Chapter 1Information Technology (IT)

The College of Saint RoseCIS 111 – Introduction to Computer ScienceDavid Goldschmidt, Ph.D.

from Fluency with Information Technology, 4th edition by Lawrence Snyder, Addison-Wesley, 2010, ISBN 0-13-609182-2

The language of IT

Learn the language of IT Acronyms Jargon Metaphors

Don’t fall behind! Technology (and its language) evolves

rapidly

Hardware

What’s the difference?

Plugging it all in

Where’s the computer?

Cool hardware

Cooler hardware

Even cooler hardware

What are you looking at?

Each bit can also be thought of as a pixel Each pixel contains 24 bits to represent

colors

Colors

Virtual buttons

Following the mouse pointer

Where exactly is the button?

We need to know the size (dimensions) of the button, too

Random Access Memory (RAM) Retrieve any data directly via

random access Sequential access is slow (e.g. cassette

tapes)

Hard drives

Traditional (mechanical) hard drive

What are solid-state drives? Are they better?

Are hard drives random or sequential access?

Know IT

Read Chapter 1

Do all of the Multiple Choice and Short Answer questions