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| Computer Skills Ports |
all peripherals need a way to connect to a computer so let's take a look at the different types of ports and nectars first is the most common of all USB stands for Universal Serial bus and it's a type of connector found not only on computer peripherals but on gaming consoles TVs DVDs and blu-ray players car audio systems USB is nearly everywhere when you see a port that looks like this on the back of a computer regardless of the color that's a USB port it's worth mentioning that the USB port on the device that you want to connect to might look different from this there are actually a number of different types of USB connectors here's a quick look at some of them one of the bummers about all of these USB connectors
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| Computer Skills Ports |
is that if you try to plug them in upside down they won't work this is why the newest version of USB called us BC is a very welcome change it's reversible so it doesn't matter which way you plug it in another significant port on the back of a computer is the Ethernet port the Ethernet port allows you to plug in an Ethernet cable which can connect your computer to a network and to the Internet now to connect your computer to a monitor there are several possibilities for many years the 15 pin VGA port was the standard and you'll still sometimes see it in use today on old computers and projectors this type of connector however is limited in terms of the screen resolution and the quality that it can support which is something we'll talk more about later but for this reason it's generally not found on new products anymore next is the DVI port which comes in a few different variations some of which suffer from the same limitations as the VGA connector for this reason this type of connector is also becoming less common by far the most common connector for connecting a display whether it's a computer monitor or a widescreen TV is an HDMI port HDMI is fully digital and it supports high resolution displays and can also carry audio you'll find HDMI ports on just about every new TV and computer monitor these days HDMI cables and connectors come in a few different sizes in order to accommodate different size devices the final video connector we'll look at is called DisplayPort DisplayPort isn't as common as HDMI but hopefully it will be because it's actually better in a couple of ways supporting even higher resolutions and frame rates DisplayPort comes in two sizes and if you're a Mac user you'll probably recognize the smaller of the two called mini DisplayPort speaking of Mac's it's worth noting that the mini DisplayPort on newer Mac's is also a thunderbolt port which is indicated by the little lightning bolt symbol Thunderbolt is a type of connection created by Apple that is very high-speed and allows you to connect many devices to just one port turning to audio we've got our standard three-and-a-half millimeter headphone jack and a three-and-a-half millimeter audio input jack it's worth noting that many audio devices are equipped with USB connectors so these two aren't always necessary some computers like this one also have an integrated SD card reader which can make it easier to copy photos from a digital camera to your computer some devices can be connected to your computer without having to use any sort of cable at all the most common way to connect devices wirelessly to your computer is to use bluetooth a Bluetooth device uses radio waves instead of wires or cables and there are many devices that support bluetooth including cell phones headsets keyboards mice portable speakers car audio systems and more Bluetooth typically has a range of about 30 feet so your devices have to be somewhat close together in order to stay connected finally there's the wireless connection that you're probably already familiar with Wi-Fi
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| Computer Skills Ports |
you can think of Wi-Fi like a wireless version of an Ethernet cable its primary purpose is to connect computers and some other devices like phones and tablets to networks and to the Internet unlike Bluetooth which allows devices to connect directly to one another Wi-Fi uses a wireless router that all of the different devices then connect to in order to communicate with one another this results in greater Wireless range especially if you have more than one router and much faster data transfer speeds but it's all dependent on having the wireless router for this reason Wi-Fi and Bluetooth serve very different purposes Wi-Fi is used to connect devices to networks and to the Internet and Bluetooth is used to connect devices directly to a variety of peripherals this concludes our discussion of ports
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