Sure, the programming behind such technology is extensive and advanced, but to the end user, it makes computer use less intimidating and plain easy. Of course when we talk about operating a computer, we envision more involvement than speaking on the phone or touching things on a screen. The above illustrations were just a couple of examples of how far computer technology has grown, and how far we've pushed "user-friendliness" to its limit. If you think about it, there's no reason why a five, seven, or even twelve year old needs to know the passwords to sensitive areas on the computer unless you've given them permission! In fact, children don't need to know the password used to access the Internet either. It may be a hassle to type it in each time they want to get online, but it's better to know the times that they connect than to have them sneak online without your permission and knowledge of their activities. Without a regular maintenance schedule however, you could find out (the hard way) that a neglected computer is an energy hog - one that works harder than it needs to and one that could be a financial burden to replace. Let's talk about maintaining hardware. So much emphasis is put on maintaining a computer's operating system that we sometimes forget how important it is to maintain a computer's hardware components. Title bar - this is the top-most part of a program that displays its own name or it may describe the contents displayed in another part of the interface. If a program is incorrectly coded, you may see a wrong description in this part of its interface. Menu bar - this part of a program displays menu items and menu options. If the program were working with a simple algebra equation like, "x + 5 = y," the variables "x" and "y" would be unknown pieces of data. Or if a program were to calculate a date "x" days from now, the variable "x" would be an unknown piece of data until we tell the program what "x" is. Networking Home Computers Increasing Productivity With the Whole Family Have you ever thought about networking your computers at home? If you have a small collection of computers around the house (and a small collection of computer users), you can connect each one of those computers to one another and share data, software, and hardware including a single Internet connection.