Welcome back to the Autumn Term of the Academic Year of 2012-13 - where did the summer go? Where was the summer at all, many of you will say, however here we are with Autumn officially beginning this week!
We always start each new class with a general introduction session. I find its a good ice breaker for everyone, from the new student to the seasoned veterans that come back!
Although low on numbers, I am hoping that we will be fine this year, two of my classes were cancelled before they got off the ground. Fingers crossed.
Anyway, this first class of the new term was an introductory session to what we cover on this fairly in-depth course. The presentation I used, talked the students through the various aspects of the course that we would be following over the next three terms. Topics that we'll be looking at include: Computer hardware, software, Anti-viruses, Home networking, Wi-fi, Reinstallations, Upgrading, Building a PC from Scratch, Applications, Operating Systems - you name it, we'll cover it! I tell all the students that if there is something specific that they want to do, then to just ask, and we will sort something out!
A copy of the PowerPoint presentation I used in class can be downloaded from here, in PDF format. You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer, and that can be downloaded separately from http://get.adobe.com/reader/
The later part of the class we started to look at how Windows 7 was installed fresh on a computer, we had a bit of a glitch because the computer I was using was exceptionally slow, but we will revisit that next week, and start from scratch again.
In terms of reading materials for this class, I still recommend the Windows Plain and Simple Range of books from Microsoft. They can be purchased from all good book retailers, such as Amazon.co.uk