My Tech Tips

​I am frequently asked for advice about what computer, printer, phone or tablet to buy.  This is always one of the most difficult questions to answer because there are so many variables and it all depends on personal preferences. In this article I shall try to provide some general guidance about what kind of things to look for; what options exist; what is best in any price range; and (importantly) what the equipment is to be used for. 

This guide has the following sections:

• Introduction  
• Questions to ask yourself first
  • What am I going to use my new equipment for?
  • How much do I want to spend (New/Used)?
  • How frequently am I going to use it?
  • Where am I going to use it?
  • Do I have any dexterity/eyesight problems?
  • What have I currently got and do I really need to change?  
• Categories of Equipment
  • Computers *
  • Tablets ++
  • Mobile Phones ++
  • Printers**

* In a second article I shall look at the various buying options so look out for Computers – Where to Buy in the next week or so. 

** Nine times out of ten when someone asks me about buying a computer they will couple this with a request for advice about a printer to go with it. Therefore do look out for the third article Printers - What to get on this subject.

++ Other than some general comments about tablets & mobile phones I do not intend to cover them in much detail in this article but may return to them at a future date. 
 
Introduction
Disclaimer. Before I begin I need to stress that there are no right or wrong answers when it comes to choosing computers and IT equipment. Any suggestions that I make are for guidance only and do not constitute recommendations to buy. However, I have many years’ experience in selecting and procuring equipment both in the public and private sectors as well as for personal use. I have learnt some hard lessons over the years that have instilled in me a number of maxims as follows:

• Think and plan before you buy.
• Draw up a budget and adhere to it.
• Remember that a higher price is not necessarily a guarantee of higher quality.
• Never be rushed into a decision for fear of missing an opportunity.
• Sticking to current, proven technologies is often more advisable than “trail-blazing” with the latest “must have”.
• Realise that the minute you have chosen and made your purchase there will always be something just that little bit better coming on to the market. Such is the pace of technological change that we have to accept the inevitability of this fact of life.
• Be honest with yourself when answering the key questions below.

Questions to ask yourself first
What am I going to use my new equipment for? Whether your proposed purchase is a computer, a tablet, a mobile phone or a printer, decide what you want to do with it. If you just want a basic computer to enable you to send and receive emails; connect to and look up things on the internet; and write a few letters; there is no need to buy an all-singing all-dancing model. Most basic computers these days are pretty powerful and are well capable of meeting the demands of today’s universal requirements for shopping and video-calling.
Conversely, if you think you might be tempted to be more adventurous once you have got used to the item, don’t expect a basic machine suddenly to be capable of things like online gaming, high quality photography, online entertainment, videos and concerts. When buying technology it is definitely ‘horses for courses'.
 
How much do I want to spend (New/Used)? Deciding how much to spend on your purchase should not be limited just to the cost of the item itself.  There is a factor in procurement, particularly of computers, called ‘Whole Life Cost’. Unfortunately, especially in public sector procurement, the WLC is not always counted in to the business decision. When working on a government computer procurement contract in the early 2000s, I was asked how cheaply I could purchase a computer for. I obtained a quote for a bulk purchase of a bottom of the range computer and communicated this cost. I had to explain that this did not include software; training; maintenance; power; planned replacements; etc. These are all factors that can make a huge difference to an investment decision.  Sadly, the basic computer cost was the figure that appealed to senior staff anxious to demonstrate “efficient government procurement” and this was seized upon with glee! The hoped-for savings could never be achieved.
At the personal, domestic level it is still important to work out how much your computer is going to cost you over its life. If it is a printer for example, it is well known that the basic cost of one can be very low. Manufacturers often sell these “at cost” or less because they make their money from the subsequent purchase of printer ink. A key factor to examine therefore is the estimated ink usage per 100 sheets of paper and, hence, the number of new inks you will need to buy over the life of the printer.
Don’t necessarily discard the second-hand option. Bought from reliable sources, a used machine can offer a much higher specification and performance capability than a new one at a comparable cost. If you consider this alongside your planned use of the equipment, an older machine may be perfectly capable of meeting one's basic needs for a good number of years.
 
How frequently am I going to use it?  You may not feel that this is an important factor but it can guide you to the sort of equipment to buy.  If like me you spend a good proportion of the day at your computer, you need to buy something that meets your style of working. For example, if buying a laptop that has a small screen and will be used (literally) on your lap or a cushion tray, you need to consider the ergonomic aspects of the machine. If it becomes uncomfortable to stay at the screen for long then this is no good for an enthusiastic user who spends a long time working.  A desktop computer is preferable as you can adapt the working position to your needs for lengthy periods.
Similarly, the amount of printing you plan to do can determine the size and position of your printer. If you rarely print anything, then a small portable printer can suffice. If you regularly print both colour and black and white and do quite a bit of copying, this will similarly have a bearing on your choice.
 
Where am I going to use it? Allied to the previous question is location. Will you regularly do your work at a desk or are you likely to take your equipment outside and on trips? Portability is obviously an issue for the latter.
If you want to be able to use the computer anywhere in the house – sometimes downstairs and at other times in the bedroom – then relying simply on a desktop computer that usually needs to be in a fixed position will not be for you. Many people now take lots of photos and modern tablets and mobile phones have a capability that rivals high end cameras.
 
Do I have any dexterity or visual/hearing problems? If you have problems with (for example) arthritis or have visual or hearing impairment, these need to be taken into consideration – especially for the size of any keyboard and screen. Some printer controls can be quite “fiddly” and you need to be aware of this before buying. Hearing problems may call for special software or speakers, whilst people without any vision can still find equipment designed for the blind and partially-sighted.
 
What have I already got and do I really need to change?  Sometimes it is a case of ‘better the devil you know’ and the attraction of a shiny new computer or tablet may be exciting but can bring with it a complete change to the way you have been used to working. A good example of this concerns the Windows operating system. It is well known that people used to earlier versions of Windows are often completely baffled when faced with the totally different layout (or User Interface as it is called) of the latest Windows 10. It is no surprise to learn that there is software available and regularly used that can make Windows 10 look like earlier versions.
If your desire to change is driven by frustration with the capabilities of your current computer, maybe you can consider updating some of the components of your present machine. You can add extra processing power and memory, buy a larger screen for your desktop, or add external storage if your current computer is getting full.
 
Summary. The military have a saying; “Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom time wasted.” Don’t rush into a buying decision without careful forward planning.
 
Categories of Equipment
This section of the article is about the various types of equipment you are likely to encounter and consider buying. I will look briefly at the following in turn: 

• Computers
• Tablets
• Mobile Phones
• Printers 

Computers
You may recall an earlier article of mine in which I looked at the history of computers and how they work. You can read it again here. These days computers are extremely powerful and come in all shapes and sizes. The Apple Watch on your wrist is a full-blown computer in its own right and is thousands of times more powerful than the computers that took the first man to the moon.
Generally speaking, a computer can be either a desktop, a laptop or a hand-held device.  Desktop computers can be either a screen with a separate computer box (or tower) or – more commonly now – an All-in-One device that has the computer workings and storage built in to the screen itself. The All-in-One variety saves on space requirements and avoids the need for a lot of trailing cables underneath your desk. The one main drawback is that it is much more difficult to gain access to the workings of the computer should you need to repair if or wish to add further components.
On the left below is a tower desktop and on the right an All-in-One.

Main things to look for​
Computer come in a wide range of sizes, formats and capabilities. The three main things to consider are the size of the screen, the amount of processing power, and the quantity of data storage.
 
Screen The size of the screen you need will depend on your eyesight as well as the space you have available to position the computer. Screens these days are of exceptional quality, are usually flat and are light years away from the old cathode ray tubes. Like modern television sets, screens vary considerably in picture quality, clarity etc, so it always pays to view before you buy if at all possible.
Increasingly these days, input of data and “navigation” round the computer screen is by means of touch, using the fingers directly onto the screen. Anyone familiar with a computer tablet (see later) will already be adept at using a touch capability.
 
Processing Power The processing power of a computer comprises two components which are the ‘engine’ or “chip” and the memory. The chip governs the speed with which your machine can perform calculations and handle all the tasks the computer has to carry out. The memory is effectively the working space for the processor. This working space is referred to as Random Access Memory (RAM). Think of it as the space available on a physical desk/table top or work area.  With a larger desk you can have a greater number of papers or books open around you as you work; a smaller desk means you will have to keep changing the position of your paperwork to be able to refer to it. With the computer, the size of RAM governs the amount of work the computer can carry out at one time without changing the contents of the memory. RAM is measured in Gigabytes. The more RAM you have the more work you can do at one time. Note, however, that if the RAM is not matched by an equally powerful processor chip the speed of your work will slow down. Consider 2GB of RAM as a minimum. 
 
Data Storage Data storage is enabled on computers by means of internally-held storage facilities. In the past these were always in the form of a hard “drive” which was controlled by the computer and able to both read and write information to the stack of disks inside the drive.  Here is a picture of a typical computer hard disk drive (HDD) and, alongside, an exploded diagram showing the inner workings with moveable read/write arms.
​

​In a desktop computer the HDD disk itself is standardised at 3.5” in diameter. In a laptop it is 2.5”.

​The storage capacity of a hard disk drive, measured in Gigabytes, will vary. When buying a computer it is best to avoid anything smaller than 250GB, but this size is perfectly adequate for the average home user. If your disk is starting to reach its capacity the easy solution is to invest in an external backup drive. (Backup drives and other forms of external storage will be covered in another article.)
Increasingly, internal (and external) storage disks are built not as a stack of hard round plates with moveable read/write arms (as in the above picture) but in what is called Solid State. This consists of an array of silicon chips with no moving parts. A Solid State Drive (SSD) is smaller and more reliable but does cost a little more.
 
Tablets
I mentioned earlier that more and more computers these days have a touch capability enabled. This capability gave rise to a blossoming market for the sale of tablets. Indeed, for many people these days a tablet might be their first introduction to computers. Having a desktop or laptop computer is now by no means a pre-requisite to being able to carry out all the functions previously only possible on a larger computer.
Tablets are now very much in our common vocabulary. The original tablet was the Apple iPad but many other varieties now exist. However, to some extent the Apple nomenclature has entered everyday language and you may hear reference to an iPad even if it is made by another manufacturer such as Samsung.
As I have depicted above, some machines on the market today are built with a dual functionality; they can be operated very much as a laptop or the screen can be “flipped” or detached and perform as a tablet.
I do not propose to go into any detail on tablets in this article but may return to it at some future occasion.
 
Mobile Phones
No article on computers could be complete without mentioning mobile phones. Though they were very different bits of equipment in the past, mobile phones these days are essentially computers in their own right. Many look just like a mini tablet and can perform most of the same functions. We have come a very long way from the original telephone.

​Printers
Nine times out of ten when someone asks me about buying a computer they will couple this with a request for advice about a printer to go with it. As with some of the other topics in this article, I will not delve into printers but look out for a future article on them.

When I set up this site I said that I would occasionally recommend other websites and articles that I feel are worth visiting. The article below is reproduced by kind permission of Julie at The Helpful Book Company. Julie writes their weekly Tech Tips newsletter (yes, surprisingly, there are other Tech Tips sites around as well as mine. However, Julie's is far more professional than mine could hope to be.) This week's article by Julie is about something very topical and important which potentially affects us all. The very last sentence says it all.
The Helpful Book Company also offers a comprehensive range of courses and books to help you navigate your way through the technology jungle. You can visit their site and sign up for the free weekly newsletter here.

Today, I want to talk a bit about chips.  Not the tasty fried-potato foodstuff (mmm… chips), but the rather more techy silicon variety – microchips.
Now, you probably already realise that microchips are everywhere these days – not just in PCs, tablet and phones, but in TVs, washing machines, your central heating system, your car (unless you’ve got a proper classic)... even your dog.  But you might not know just how many there are.  I was reading an article the other day, and apparently the average new car uses over 100 separate microchips.  For a car!
And I’m afraid that, when it comes to making all these chips, there’s some "trouble at t’mill".
With the whole world in various degrees of lockdown over the last year, there’s been a massive surge in the number of people wanting new kit – laptops so they can work from home, tablets and other gadgets for video calling, games consoles to keep them occupied… On top of that, countries are rolling out the 5G mobile network (which needs yet more chips) – and the chip makers just can’t keep up!
It’s led to a serious shortage – particularly for car manufacturers (who need a slightly different type of chip from most other tech) but for tablet and phone makers, too.  Some car companies have already had to slow down or stop production entirely, because they just don’t have the chips to finish the job – according to the BBC, it’s been dubbed “chipageddon” by someone in the car industry!  Colourful.
But how does it affect other tech, and you specifically?
Well – there are two options when there’s a big shortage like this.  Either manufacturers start making more chips, or you end up with less choice and higher prices.  Sadly, in this case, it looks like it’s going to be the second.  Setting up a new factory to make silicon chips isn’t quick or easy – it’s a very fiddly, technical process – so it’s not really an option here.
It’s unlikely to affect the really big companies like Apple, because they’ve got very deep pockets and a lot of clout.  But the smaller tech firms might find themselves struggling for parts this year.
So my advice would be, if you’re thinking of investing in a new bit of kit, either do it now before the price goes up or wait a year or so for everything to settle down.

​I shall not go into how you set up and insert a signature block but the help page of your email software package will be able to instruct you on this.
 
Using Rules
Another feature in all email packages is the ability to create what is called a ‘Rule’ (sometimes referred to as a ‘Filter’). A Rule can be very useful if you want to apply a certain action or sequence of actions to a given message you have received. The standard format for a rule is something like ‘If X occurs then Do Y’. This is best understood by looking at an example of the rule dialogue box (this is from Apple Mail on my iMac).

​Clicking on any of these arrows opens up a choice. Here is a screen shot of the choices when clicking on the box currently saying From (A):
​

​Here is a screen shot of the choices under the Perform the following actions box currently saying Move Message (B):
​

Here is a screen shot of the choices under the main Conditions box currently saying Contains(C)
​

Although you do NOT need to worry about trying to understand it, this last picture is included to show that delving deep into the email header can enable you to find out if the sender is legitimate or not. It is taken from a live example from the internet so actual user's name has been obscured). The wording of the header detail is difficult to read but the key parts are shown by the arrows.
​

In the previous article I described the basics of emails; how they work; the difference between webmail and desktop mail; and a little about email software packages. Armed with that knowledge you can make perfectly good use of this popular facility. However, there is actually a lot more to emails than first meets the eye and many ways that you can improve the way you use them. If you would like to know more then this article is for you.
 
Here are the topics I shall cover: 

• Types of Email Address
• Creating and using Address Groups
• Email Preferences
• Managing your Inbox
• Sorting your viewing page

 
Types of Email Address
We are probably all familiar with the usual email form that appears when we click to write a new email. The top of this form looks like this:

​The To: box and Subject: are self-explanatory but you may not know what the others mean.  Cc: stands for Carbon Copy and is just like an old typewriter letter where one or more pieces of carbon paper interspersed with blank paper enables you to create copies.  Bcc: stands for Blind Carbon Copy.   What is the difference between the two in email terms?  Anyone whose address is in the Cc: box will receive a copy of the message as well as the person(s) in the To: box. Important point: All the recipients included in the To: and Cc: boxes will be able to see who else has received the email.  This may not be appropriate so, if you want one or more recipients to be invisible to others, you should put the addresses of these (invisible) recipients in the Bcc: box. Not only will they be invisible to anyone in the To: or Cc: boxes but they will also be invisible to anyone else in the Bcc: box.
Note that you can still have addresses in the To: and Cc: boxes because there might be someone that you DO wish to let know that you have sent the email to the others shown.
Sometimes you might want to send an email to a whole group of people but not want ANY of them to know who else has received the email.  In this case you can put your own email address in the To: box and everyone else in the Bcc: box (with no address in the Cc: box).
 
The Reply to: box (where it is set up to appear) will either have your own email address in or you can insert an alternative email address if you want replies sent to a different address. Any email received will always show a From: box and this will be the address of the sender. However, there might be instances where you wish replies to be sent elsewhere – either to someone else who is monitoring replies or to an alternative email address of your own so that you can separate all the replies to a particular message.
 
There should always be something in the Subject: box. If not, you will get a message pop up saying that there is no subject and asking if you still want to send it. You can do so (without a subject) but be aware that many email providers flag up messages without subject lines as potential spam or hoax emails.
 
Creating and Using Address Groups
If you have just a few people to send emails to it is easy enough to put their email addresses in one by one.  Usually, if you have emailed them before, their email address will pop up as soon as you start typing their name. 

Sometimes however, such as if you are managing a society or group of people, you might have a large number of people to whom you want to send the same email. Let’s say you have 50 people in the society. You could type each of their addresses into the To: box but this would take forever – especially if you are likely to send another message soon after to the same people. We get around this by creating Groups in our address book. Thus a group called (for example) “My Society” might have 50 names in it.  Once you have created the group it is a simple matter of typing in “My Society” in the To: box and all the names will suddenly appear. Don’t forget to use the Cc: and Bcc: boxes in the same way.

Note that there is a limit to the number of addresses that email packages will let you send at any one time and this can be up to 80-100. There are other types of programme to use if you regularly go beyond this.

I shall not go into the subject of how to create groups as this varies considerably depending on the email package you are using. If you want to know how to do it, use Google and type in your email package name and ask how to create email groups.
 
Email Preferences
All computer programmes have the facility to adjust settings to suit your own way of working. These changes are accessed by finding the section of the programme called ‘Preferences’ (sometimes ‘Customise’ or 'Options'). Email programmes are no different with the exception that there are often a lot of potential changes you can make. I don’t intend to go into details on this here because not only are there so many different variations but each email software package will have its own set of permissible changes.  However, here is a list of the kind of changes you can make (there will be many more than shown here):

• Ways to view messages (i.e. show to the right or below the message list).
• Font, size and colour of text in the messages.
• Number of lines to preview in the home page.
• Check for messages automatically or not (Push or Pull).
• Play a sound when a message arrives.
• Action after a message is read (file, delete, implement a rule or nothing).
• What to do with junk mail and spam.
• Whether to include a sender’s message when replying to him/her.
• Whether to include a signature block (See later).
• Whether to apply any rules (See later).

All programmes (including email ones) come with a number of these settings already set as the default. The default settings are based on what the majority of users will tend to use. You don’t have to make any changes if you don’t want to. As you get more experienced with using email you may find that you prefer to show things slightly differently and the Preferences option is where to go. All changes are reversible.
 
Managing your Inbox
Depending on how many emails you receive and send you may be happy just to let your inbox (and sent messages box) grow and grow. There are several reasons why this is not such a good idea. First, before long you will find that you have to scroll down the screen a lot to find an older message. Second, it keeps messages jumbled up together without any separation between different topics (such as shopping, social, outings, bills etc). Third, it makes it difficult to quickly find all messages on a specific topic or at a given date.
 
For these reasons it is preferable to create separate folders to hold all emails of a particular subject or from a particular person or persons.   There is no limit to the number of folders you can create and each folder can have sub-folders. Here is an example taken from my own email package. You can see that I create what I call Archive folders and allocate one to each year. Within that year I have sub-folders for messages In and messages Sent.  All messages will go into the appropriate folder unless I wish to keep a separate folder for the more numerous emails. (Guess who uses Amazon quite a lot!)

​Where to keep these folders? If you remember the earlier article where I described the difference between desktop mail and webmail, you will know that you can keep these messages on your desktop/laptop or in the internet on your webmail package. For both methods you need to take specific action to MOVE selected messages into the appropriate folder. (Note that you must create the folder first). You can do this either by manually selecting one or more messages and then dragging them to the correct folder; or you can create a Rule that must be followed under specific circumstances. (More about this in my next article).
Remember that there is no need to delete every message as soon as you have read it. Emails don’t take up that much space and, if you have them in separate archive folders, you can always save these to external storage if you are worried about space.
 
Sorting your viewing page
Quite often people ring me to say that they have “lost all their emails”. Invariably the reason is that they have inadvertently altered the order in which they are displayed. In fact it is very easy to do and, fortunately, just as easy to correct it. In the box where all your emails are displayed will be something like this which is my inbox on Thunderbird Desktop software (different email packages may vary):

​On the left-hand side will be the list of your email folders. (If this is not present you can make it visible by clicking on the ‘View’ option in the menu and clicking “Show Folders’). At the top of this column will be the name of the email account followed by the pre-assigned folders for the usual boxes. Note that, next to my email address there is a downward facing arrow and, similarly, next to the faint heading ’(Gmail)’. These downward facing arrows are important and feature a lot in email displays (and other software packages also). Clicking on the arrows in this column will cause the mailbox headings (Inbox, Deleted) to collapse and all you will see will be the single headings showing your email account and the Gmail title.  The arrow will change to a right-facing one > which is the indication that the folders beneath it have collapsed.  Clicking the arrow again will restore the folders.
​
Looking on the main panel you will see a range of headings thus (again they will very according to your email package):
​

​In my example the standard headings are Subject, Correspondents (or Senders) and Date. To the left is a black asterisk * and a paperclip symbol. The asterisk relates to those messages that you have ‘flagged’ as important. In the column below this black asterisk there appear blank asterisks. All items that have been flagged will be filled in with a colour. By clicking on the black asterisk at the top of the column, you can re-arrange ALL the email into order showing either all the flagged (asterisked) messages first or (click again) and they will appear last.  All the other detail related to that email will be correspondingly re-arranged.

Next to the asterisk is the paperclip which symbolises that an email message has an attachment to it (such as when someone send you a photograph attached to their email). Just like the asterisk, clicking on the paper clip will rearrange all the emails into order with all those messages with attachments listed first. Click again and they will be shown last.
 
Now, following the same principle, if you click on any of the other headings all the messages will be rearranged in order. With Subject, one click will put them into alphabetical order A-Z whilst a further click will change them to Z-A.  You may need to scroll up and down to find the messages at the bottom of the rearranged list. With Correspondents or Senders the names of your senders will be re-arranged in alphabetical order A-Z or (another click) Z-A. Similarly, with Date you can sort the emails into Oldest first or Newest first.
 
What usually happens, therefore, when someone tells me they have “lost their emails" is that they will inadvertently have clicked on one of these headings and altered the order in which the emails are displayed.  
 
Summary
I must apologise for the fact that this article is a bit complex. It is difficult to explain the variations between different email packages without going into detail on each one. Therefore I have used a typical package (Thunderbird) to demonstrate the principle. I am not necessarily recommending that you should use it 
 
Look out for the final article on emails in which I shall cover four remaining topics:

• Writing Style
• Using Signatures
• Using Rules
• Hidden Information

​Emails; you either love them or hate them. Personally I love them. The first email facility was actually as long ago as 1979 but this was a fairly restricted academic/scientific venture. A limited consumer capability arrived in 1989 with the sale of Lotus Notes software but it was not until 1996 when the first universal service was started. This was Hotmail. I have used emails since the mid-90s with a variety of different software products. Microsoft’s first email package was Microsoft Mail which was launched in 1991. In 1996 they launched Outlook which was, basically, Hotmail.
 
Today I use Google Mail (now called Gmail) almost exclusively. (As they say on the TV, other email packages are available. This is not an advert for Google!) Gmail was launched on 1 April 1994 and proved not to be an April fool. Since I started using Gmail I have sent and received 70,000 messages. I have got copies of emails before Gmail but many of these are in file formats that are unreadable today without some technical manipulation. In the year 2020 the total number of emails sent and received globally was 306 Billion per day. Yes! Every day. If you think I am an excessive user, my total equates to about only 8 per day.
 
In this article I will try to cover the following:

• How email works.
• The difference between mail on the internet (webmail) and desktop email.
• The range of email packages.
• Some miscellaneous tips and facts.

 
How Email Works 
There is a lot more to an email than just the message you type out on the screen. Think about a traditional letter written by hand. It carries your address and the date you write it and can run to several pages. Sometimes you can add a photograph or a newspaper cutting and clip it to the letter. This then goes into an envelope on which you write the recipient’s address and then affix a stamp. You then post it in a red letter box.
 
An agent (the postman) periodically empties the letter box and the letter goes to the sorting office. Once there sophisticated machinery sorts all the letters and puts them into mail bags – a different bag for each destination.  The mail bags are then sent off to the various receiving sorting offices where they are placed in dedicated pigeon holes corresponding to the delivery postmen’s rounds and eventually arrive at your front door.

​Emails work the same way except that the “envelope” containing all the routing information is hidden from you. (There is a way to see it but I will cover that another time). The email is then posted (sent) to the internet in the same way that you place a letter in a letter box. The full email process is as follows:
 
The letter is written and addressed and when you send it off it goes into your Outbox. The electronic postman (your internet provider) "collects" the messages from the Outbox and sends them to the internet “sorting office”. Here they are routed to the different email providers (like Gmail, Outlook and so on). When they reach the provider they are sorted into each of the individual addressees' “pigeon holes” to await their delivery to the recipient. The recipient’s computer receives the mail sent to it and places it in your Inbox until such time as you can read it.
 
The only difference between the physical and electronic messages is that, with email, all these processes (with the exception of the actual reading of the message) occur instantaneously – the Outbox doesn’t have to wait until it is filled or until a certain collection time arrives. Each individual message is despatched and sent on its way immediately and doesn’t have to be “batched up” with others. Thus emails go winging around the internet every second of the day and night.
 
The email provider (let’s say Gmail) acts as a holding bay. Now – important point - there are two ways in which emails can be sent to your computer. One is called “push” and the other “pull”.   Push acts like the normal postal service and messages are sent to you automatically. Pull, on the other hand, is like a “poste restante” service where the post office holds the letters until you call and ask for them.  In the case of emails it is your computer which requests the “post office” to download the messages to you.
 
Internet Email (Webmail) v. Desktop Email
This next section explains something which often confuses people. The email software that handles your messages enables you to read, reply and store those messages.  But it can do this in two places – either on the internet or on your computer (desktop).
​
Internet Mail (Webmail)
First, again using the Gmail example, you can view all your messages by going to the internet and visiting the site that holds your Gmail. This will be found at https://www.google.co.uk. If you have a Gmail account you will be presented with this screen

​If you click Gmail this will take you to your mail area (if you are already logged into your Google account) or to a Gmail log in screen if not. (If you have never used Gmail before you will be invited to open an account. This is free.) Once logged in you will be presented with a fairly familiar layout showing all your messages – in and out – plus any you have saved.  This email on the internet or web is called Webmail. Many people just use a webmail package and there is nothing wrong with doing that. As an aside, you may wonder what the square of dots is. If you click on this it opens up a list of all the other Google Applications (Apps) that you can use if you have a Google account. We'll look at these another time.
 
Desktop Email
The one drawback to using webmail exclusively is that, if your internet connection goes down, you will be temporarily unable to use email or see your messages. Before the arrival of the ability to share voice and data over telephone lines (read an earlier article here to explain this), it was necessary to dial up to the internet, quickly find and download your messages and then cut the connection so someone could continue to use the telephone for speaking. To be able to read the messages downloaded a software package was required to present them on your computer screen. This was the origin of Desktop Mail. The term we use for such a package is a Client and the store of messages held on the internet is called the Server. The link between the two is called a Client-Server relationship. These terms client and server are used a lot in computing not just with email packages. In fact in earlier, non-politically correct days it wasn’t called Client-Server but Master-Slave and was depicted thus with the master or server obviously being the dominant side.

​Should I use a Client Mail package or Webmail? 
Generally speaking you will tend to select whether to view and manage your mail on the desktop client or on the web depending on which you feel more comfortable with. The main advantage of client-based mail is that you can read any downloaded messages and draft responses even if your computer or device is disconnected from the internet – in other words offline. (Naturally your drafts, which are held in your Outbox, don't get sent until you are back online again). You can also keep a local copy of your emails if you are concerned about the security of leaving them on the web or if your webmail package has a limitation on storage. Webmail on the other hand allows you to access your mail from a separate device to the one where your client software package is sitting. These days we often have several devices (iPad and iPhone) in addition to a desktop or laptop computer.
 
The Range of Email Packages 
Webmail This software comes in two sorts. Each internet service provider (ISP), such as BT, Virgin, Tesco and so on, usually has its own mail service and your subscription to the ISP comes with an email address such as [email protected].  It is perfectly OK to use this but some people prefer to use a different sort of webmail package since they often offer more features. If like me you use BT as an ISP and Gmail as your webmail, when you login to your internet through your provider you can then, instead of looking at the ISP's email package, click to see your chosen webmail. There are many of these webmail packages like Gmail that are independent of ISPs.
Client Mail Packages are numerous and varied and are often unique to the device you are working on. Apple computers for example have Apple Mail; Windows computers have Outlook. However, you can also choose from a whole host of other client packages that, like webmail, are independent of their main provider. There is not enough space to list all the many client packages here but popular ones over time have been Thunderbird, Live Mail, Samsung Mail, Yahoo and Outlook Express. Note that you don’t have to have the same client email as the one you use on the web. It is a fairly simple matter to have your client mail set so that it visits your webmail provider. For example, I use Apple Mail on my desktop and iPad to read and reply to messages but these devices “visit” my Gmail account on the web and download messages accordingly.
 
Some Miscellaneous Tips and Facts
Before closing this article, here are one or two tips and facts about email generally.

1. People worry about “filling up” their computer and tend to delete every message as soon as they have read it.  There are two main reasons why this is unnecessary. First and foremost you never know when you might need to refer to an earlier message. Second, by a very rough calculation 250,000 emails (far more than I have used over many years) would consume about 25GB (Gigabytes) of storage. On today’s computers this is a very small amount of the inbuilt storage. On the internet, however, the cost of 25GB of storage could start to mount up. If you are still worried about using up space on your computer you can always invest in extra, external storage (a hard drive) to hold your mail archive.

2. Attachments - anything you "pin" to the email message like a photo, video or document) can add considerably to the overall size of your email and, as a result, its storage requirement. Most email providers limit the size of attachments for this reason and also because they take longer to transmit.
 
3. Something like 50% of all emails are useless. They consist of spam, hoaxes, advertisements and replies copied out unnecessarily to recipients other than the main addressee of the original email. Naturally, you can delete these permanently and there is no need to keep them at all.
 
4. What do other languages call the @ sign? In fact the English “at” is about the most boring of all. Very common references are made to a monkey’s tail, an elephant’s trunk and a snail. In German it is called Affenschwanz meaning ‘monkey’s tail’; in Hungarian it is Kukac which means ‘worm’ or ‘maggot’; in Norwegian it is alfacroll meaning ‘curly alpha’; and in Vietnam is it called acong (‘bent A’) in the North whereas it is amoc (‘hooked A’) in the South.
 
5. Once an email has been sent there is NO WAY you can unsend it. Don't be tempted by any package that offers a Recall facility. All this does is send a request to the recipient(s) asking them to delete the earlier email. This merely draws attention to the original error and advertises your mistake to other recipients. Accidentally pressing Send for an email that you specifically didn’t want to send is about as heart-stopping as clicking shut the front door and realising you haven't got the key! 

In my previous article I wrote about Understanding Computer Communications (Read it here). I covered the history of communication and how today’s computers communicate with the user, each other and the outside world. I focused mostly on the use of wires and cables for the transmission of data. But the common terminology for exchanging information with computers is 'Networking'. Rather confusingly, networking can be both wired or wire-less. This article explains all about network connections. Here are some terms that I will cover: Local Area and Wide Area Networks (LANs and WANs), Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Mobile, Terrestrial, and Satellite.
 
Wired Networks (LANs and WANs)
When we talk of a network we refer to an arrangement whereby one or more computers can be linked together to exchange data. This can be within one’s home or office (the Local Area Network or LAN) or between different buildings and departments of a business (the Wide Area Network or WAN [sometimes called a Corporate Network]). Of course, we have already met one network called the Internet(work) which is really a global network for information exchange.
 
Local Area Networks (LANs) can be established by connecting the computer(s) within the home or office using wires or wireless signals.  When we use wires we use a form of cabling called Ethernet. Ethernet cables can be any length and there is usually little or no degradation of signal over reasonable distances. Ethernet cables are about the thickness of a normal electrical appliance cable. They consist of a number of separate wires which are bundled together and encased in a plastic outer sheath. Typically they run along skirting boards and although they can be visually distracting they can blend in well especially if you choose an appropriate colour cable. Most people will be familiar with this ethernet cable since one is always included in the box when you take delivery of an internet hub or router. Here is a picture of an Ethernet Cable. 

​You will notice that there is a different type of plug at each end of the cable and this demands a special socket or port to connect to at its destination. For the technically curious this plug is called an RJ45 (which stands for Registered Jack 45).The ‘destination’ it plugs into might be the back of your computer, a port on your internet hub/router, or even a junction box for sharing the network between more than one device. Here is a picture of the LAN socket or port with its cable. Look for it on the back of your computer or hub.

​If you ever have the luxury of having a new house built it makes sense to get the whole house cabled for ethernet with appropriate sockets in each room. This way, the cabling can be hidden behind plasterwork or walls in just the same way that a ring main electric cable is laid out and hidden when building a house. Here is a picture of a typical face plate that might be built into a wall to provide a network connection point.  Increasingly these are being combined with three pin plug sockets and USB charging points. The ethernet socket usually sits behind a small shutter that has to be lifted up to insert the connecting cable. This shutter prevents the ingress of dirt and dust. You will be familiar with these shutters on telephone points. Interestingly, the standard telephone plug is called an RJ11 (Registered Jack 11) and is smaller than the ethernet plug.

​Wide Area Networks (WANs) are where different parts of an organisation are linked together over distances. A business with, for example, a headquarters and a number of regional offices each with its own LAN, might have a WAN that connects all the regional LANs together. Thus regional businesses can operate by themselves over their LAN but communicate data to other regions and to the Head Office by means of the WAN. How these separate LANs are combined is outside the scope of this article but it requires some kind of “junction box” often called an access point. The "highway" for connecting LANs and WANs together is actually the internet. However, the difference is that the LAN/WAN network is private to the organisation and will have safeguards to maintain that privacy. Other organisations that use WANs are Universities, academic institutions, Local Government and Voluntary Services.
 
Wireless Networks
Now let me look at networking without wires - literally Wireless. We have become accustomed to the term Wi-Fi. Knowing that the musical HiFi stands for High Fidelity, it is commonly thought that the Wi-Fi means Wireless Fidelity. This is actually untrue; Wi-Fi doesn’t stand for anything. It is an official trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. When looking for a term to describe wireless connectivity they thought that HiFi had a catchy ring to it and imitated it with Wi-Fi.  Note that the correct term is Wi-Fi not WIFI or wifi.
 
All forms of wireless communication require the presence of a transmitter and a receiver. Any device connected to a wireless network has to have the ability to transmit and receive. Depending on the distance between the sender (transmitter) and the device being sent to (receiver) there is often a need for the signal to be boosted on its journey. This is called relay and, like an athletics relay race, has one device in the chain taking hold of the message and carrying (relaying) it to the next recipient and so on.  To understand this concept, think of mobile phones and televisions. The former requires a network of masts (relays) and the latter the presence of large transmitters (relays) usually sited on prominent hilltops.  
 
It is the distance between devices (or between the intermediate relays) that determines the kind of wireless technology to be used.  Here is a brief rundown of the technologies based on distance:
 
Near Field Communication (NFC) This is a common feature of point of sale payment systems using credits/debit cards and mobile phones. The message (card details) are transmitted between the card/phone and the device used by the shop or individual to take the payment.  A receipt message is transmitted back to the card/phone. The maximum distance is about 4cm.
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Bluetooth This technology is used to transmit data at high frequencies over short distances – typically up to 10m but (with higher-powered devices) up to 100m. The technology takes its name from the 10th Century second king of Denmark, King Harald Bluetooth. He was famous for uniting Scandinavia and serves as a metaphor for our uniting computers and devices.  A lesser-known fact is that the blue symbol we use for the Bluetooth icon is actually the initials of Harald Bluetooth in Scandinavian runic script.

Common uses of Bluetooth are for connecting devices such as keyboards, mice and touch pads to their parent computer. Bluetooth is a common feature used in cars for connecting one’s mobile phone to the vehicle’s own computer.  The act of uniting the two devices is called “pairing”.
 
Wi-Fi Perhaps the most regularly-used and recognised form of wireless connection in the home is Wi-Fi. Depending on the inbuilt technology being used and the radio frequency it operates at, Wi-Fi can connect over distances up to 50m indoors. Older devices managed much less. Wi-Fi is typically used for creating a Local Area Network in the home or office. Devices connecting to the network (such as printers, scanners and other computers) do not have to be in line of sight of other devices but have to be within the range of the Wi-Fi transmission frequency.  Where the distance is too much to get a constant signal it is common to use a repeater or extender to act as a relay to other parts of the house.

​​Mobile Communications The next kind of wireless communication is the mobile phone network. Here a more powerful transmitter in the phone or device is able to connect over much greater distances provided that it is within the range of one of the mobile network company’s transmitters (or masts).  Line of sight plays an important part in being able to connect as does the sort of technology being used by the network.  Coming into more regular use is what is called 5G mobile (where 5G stands for 5th Generation). A 5G network is capable of sending signals over much greater distances than earlier generations.  Using the same metaphor of the relay race, mobile network transmitters/masts are situated in a carefully designed geographical spread – each mast counting as a cell which, in conjunction with the other masts in the area creates a cellular network. This is why mobile phones (especially in the US) are called Cell phones.  You will hear an American asking for your “Cell” when he wants your mobile number. Here is a depiction of a mobile network cellular structure (photo courtesy of Rhode & Schwarz):

​The key thing about mobile/cellular networks is that the pathway around the network is switchable – often immediately and without interruption – if one adjacent cell cannot be connected to or is busy. Thus the route a message takes can vary and can be quite circuitous. This gives the network survivability should one cell or group of cells go out of service. The origins of the internet are based on a cell network that was developed in the early 1970s and was intended to be survivable in the event of a major war. The network could carry on working provided a route round the network could be found.
 
Terrestrial Communication  As previously mentioned, Television and Radio programmes are carried across the airwaves by means of transmitting stations. These are much more powerful than mobile phone masts and thus fewer are needed to cover large areas.  The receiver in this instance is the aerial on the roof of your house or in the attic or built in to the television itself. (Joke: Someone was puzzling over a TV set in a shop that said on the box ‘Built In Antenna’. He said to the salesman that he was hoping to get one built in the UK.)
 
Satellite Of course, more and more television programmes are being broadcast by satellite of which Sky is one of the foremost providers. These broadcasts are still wireless even though you can now get cable TV.  Just like terrestrial television, satellite television requires a receiver which is the dish affixed to the outside of the house. Since, like most wireless transmission, line of sight is a necessary factor, the transmitting satellite is what is called geo-stationary, which means that its position remains constant regardless of the rotation of the earth.
 
A Final Word about Line of Sight

In earlier articles I have described the origin of computers and charted their development over the years. I have explained how today’s computers actually work and have provided some guidance about browsers, search engines and how to find information on the internet.  Now I want to look at how we connect to our computing device (which might be a laptop, a desktop, a tablet or a phone) and how that device connects to the outside world and communicates across the internet.

What is communication?
First, however, a few words about the subject of communication. Since time began man has needed to communicate with others – to exchange information. Before speech I imagine that communication was by means of hand gestures but when speech arrived the concept of language evolved. Each language would have been different from others though some might just have been closely related. These days there are known to be over 7000 distinct spoken languages in the world (and each of these can have many regional dialects).
 
But speech has not been the only means of imparting information over the centuries as these pictures indicate:

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A common factor in all of these of course is distance. The greater the distance the less effective the means of communication. Some work over greater distances than others – compare smoke signals and flags. But there is another distinction to make; some forms of communications are visual - relying on seeing something being communicated. Other forms are based on the transmission of sound. But key to all of them is the need to overcome the constraints of distance.

Speech, for example, can travel further if you shout or amplify the sound of your voice. Another technique could be the use of a relay (or repetition). In its simplest form this could be shouting a message to someone who, in turn, relays it to the next person in the chain. Or there could be a visual relay such as sending smoke signals from one hill to another and then having the message sent on further. Over history, early warning systems have utilised fire beacons lit on prominent hills – announcing some event or threat. Keep in mind these concepts of amplification and relay because they form key ingredients of modern-day computer communications.

How does this relate to computer communications?
In my article ‘How do computers actually work?’ (Read it here) I described how early digital computers used some form of electric spark or signal to “instruct” the computer to carry out a particular action. This led to realisation that you could “programme” a computer using a sequence of signals. Programmes are how we communicate with the computer but how do computers communicate with each other and connect to the outside world?  Just as early man sent a stream of smoke signals to convey his message, so computers send a stream of electronic signals in order to communicate. These signals represent numbers and we learnt in the earlier post that the numbers are represented by the use of 1s and 0s in binary arithmetic. There are two issues to examine. First, how the signal passes from one computer to the next and, second, what is the pathway along which that signal travels.
​
How does the signal pass from one computer to the next?
We’ve learnt that the passage of signals is sent electronically. But how does this happen? If we think of using the telephone to speak to someone, the sound of our voice goes up and down in a wave.

This wave fluctuates up and down both in the loudness of the voice (amplitude) and its highness or lowness (pitch or frequency). Telephone lines transmit the voice signals on an ever-changing wave. To understand the difference, just ask yourself “Do I speak in 1s and 0s?” No, of course not. But computers do. This is the key difference; our voice signals are analogue (they vary up and down) but computer signals (data) are digital (either 1s or 2s, up or down, on or off). Telephone lines can only handle traffic (voice or data) using fluctuating waves. The microphone part of the phone conveys your voice and the speaker part enables the sound to be heard.
 
With computer data there has to be some way to translate the information from digital 1s and 0s to analogue wave patterns. This translation is called modulation. At one end of the line the signals are modulated and at the receiving end the signals are demodulated. The piece of equipment to do this is called a MODEM (Modulate/Demodulate). Forty years ago, when Personal Computers were starting to appear, we sought ways to join computers up and send messages. Enter the Modem. I remember using a modem into which you inserted the telephone and this enabled signals to be transmitted.  This early modem was called an acoustic coupler. Below is what it looked like and if you click the link underneath you can hear what it sounded like. That noise is the process of turning digital 1s and 0s into sound waves so they can travel over a telephone line.

To hear what it sounded like CLICK

​We still use modems to this day. There is one inside every internet router or hub that sits on your desk. Thankfully they make no noise whatsoever now.
 
But do you remember that, at one time, if you had hooked up your computer to a modem you couldn’t use the telephone to speak to someone on the same line? Fortunately this was overcome by a development called Voice over Data. (NB for those more up-to-date readers. This is not the same as modern Video on Demand (VOD). More sophisticated modems/routers soon enabled the two to work at the same time on the same telephone line. There was an old joke that suggested this was possible because computer bits were heavier than speech and so fell to the bottom of the telephone line. In fact it was because technicians worked out how to split the capacity of the telephone line into a voice section and a data section. Overnight it became possible to speak to someone whilst another member of the family in another room was “on the computer”.
 
What is the pathway along which that signal travels?
Having looked at how signals travel let’s consider the medium over which they move. For the past several decades this has been a simple, telephone copper wire. Even today the copper wire still dominates a lot of the lines to our houses and businesses. Increasingly we are seeing the introduction of Fibre internet. British Telecom (BT) has ownership of all the telephone cabling in this country. Nearly all the main (trunk) networks have now been converted from copper to Fibre. However, this fibre only goes as far as the green cabinet on the corner of your street. This is called FTTC or Fibre to the Cabinet.  The final connection from the cabinet to your house can be either copper (still) or, if you pay more, fibre. The costliest connections have fibre directly into the house or office and are called FTTP or Fibre to the Premises. Even if another broadband provider offers you a service the reality is that they have to rent the trunk cabling from BT.

So what is the difference between copper wire and fibre?  Here are pictures of a standard 5 pair (10 wires) copper telephone cable and, on the right, a multi-strand fibre cable. There can be up to 200 strands of fibre which are usually made of plastic but can be made of glass.

In my previous article I outlined the history of computers and explained their development into what we recognise today. I described that computers are, in one way or another, simply calculating devices based on numbers. But how do they actually work?

Note for Computer Experts!  The description that follows is a very simplified explanation of the workings of a computer.  It is not intended to be a definitive or exhaustive account, is not meant as a textbook and probably has more holes than a block of Gruyere cheese. E&OE (Errors and omissions Excepted) as they say in legal contracts.

This post seeks to explain the basics of computer workings and how they rely upon a set of instructions (a programme) to carry out a particular task or tasks. Remember the earlier description of the Jacquard Loom and how different cloth patterns could be produced using a different punched card for each pattern?  In this instance, the operation of the loom was mechanical - a hole in the punched card corresponding to a lever which was activated as the card passed through the loom. The card's passage through the loom was controlled by turning a wheel using a handle or foot pedal. Later models provided power by an engine which worked either by fuel or electricity. Essentially however, the machines were still analogue whereby a physical action created a machine response.

As we progressed into the 20th century we saw the introduction of electrical impulses to trigger certain actions in a computer. Unlike the earlier mechanical calculators (controlled by hand, foot or even electricity turning cogs or levers), an electronic computer works in a fundamentally different way. Here, a power source in the form of a spark of electricity creates a direct response from a component in the computer. To understand the principle think of a light switch which, when pressed, lets electricity flow that then causes the light bulb to light up. The light is said to be ON. Switch again and the light goes out and is said to be OFF.

Now imagine the computer is a box full of light bulbs each controlled by a switch. By depressing the switches you can light up the bulbs in any order you wish. The earliest electronic computers were essentially just this except that instead of light bulbs the computer held valves that lit up. In my earlier history I spoke of the first large computer called Colossus. Here is a picture of it showing the valves (photo by courtesy of the Crypto Museum). 

Now, let's imagine a simple computer with FOUR light bulbs/valves. If all these bulbs could be ON or OFF, computer designers realised that you could use the particular pattern of ONs and OFFs to represent a sequence of numbers. In fact, with just four bulbs you can represent the numbers 0 up to 15 - a total of 16 numbers (0 counting as a number of course). Here is a picture of what that sequence would look like (naturally the yellow represents a lit light).

On the left are the numbers 0 - 15 in our normal DECIMAL form. On the right is each corresponding light pattern in what is called BINARY form. Binary (meaning two) because there are only two ways a light can exist - either ON or OFF. All modern computers work in binary arithmetic. Because the binary system uses the two digits 0 & 1 it is said to be Digital. In the picture above, each of the lights is called a BIT and a group of them together is called a BYTE. Although I haven't shown the full sequence, computers work in groups of eight bits and thus the standard computer unit is a byte of eight bits (in the jargon an eight bit byte).

                              There now follows a light bulb moment.

Now you can begin to see where the term Megabyte - MB - comes from (Mega is the term for one million). Note, however, that Mb (lower case letter b) means Megabits. Why is this important? Well computers represent their symbols in BYTES but when we talk about communication speeds we always use BITS. Therefore, since a BIT is an eighth of a BYTE, a broadband speed of 2Mb is actually only 250,000 BITS not 2 million - quite a difference. If you wish to download a file that says it is 100MB in size and you have a download speed of 100Mbps (Megabits per second) it will not take you 1 second to download but 8 seconds. Remember this when you next look at adverts for broadband speeds and note that they say "Mbps". 

​Storing Letters
Okay, so that's alright for numbers but how does a computer store letters (A, B, C....)? This is made possible because we can use a separate code where certain binary numbers can also represent alphabetic letters. This code is called ASCII code which stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) and it has been around since 1963. Thus the binary number 01000001 (which is 65) can also be read by a computer as the upper case letter A. Hopefully you can see that to create a string of letters the computer actually stores a series of numbers representing those letters. Lesson Over! If you wish to know more about the ASCII code you can go to this Wikipedia article.  

Programming
The next stage in telling you how computers work is to look at the role of programming. However, we'll leave that for the next article.

The word computer is very common and is in everyday use. But what exactly is a computer? Put very simply it is a tool for working with numbers; a calculator if you like. When we talk about computers these days we usually refer to electronic machines, that is machines that respond to some form of electrical current to carry out a particular action or function. Popular history dates them from the early part of the 20th century, with names such as Colossus and Enigma at Bletchley and the large machine called LEO which was developed for Lyons Corner House cafes (LEO standing for Lyons Electronic Office).

However, the concept of a non-electronic calculating tool goes way back in history to early cave men. The first such tool is said to be a South African Lebombo which was a baboon's leg bone with notches carved into it and used as what is called a 'tally stick' or counting rod. Tally sticks were used when early man ran out of fingers on which to add up quantities. Throughout history thereafter similar devices have been invented from clay tablets to the traditional Roman abacus. Nearer the 20th century various scientists and mathematicians have developed a range of different counting machines.

The major transition to what we know as a computer today occurred when electricity came to be used as the power source for the machines. Previously, "computers" had relied upon mechanical or human power to turn handles and so on. With the introduction of electric power the stage was set for a major change. In technical terms we had moved on from analogue machines and into the digital age. The easiest way to understand the difference is to think of clocks. Analogue clocks have hands and a clockwork mechanism with gear wheels which turn the hands throughout the day. Power comes either from a wind-up spring or a weighted pendulum. A digital clock however displays numbers which are activated by electrical pulses.  (NB. Strictly speaking you can now get digital/electronic mechanisms to turn analogue clock hands but I didn't want to complicate things!).

The other big innovation leading to computers we recognise today is the concept of programming. Programming is a way of storing up a sequence of instructions to the computer in such a way that, if you periodically re-run the programme, it will carry out the same actions without you having to input all the instructions again. In fact, even before electronic computers, there existed mechanical ones that ran from programmes. The most famous of these was the Jacquard Loom. In 1804 a French weaver names Joseph Marie Jacquard developed a loom in which the pattern of cloth being woven was controlled by a long paper tape consisting of card with holes punched in it. The trick was that the design could be changed by using a different tape without having to make any alterations to the loom itself. This was the forerunner of punched cards used in early computers and neatly demonstrates what a computer programme is.  Here is a picture of a Jacquard loom.

Into the modern age
One of the forefathers of the modern computer is regarded as Charles Babbage who is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer in the late 1880s. He called this his Difference Engine (see the Wikipedia photo below). Although some say that he invented digital programming he actually copied the idea of using punched cards from the Jacquard Loom (see above). The innovation was the use of separate parts of his engine - one to carry out the calculations and the other to store the answers. One of the notable collaborators in his work was Countess Ada Lovelace​ who was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron. It is believed that she enhanced his work with the concept of storable algorithms (programmes) and is said to be the creator of digital programming. Indeed, a later programming language - ADA - was named after her.

Into the 20th century, the most significant development was by Alan Turing (famous for his work at Bletchley Park) who designed his Automatic Computing Engine (see Wikipedia photo below) which set the standard for storable programming machines to carry out complex arithmetical tasks.

It is important to keep one's computer and the programmes that run on it up to date. Vendors like Microsoft regularly send out updates the purpose of which is twofold. First they carry out the essential changes to programmes to plug loopholes and security risks and to correct software errors ("bugs") that can creep in to any programme. Failing to update in response to these announcements can potentially leave you at worst open to hackers and criminals and at best unable to escape the annoyances that bugs periodically exhibit. Second, however, updates are issued whenever the vendor has developed some new feature or capability and telling its customers about these is part of their after-sales service. As an aside, it is important always to remember the distinction between updates and upgrades. The former are as described above; upgrades on the other hand are invariably newer editions of the programmes that usually cost money to adopt.

So far so good. However, time and again updates can be so infuriating in the way that they both interrupt what we are currently doing and, more annoyingly, how they can completely change the way our computer appears and behaves on the screen. Technology (and any product in fact) is subject to a process called "continuous improvement" which is why there are so many updates and newer versions of everything to be temptingly downloaded. Worse still, the default with Windows is to install updates and features automatically unless the user carefully monitors update processes.  Even when an update is accepted, it often happens that the display settings and desktop layout (the User Interface [UI] as it is called) change significantly from how they looked before the update.  Nothing is guaranteed to confuse users more than to change something they have managed to get used to and are familiar with.  Imagine putting your car in for a regular service only to collect it afterwards and find that the pedals have changed and the speedometer now only works in kilometres.

Part of the problem is that software today - and Windows is typical - is so packed full with features that the average user would never need, and you have to put up with an unnecessarily large programme that needs regular download for updating. I always say that it is like being compelled to buy a Rolls Royce when all you need is a Mini to get to the shops. Why can't big vendors produce cut-down, simple versions for those who don't want and will never use all the "bells and whistles"?

The frustrations don't end there. You follow the instructions and let the computer carry out the update by restarting your machine whereupon it takes 40 minutes to carry out the update. And Windows always seems to know that you are just about to sit down for dinner or go out shopping. Grrr!

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