FMTP 004. Microcomputing (152-004-MC).

This is a beginner-level computing course designed to introduce micro-computers to our students. The course will start by introducing various elementary computer concepts, terminologies and hardware configurations. The student will then be exposed to the most popular aspects of modern computing e-mail and the Internet. To guarantee that technological edge, software of direct importance to the farming industry will be presented later in the semester. The labs will complement the course material by giving hands-on experience. The course content includes: various farm uses an abuses of computers; hardware basics; introduction to DOS (minimal); Windows and accessory programs (Notepad, Wordpad); McGill online services (McGill Library Access, MUSE PERUSE); viruses and other computer diseases; file encoding and encryption; Internet use (e-mail, web searching, FTP), word/text processing (MS Word 2003), electronic spreadsheets (Excel 2003), computer graphics (PowerPoint 2003 and Paintshop Pro).