Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Secondary storage

File compression.
- File compression is the process of condensing certain files to take up less space on a computer, disc or external storage device. Compression usually requires special formats and software, but there are many different versions available. Compressed files have to be expanded again to be used.


Head crash.
- A head crash is a hard-disk malfunction that is the result of the read-write head of the hard disk coming in contact with the rotating platter, causing probably permanent damage to the magnetic media on the platter surface.




Internet hard drive.
- It is known to solve the issue of data storage. The sole purpose of this is to access computer files from any computer as long as that computer has Internet access. Unlike your local hard drive, which may have a limited storage capacity, a competitive Internet hard drive provider will offer virtually unlimited disk space such as offered by LiveDrive.com.

Optical disc drive.
- Optical drives retrieve and/or store data on optical discs like CDs, DVDs, and BDs (Blu-ray discs) which hold much more information than classic portable media options like the floppy disc. Most optical drives can play and/or record onto a large number of different disc formats. Popular formats include CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL, BD-R, and BD-RE.



Solid-state storage.
- Solid-state storage is a nonvolatile, removable storage medium that employs integrated circuits (ICs) rather than magnetic or optical media. It is the equivalent of large-capacity, non-volatile memory. The main advantage of solid-state storage is the fact that it contains no mechanical parts. Everything is done electronically. As a result, data transfer to and from solid-state storage media takes place at a much higher speed than is possible with electromechanical disk drives.







Input and Output

Ergonomic keyboard.
- According to Wikipedia, an ergonomic keyboard is a computer keyboard designed with ergonomic considerations to minimize muscle strain and a host of related problems. 'Ergonomic considerations' is a phrase that can have many meanings so let's look at what a few of those are. Your hands, wrists, shoulders and back are the areas of your body most vulnerable to repetitive strain injury (RSI). This is due to how we sit and move about when using computers under normal circumstances.


Ink- jet printer.
- A type of printer that works by spraying ionized ink at a sheet of paper. Magnetized plates in the ink's path direct the ink onto the paper in the desired shapes. Ink-jet printers are capable of producing high quality print approaching that produced by laser printers. In general, the price of ink-jet printers is lower than that of laser printers. However, they are also considerably slower. Another drawback of ink-jet printers is that they require a special type of ink that is apt to smudge on inexpensive copier paper.



Laser printer.
- A printer that uses a laser and the electrophotographic method to print a full page at a time. The laser "paints" a charged drum with light, to which toner is applied and then transferred onto paper. This process can also be called electrophotographic.


Magnetic-ink character recognition.
- Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR), as defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), is the common machine language specification for the paper-based payment transfer system.  It consists of magnetic ink printed characters of a special design which can be recognized by high speed magnetic recognition equipment.  Line placement, character placement, skew and quality are several critical components of printing MICR; the line must be precisely positioned in the MICR Clear Band area. 



Optical-character recognition.
- Optical Character Recognition (OCR) uses a device that reads pencil marks and converts them into a computer-usable form. OCR technology recognizes characters on a source document using the optical properties of the equipment and media. OCR improves the accuracy of data collection and reduces the time required by human workers to enter the data.



Optical-mark recognition.
Represents the process of capturing human-marked data from document forms such as surveys and tests.
Optical-mark recognition devices work with a dedicated scanner device that shines a beam of light onto the form paper. The contrasting reflectivity at predetermined positions on a page is then utilized to detect the marked areas because they reflect less light than the blank areas of the paper.


Wednesday, January 5, 2011

The System Unit

Flash memory
- Flash memory refers to a particular type of EEPROM, or Electronically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory. It is a memory chip that maintains stored information without requiring a power source. It is often used in portable electronics, like MP3 players, and in removable storage devices. Flash memory differs from regular EEPROM in that EEPROM erases its content one byte at a time. This makes it slow to update. Flash memory can erase its data in entire blocks, making it a preferable technology for applications that require frequent updating of large amounts of data as in the case of a memory stick.


Graphic cards
- A graphic card (also video card) is a piece of hardware installed in a computer that is responsible for rendering the image on the computer’s monitor or display screen. The first consideration when buying a graphics card is to be sure it is capable of displaying the best resolution the monitor can support. The second consideration is on-board memory. A graphics card must work very hard to render images to the screen. Unlike text files, graphics images are much larger files consisting of great amounts of data that must be processed by the graphics or video card. A faster graphics card has its own resident memory chips to perform this function so as not to impinge upon the system’s random access memory (RAM). Less robust graphics cards have less resident memory and require sharing system RAM to process images.



Sound cards
- An expansion board that enables a computer to manipulate and output sounds. Sound cards are necessary for nearly all CD-ROMs and have become commonplace on modern personal computers. Sound cards enable the computer to output sound through speakers connected to the board, to record sound input from a microphone connected to the computer, and manipulate sound stored on a disk.





Network Interface card (NIC)
- A network interface card, more commonly referred to as NIC, is a device that allows computers to be joined together in a LAN, or local area network. Networked computers communicate with each other using a given protocol or agreed-upon language for transmitting data packets between the different machines, known as nodes. The network interface card acts as the liaison for the machine to both send and receive data on the LAN.



Plug & play
- Plug and Play (PnP) is a capability developed by Microsoft for its Windows 95 and later operating systems that gives users the ability to plug a device into a computer and have the computer recognize that the device is there. The user doesn't have to tell the computer. In many earlier computer systems, the user was required to explicitly tell the operating system when a new device had been added. Microsoft made Plug and Play a selling point for its Windows operating systems. A similar capability had long been built into Macintosh computers.


Bus line
- The bus lines are the communicating lines that connect different parts of the CPU to various other parts. In addition, the bus lines also link the CPU to different parts on the system board of your computer. The data flows in the form of bits along the bus lines. The bus lines are like multilane pathway which means that the more bus lines are on the system the greater is the rate of transfer of data along the bus, which means that the computer can run efficiently and will perform the operations at a faster rate.


HDMI
- HDMI stands for High Definition Multimedia Interface. It is a compact 19-pin plug and cable for connecting High-Definition video and multi-channel audio-capable as well as helping to speed the convergence of computer and consumer AV products. High Definition technology or HD has seen a rapid increase in consumer use especially with HDTVs, HD-DVD and Blu-ray players, HD camcorders and other HD components. HDMI was developed by Hitachi, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Philips, Thomson and Silicon Image who came together in a conglomerate effort to simplify the task of connecting and synchronizing available HD components for the user's benefit.




Cache memory
- Cache memory is random access memory (RAM) that a computer microprocessor can access more quickly than it can access regular RAM. As the microprocessor processes data, it looks first in the cache memory and if it finds the data there (from a previous reading of data), it does not have to do the more time-consuming reading of data from larger memory.





Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Specialized Application Software

Audio Editing Software.
- An audio editing software  is an application for computers which is used for sound editing , i.e. manipulating digital audio. Digital audio editors are the main software component of a digital audio workstation.


Bitmap image.
- A bitmap is one of many types of file formats for images stored in a computerized form. It carries the extension .BMP. Computers use bits of 1 and 0 to store data. A bitmap is literally a map of bits that form a particular picture when rendered to a display like a computer monitor. To understand how a bitmap image displays, it’s important to understand the computer display screen. The display is made up of rows and columns of tiny blocks, or pixels. In a bitmap image, each pixel is assigned at least one bit to indicate whether the pixel should reflect the background color, the foreground color, or some other color.


Desktop Publishing Program.
- Desktop publishing (also known as DTP) combines a personal computer and WYSIWYG page layout software to create publication documents on a computer for either large scale publishing or small scale local multifunction peripheral output and distribution. The term "desktop publishing" is commonly used to describe page layout skills. However, the skills and software are not limited to paper and book publishing. The same skills and software are often used to create graphics for point of sale displays, promotional items, trade show exhibits, retail package designs and outdoor signs.



HTML editors.
- An HTML editor is a software application for creating web pages. Although the HTML markup of a web page can be written with any text editor, specialized HTML editors can offer convenience and added functionality. For example, many HTML editors work not only with HTML, but also with related technologies such as CSS, XML and JavaScript or ECMAScript. In some cases they also manage communication with remote web servers via FTP and WebDAV, and version management systems such as CVS or Subversion.


Image editors.
- Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they be digital photographs, traditional analog photographs, or illustrations. Traditional analog image editing is known as photo retouching, using tools such as an airbrush to modify photographs, or editing illustrations with any traditional art medium. Graphic software programs, which can be broadly grouped into vector graphics editors, raster graphics editors, and 3d modelers, are the primary tools with which a user may manipulate, enhance, and transform images. Many image editing programs are also used to render or create computer art from scratch.



Vector image.
A vector image is a computer image that uses a wire frame or outlines to define a shapes area. This is made up of mathematical descriptions of paths and fills to define the graphic. A vector image is drawn in shapes and lines called paths. Vector images tend to have a small electronic file size.  



Multimedia.
- Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun (a medium with multiple content forms) or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which only use traditional forms of printed or hand-produced material. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity content forms.







Basic Application Software

Graphical User Interface (GUI).
- Abbreviated GUI. A program interface that takes advantage of the computer's graphics capabilities to make the program easier to use. Well-designed graphical user interfaces can free the user from learning complex command languages. On the other hand, many users find that they work more effectively with a command-driven interface, especially if they already know the command language. It features a few basic components such as pointer, windows, menu and icons.





Word Processor.
- Programmable typewriter or computer program used to compose, format, sort, and rearrange text upon command and sometimes perform other related functions such as correcting misspelled words. Word processors are commonly used to compose copy and to create personalized computer letters to customers or prospects using standard formats with spaces for inserting information specific to that customer.


Spreadsheet.
- Spreadsheet applications (sometimes referred to simply as spreadsheets) are computer programs that let you create and manipulate spreadsheets electronically. In a spreadsheet application, each value sits in a cell. You can define what type of data is in each cell and how different cells depend on each other. Once you have defined the cells and the formulas for linking them together, you can enter your data. You can then modify selected values to see how all the other values change accordingly. This enables you to study various what-if scenarios. A simple example of a useful spreadsheet application is one that calculates mortgage payments for a house.




Database Management System.
- A collection of programs that enables you to store, modify, and extract information from a database. There are many different types of Database Management Systems, ranging from small systems that run on personal computers to huge systems that run on mainframes.



Utility suites.
- PC utilities are programs that are designed to help with maintenance of the system and to keep it free from errors. However, this is an oversimplification. There are many different components that go into such software and work together. Here, we shall take a look at some of the components of the best PC utility software suites. One of the first, and most critical, utilities that is included in virtually all utility software is a backup utility. This program creates a copy of the system and all files on the computer. Sometimes the backup is only for certain types of files prior to making an update to the system. Other times, one can backup the entire system and all files to a portable storage device. This option should be used at least weekly to ensure that one has the necessary files to correct problems should something be damaged or deleted.













Wednesday, December 15, 2010

The Internet, The Web and Electronic Commerce

Javascript.
- JavaScript is the most popular scripting language on the internet, and works in all major browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari.

- JavaScript was designed to add interactivity to HTML pages.

- JavaScript is a scripting language.

- A scripting language is a lightweight programming language.

- JavaScript is usually embedded directly into HTML pages.

- JavaScript is an interpreted language (means that scripts execute without preliminary compilation).

- Everyone can use JavaScript without purchasing a license. 



Applets.
- An applet is a program written in the Java programming language that can be included in an HTML page, much in the same way an image is included in a page. When you use a Java technology-enabled browser to view a page that contains an applet, the applet's code is transferred to your system and executed by the browser's Java Virtual Machine. Applets are used to provide interactive features to web applications that cannot be provided by HTML alone. They can capture mouse input (like rotating 3D object) and also have controls like buttons or check boxes. In response to the user action an applet can change the provided graphic content. This makes applets well suitable for demonstration, visualization and teaching. There are online applet collections for studying various subjects, from physics to heart physiology. Applets are also used to create online game collections that allow players to compete against live opponents in real-time.



Filters.
- Computer filters are software programs designed to protect a computer system. They come in two main varieties: parental control filters, which block access to sites or categories of sites from a particular computer, and anti-virus filters, which prevent dangerous software from infecting the protected computer. Computer filter programs are especially useful for parents. They can block websites, monitor email traffic, block file sharing or chat systems, and even limit the length of time of an Internet session. Most filters come with default settings that are especially good at blocking access to pornographic websites. 

Desktop filter.

Plug-ins.
- In computing, a plug-in is a set of software components that adds specific functions to a larger software application. If supported, plug-ins enable customizing the functionality of an application. For example, plug-ins are commonly used in web browsers to play video, scan for viruses, and display new file types.

 Internet Security Suite.
- The means used to protect Web sites and other electronic files from attack by hackers and viruses. The Internet is, by definition, a network; networks are open, and are thus open to attack. A poor Internet security policy can result in a substantial loss of productivity and a drop in consumer confidence. The essential elements of Internet security are constant vigilance the perfect Internet security system will be out of date the next day; a combination of software and human expertise security software can only do so much, it must be combined with human experience; and internal as well as external security many security breaches come from within an organization.


File Transfer Protocol(FTP).
- The protocol for exchanging files over the Internet. FTP works in the same way as HTTP for transferring Web pages from a server to a user's browser and SMTP for transferring electronic mail across the Internet in that, like these technologies, FTP uses the Internet's TCP/IP protocols to enable data transfer. FTP is most commonly used to download a file from a server using the Internet or to upload a file to a server (e.g., uploading a Web page file to a server).



Wiki.
- Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks
between internal pages on the fly. Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself. Like many simple concepts, "open editing" has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users. For example, Wikipedia. 


 URL.
- Also known as Uniform Resource Locator, the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web. The first part of the address is called a protocol identifier and it indicates what protocol to use, and the second part is called a resource name and it specifies the IP address or the domain name where the resource is located. The protocol identifier and the resource name are separated by a colon and two forward slashes.



Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Careers in IT

Webmaster
- Webmasters make websites. They turn words and art into Internet sites that people can use. They instruct the computer about how words and art should look on the computer screen. Webmasters test websites, try to make sites work faster and also meet with designers, helping them to decide how a site should look and work.


Computer support specialist.
- Provide technical assistance to computer system users. Answer questions or resolve computer problems for clients in person, via telephone or from remote location. Also provide assistance concerning the use of hardware and software, including printing, installation, word processing, electronic mail, and operating systems.

Computer specialist at work.

Technical writer.
- A technical writer is often tasked with writing documentation that explains technical issues in ways that non-technical people can understand. Responsible for writing the how-to manual for a software application. A good technical writer can write about a complicated technical subject or task in ways that almost anyone can clearly understand. At the same time, precision in technical writing tends to be critical because if anything is described incorrectly, readers may act improperly on what is said, causing mistakes and problems at work.


The art of technical writing.

Software Engineer.
- Common job resposibilities for a software engineer include :
  1. Designing, coding and debugging applications in various software languages.
  2. Software analysis, code analysis, requirements analysis, software review, identification of code metrics, system risk analysis, software reliability analysis.
  3. Object-oriented Design and Analysis (OOA and OOD)
  4. Software testing and quality assurance.
  5. Performance tuning, improvement, balancing, usability, automation.
  6. Support, maintain and document software functionality.



Network Administrator.
- A person who manages a local area communications network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN) for an organization. Responsibilities include network security, installing new hardware and applications, monitoring software upgrades and daily activity, enforcing licensing agreements, developing a storage management program and providing for routine backups, not to mention ensuring that it is up and running all the time.

A mazy network of wires.

System Analyst.
- A system analyst is the person who selects and configures computer systems for an organization or business. His or her job typically begins with determining the intended purpose of the computers. This means the analyst must understand the general objectives of the business, as well as what each individual user's job requires.To summarize, the system analyst's job is to choose the most efficient computer solutions for a business, while making sure the systems meet all the company's needs. Therefore, the system analyst must have a solid understanding of computer hardware and software and should keep up-to-date on all the latest technologies.



Programmer.
- Computer programmers write the step-by-step instructions that direct computers to process information. These instructions, or programs, tell the computer what to do in a series of logical steps. Programmers work on a wide range of projects. Most programmers are involved in applications programming. They work on specific tasks that have a direct application, such as designing accounting procedures. In most medium to large computer installations, programmers receive their instructions from systems analysts or computer software engineers.
" Blessed are the geeks, for they shall internet the earth"