The Great Library of Alexandria
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Doctrina Nam Laurus
(Learning for Success)
Go to the Home and Introduction to Computers pages for links to other sites with free introductory material for understanding computers.
Beginner’s Computer Guide Overview
About This Guide
This suite of free introductory material is designed to assist people that are new to the world of computing. The information and tutorials in this guide provide the necessary basics for learning what is required to achieve a good understanding of the Personal Computer (PC) and how to use its essential functions.
This introduction to computers is a work in progress. Although it is probably impossible
for the content of this guide to ever be totally comprehensive due to the wealth
of information that it could potentially contain and the ever-changing nature of
the industry, development will continue and attempt to focus on the most relevant
information for the computer novice.
As a computers for beginners guide, this will not evolve into providing information for experienced users, but it will become beneficial to some intermediate users.
Content of This Guide
Many of the topics in this guide still require additional tutorial information and many more new topics are still required. This material is being constantly developed and will be added as each topic item is completed. Pictures and diagrams will also be progressively added – some will require permission from copyright owners before publishing.
The authors of this guide consider it paradoxical that the most basic of computer functions are described in a tutorial on a website because it takes at least a minimum level of understanding to be able to find what you are looking for on the Internet. However, it is important that topics describing an introduction (to anything) are complete.
We know that family and friends help beginners, learners, novices or new users, however you see yourself, by providing assistance for operating a PC and finding information on the Internet so that you can either read it on screen or print it (if allowed) for later reference. Many new home users continue to learn the functions they need in bits and pieces to get by with what they need.
However, more knowledge is required to use computers in the workplace. Most workplaces will expect you to have at least a basic knowledge for using computers and be prepared to teach you the specific functions that apply to their environment. This guide contains an introduction to using computers in the workplace to assist you generally with typical workplace functions.
Use of Windows XP © Microsoft
Where it is necessary to provide operating system functionality for the tutorial information in this guide, Windows XP© is used. Although XP has been superseded by two later versions of Microsoft’s Windows© operating system, XP at the time of publishing was still the most used version at home and in businesses.
For those people that have either Windows Vista© or Windows 7© installed on their PCs, the functions described in the XP examples are still required to access the equivalent functions in Windows Vista and Windows 7. The Windows XP based tutorials will give you the concepts and what you need to look for to use and access the functions described.
This guide will eventually include Windows 7 examples, but will probably not include any Windows Vista examples.
Navigating This Guide
As this website contains introductory information and tutorials for Personal Computers,
the navigation of the guide has been kept simple. The header, the menu options down
the right side and any links are always displayed and can be selected at any time.
Click the menu and sub-
There are some links in the body of pages to assist ease of use, but in line with keeping the navigation of the Guide as simple as possible, the links are kept to a minumum.
All information and tutorials are displayed in the centre of the web page. It is necessary to scroll some pages to view all the content and some of the links.
The date for the last time the guide was revised is constantly displayed in the bottom right corner of the footer. This allows regular visitors to the guide to establish quickly if there have been any changes or additions since their last visit.
Historial Interest
Whether you find learning about computers interesting or boring, it can be good to take a break from the functional stuff and do some relaxed reading.
This guide provides a summary of the history of computing and how this lead to the computers and computer systems that we have today. There is a wealth of information about the history of computers and as such the existing content as well as new content will be expanded and added to over time.
Site Revisions
For information about revisions to this Guide, select the Comments page on the Menu in the right side column.
