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The User Friendly Guide to Internet & Computer Terms
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using the computer for. It has been my experience that as an individual becomes
more proficient with a computer, her requirements for better and faster
equipment seem to grow. Since memory is relatively inexpensive, it makes
sense to go with at least 64 MB, or even 128 MB of SDRAM, especially if the
computer is going to be used to create elegant graphics or play elaborate
video games (Is there any other kind?). Also keep in mind that in most computers,
memory can up upgraded, meaning more can easily be added.
Hard Drive
Hard disk is a more accurate description for the computer’s main
storage medium. A hard disk is simply a magnetic platter where computer
data is stored. When we refer to data or information, we mean all of the
software, including the operating system, word processing programs, games,
and Web browser - the program that allows you to surf the World Wide Web.
In addition to the software you choose to install and run on your computer, the
hard drive will store almost all of the work you produce. When you save your
work, it is stored to the hard disk unless you designate another destination.
These days, almost without exception, hard disk storage capacity is
measured in Gigabytes (GB). The data kept in a computer, whether in the
form of commercial software, or something we create with it, is measured in
bytes. To make things easier, computer people have divided up the designations
of the way we store data. We have kilobytes (K or Kb), approximately
1000 bytes, megabytes (M or MB), about 1,000,000 bytes, and gigabytes, (G
or GB) equal to about 1000 megabytes. These prefixes continue into the trillions
and beyond, but we’ll stick with these three for our discussion. A GB is
1000 megabytes. That’s a lot of information. But many of us have grown
accustomed to the idea that more is better, and when it comes to hard disk
space, more is better.
Have you noticed that each time we evaluate an individual computer
component we always come back to the same question: what will you be
using the computer for? Same thing here. Off-the-shelf computers are coming
equipped with anywhere from 4GB hard disks to 20GBs and sometimes
more than that. Although I do subscribe to the “more is better” theory, between
10 to 20GB should be more than the average user could ever need in a
lifetime, unless he plans to install tons of software and produce and store
thousands of graphics, video, and music files.