Introduction to Personal Computers Demo

Files and software are often mistaken for one another.  Files are structured data that are created by software.  As in the example on the previous page, if you are working on a research paper and use Word to create it, when you save the document it will create a file.

Another example is if you download an MP3 player (software) and then add music to listen to. The music that you added are files.  And, as we discussed earlier, when you play music on your computer you can listen to it with the use of speakers as an output device.

Files are associated with software by their “file extension.” The file extension is the last few characters of the file name (after the dot “.”). Here are examples of some common file types/extensions:

• Documents:
  • .doc
  • .pdf
  • .txt
• Images
  • .jpg
  • .gif
  • .bmp
• Audio
  • .mp3
  • .wma
  • .wav
• Video
  • .mpg
  • .mov
  • .avi

Sometimes file types/extensions are specific to a certain program and sometimes files can be opened by many different programs. For instance, an .mp3 file can be opened in Window Media Player, WinAmp, RealPlayer, etc.