Multimedia 101

A Web Based Tutorial

If you're new to computers or to multimedia this is the place to start. Here I'm going to talk about the basics of your computer, how it communicates with you and how you can communicate with it. In our discussion I'm not going to worry about writing style in favor of writing as if I'm talking directly to you. I'm not going to hesitate to use technical terms either but I promise to try to give you an explanation of those terms in a popup window or a hyperlink as I use them. In case I miss one or you forget, I've also included a Computer-Speak, mini-glossary in the left navigation pane. The definitions are a bit wordy and redundant at times so I've tried to use a long and short answer to make it less tedious for you. Clicking on a question below the Computer-Speak heading will open a popup window without loosing your place in the lesson.

Before we begin let me dispel an ancient computer myth. You CAN damage your computer. Most "How To.." computer books tell you not to be nervous because you can't damage your computer simply by using it. That may be true if you're writing a letter but it absolutely isn't true if you're manipulating multimedia files.

Multimedia files by their very nature are composed of many elements. Each of these elements can open programs or instantiate  objects that might do serious damage. Your only defense against this kind of accidental damage is knowledge and common sense. If a company doesn't have a mailing address, a domain name or a permanent email address (Free email such as Hotmail or Yahoo don't count) you won't be able to find them if things go wrong so don't install their software. Let's say it again another way:

DON'T INSTALL ANY SOFTWARE ON YOUR COMPUTER UNLESS YOU KNOW THAT THE COMPANY OR PERSON WHO WROTE IT IS REPUTABLE AND RELIABLE.

Unfortunately that isn't as easy as it sounds, especially when you're downloading files from the Internet. Recently I helped a customer who had a near system meltdown. It turned out that the meltdown was caused by a movie clip that he downloaded or more specifically by the codec that he downloaded to play the movie. The codec, Angel Potion, which is an illegal (hacked) version of Microsoft's MPEG-4 codec, is naturally not registered with Microsoft, so Windows doesn't have proper instructions for decoding the compression algorithm. That's very often the problem with illegal software. By their nature, hackers have no regard for private property or the law so they naturally don't follow the rules that good software developers have adapted for keeping your system safe.

Lesson 1 - Part A - What is Multimedia?