1. Welcome Back! 1.Walk quietly to your seat 2.Place your backpack under your seat 3.Turn on your computer and log in 4.Log into www.schoology.com (remember, same username and password as your computer), and begin reading “A Brief History of Digital Video”www.schoology.com

2. Files, Formats, Folders, and Friends Computers store all information digitally as 0s and 1s; we refer to this collectively as “data.” We’re used to dealing with physical objects in reality, so out of habit, we tend to refer to virtual objects as tangible things as well. But how do you actually visualize data?

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4. Files In the broadest sense, a computer file is simply a package for storing data. The phrase originates from physical files, which likewise store analog data. The size of a file is measured in Bytes, each of which consists of 8 Bits.

5. File Sizes A Bit is simply a 0 or a 1, and is the smallest denomination of size in computing. File sizes have become so large we now use mathematical prefixes to measure file size: – 1 Kilobyte (kb) = 1024 Bytes – 1 Megabyte (mb) = 1024 Kilobytes – 1 Gigabyte (gb) = 1024 Megabytes – 1 Terabyte (tb) = 1024 Gigabytes

6. File Formats As time and technology have evolved, the packaging for files has also evolved. Files can now consist of all sorts of data beyond simple plaintext: – Video – Audio – Programs/Applications – Documents – And so on

7. File Extensions The type of file is noted by its extension, which is (usually) in a three- character format added to the end of a file. For example, a text file generated in notepad would have the extension.txt

8. This can lead to some confusion, as renaming a file’s extension will not change the data within, but how the computer accesses it. Be particularly wary of “booby trapped” extensions; very often, a virus or other malware will be disguised as an image or document file, but still be appended with.exe.

9. Don’t open any file that has two extensions! seriously_dont_open_this.jpg.exe

10. Nested Folders

11. Folders Folders are simply a means to store files; folders themselves do not contain meaningful data. In most computers nowadays, folders are arranged in a “nested” structure; simply put, folders can be put inside of other folders, which can be inside other folders, et cetera.

12. Drives/Disks Typically, a hard disk or disk drive will be referred to with a letter followed by a colon and forward slash (ie: C:\ ) A file can be found using its filepath, which is similar to a web address (ie: C:\Users\Testguy\My Documents\hello.txt )