2016 has been an interesting year. Random Thoughts has produced a series of articles Introducing Computers, another Simpsons joke came true, and many other things came to pass. Technology We plan to continue our computer series with some more specialized tasks throughout 2017. An overview of VLC Media Player and…
“The maps produced by modern materialistic Scientism leave all the questions that really matter unanswered; more than that, they deny the validity of the questions.” -E. F. Schumacher, A Guide for the Perplexed Does this not represent much of what we are taught in schools nowadays? If we ask questions…
Earlier we mentioned how to customize Firefox. Personas are like wallpaper for Firefox and give some basic customization, but what if you wanted to make your own instead of using the ones provided by others? Fortunately you can with some photo editing and a Firefox addon named Personas Plus. This…
The reason we chose Firefox as our web browser in the Introduction to Computers series is due to its great customization features. By using Extensions and Personas we can make Firefox our own. Make sure that you have the program installed before continuing. Personas: Firefox’s Skin The easiest way to…
The majority of what you will be doing online will involve Google and Email to some extent or another. Your email is more than just a way of contact, it symbolizes your online identity. To get the most of the internet you need an email address, just like you need…
Now that we have an understanding of how to get around, we will go over installing software and the internet. We will only cover the minimum here, in the future we will go over email, Facebook, and other things. There are a couple of programs we will be installing to…
We have gone over how to install Windows 10, now we will go over how to navigate the interface. Getting Around In Windows 10 you navigate using the mouse and keyboard. The mouse has to functions; the left button is used to activate whatever the cursor is on and the…
Last time we went over computer hardware. Today we will be installing Windows 10. Windows 10 is the most recent version of the Windows Operating system (OS). We will first go over installing the OS from a disk, if you bought a computer with Windows 10 on it you can…
Today, we are going to go over the basic computer hardware you will need to get up and running. The Hardware: The Computer: Most computers are housed in tower-like cases and are thus called towers. These towers hold all the components that make the computer run and have slots to…
As you can see, we have made some visual changes to the website. Personally, I like dark colors. Unfortunately many do not like to or have problems reading light text on dark backgrounds, so this is a compromise. Over time I will improve the CSS for the website, but this…
Before we learn how to use a computer we must understand what a computer is and the underlining concepts that allow computers to work. At the most basic level a computer takes data (input) and processes it into information (output). Lets say you us a calculator to solve a 2…
In our hyper connected world it is important to know how to use a computer. Unfortunately, many people do not have the knowledge of computers to get far in a work environment. Thus Random Thoughts will start an Introduction to Computers series of posts. This is to help people who…
