A Syllabus for a 7-day (or 3-month) Computer Operations Course
(For Computers with Windows Operating Systems)

Designed in January 2003 by Rituraj Kalita

        Instruction: Click underlined hyperlink (such as on Day 1 below) to avail the free course material.

        Day 1: Fundamentals of computers with a very brief history. Hardware parts: CPU, Storage Disk (Hard Disk, FD & CD), Monitor (VDU), Keyboard, Mouse, Speaker, Printer, Modem, Microphone, Scanner, Digital Camera etc. Present brands available. Connecting and disconnecting hardware parts. Turning computer on & off. Parts of CPU: ALU & CU etc., Memory, Motherboard, Processor etc. Computer Specification terms and their significance. Usual present specifications. Computer Maintenance: physical environment (relatively free from dust, humidity & hostile temperature etc.), Virus Scanning, Scandisk operation, Defrag, Cleaning of Floppy Disk Drives and Compact Disk Drives. Formatting of Floppy Diskettes. Different types of Software: Operating Systems, Application Software, Language Compilers.

        Day 2: Windows Operating System: Windows 95/ 98/ Me/ 2000 with a brief introduction to DOS. Concept of Files, Folders & Disks; Filenames and Extensions; Pathnames of files and folders. Basic Windows Environment: Concept of Icons, Applications, Menus and Documents. Use of mouse and keyboard in basic Windows Operations. Creating folders; Cut, Copy, Paste & Delete operations on files & folders. Using Windows Help. Installing a hardware (e.g. modem/ printer/ scanner) & a software (WinZip/ X-Split/ IrfanView).

        Day 3: Zipping and Splitting of files using WinZip and X-Split. Drawing Pictures and Figures using Windows Paint. Basic Word-Processing of Text Files using DOS Edit and Windows Notepad. Cut-paste & copy-paste operations of text blocks in text files. Concept of Presentations & Slideshow: Preparing presentations with Microsoft PowerPoint. Playing Audio files with Jet-Audio/ Winamp/ Windows Media Player and CD-Player. Recording Sound with Windows Sound Recorder. CD-writing with a popular CD-Writer software (Nero/ Roxio).

        Day 4: Advanced Word-Processing Concepts: Word-Wrap, Para formation, Font size and types (including Symbol & Wingding font), Bold/ Italic/ Subscripted/ Superscripted/ Underscored Characters, Spelling Checking, Grammar Checking, Thesaurus Consultation  & Multiple Handle using WordPad, MS-Word and PageMaker. Word-Processing of HTML files using MS-Word and FrontPage. Indian Languages in Word-Processing: Ramdhanu/ Shree-Lipi/ Shabda-Lipi & Aadarsha-Ratne/ Webdunia. Fast word-processing using AutoText feature of MS-Word/ RoughDraft. Concept of hyperlink using MS-Word/ FrontPage and use in PDF (Portable Document File) files using Adobe Acrobat Reader.

        Day 5: Worksheet (Spreadsheet) concepts and practice using MS-Excel. Putting a table inside text using MS-Word. Fundamental Programming Concepts: Variables and Constants, Assignment Statements, Looping etc. using Fortran and Visual FoxPro.  Database management & database programming using Visual FoxPro. Picture manipulations with IrfanView/ Corel/ Photoshop. Inserting & fitting pictures into text using MS-Word & FrontPage.

         Day 6: Types of printers. Printing document with Dot-Matrix, Inkjet (DeskJet) & LaserJet printers with MS-Word, MS-Excel & Internet Explorer. Page-Setup for aesthetic printing. Feeding paper into these printers. Changing cartridge/ ink in them. Correcting common printer problems with enclosed printer software. Using a scanner to get pictures and texts on paper scanned into computer files. UPS/ Stabilizer & Surge Protector: connecting with external power supply and with computer hardware parts. Common brands available. Knowledge of auto-turnoff feature in certain UPS brands.

         Day 7: Basic brief concepts of LAN and internet. Operating a networked set of computers. Connecting to internet using Dialup. Accessing internet using Internet Explorer/ Netscape Communicator. ISP-based and Web-based (Yahoo/ Rediff etc.) email operations. Web searching using Search Engines (Google/ Altavista/ Rediff etc.) Accessing specific information from Web. Downloading freeware such as DAP/ Gozilla/ AVG Antivirus from web. Basics of HTML & Web-Page Designing: personal website formation using Web Publishing Wizard & a Free Website Hosting Service (Geocities/ 50megs/ Angelfire).