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Today's Featured Website: ArtToday
Looking for some clipart or graphics to put into your holiday newsletter? Check out arttoday.com. There's a one-year membership offered for $29.95, but if you don't want to pay for this (and who does?), scroll down and you'll see a Sample Search box. Click in the Search For box and type in the subject of the clipart you're looking for. Click the Go button, and you'll get your results. You can also search for photos, fonts and webart.
http://www.arttoday.com
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Today's Featured Computer Term: Modem
The word modem is an acronym for modulator-demodulator. A modem is a device or program that enables a computer to transmit data over telephone lines. Computer information is stored digitally, whereas information transmitted over telephone lines is transmitted in the form of analog waves. A modem converts between these two forms.
The following characteristics distinguish one modem from another:
bps: Bits Per Second determine how fast the modem can transmit and receive data. At slow rates, modems are measured in terms of baud rates. The slowest rate is 300 baud (about 25 cps). At higher speeds, modems are measured in terms of bits per second (bps). The fastest modems run at 57,600 bps, although they can achieve even higher data transfer rates by compressing the data. Obviously, the faster the transmission rate, the faster you can send and receive data. Note, however, that you cannot receive data any faster than it is being sent. If, for example, the device sending data to your computer is sending it at 2,400 bps, you must receive it at 2,400 bps. It does not always pay, therefore, to have a very fast modem. In addition, some telephone lines are unable to transmit data reliably at very high rates.
voice/data: Many modems support a switch to change between voice and data modes. In data mode, the modem acts like a regular modem. In voice mode, the modem acts like a regular telephone. Modems that support a voice/data switch have a built-in loudspeaker and microphone for voice communication.
auto-answer: An auto-answer modem enables your computer to receive calls in your absence. This is only necessary if you are offering some type of computer service that people can call in to use.
data compression : Some modems perform data compression, which enables them to send data at faster rates. However, the modem at the receiving end must be able to decompress the data using the same compression technique.
flash memory : Some modems come with flash memory rather than conventional ROM, which means that the communications protocols can be easily updated if necessary.
Fax capability: Most modern modems are fax modems, which means that they can send and receive faxes.
To get the most out of a modem, you should have a communications software package, a program that simplifies the task of transferring data.
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Today's Topic: Create and Save Your First Spreadsheet
While we'll be using Excel 2000 as an example, the following applies to other spreadsheet programs as well, including Lotus and the spreadsheet module of Microsoft Works.
With Excel 2000, creating simple workbooks to record and calculate data is a surprisingly intuitive process. Follow these steps to learn the basics of creating, saving, and printing a workbook.
Open Excel 2000 from the Start menu by selecting Programs/Microsoft Excel. When you load Excel 2000, the program automatically opens a new workbook that contains a number of worksheets called Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3, and so on. You can browse these blank sheets by clicking the tabs at the bottom of the Excel window.
Sheet1 is the selected sheet. It's divided into alphabetical columns and numerical rows. The intersection of a column and a row is called a cell; each cell is referred to by its column letter and row number. So the top-left cell is A1, and the cell at the intersection of column H and row 8 is H8.
Click in cell H8, type your name, and press Enter. Then click in cell B3, type your name again, and press Enter. Click in cell B4, type the number 100, and press Enter. You now have something to save and print in the next steps.
In the next few steps you'll be using the New, Open, Save, and Print buttons on your Standard toolbar, so take a minute to locate them. If you hold your mouse over a button, a tool tip displaying its name will appear. Note: you can also find these commands in the File menu.
Save your file by clicking the Save button (or selecting File/Save). The Save As dialog box appears. The drop-down box labeled "Save in" shows the folder in which Excel is suggesting you save your file (usually the My Documents folder). The drop-down box labeled "File name" shows the name Excel is suggesting you use to call your file--generally something like Book1.xls. Change the filename to My first workbook and click Save.
To print your file, click the Print button (the icon on your toolbar that looks like a printer), or select File/Print from the menu.
To close your file, open the File menu and select Close. If you made changes to your file after you saved it, Excel asks if you want to save the changes you made to your workbook. To save your changes, click the Yes button; if you want to permanently discard the changes you made after you first saved, click the No button. You will be left with a clear screen.
To create another workbook, click the New button (or select File/New and click OK). When you save this new workbook, give it a different name from the previous workbook--for example, My second workbook. (If you give a file the same name as another file in the same folder, you'll overwrite the first one, so each workbook must have a unique name.)
You have now created, printed, saved, and closed a workbook. If you need to make further changes to your workbook or print it again, you'll need to open it. To do this, select the Open button, click the workbook's filename in the My Documents folder list, and select Open. You can now print the file or make changes to it.
Note: Whenever you make changes to a file, be sure to save them by clicking the Save button (you won't see the dialog asking you for a filename this time because your file already has a name). |
