Week Two - Office Applications 07/08/07

In week two of UPC 0004, we focused on the applications that can be used with computers. The application we used this week was Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. The main points from our lecture this week were:

- PC's are commonly used to achieve tasks such as :

• File Handling


• Word Processing


• Creating Spreadsheets


• Creating Presentations


• Accesing Internet


• Writing e-mails and


• Viewing PDF's

Each of the above tasks require use of different applications. Just to name a few, File Handling is usually achieved by the application Windows Explorer where as Word Processing tasks are achieved by Microsoft Word. Microsoft Excel helps achieve tasks such as creating Spreadsheets while Microsoft Powerpoint helps achieve tasks related to presentations.
All applications require general knowledge and skills regarding which applications suit which tasks. It is important for the users of these applications to understand how to operate these applications to achieve and get the best results from their tasks.

As students in this course UPC, we are required to gain the skills and knowledge on how to operate these applications so that we can successfuly communicate with our peers and lecturers or tutors. Furthermore, we require these skills to successfuly create word documents and powerpoint presentations that are of university standard so that we can succeed in our assignments.

In the tutorial, we learnt how Microsoft Word works, and the different tasks that it can help achieve. We had an excercise to complete in the workshop whereby certain tasks related to the application were set and we had to demonstrate we could perform those tasks by reading through a manual guide. Below are some of the tasks the exercise required us to do:

• Adjust the TYPEFACE


• Adjust the MARGINS AND ALIGNMENT


• Adjust LINE SPACING


• Create HEADINGS (using the "document map" feature)


• KEEP HEADINGS WITH TEXT


• Include a HEADER/FOOTER


• Creating Dot Leaders and



• Inserting an image using clip art.

Below is a screen capture of the excercise relating to the Microsoft Word application.

The red circles show the above mentioned tasks performed as per exercise requirements.

In addition to the Microsoft Word excercise, we also had an exercise on Microsoft Excel. In this exercise we had to:

- moving quickly around Excel
- selecting cells and names of cells
- entering different types of data into cells
- editing a cell
- performing mathematical calculations
- adjusting width of column
- cell alignment
- operating with the auto sum icon
- automatic calculation
- creating borders
- merge and centre
-adding background color
-use of auto format
- auto fill
-format painter/brush and
- conditional formatting

Other things we learnt to do with Excel were:

- creating different charts from our data. These charts included of : Pie chart and Column Graphs.

These were the learning aspects of Microsoft Word and Excel that we covered in our tutorial this week.

Below are screen prints of the tasks performed in Microsoft Excel exercise this week:












Readings:

This weeks reading materials come from the web address below:
http://www.knight-web.net/tutorials/photoshop/
This week the reading is on graphic formats. From the reading, I have gathered the following:

There are several types of graphic formats. Some of these include of:

• Bitmap (.bmp) - is the standard Windows bitmap image format for PC's. It is useful for wallpapers on desktops.
  
• CompuServe (.gif) - is a compressed format of maximum 256 colours that is designed to reduce the file transfer time over phone lines. These formats are commonly used in HTML documents, over the World Wide Web and many online services. Furthermore, GIF file types support annimations.
• Joint Photographic Experts Group (.jpg/jpeg) - Commonly used to display images on the internet. Saving an image as Jpeg, will reduce its size and opening it while decompress its file size.
  

These were some of the file types /formats that were discussed in the reading this week.

Below is a screen shot of the webpage where this week's reading came from.

This sums up everything we have learnt this week.

Week one - Personal Computing 31/07/2007

In this first week in UPC 0004, we learnt quite a lot of useful skills to do with the use of computers. Some of these skills we learnt included of :-

Getting to understand how to use the ECU website and how it has various functions as a means of communications. Then we got presented with some slides on the projector in our lectures that showed us how to communicate with out tutors and lecturers through email. Being the first week, our lecture was mainly an introduction for us to this unit. The key points addressed in the the first week's lecture included of:

- This unit provides a project-based approach to accessing knowledge through library and information & communication technologies.

- Students and staff have two hours contact time per week.


In our tutorial, we got taught how to :

- access the ECU website

- use the SIMO system

- use the BLACKBOARD and explore all the quick links

Below is a screen capture of the ECU website.

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- use the email and learning management systems

Below is a screen capture showing the steps in accessing the email system on the ECU website.

First, you need to access the ECU homepage. Secondly, on the homepage, click on the link "current students". This can be seen in the screen capture below.


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The next step is to wait for the page to open and then click on the link that says "email".


Below is a screen shot that explains the process above.


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After clicking on the "email" link, you will be directed to another page which will require you to fill in your username and password. Below is a screen capture of the last page in the accessing email process.


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The most useful information we got taught was how to create a blog where we can record entries on our progress in this unit. Furthermore, we also learnt how to create an image shack account where we can store our images for our blogs.

Finally, we learnt how to capture a screen and paste it on the image shack by saving it as a word document as JPG file.




Every week, as part of our workshop, we have extra readings that relate to our weekly topics we cover in tutorials. These readings further enhance our understanding of what we learn by providing more sources of information such as websites and references.





In this week's folder, there are two readings. These are:-

- PC Lube & Tune and

- How Stuff Works.

Below is a screen capture of the first reading's web page.





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http://www.yale.edu/pclt/default.htm



This reading provides artciles that further explain concepts of:

- PC Hardware

- Exceptional handling in Java and C#

- Graphic User Interface

- TCP/IP and many other articles on the basics of PC operation.

The second reading comes from the following address:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/pc.htm

Below is a screen capture of the webpage's homepage.

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In this reading, it is discussed what a PC is and how it works. The components are addressed as well along with the basic functions they perform.

From the reading, I have gathered that a PC can be defined as general-purpose information processing device.

Furthermore from the reading, I have managed to gather the main components of a PC.

These include of:

- Central Processing Unit (CPU)
- Memory
- RAM
- BIOS
- Caching
- Virtual Memory
- Motherboard
- Power supply
- Hard disk
- Operating System
- IDE
- Sound and
- Graphics card.

These were week one's readings that further helped us understand the basics of computing.