Are you ever confused with the difference between the internet and your email, your modem and your router, your USB and your tire iron? Does the notion of unplugging everything form your computer and then plugging it all back in the right place seem like a daunting task? Then this, the second of two installments of Vermont Geek Speak is for you.

In an effort to educate and to gain a few extra restful nights of sleep for myself and my clients, I offer a simplified handful of terms to help you describe what’s really going on if there is a problem with your computer. Not a glossary per se, but a helpful list to differentiate between the more commonly confused items or terminology relating to an average user experience.

Part 2 – The Network and Internet.

Network is a grossly overused and misunderstood term. In truth, ‘network’ can refer to any number of things but in this instance generally refers to interconnected computers. Most of you probably do not have a network at home, even though you may have multiple computers. A fair number of you certainly have one at work where information is freely shared between various workstations and a printer in the front office that is magically able to print out documents from any terminal. This is the greatest strength of networking, communication between several computers. It also saves greatly on business costs when a printer is shared and when files are easily backed up on the network. But the network isn’t just for the office anymore. No sir. No.

One of the simplest ways to create a network is with a Wireless Router. A WiFi router connects both wired and wireless computers and is most often used to distribute a single internet connection between computers. A quick side note, ‘WiFi’ is a meaningless trade name, but is as ubiquitous as Kleenex or Q-tips when referring to wireless internet. By setting up shared folders on a computer connected to the router, you can effectively create a simple network at home for backing up files, sharing music, photos, printers, etc;

The most commonly shared resource is of course the internet. The internet is another commonly misused term, as it is derived from ‘INTERnational NETwork’. It is indeed a global network connecting millions of people and their computers to the world wide web. The world wide web is actually a combination of multiple protocols including http, ftp, telnet and others. More simply, it’s where the websites are. Websites are stored on computers called ‘servers’ scattered all over the globe. A server is a computer dedicated to hosting information or running programs for a number of clients. In the case of the WWW, you are the client that they are serving when you check your email, google ‘rhubarb crisp recipe’, or get AAPL stock quotes. To view the internet you use a web browser. A browser is software based, the most common being Internet Explorer by Microsoft, but we prefer Mozilla Firefox by far for it’s speed and it’s security. On a mac? Then you likely use Safari for your browsing.

As we delve further into acronyms and botched phonetics, let’s take a step back into the home user’s setup. There is another piece in between the internet and your computer or router isn’t there? Ah yes, it’s the Modem (MOdulation-DEModulation). This trusty little device that hates lightning is what interprets those squealing noises that you hear when using a dial up connection. Whether you are using cable, DSL or dial up, the result is the same: The modem is to computer as the telephone is to human. (A little SAT prep help there, you can thank me later…)

So, in order of outside to in, there is the internet or world wide web, a slew of computers out there, which we commonly access via phone or cable using a modem. That modem can connect to a router, which distributes the information to multiple computers, for your enjoyment or dismay if the Sox lost last night. You view this information using a browser. If you are not wireless, or don’t have a router, and are using high speed internet, the cable that you use to connect your computer is called an ethernet cable. It uses a RJ-45 connector, closely related to RJ-11 or your household phone jack, only wider. RJ = ‘Registered Jack’ by the way. If you are still using dial up by force or by choice, a standard phone line ties directly to the modem inside your computer.

So that’s the big stuff. We don’t need to go into POP, PPP, PHP, Proxies, Packets or Ports, but you’re welcome to email and ask questions about terms that are relevant to you. One of the biggest confusions comes from where the speed is or isn’t happening. Quite often a customer will say that their computer is slow, and indeed it may be, but many times they are referring to their internet connection. If your computer opens and closes Word documents with ease, but takes five minutes to display the Vermont Geeks website, then your internet connection is slow, not the computer itself. Stay tuned for more interesting topics with less of this ridiculous jargon that surrounds me in my daily life, and don’t forget to shut off the computer and go outside for a while.

Colby Dix can be reached at colby@vermontgeeks.com, and his home network shares well with everyone.

Are you ever confused with the difference between the internet and your email, your modem and your router, your USB and your tire iron? Does the notion of unplugging everything form your computer and then plugging it all back in the right place seem like a daunting task? Then these next installments of Vermont Geek Speak are for you.

In an effort to educate and to gain a few extra restful nights of sleep for myself and my clients, I offer a simplified handful of terms to help you describe what’s really going on if there is a problem with your computer. Not a glossary per se, but a helpful list to differentiate between the more commonly confused items or terminology relating to an average user experience.

Part 1 – The Computer.

Whether you are running Mac or PC, all computers have the same basic working bits. Let’s begin with a rundown of the components and their functions. The word ‘computer’ can refer to either a laptop or a desktop. Let us focus on the desktop model for the most part even though it’s under and not on top of the desk. In this case, the computer is the big box that all of the cables plug into. It houses a myriad of essential parts and handles all of the operations of the system. If you want to be technical, it’s called a ‘system unit’ but nobody says that. Feel free and call it the ‘tower’ instead, that’s understandable and visually representative of the unit. Many refer to the entire system as their computer, lumping in the monitor, keyboard and mouse, which is acceptable, but not nearly as concise as you’ll need to be when a problem arises.

Inside of that tower there is a motherboard, also called a logic board, which is best described as ‘the thing that makes everything in there work together’. If you ever look inside of there, it is the largest piece of green silicon that everything is tied into. Connected to it is a processor that handles the math. Computers are in truth little more than a fancy calculator, all that they ‘see’ is 1’s and 0’s, so it’s mathematical abilities are paramount. The faster the processor, the faster it can crunch the numbers. Also attached is RAM, or ‘Random Access Memory’. RAM is probably the least expensive way to improve you computer. It is where the information that the computer needs at hand most urgently is stored and manipulated. A hard disk drive is in there as well. More often simply called the hard drive, it is the primary storage of the computer, housing all of your information, precious data, and embarrassing pictures of your children in the tub. It used to be called ROM for Read Only Memory, but that confused everyone with RAM, so the terminology has changed. This is the piece that needs to be ‘backed up’. Another essential component is the power supply. This box within the box connects with an IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission, for those of you keeping score at home) cable to your wall outlet and translates that power into a useful wattage for the computer to run efficiently. Quite a few other elements can exist in there, including video cards, sound cards, expansion cards, multiple fans, slots, cables and connections, but the common elements are listed above.

The external components of every system include input and output devices. Input devices refer to the mouse and the keyboard, as well as a variety of trackpads, trackballs, webcams, joysticks, or other haptic element. As defined by the word input, these are our direct link to the computer, allowing us to enter information as we see fit. Output is handled more often than not by a monitor, also called a screen. Monitors are usually either CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) or LCD (Liquid Crystal Display). The flat ones are the LCD’s and the deep ones are CRT’s. While CRT’s have excellent contrast and great imaging, the slimmer technology of the LCD is fast overtaking them in modern computing. The desk real estate alone made available by a svelte monitor can be of great benefit, and the ergonomic strain of the light emitted is much less as well. For those of us who spend far too much time looking at a screen, it is of a great advantage to make the switch.

With that, we’ve covered the essentials of your system, and in the next installment, we’ll define the components of the network that work to enable you to have internet access and to share and store files with multiple computers.

Computer damage and data loss from lightning strikes cost the United States nearly $2 billion in annual economic loss, according to the National Lightning Safety Institute. Some of you may have noticed the thunder storms that seem to happen on a near daily basis at this time of year. And as evidenced by our recent workload at ‘The Geeks’ a fair few of you have a story about how lightning has changed you computer’s life. In this, my first contribution of many, I aim to educate and hopefully to help someone out there to avoid the horror of a lightning damaged computer.

The first rule of computers is to BACK THEM UP! Now I know that you’ve all heard this and that you’ve even thought about it at least once, but really, I’m serious, a backup of your data means that even if the computer is a smoking pile of silicon and wiry bits, that all is not lost. Hard drive prices drop constantly and having an external drive to store your data is a no brainer, a USB thumb drive is very cheap insurance for your most important files and it offers not only redundancy, but portability as well.

The next sad truth is that surge protectors are a joke. Well, not all of them, but that $8 cream colored thing that you’ve had since your data was on microfiche isn’t doing ANYTHING to protect you. Investing in a high quality surge protector or UPS battery backup (Uninterruptable Power Supply) may not save you every time, but is an excellent barrier between your computer and that hundred million volt flash. The other really nice thing about these ‘power strips’ is that you can shut down the computer and unplug the whole thing when you know the storm is coming. 

And the most dangerous wire in the house during the lightning storm? The phone line. Hands down. Talking on the telephone is the number one cause of lightning related injuries in the home according to the good people over at NationalGeographic. With that in mind, all of you people that are still using dial-up need to unplug that phone line from your computer. It’s far too easy a conduit into the sensitive innards of that computer case and it too can be run through that fancy new surge protector that you just bought.

Many people, myself included tend to leave their computers on constantly, only shutting it down or restarting when software is installed or if there is a system crash which of course NEVER happens to me (okay, maybe once…). This time of year is the clear exception to that habit. Shutting it down dramatically reduces the risk of data loss. Even just a millisecond blip of power loss can corrupt your open files beyond recognition, so why risk it?

Lightning tends to hit the power supply on your computer first for obvious reasons, but it often moves beyond and rips through the motherboard and video cards as well. And then of course it can also hit the modem as a point of entry via the phone line. Replacing a torched power supply is relatively inexpensive for most modern desktop computers, if i moves on to hit other components, repairs can add up quickly. Needless to say, a quick move to unplug the equipment at the onset of the storm can save hundreds, even thousands. Unplug that shiny new flat screen television that you bought with your tax rebate check too, unless of course you can’t be torn away from ‘American Idol’ or whatever it is that people watch during thunder storms. 

The good news is that Vermont Geeks can help. We have backup solutions and quality surge protectors available, and in the event of catastrophe, we have data recovery services and all of the necessary knowledge to fix your system regardless of the extent of damage. To sum it all up, I’ll leave you with a quote from none other than the lightning playboy himself, Benjamin Franklin. ‘An ounce of prevention, is worth a pound of cure.’ Words of wisdom people, now go unplug something.