Your computer, IT and applications

14/07/26 •0•0

In a world full of Windows, Apple and Linux we need to adapt and understand how programs work

Écrit parLeon

Traduit parEditorial

Révisé parEditorial

History of Computers

Computers have been with us for many years. The most modern ones began to be produced in 1940: gigantic, heavy, and with extremely low processing power, but they revolutionized that generation. For example, Harvard Mark I was one of the first computers and was used in World War II. It weighed more than 5 tons and performed calculations in seconds or minutes, a revolution for the time. The computer partly contributed to the Manhattan Project, simulating the implosion of an atomic bomb. In addition to Mark, we had the Colossus computer, created by Alan Turing, which was able to decipher encrypted Nazi messages.

The Nerdologia YouTube channel made a series of videos explaining the history of the computer:

In short, a computer is nothing more than a machine that performs many calculations extremely quickly. Calculation speed began to become so great that some tasks on it began to seem "natural": your mouse, as it "moves" across the screen, is doing a huge amount of coordinate calculation work, but your computer performs this task without any problems. As these calculations became faster, people began to realize the importance of the computer for something beyond calculations.

Computers today are personal. They have advanced into the family environment, giving power to people. They are shaping the way we work and even relate to one another. Regardless of whether you have a cell phone or a computer, I believe everyone must have heard of Mac, Android, or Windows operating systems; a large part of today's market depends on these three, and therefore computing ends up being dictated by these technology giants.

Software VS Hardware

Hardware and software go hand in hand, but they are very different. Software that had never been imagined before began to be conceived when the modern computer started to have hardware with high processing power while taking up less space.

Companies like Apple and Microsoft managed to create operating systems for personal computers. These systems dictate how files are stored, how the computer processes and reads data, among many other things. Of course, OSX and Windows are not the only operating systems that exist on personal computers. The system on my computer (mine, the writer, me!) is Ubuntu, a version of Linux. I really like Ubuntu because it is Open Source, so we have a better idea of the black box that is the system we use.

The creator of Ubuntu, Mark Shuttleworth, is one of the Open Source enthusiasts. Ubuntu itself is one of the largest Open Source projects found on the internet. Mark talks about the challenges of creating a system like this in the lecture below:

All these systems have their peculiarities. But one thing they have in common: although the "factory" computer comes with several programs that will make your life easier, it does not come with all of them, since human needs have no limits. What we see, then, are the creators of operating systems creating tools or systems so that other people can build programs within their operating systems.

Applications in Computing

The creators of Star Wars would feel disgusted to see how easy it is for people nowadays to create special effects with applications like TikTok. And it is true: we have seen an increase not only in computers, not only in the use of operating systems, but also in the tools used to produce applications.

The speed at which a web, mobile, or computer application can be created has become frightening. And where does that leave us? It leaves us in a delicate situation. This course is about computing in administration, specifically "Word and Excel classes." But is that really it? Excel and Word are nothing more than "applications" of a widely used operating system, and even within that system they may be replaced at any time.

When you enter your job, you may encounter a different operating system, such as Linux, switching to using applications like LibreOffice for your intended purposes. For this class, I would like you to discuss the following questions.