Today computers are all around us.

From desktop computers to smartphones, they're changing the way that we live our
lives.

But have you ever asked yourself what exactly is a computer?

A computer is an electronic device that manipulates information or data.

The computer sees data as ones and zeros but it knows how to combine them into more
complex things such as a photograph, a movie, a website, a game and much more...

Computers use a combination of hardware and software.

Hardware is any physical part of the computer which includes all of the internal
components and also the external parts like the monitor and keyboard.

Software is any set of instructions that tells the hardware what to do such as a web
browser, media player or word processor.

Now when most people say computer, they're talking about a personal computer.

This can be a desktop computer or a laptop computer which has basically the same
capabilities but in a more portable package.

Personal computers come in two main styles, PC and Mac.

PCs are the most common types, there are many different companies that make them
and they usually come with the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Macs or Macintosh computers are all made by one company, Apple, and they come with
the Mac OS 10 operating system.

Computers come in many other shapes and sizes, mobile phones, tablets, game consoles
and even TVs have built-in computers, although they may not do everything a desktop or
laptop can.

There is another type of computer that plays an important role in our lives, servers.

A server serves information to other computers on a network.

In fact every time you use the Internet, web servers deliver the web pages that you want
to see to your computer.

Servers are also used in many offices to store and share files.

As you can see, there are many different types of computers out there and they affect
our lives in a variety of ways.