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    • Secondary Storage

    Tuesday, January 18, 2011

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    File Compression

    The process of transforming information from smaller representation from which the original, can be retrieved. Encoding and decoding are often used to describe the compression and decompression processes. It has important applications in the areas of data storage and data transmission. Other than compression savings, other concerns include encoding and decoding speeds and workspace requirements, the ability to access and decode partial files, and error generation and propagation.



    Head Crash

    A head crash is a hard-disk failure that occurs when a read–write head of a hard disk drive comes in contact with its rotating platter, resulting in permanent and usually fatal damage to the magnetic media on the platter surface.

     

    Internet Hard Drive

    Its main purpose is to offer a gateway of accessing your computer files (pictures, documents, music, videos, etc.) from any computer, as long as that computer has access to the Internet. An Internet hard drive will allow you to "deposit" your computer files into a remote hard drive, and then later access those very same files from any other computer.

    

    
    Optical Disc Drive

    It is a disk drive that uses laser light or electromagnetic waves near the light spectrum as part of the process of reading or writing data to or from optical discs. Some drives can only read from discs. However, recent drives are commonly both readers and recorders. Recorders are sometimes called burners or writers. Common types of optical media include compact discs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs which can be read and recorded by such drives.

     


    Solid-State Storage

    It is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data. SSDs are distinguished from traditional hard disk drives (HDDs), which are electromechanical devices containing spinning disks and movable read/write heads. On the other hand, SSDs use microchips which retain data in non-volatile memory chips and contain no moving parts. SSDs are typically less sensitive to physical shock, quieter, and have lower access time and latency. They use the same interface as hard disk drives, thus easily replacing them in most applications.

     

    Input and Output

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    Ergonomic Keyboard

    A keyboard that separates the keys into two halves shaped like a wide "V" is known as an ergonomic keyboard. While others are movable, some keyboards have a fixed layout. It puts less stress on the hands and wrist and winds up being comfortable for most people.


     


    Ink-jet Printer

    They are high-speed computer-driven printer that sprays a row of fine streams of ink onto labels and/or forms to create a dot pattern print image. Continuous lines can be formed by the appearance of small and dense dots. Ink-jet printers have several advantages over impact printers, such as speed, dual addressing, and personalization. Unfortunately, they are not able to supply the greater personalization, image orientation, and type-font flexibility of laser printers.






    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. Desktop laser printers which is similar to copy machines, use cut sheets. Meanwhile, large printers may use paper rolls that are cut after printing.



    Magnetic-ink character reader (MICR)

    Magnetic Ink Character Recognition, or MICR, is a character recognition technology used primarily by the banking industry to facilitate the processing of cheques. The technology allows computers to read information (such as account numbers) off of printed documents. However, MICR codes can be easily read by humans unlike barcodes.



    Optical-character recognition (OCR)

    It is basically a scanning and comparison technique intended to identify printed text or numerical data. OCR software attempts to identify characters by comparing shapes to those stored in the software library. The software tries to identify words using character proximity and will try to reconstruct the original page layout. High accuracy can be obtained by using sharp, clear scans of high-quality originals. The down side is, the accuracy decreases as the quality of the original declines.


     



    Optical-mark recognition (OMR)

    Many traditional OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) devices work with a dedicated scanner device that shines a beam of light onto the form paper. To detect the marked areas, the contrasting reflectivity at predetermined positions on a page is then utilized because they reflect less light than the blank areas of the paper.



    The System Unit

    Thursday, January 6, 2011

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    Flash memory
    A non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed is called a flash memory. It is primarily used in memory cards, USB flash drives, MP3 players and solid-state drives for general storage and transfer of data between computers and other digital products. It is a specific type of EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory) that is erased and programmed in large blocks; in early flash the entire chip had to be erased at once.

    

    
    Graphic cards
    It plays an essential role in the PC. It takes the digital information that the computer produces and turns it into something human beings can see. The graphics card on most computers converts digital information to analog information for display on the monitor. On laptops, the data remains digital because laptop displays are digital.
     

    Sound cards
    It is an internal computer component that processes audio files in order to provide high-quality playback through computer speakers. It plays voice as well as music files, and can handle various audio file formats including .wav, .mp3 and .cda to name but a few. An interface is available on a typical sound card located at the back of the computer with various input and output ports. The overall sound quality of the computer system is affected by both the quality of the sound card and speakers. Speakers plug directly into the back of the sound card.

    

    Network interface card (NIC)
    More commonly referred to as a NIC, it 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.  To both send and receive data on the LAN, the network interface card acts as the liaison for the machine.

    

    Plug and play
    Refers to the ability of a computer system to automatically configure expansion boards and other devices. You should be able to plug in a device and play with it, without worrying about setting DIP switches, jumpers, and other configuration elements. The Apple Macintosh has been a plug-and-play computer, since the introduction of the NuBus.


    

    Bus line
    A collection of wires through which data is transmitted from one part of a computer to another. You can think of a bus as a highway on which data travels within a computer. The term bus usually refers to internal bus, when used in reference to personal computers. This is a bus that connects all the internal computer components to the CPU and main memory. There's also an expansion bus that enables expansion boards to access the CPU and memory.


     
    

    HDMI
    HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) is an interface standard used for audiovisual equipment such as high-definition television and home theater systems. HDMI is able to carry a bandwidth of 5 Gbps (gigabits per second) with 19 wires wrapped in a single cable that resembles a USB wire. This is more than twice the bandwidth needed to transmit multi-channel audio and video, future-proofing HDMI for some time to come. This and several other factors make HDMI® much more desirable than its predecessors, component video, S-Video and composite video.



     

    Cache memory
    It is an extremely fast memory that is built into a computer’s central processing unit (CPU), or located next to it on a separate chip. Cache memory is used in the PC to store instructions that are repeatedly required to run programs, improving overall system speed. The advantage is that the CPU does not have to use the motherboard’s system bus for data transfer. The data transfer speed slows to the motherboard’s capability, whenever data must be passed through the system bus. By avoiding the bottleneck created by the system bus,  the CPU can process data much faster .

    Specialised Application Software

    Tuesday, December 21, 2010

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    Audio Editing Software

    It refers to any program that is capable of modifying an audio clip. It differs from sound modification software as it is used to modify a sound after it has been recorded rather than during the recording. It can be used for both personal and professional use to reduce background noise, increase sound quality, and removed unwanted audio clips.



    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.



    HTML Editor

    It is a software application for creating web pages. Specialized HTML editors can offer convenience and added functionality, although the HTML markup of a web page can be written with any text editor. For instance, many HTML editors work not only with HTML, but also with related technologies such as CSS, XML and JavaScript or ECMAScript.


    Multimedia

    It is the use of computers to present text, graphics, video, animation, and sound in an integrated way. Long regarded as the future revolution in computing, multimedia applications were, until the mid-90s, uncommon due to the expensive hardware required. Multimedia is now commonplace although with increases in performance and decreases in price. Even though the resolution available depends on the power of the computer's video adapter and CPU, nearly all PCs are capable of displaying video.



    Vector Image

    A collection of individual objects rather than picture elements is called a vector image. It can be composed of points connected by lines, or nodes (control points) connected by Bezier curves.



    Web Authoring

    A category of software that enables the user to develop a Web site in a desktop publishing format. It will generate the required HTML coding for the layout of the Web pages based on what the user designs. Usually, the user can toggle back and forth between the graphical design and the HTML code and make changes to the Web page in either the design of the accompanying code.

    Basic Application Software

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    Graphical User Interface (GUI)

    Abbreviated GUI (pronounced GOO-ee). GUI is a program interface that takes advantage of the computer's graphics capabilities to make the program easier to use. It frees the user from learning complex command languages because of the well-designed graphical user interfaces. On the other hand, especially if they already know the command language, many users find that they work more effectively with a command-driven interface.
    


    Word Processor

    It is more formally known as a document preparation system. Word processor is a computer application used for the production (including composition, editing, formatting, and possibly printing) of any sort of viewable or printed material. They are descended from early text formatting tools (sometimes called text justification tools, from their only real capability). It was one of the earliest applications for the personal computer in office productivity.



    Spreadsheet

    Spreadsheet applications are computer programs that let you create and manipulate spreadsheets electronically. Each value sits in a cell in a spreadsheet application. You can define what type of data is in each cell and how different cells depend on one another. The names of the cells are called labels and the relationships between cells are called formulas.



    Database Management System (DBMS)

    System for quick search and retrieval of information from a database. It determines how data are stored and retrieved. Problems such as security, accuracy, consistency among different records, response time, and memory requirements must be addressed. Efficient database management requires ever-higher processing speeds. Datas which are organized into a series of tables ("relations") that are easily reorganized for accessing data in different ways are relational DBMSs. They are most widely used today.



    Utility Suites

    It is a collection of different tools all packaged into one easy to use tool that optimize you computer. Not all utilities though do the same thing nor have the same functions so your choices must reflect what you need in a utility package.

    The Internet and The Web

    Tuesday, December 14, 2010

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    FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

    It is an internet protocol that allows a computer to send files to or receive files from another computer. FTP works by means of a client-server architecture; the user runs client software to connect to a server on the Internet, like many internet resources. A program which allows the user to download and upload files on the FTP server is called a daemon . FTP was one of the most popular methods of exchanging information over the Internet before the World Wide Web was introduced and many Web sites still use it to disseminate their larger files.


    Plug-ins

    Plug-ins are set of software components that adds specific capabilities to a larger software application. Plug-ins enable customizing the functionality of an application, if supported. They are commonly used in web browsers to play video, scan for viruses, and display new file types. Adobe Flash Player and QuickTime are examples of well-known plug-ins.

    


    Filters

    A filter is a program that accepts a certain type of data as input, transforms it in some manner, and then outputs the transformed data. For instance, a program that sorts names is a filter because it accepts the names in unsorted order, sorts them, and then outputs the sorted names. Filters are sometimes known as utilities that allow you to import or export data.

    


    Internet Security Suite

    Security Suite tries to warn you about all the nasty things that apparently infected your PC and is stealing your data. Or Windows might start recommending it out of blue because they can't handle these parasites on its own. And suddenly all your programs get infected too, including antivirus you had before. So be protective of your PC before it is too late!

    


    Wiki

    Wiki is a website designed to permit the development of information resources by creating hyperlinked webpages using software that accessed through a web browser. They are usually collaborative, unlike most blogs, and may be found in a wide range of settings. The best known wiki is the online Wikipedia.

     


    Javascripts

    Javascript is a popular scripting language in Web browsers and other Web tools that is widely supported. Since HTML is a display language, it adds interactive functions to HTML pages, which are otherwise static. JavaScript is not as powerful and deals mainly with the elements on the Web page but it is easier to use than Java. On the client, JavaScript is maintained as source code embedded into an HTML page. Meanwhile, it is compiled into bytecode (intermediate language), similar to Java programs on the server.


    Applets

    It 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. The applet's code is transferred to your system and executed by the browser's Java Virtual Machine (JVM) when you use a Java technology-enabled browser to view a page that contains an applet .

     


    HTML

    HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the document format used on the Web. Web pages are built with codes embedded in the text, which are HTML tags. The page layout, fonts and hypertext links to other documents on the Web are defined by the tags. Each link contains the URL (the address) of a Web page residing on the same server or any server worldwide, hence "World Wide Web." The graphic elements used on the page are also defined by the HTML, which are separate files on a local or remote server.



    URL

    URL is an address of a resource on the Internet. It can be any type of file stored on a server, such as a Web page, a text file, a graphics file, or an application program. It contains three elements: the type of protocol used to access the file (e.g., HTTP for a Web page, ftp for an FTP site); the domain name or IP address of the server where the file resides; and, optionally, the pathname to the file (i.e., description of the file's location). For example, the URL http://www.venezia.com/flower instructs the browser to use the HTTP protocol, go to the http://www.venezia.com/ Web server, and access the file named flower.


    Careers In IT

    Thursday, December 9, 2010

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    Webmaster

    A person whose occupation is designing, developing, marketing, or maintaining websites is called a webmaster. He is responsible for the implementation of a Web site and must be proficient in HTML as well as one or more scripting and interface languages such as JavaScript and Perl.


    piem webmaster



    Computer Support Specialist

    Helping people use computers is a computer support specialist main job. When something goes wrong, support specialists figure out why and then would try to fix it. They are responsible for providing technical assistance and many forms of computer-related support to a wide variety of potential customers, clients, and employers.




    Technical Writer

    Tecnical writers are responsible for writing hardware and software documentation, online help, technical definitions and technical product descriptions on Web sites. More often than not, the technical writer is given the task of documenting an application at the last minute, allowing very little time for a thorough understanding of all the options. Needless to say, this leaves very little time as well for others to read and edit the material before it is published.




    Software Engineer

    A software engineer is a person who designs and programs system-level software, such as operating systems, database management systems (DBMSs) and embedded systems. They create commercial software packages, regardless of system level or application level. "Software engineer," "systems programmer" and "systems engineer" titles are often similar.





    Network Administrator

    A network administrator manages a local area communications network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN) for an organization. Their 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. Ensuring that it is up and running all the time is without doubt the main job of a network administrator.





    Data Administrator

    A data administrator coordinates activities within the data administration department. A data administrator is also called a "database analyst."




    Systems Analyst

    A systems analyst's job is to be responsible for the development of an information system. He or she designs and modifies systems by turning user requirements into a set of functional specifications, which are the blueprint of the system. If data administrators are available, they design the database or help design it. The manual and machine procedures and the detailed processing specifications are developed for each data entry, update, query and report program in the system.





    Programmer

    A programmer writes applications in a computer language. The programmer (not the machine) is usually the person who should be held responsible for satisfactory and efficient solution of the problem.