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When it comes to a computer, there are so many basic computer terms like RAM, megahertz, gigabytes, etc. that people can find confusingthat can confuse people and leave them asking questions like “What is RAM?”, “What is a hard drive?”.

Having a better understanding of some of terms like these can can help tame your fears of the computer, which can help you get more out of them.

A lot of people I talk to seem to be apologetic about their lack of knowledge. It’s too bad people feel that way; they really shouldn’t.

What I tell them is that while they may not know as much as I do about computers, there’s nothing wrong with that, and they probably are knowledgeable about things I know nothing about. All you need is someone who takes the time to explain things to you in a way that makes sense.

One term many people confuse is memory (also known as RAM), and hard drive storage space.

RAM stands for Random Access Memory (relax — you don’t have to memorize that). It is a temporary working space the computer uses to get work done, which gets emptied when the computer is turned off.

Think of it like a work bench or table. You have a project you’re working on and you do your project on the table and when you’re done, you put everything away.

The hard drive is the main place your computer uses to store information. It looks like a rectangular metal box about 3.5″ wide (or 2.5″ on a laptop), which contains a non-removable disk. It is the disk inside the drive which stores everything.

Think of it as a set of shelves where you store the tools or materials for your project — when you want to work on something you choose the things you need from the set of shelves, put them on the bench and work on the project.

This is like when you run a program; the computer loads the program from the hard drive into memory.

So the larger the space, the more you can store — that is the more programs you can have installed, the more songs or pictures or videos you can save on your computer.

Many people accidentally call their computer (the big box-like thing hooked up to the screen) a hard drive, but this is based on a misunderstanding. Both RAM and the hard drive are parts located inside of the computer, and most people never actually see these parts.

Most people who use a computer made in the last few years have a ton of more space than they’ll ever could ever hope to fill. Few people ever fill them up, unless they are hording a lot of larger files such as music or pictures, or especially video files. Saving a complete movie on your computer can really eat up space very quickly.

If someone tells you need more memory, or your computer gives you an error message about being low on memory, this usually means you don’t have enough RAM. This can slow your computer down drastically.

Think of the table idea again: if your bench is very small, you can’t fit everything you need on it to get your work done, so you’re constantly wasting time moving stuff off and back onto the table to get your work done, if you can work at all.

Both RAM and hard drive space are measured with the same terms: kilobytes (KB), megabytes (MB), and gigabytes (GB). This may be one reason people confuse the two terms.

So why is it that you buy a computer one year that has a lot of RAM, and two or three years go by, why do people tell you you don’t have enough memory? This is because each year the average size of software, and the amount of memory it requires, gets larger.

It’s as if the tools you use on your workbench keep growing every year so you eventually have to get a larger bench.

If your computer seems to be running more slowly recently, or you’ve been having odd errors, it could be that you need to upgrade your memory, which is inexpensive and can add life to your computer. It’s not a cure-all for a slow computer, but it can help.

Remember, basic computer skills and all that terminology doesn’t have to be confusing, just as long as you get a simple explanation!

In this article I’m going to clarify common but frequently confused computer terminology: “operating system”, or “OS”.

Maybe you’ve found you have questions and ask yourself what OS means,, if so, you’re not alone in wondering about this.

This is actually a pretty simple idea to make sense of when you have it explained the right way, as you’ll discover as soon as you’ve finished learning from this basic computer lesson.

Let me begin by mentioning first that an OS or operating system is a kind of software.

To repeat my explanation from a previous article, here’s how you can think of software:

“Software” refers to all of the pieces of the computer that you can’t really observe or touch directly. Software would include things like Microsoft Excel, Internet Explorer, Windows or the Mac OS, as well as all of your personal files like letters, photos, MP3s, and so on.

Here’s another way to think about it: hardware is like your brain, a physical part of your body, while software is like your mind or your thoughts — the non-physical part of yourself.

Software runs on hardware, just like your thoughts “run on” your brain.

Does that make sense?So let’s look at the OS specifically.

So,let me give a couple of examples:  the two best known operating systems right now are Windows, and Mac OS X (pronounced “Oh Ess Ten” — as in the Roman numeral ten).

Windows Vista and Windows XP are two versions of Windows.  While Mac OS 10.4 ( also called”Tiger”) and the newer Mac OS 10.5 ( a.k.a”Leopard”) are a couple different versions of Mac OS X.

Alright,so what is an OS?

Here’s one way to think about it:when a baby is born, they have the instinct to eat, to breathe, and so on, and they also have the instinct to watch, listen, and absorb everything going on around them.

In time, a young child learns to talk and walk by observing the people around them, and as they get older, they also learn more basic skills like reading and writing, hand-eye coordination, and so on.

So in other words, they go from barely being able to anything but eat, sleep, and fill diapers, to physical and mental maturity where they have all the basic skills they need to learn more specific skills such as learning to drive, playing a sport like soccer, writing a paper for a class, getting a job ,etc.

In some ways, when you start up a computer, it’s sort of like a newborn baby, only having one or two fundamental”instincts.”

The computer can power on, and display an image on the monitor, but that’s about it.

The only other thing the computer can do is look at the hard drive, and if it finds the information it needs there, it can start running the OS.

This is called “booting”, which is what happens between when you turn the computer on, and when you can actually start using it.

And the best way to think about it is that it’s just like a child being born and growing up: the OS has the “life experiences” and lessons that give a “child” all the basic skills equivalent to walking, talking, reading, writing, etc., that allow everything else to hapen.

So in a sense, it’s as if your computer is “born” and “grows up” in the space of 30 to 60 seconds or so( sometimes longer for some computers) that it takes to “boot” the OS.

So, the OS is much like those fundamental skills we all have and learned as we grew up. More precisely, it’s the software on your computer that draws its desktop, the icons on it, moves the little mouse pointer around on the screen when you move your mouse around, lets you view and open files, lets you type, — you get the idea.

Without the OS, you couldn’t do anything with a PC but turn it on and see an error message such as”non system disk or disk error” on a Windows-type computer, or a flashing question mark on one of Apple’s Macs.

So even though a lot of people don’t really understand what an OS is, or what it does, none of us could use a PC without it.

Now you know the answer to what’s an OS and what’s it for.