Introduction to Computer Applications

The simple, quick way to boost your technology literacy

A quick overview of where to get started if you want to go from being a computer novice to a computer whiz in less than three months. I will be adding more content shortly... if you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment.

Introduction

Want to increase your computer application competency? What's all this about Web 2.0. Need the basics of MS Office 2007 productivity suite applications? Getting jealous of hearing your colleagues and friends talking about megabytes and gigabytes and wireless G vs. N and having no clue what they are talking about.

This article is meant to be a starting point to address some of these questions.

What's the Point?

This may seem obvious but why even bother taking the time and energy to improve your computer proficiency? Here are my top 10.

Save time -- I once worked in an office where a data entry person spent three hour each week entering customer information into an Excel spreadsheet. A little bit of technology skills and he would have known that it was better to keep this data in a database instead of a spreadsheet but even without that change, he was wasting a huge amount of time. He would scroll over dozens of columns to enter data, then forget which customer he was typing the data in for so would scroll back again. I showed him how to use MS Excel's Freeze Panes feature where you can lock one column while the others scroll (so he could always see the customer name he was entering data for). It now took him 30 minutes to do what used to take him 3 hours. I asked him how long he had been entering data with the old system. His response... for about seven years!
Add some power to your resume -- if you still have DOS 1.0 on your resume it's time for a skills facelift.
Start you own web-based business -- you may not be the next YouTube.com but there is a huge amount of opportunity in the e-commerce space. Here are a few examples from entrepreneurs in Vancouver, British Columbia. Here is a good article from About.com with more details.

Plenty of Fish
John Chow
Kevin Ham
Flickr

Start an e-portfolio -- First of all, it shows you have some technical skills and secondly, it showcases your accomplishments and samples of your work to the world.

MS Office Applications

So you are a little rusty and want a crash course to update your computer literacy? There are two main areas you should focus on. First of all, it's important to become proficient at the basic MS Office productivity tools. Here are the three essentials:

MS PowerPoint 2007

MS Word 2007

MS Excel 2007

Once you have these mastered, you can move on to these less commonly used but important tools:

MS Project 2007

MS Access 2007

Getting a copy of MS Office 2007

Microsoft offers a free, full-functioning 60-day trial to its MS Office 2007 applications , a great way to get started without breaking the bank.

You can even take MS Office for a test drive without even downloading! It runs in your browser so you can get a feel for the new interface.

Warning: This may have troubles opening in Googl

MS Office 2003 vs. 2007

So is it worth moving to Office 2007. While Vista was a disaster for Microsoft, the general feeling about Office 2007 has been very positive.

Here is a review from CNET .

It's strongly recommended that you save files your files to the 2003 compatible format since lots of people are still using MS Office 2003.

Windows XP vs. Vista

Using dual boot so you can run both Windows XP and Vista (note: only do this if you are quite technically savvy)

Computer Books

Here are some good options for books to help get you up-to-speed.

MS Excel 2007

- Lulu.com Bob's Excel book (by BCIT's very own Robert Santarossa).

Blogs and Websites

Here is a good aggregator of the latest tech news: Newte.ch

Alternatives to MS Office

Google Docs

Open Office

Web 2.0

What is Web 2.0. The cynic might say it's just a clever attempt by the marketers to re-package and brand the Internet after the .com crash but it really is more than hype. And yes, there's some gold in them hills.

Characteristics of Web 2.0

- Collaborative

- Encouraging participation of a site's user community

Web 2.0 Tools

Here are some good examples of Web 2.0 tools.

Knol : This is the tool I used to write this article.

Digital Rights

Creative Common's License

Here are some sights where you can get images where the copyright owners have assigned some sharing rights (e.g. Attribution... you can use the image if you attribute the image to the owner)
http://openphoto.net/

Creative Commons Licensing

Here are the different types of Creative Commons licenses.

You can find more details at creativecommons.org .

A good place to search for creative commons licensed images is: http://search.creativecommons.org/#

You can narrow down your search by the different types of licenses (e.g. do you need a photo that can be used for commercial purposes or do you need a photo that you can modify.

Basic Computer Security

There are two essentials tools you should always have installed on your laptop or home computer -- a firewall and anti-virus software. The firewall helps protect you from getting a virus in the first place, the anti-virus software helps find and delete viruses that still manage to make it past your firewall.

Should I buy a PC or a Mac?

This is more of a personal preference...

Mac Security

Should I buy a laptop or a desktop?

What kind of laptop should I get?

Events

You can stay up-to-date with technology by reading the latest news articles, blogs etc. but even better for most people is to get out to some of the excellent face to face events out there. For example, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, one of the best tech events are the monthly Vancouver Enterprise Forum events. They are held monthly at the VanCity Theatre on Seymour (and Davie).