Wednesday’s Weekly Word: SOFTWARE

Here in the computer world, there are so many terms that are nearly exclusive to computers, or at least the way we use them is exclusive to computers. A lot of users seem to either get a pretty basic understanding of a word and never develop a more thorough understanding or they get totally overwhelmed with computer jargon. So, I am going to provide you with one word we commonly use a week and tell you a bit more about it. I’m sure that for a lot of you, this won’t be totally useful as you already know it, but I hope it will help someone. It’s easy to get a pretty good idea of what something means, but when you learn more about what something actually does, it will help you troubleshoot your own issues.

Let’s start very general with: software. I’m sure this is a word that you are familiar with and already have a definition of in your head. Software refers to applications on your computer, as well as the operating system. Some software, like the OS, the iLife Suite, and utilities are pre-loaded on your computer. Other software, like Abode products and iWork, can be purchase and put on your computer. Some software you can download for free, oftentimes called freeware or open-source. Shareware is another kind of software which is usually free to download, with some sort of trial and you are either encouraged to pay for it and in some cases, the software will no longer work if you do not pay for it after a certain trial period. Like I said above, software is not only applications you download, but also lots of things that work behind the scenes, like drivers, which get your printer, mouse and keyboard to run.

If you are having an issue with your computer, one of the first things we will determine is if it is hardware or software. As you likely know, we will facilitate hardware repairs for you, but we do not actually do them anymore. Software problems can get complicated, when it comes to actually diagnosing the piece of software causing the issue, but here are some tips on determining if it is hardware or software. Maybe next time Josh, Jacob or Brian come out, you can impressing them by telling them that you are certain the issue is software!
Do you have the problem right before the computer loads the operating system? Then, the issue is hardware.
You can start your computer up from the Operating System disk and the issue disappears. One good example of this is if your sound is not working. Say, you start your computer and you hear it chime(the chime is something which occurs before the OS loads, like in #1), but once your OS loads, you have no sound. You can put in your OS disk, hold down the “C” key when you boot your computer, and if you play around with the volume keys and you have sound. This is probably a software problem.
Another thing to consider is creating or testing the problem on another user account. In your system preferences, create a new account and see if the problem happens. If it does not, the problem is in your software, but this is a case where you cannot say the opposite is true.

There is a lot more that can be said about software. It is such a huge topic! There are all different kinds of software and software has millions of uses. Because software is a huge piece of your computer, when we figure out that an issue is software-related, we have many places to look for the problem, including things that are running in the background.

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