and rewrite data. This CD can be used for thousand time or less. What is key board ? A computer input device with layout similar to normal typewriter plus some additional keys called special keys, functions keys, the numeric keys and cursor control keys. It generates ASCII characters of 8 bits. Total 256 ASCII characters are possible. What is a mouse ? A small hand held device shaped like a mouse that moves the cursor on the screen. Mouse also has two or three buttons on it for sending additional commands to the computer. A mouse has a ball at the bottom and is moved on a flat surface which is called mouse pad. The cursor on the screen of a monitor represents the current position of mouse in X-Y coordinates.. What is TCP/IP ? TCP/IP is transmission control Protocol / Internet Protocol. All computers connected to the internet share this common protocol (or language). TCP/IP is a standard which regulates how all computers connected to the internet must act when communicating with one another. Every computer on a network running TCP/IP software knows exactly where on the `network map it is located. A computer routes information to the intended recipient via the fastest route. The TCP/IP standard dictates the data sent by computer over the internet is broken into pieces called packets. These packets travel as separate entities from the sending computer to the destination computer and may even take different routes. At destination these packets are reunited in proper order. What is ISP ? An internet service provider (ISP) is a company or a group which provides access to users on a pay per use basis. ISPs already have dedicated connections to the internet and allow users to connect to their computers via modem to obtain access to the Internet. ISPs have already invested on hardware computers, modems, routes, telephone connections and so on. ISP can provide access to the internet through dial up service (ordinary telephone lines or ISDN), DSL leased bins or cable connections. Two types of services provided by ISPs are shell access and TCP/IP access. Shell access is text based i.e. email, ftp, telnet and text based browsing. TCP/IP access provides text as well as graphics. What is a dial up services ? Dial up service means that you dial up your ISP through standard telephone lines. You establish a connection with an ISP computer system (and to the internet). For dial up service you need a modem and a dial up software such as the dial up networking in windows 95/98, 2000 and a telephone connection. |
| Frequently asked questions and answers 3 |
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| New!! Learn about Search Engines |
| New!! Learn about Search Engines |
| New!! Learn about Search Engines |