Category: Management Notes

Input device enables the user to send data, information, or control signals to a computer. The Central Processing Unit (CPU) of a computer receives the input and processes it to produce the output.

Input Devices are:

• Keyboard
• Mouse
• Light Pen
• Touch Screen
• Scanner
• Joystick
• Microphone
• Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR)
• Optical Character Reader (OCR)

1. Keyboard

The keyboard is a basic input device that is used to enter data into a computer or any other electronic device by pressing keys. It has different sets of keys for letters, numbers, characters, and functions. Keyboards are connected to a computer through USB or a Bluetooth device for wireless communication.

Types of keyboards: There can be different types of keyboards based on the region and language used. Some of the common types of keyboards are as follows:

(i) QWERTY Keyboard

It is the most commonly used keyboard with computers in modern times. It is named after the first six letters of the top row of buttons and is even popular in countries that do not use Latin-based alphabet. It is so popular that some people think that it is the only type of keyboard to use with computers as an input device.

(ii) AZERTY Keyboard

It is considered the standard French keyboard. It is developed in France as an alternative layout to the QWERTY layout and is mainly used in France and other European countries. Some countries have manufactured their own versions of AZERTY.

Its name is derived from the first six letters that appear on the top left row of the keyboard. The Q and W keys in AZERTY keyboard are interchanged with A and Z keys in QWERTY keyboard. Furthermore, in AZERTY keyboard M key is located to the left of the L key.

AZERTY keyboard differs from QWERTY keyboard not only in the placement of letters but also in many other ways, e.g., it gives emphasis on accents, which is required for writing European languages like French.

(iii) DVORAK Keyboard

This type of keyboard layout was developed to increase the typing speed by reducing the finger movement while typing. The most frequently used letters are kept in a home row to improve typing.

2. Mouse

The mouse is a hand-held input device which is used to move cursor or pointer across the screen. It is designed to be used on a flat surface and generally has left and right button and a scroll wheel between them. Laptop computers come with a touchpad that works as a mouse. It lets you control the movement of cursor or pointer by moving your finger over the touchpad. Some mouse comes with integrated features such as extra buttons to perform different buttons.

The mouse was invented by Douglas C. Engelbart in 1963. Early mouse had a roller ball integrated as a movement sensor underneath the device. Modern mouse devices come with optical technology that controls cursor movements by a visible or invisible light beam. A mouse is connected to a computer through different ports depending on the type of computer and type of a mouse.

Common types of the mouse:-

(i) Trackball Mouse

It is a stationary input device that has ball mechanism to move the pointer or cursor on the screen. The ball is half inserted in the device and can be easily rolled with finger, thumb or the palm to move the pointer on the screen. The device has sensor to detect the rotation of ball. It remains stationary; you don’t need to move it on the operating surface. So, it is an ideal device if you have limited desk space as you don’t need to move it like a mouse.

(ii) Mechanical Mouse

It has a system of a ball and several rollers to track its movement. It is a corded type of mouse. A mechanical mouse can be used for high performance. The drawback is that they tend to get dust into the mechanics and thus require regular cleaning.

(iii) Optical Mouse

An optical mouse uses optical electronics to track its movement. It is more reliable than a mechanical mouse and also requires less maintenance. However, its performance is affected by the surface on which it is operated. Plain non-glossy mouse mat should be used for best results. The rough surface may cause problems for the optical recognition system, and the glossy surface may reflect the light wrongly and thus may cause tracking issues.

(iv) Cordless or Wireless Mouse

As the name suggests, this type of mouse lacks cable and uses wireless technology such as IrDA (infrared) or radio (Bluetooth or Wi-Fi) to control the movement of the cursor. It is used to improve the experience of using a mouse. It uses batteries for its power supply.

3. Light Pen

A light pen is a computer input device that looks like a pen. The tip of the light pen contains a light-sensitive detector that enables the user to point to or select objects on the display screen. Its light sensitive tip detects the object location and sends the corresponding signals to the CPU. It is not compatible with LCD screens, so it is not in use today. It also helps you draw on the screen if needed. The first light pen was invented around 1955 as a part of the Whirlwind project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

4. Touch Screen

A touch screen is a computer display screen that serves as an input device. When a touch screen is touched by a finger or stylus, it registers the event and sends it to a controller for processing.

A touch screen may contain pictures or words that the user can touch to interact with the device.

• Scanner
• Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR)
• Optical Character Reader (OCR)
• Optical mark recognition (OMR)

1. Scanner

The scanner uses the pictures and pages of text as input. It scans the picture or a document. The scanned picture or document then converted into a digital format or file and is displayed on the screen as an output. It uses optical character recognition techniques to convert images into digital ones. Some of the common types of scanners are as follows:

Types of Scanner:

(i) Flatbed Scanner

It has a glass pane and a moving optical CIS or CCD array. The light illuminates the pane, and then the image is placed on the glass pane. The light moves across the glass pane and scans the document and thus produces its digital copy. You will need a transparency adapter while scanning transparent slides.

(ii) Handheld Scanner

It is a small manual scanning device which is held by hand and is rolled over a flat image that is to be scanned. The drawback in using this device is that the hand should be steady while scanning; otherwise, it may distort the image. One of the commonly used handheld scanners is the barcode scanner which you would have seen in shopping stores.

(iii) Sheetfed Scanner

In this scanner, the document is inserted into the slot provided in the scanner. The main components of this scanner include the sheet-feeder, scanning module, and calibration sheet. The light does not move in this scanner. Instead, the document moves through the scanner. It is suitable for scanning single page documents, not for thick objects like books, magazines, etc.

(iv) Drum Scanner

Drum scanner has a photomultiplier tube (PMT) to scan images. It does not have a charge-coupled device like a flatbed scanner. The photomultiplier tube is extremely sensitive to light. The image is placed on a glass tube, and the light moves across the image, which produces a reflection of the image which is captured by the PMT and processed. These scanners have high resolution and are suitable for detailed scans.

(v) Photo Scanner

It is designed to scan photographs. It has high resolution and color depth, which are required for scanning photographs. Some photo scanners come with in-built software for cleaning and restoring old photographs.

2. Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR)

MICR computer input device is designed to read the text printed with magnetic ink. MICR is a character recognition technology that makes use of special magnetized ink which is sensitive to magnetic fields. It is widely used in banks to process the cheques and other organizations where security is a major concern. It can process three hundred cheques in a minute with hundred-percent accuracy. The details on the bottom of the cheque (MICR No.) are written with magnetic ink. A laser printer with MICR toner can be used to print the magnetic ink.

The device reads the details and sends to a computer for processing. A document printed in magnetic ink is required to pass through a machine which magnetizes the ink, and the magnetic information is then translated into characters.

3. Optical Character Reader (OCR)

OCR computer input device is designed to convert the scanned images of handwritten, typed or printed text into digital text. It is widely used in offices and libraries to convert documents and books into electronic files.

It processes and copies the physical form of a document using a scanner. After copying the documents, the OCR software converts the documents into a two-color (black and white), version called bitmap. Then it is analyzed for light and dark areas, where the dark areas are selected as characters, and the light area is identified as background. It is widely used to convert hard copy legal or historic documents into PDFs. The converted documents can be edited if required like we edit documents created in ms word.

4. Optical mark recognition (OMR)

Optical mark reading or optical mark recognition, OMR is the process of gathering information from human beings by recognizing marks on a document. OMR is accomplished by using a hardware device (scanner) that detects a reflection or limited light transmittance on or through a piece of paper.

OMR allows for the processing of hundreds or thousands of documents per hour. For example, students may recall taking tests or surveys where they filled in bubbles on paper (shown right) with a pencil. Once the form had been completed, a teacher or teacher’s assistant would feed the cards into a system that grades or gathers information from them.

An output device is any device used to send data from a computer to another device or user. Most computer data output that is meant for humans is in the form of audio or video. Thus, most output devices used by humans are in these categories. Examples include monitors, projectors, speakers, headphones and printers.

Following are some of the important output devices used in a computer.

• Monitors
• Graphic Plotter
• Printer

Monitors

Monitors, commonly called as Visual Display Unit (VDU), are the main output device of a computer. It forms images from tiny dots, called pixels that are arranged in a rectangular form. The sharpness of the image depends upon the number of pixels.

There are two kinds of viewing screen used for monitors.

• Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT)
• Flat-Panel Display

(i) Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT) Monitor

The CRT display is made up of small picture elements called pixels. The smaller the pixels, the better the image clarity or resolution. It takes more than one illuminated pixel to form a whole character, such as the letter ‘e’ in the word help.

A finite number of characters can be displayed on a screen at once. The screen can be divided into a series of character boxes – fixed location on the screen where a standard character can be placed. Most screens are capable of displaying 80 characters of data horizontally and 25 lines vertically.

There are some disadvantages of CRT

• Large in Size
• High power consumption

(ii) Flat-Panel Display Monitor

The flat-panel display refers to a class of video devices that have reduced volume, weight and power requirement in comparison to the CRT. You can hang them on walls or wear them on your wrists. Current uses of flat-panel displays include calculators, video games, monitors, laptop computer, and graphics display.

The flat-panel display is divided into two categories −

• Emissive Displays − Emissive displays are devices that convert electrical energy into light. For example, plasma panel and LED (Light-Emitting Diodes).
• Non-Emissive Displays − Non-emissive displays use optical effects to convert sunlight or light from some other source into graphics patterns. For example, LCD (Liquid-Crystal Device).

Printer

A printer is an external hardware output device that takes the electronic data stored on a computer or other device and generates a hard copy of it. For example, if you created a report on your computer, you could print several copies to hand out at a staff meeting. Printers are one of the most popular computer peripherals and are commonly used to print text and photos. The picture to the right is an example of an inkjet computer printer, the Lexmark Z605.

There are two types of printers:

• Impact Printers
• Non-Impact Printers

1. Impact Printers

Impact printers print the characters by striking them on the ribbon, which is then pressed on the paper.

Characteristics of Impact Printers are the following −

• Very low consumable costs
• Very noisy
• Useful for bulk printing due to low cost
• There is physical contact with the paper to produce an image

These printers are of two types −

(i) Character printers

(ii) Line printers

Character Printers

Character printers are the printers which print one character at a time.

These are further divided into two types:

(i) Dot Matrix Printer(DMP)

(ii) Daisy Wheel

Dot Matrix Printer

In the market, one of the most popular printers is Dot Matrix Printer. These printers are popular because of their ease of printing and economical price. Each character printed is in the form of pattern of dots and head consists of a Matrix of Pins of size (5*7, 7*9, 9*7 or 9*9) which come out to form a character which is why it is called Dot Matrix Printer.

Advantages

• Inexpensive
• Widely Used
• Other language characters can be printed

Disadvantages

• Slow Speed
• Poor Quality

Daisy Wheel

Head is lying on a wheel and pins corresponding to characters are like petals of Daisy (flower) which is why it is called Daisy Wheel Printer. These printers are generally used for word-processing in offices that require a few letters to be sent here and there with very nice quality.

Advantages

• More reliable than DMP
• Better quality
• Fonts of character can be easily changed

Disadvantages

• Slower than DMP
• Noisy
• More expensive than DMP

Line Printers

Line printers are the printers which print one line at a time.

These are of two types −

(i) Drum Printer

(ii) Chain Printer

Drum Printer

This printer is like a drum in shape hence it is called drum printer. The surface of the drum is divided into a number of tracks. Total tracks are equal to the size of the paper, i.e. for a paper width of 132 characters, drum will have 132 tracks. A character set is embossed on the track. Different character sets available in the market are 48 character set, 64 and 96 characters set. One rotation of drum prints one line. Drum printers are fast in speed and can print 300 to 2000 lines per minute.

Advantages

• Very high speed

Disadvantages

• Very expensive
• Characters fonts cannot be changed

Chain Printer

In this printer, a chain of character sets is used, hence it is called Chain Printer. A standard character set may have 48, 64, or 96 characters.

Advantages

• Character fonts can easily be changed.
• Different languages can be used with the same printer.

Disadvantages

• Noisy

2. Non-impact Printers

Non-impact printers print the characters without using the ribbon. These printers print a complete page at a time, thus they are also called as Page Printers.

These printers are of two types −

(i) Laser Printers

(ii) Inkjet Printers

Characteristics of Non-impact Printers

• Faster than impact printers
• They are not noisy
• High quality
• Supports many fonts and different character size

Laser Printers

These are non-impact page printers. They use laser lights to produce the dots needed to form the characters to be printed on a page.

Advantages

• Very high speed
• Very high quality output
• Good graphics quality
• Supports many fonts and different character size

Disadvantages

• Expensive
• Cannot be used to produce multiple copies of a document in a single printing

Inkjet Printers

Inkjet printers are non-impact character printers based on a relatively new technology. They print characters by spraying small drops of ink onto paper. Inkjet printers produce high quality output with presentable features.

They make less noise because no hammering is done and these have many styles of printing modes available. Color printing is also possible. Some models of Inkjet printers can produce multiple copies of printing also.

Advantages

• High quality printing
• More reliable

Disadvantages

• Expensive as the cost per page is high
• Slow as compared to laser printer

3. Plotter

A plotter is a computer hardware device much like a printer that is used for printing vector graphics. Instead of toner, plotters use a pen, pencil, marker, or another writing tool to draw multiple, continuous lines onto paper rather than a series of dots like a traditional printer. Though once widely used for computer-aided design, these devices have more or less been phased out by wide-format printers. Plotters are used to produce a hard copy of schematics and other similar applications.

Advantages of plotters

• Plotters can work on very large sheets of paper while maintaining high resolution.
• They can print on a wide variety of flat materials including plywood, aluminum, sheet steel, cardboard, and plastic.
• Plotters allow the same pattern to be drawn thousands of times without any image degradation.

Disadvantages of plotters

• Plotters are quite large when compared to a traditional printer.
• Plotters are also much more expensive than a traditional printer.

A diskette drive is a term used to describe a floppy disk drive. Commonly the A: or B: drive on IBM compatible computers; this drive allows users to read and write information to floppy disk drives.

A diskette is a random access, removable data storage medium that can be used with personal computers. The term usually refers to the magnetic medium housed in a rigid plastic cartridge measuring 3.5 inches square and about 2millimeters thick. Also called a “3.5-inch diskette,” it can store up to 1.44 megabytes (MB) of data. Although many personal computers today come with a 3.5-inch diskette drive pre-installed, some notebook computers and centrally-administered desktop computers omit them.

Some older computers provide drives for magnetic diskettes that are 5.25 inches square, about 1 millimeter thick, and capable of holding 1.2 megabytes of data. These were sometimes called “floppy disks” or “floppies” because their housings are flexible. In recent years, 5.25-inch diskettes have been largely replaced by 3.5-inch diskettes, which are physically more rugged. Many people also call the newer hard-cased diskette a “floppy.”

Magnetic diskettes are convenient for storing individual files and small programs. However, the magneto-optical (MO) disk is more popular for mass storage, backup, and archiving. An MO diskette is only a little larger, physically, than a conventional 3.5-inch magnetic diskette. But because of the sophisticated read/write technology, the MO diskette can store many times more data.

Types of Diskettes

There are dozens of types of diskettes commercially available. If one were to cite a single properly, however, that most distinguishes one of these products from another, that property would likely be size.

Diskettes are widely available in three sizes (diameters)- 3.5 inches, 5.25 inches, and 8 inches. Historically, the 8-inch diskettes came along first, then respectively, their 5.25 inch and 3.5 inch counterparts.

The 8 inch and 5.25 inch diskettes are encased in flexible, plastic-coated cardboard jack­ets, whereas the 3.5 inch diskettes are contained in rugged plastic cases that can fit into a shirt pocket.

Eight-inch diskettes are more commonly used with small minicomputers and 5.25 inch and 3.5 inch sizes with micro­computer systems. Strange as it may seem, 3.5 inch diskettes can store more data than 5.25 inch ones.

Despite their small size, diskettes can store a respectable amount of data. Common capacities are 360 kilobytes for 5.25 inch diskettes and 720 kilo­bytes, 800 kilobytes, or 1.44 megabytes for 3.5 inch diskettes.

A 360 kilo­byte diskette can store over 100 typewritten pages of information; thus, 3.5 inch diskettes can store about 400 pages. Mega floppies- diskettes that can carry 2, 4, or 10 megabytes of data- are also available, although not com­monly found in practice.

It is highly possible that the next generation of microcomputers will use a mega floppy format.

To protect data, diskettes also contain a write-protect notch or square. This prevents the user from accidentally writing on the disk. Covering the notch on 5.25 inch diskettes makes it impossible to write on the surface.

The convention on 3.5 inch and 8 inch diskettes is the opposite: Exposing the notch or square makes writing impossible.

Disk Density

Disk density is a capacity designation on magnetic storage, usually floppy disks. Each designation describes a set of characteristics that can affect the areal density of a disk or the efficiency of the encoded data. Such characteristics include modulation method, track width, coercivity, and magnetic field direction.

High Density Disk

A high-quality floppy disk capable of holding more data than a double-density disk. High-density 5¼-inch disks for PCs can hold 1.2-MB (megabytes) of data. High-density 3½-inch disks can store 1.44MB.

Formatting Boot Record FAT Folder Directory

A FAT file system is a specific type of computer file system architecture and a family of industry-standard file systems utilizing it.

The FAT file system is a legacy file system which is simple and robust. It offers good performance even in very light-weight implementations, but cannot deliver the same performance, reliability and scalability as some modern file systems. It is, however, supported for compatibility reasons by nearly all currently developed operating systems for personal computers and many home computers, mobile devices and embedded systems, and thus is a well suited format for data exchange between computers and devices of almost any type and age from 1981 through the present.

Originally designed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, FAT was soon adapted and used almost universally on hard disks throughout the DOS and Windows 9x eras for two decades. Today, FAT file systems are still commonly found on floppy disks, USB sticks, flash and other solid-state memory cards and modules, and many portable and embedded devices. DCF implements FAT as the standard file system for digital cameras since 1998. FAT is also utilized for the EFI system partition (partition type 0xEF) in the boot stage of EFI-compliant computers.

For floppy disks, FAT has been standardized as ECMA-107 and ISO/IEC 9293:1994 (superseding ISO 9293:1987). These standards cover FAT12 and FAT16 with only short 8.3 filename support; long filenames with VFAT are partially patented. According to Google Patents the “Common name space for long and short filenames”(US5758352A) status was expired in 2019, which may mean that patents expired completely.

Hard Disk Drive

A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that uses magnetic storage to store and retrieve digital data using one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnetic material. The platters are paired with magnetic heads, usually arranged on a moving actuator arm, which read and write data to the platter surfaces. Data is accessed in a random-access manner, meaning that individual blocks of data can be stored and retrieved in any order. HDDs are a type of non-volatile storage, retaining stored data even when powered off.

Introduced by IBM in 1956, HDDs were the dominant secondary storage device for general-purpose computers beginning in the early 1960s. HDDs maintained this position into the modern era of servers and personal computers, though personal computing devices produced in large volume, like cell phones and tablets, rely on flash products. More than 224 companies have produced HDDs historically, though after extensive industry consolidation most units are manufactured by Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital. HDDs dominate the volume of storage produced (exabytes per year) for servers. Though production is growing slowly, sales revenues and unit shipments are declining because solid-state drives (SSDs) have higher data-transfer rates, higher areal storage density, better reliability, and much lower latency and access times.

The revenues for SSDs, most of which use NAND, slightly exceed those for HDDs. Flash storage products had more than twice the revenue of hard disk drives as of 2017. Though SSDs have four to nine times higher cost per bit, they are replacing HDDs in applications where speed, power consumption, small size, high capacity and durability are important. Cost per bit for SSDs is falling, and the price premium over HDDs has narrowed.

The primary characteristics of an HDD are its capacity and performance. Capacity is specified in unit prefixes corresponding to powers of 1000: a 1-terabyte (TB) drive has a capacity of 1,000 gigabytes (GB; where 1 gigabyte = 1 billion bytes). Typically, some of an HDD’s capacity is unavailable to the user because it is used by the file system and the computer operating system, and possibly inbuilt redundancy for error correction and recovery. Also there is confusion regarding storage capacity, since capacities are stated in decimal Gigabytes (powers of 10) by HDD manufacturers, whereas some operating systems report capacities in binary Gibibytes, which results in a smaller number than advertised. Performance is specified by the time required to move the heads to a track or cylinder (average access time) adding the time it takes for the desired sector to move under the head (average latency, which is a function of the physical rotational speed in revolutions per minute), and finally the speed at which the data is transmitted (data rate).

The two most common form factors for modern HDDs are 3.5-inch, for desktop computers, and 2.5-inch, primarily for laptops. HDDs are connected to systems by standard interface cables such as PATA (Parallel ATA), SATA (Serial ATA), USB or SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) cables.

CD Rom Drive

A CD-ROM (compact disc read-only memory) is a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write to or erase—CD-ROMs, i.e. it is a type of read-only memory.

During the 1990s, CD-ROMs were popularly used to distribute software and data for computers and fourth generation video game consoles. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both computer data and audio with the latter capable of being played on a CD player, while data (such as software or digital video) is only usable on a computer (such as ISO 9660 format PC CD-ROMs).

The CD-ROM format was developed by Japanese company Denon in 1982. It was an extension of Compact Disc Digital Audio, and adapted the format to hold any form of digital data, with a storage capacity of 553 MB. CD-ROM was then introduced by Denon and Sony at a Japanese computer show in 1984. The Yellow Book is the technical standard that defines the format of CD-ROMs. One of a set of color-bound books that contain the technical specifications for all CD formats, the Yellow Book, standardized by Sony and Philips in 1983, specifies a format for discs with a maximum capacity of 650 MB.

DVD Rom Drive

Digital versatile disc-read only memory (DVD-ROM) is a read-only digital versatile disc (DVD) commonly used for storing large software applications. It is similar to a compact disk-read only memory (CD-ROM) but has a larger capacity. A DVD-ROM stores around 4.38 GB of data. A CD-ROM usually stores 650 MB of data.

A DVD-ROM permanently stores data files which cannot be changed, written over or erased. A personal computer (PC) with a DVD-ROM or a DVD-RAM drive is designed to read a DVD-ROM disc. Generally a DVD-ROM disc is not equipped to be used with a DVD drive connected to a home theater system or television. But many DVD-ROM drives can generally read a DVD movie disc.

A DVD-ROM is one of the various types of DVDs. A blank DVD is generally a DVD-R or DVD+R, which has a read-write format. The +R or -R references the format standards and is a rewritable or recordable DVD.

Compared to a CD-ROM, a DVD-ROM has the same 5 inch diameter and 1.2 millimeter (mm) thickness. But because a DVD-ROM uses a shorter wavelength laser with tighter compacted pits, the disc capacity is increased. In fact, the smallest DVD-ROM can store approximately 7 times more data than a CD-ROM.

Tape Drive

A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and writes data on a magnetic tape. Magnetic tape data storage is typically used for offline, archival data storage. Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and a long archival stability.

A tape drive provides sequential access storage, unlike a hard disk drive, which provides direct access storage. A disk drive can move to any position on the disk in a few milliseconds, but a tape drive must physically wind tape between reels to read any one particular piece of data. As a result, tape drives have very large average access times. However, tape drives can stream data very quickly off a tape when the required position has been reached. For example, as of 2010 Linear Tape-Open (LTO) supported continuous data transfer rates of up to 140 MB/s, a rate comparable to hard disk drives.

Software is a collection of instructions that enable the user to interact with a computer, its hardware, or perform tasks. Without software, most computers would be useless. For example, without your Internet browser software, you could not surf the Internet or read this page. Without an operating system, the browser could not run on your computer. The picture shows a Microsoft Excel box, an example of a spreadsheet software program.

Computer software, or simply software, is a collection of data or computer instructions that tell the computer how to work. This is in contrast to physical hardware, from which the system is built and actually performs the work. In computer science and software engineering, computer software is all information processed by computer systems, programs and data. Computer software includes computer programs, libraries and related non-executable data, such as online documentation or digital media. Computer hardware and software require each other and neither can be realistically used on its own.

The majority of software is written in high-level programming languages. They are easier and more efficient for programmers because they are closer to natural languages than machine languages. High-level languages are translated into machine language using a compiler or an interpreter or a combination of the two. Software may also be written in a low-level assembly language, which has strong correspondence to the computer’s machine language instructions and is translated into machine language using an assembler.

Introduction to Programming Languages

A programming language is a formal language, which comprises a set of instructions that produce various kinds of output. Programming languages are used in computer programming to implement algorithms.

Most programming languages consist of instructions for computers. There are programmable machines that use a set of specific instructions, rather than general programming languages. Early ones preceded the invention of the digital computer, the first probably being the automatic flute player described in the 9th century by the brothers Musa in Baghdad, during the Islamic Golden Age. Since the early 1800s, programs have been used to direct the behavior of machines such as Jacquard looms, music boxes and player pianos. The programs for these machines (such as a player piano’s scrolls) did not produce different behavior in response to different inputs or conditions.

Thousands of different programming languages have been created, and more are being created every year. Many programming languages are written in an imperative form (i.e., as a sequence of operations to perform) while other languages use the declarative form (i.e. the desired result is specified, not how to achieve it).

The description of a programming language is usually split into the two components of syntax (form) and semantics (meaning). Some languages are defined by a specification document (for example, the C programming language is specified by an ISO Standard) while other languages (such as Perl) have a dominant implementation that is treated as a reference. Some languages have both, with the basic language defined by a standard and extensions taken from the dominant implementation being common.

System Software

System software is software designed to provide a platform for other software. Examples of system software include operating systems like macOS, GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows, computational science software, game engines, industrial automation, and software as a service applications.

In contrast to system software, software that allows users to do user-oriented tasks such as create text documents, play games, listen to music, or browse the web are collectively referred to as application software.

In the early days of computing most application software was custom-written by computer users to fit their specific hardware and requirements. In contrast, system software was usually supplied by the manufacturer of the computer hardware and was intended to be used by most or all users of that system.

The line where the distinction should be drawn is not always clear. Many operating systems bundle application software. Such software is not considered system software when it can be uninstalled usually without affecting the functioning of other software. Exceptions could be e.g. web browsers such as Internet Explorer where Microsoft argued in court that it was system software that could not be uninstalled. Later examples are Chrome OS and Firefox OS where the browser functions as the only user interface and the only way to run programs (and other web browsers can not be installed in their place), then they can well be argued to be the operating system and hence system software.

Another borderline example is cloud-based software. This software provides services to a software client (usually a web browser or a JavaScript application running in the web browser), not to the user directly, and is therefore systems software. It is also developed using system programming methodologies and systems programming languages. Yet from the perspective of functionality there is little difference between a word processing application and word processing web application.

Operating System Utilities

We have seen that the fundamental purpose of the operating system is to manage the various system resources. We have also examined the human computer interface which allows us to interact with the operating system. There is, however, a significant body of software that, while not strictly part of the operating system itself, cannot be described as application software. This software is often bundled with the operating system software, and comes under the general heading of utility software.

Utility software can include file re-organization utilities, backup programs, and a whole range of communication services. Many of the utilities that are bundled with a particular operating system are installed by default, although a significant number are optional and must be explicitly selected for installation.

The number and type of utility program provided varies from one operating system to another, but common examples include facilities to partition and format hard drives and floppy disks, file encryption and compression utilities, and task scheduling programs. These utilities are often implemented as stand-alone programs and can be run by the user in much the same way as an application program. In many cases, there are a number of proprietary utility programs on the market that carry out the same tasks, but with additional value added features.

Utility Software

Utility software is software designed to help to analyze, configure, optimize or maintain a computer. It is used to support the computer infrastructure – in contrast to application software, which is aimed at directly performing tasks that benefit ordinary users. However, utilities often form part of application systems. For example a batch job may run user-written code to update a database and may then include a step that runs a utility to back up the database, or a job may run a utility to compress a disk before copying files.

Although a basic set of utility programs is usually distributed with an operating system (OS), and this first party utility software is often considered part of the operating system, users often install replacements or additional utilities. Those utilities may provide additional facilities to carry out tasks that are beyond the capabilities of the operating system.

Many utilities that might affect the entire computer system require the user to have elevated privileges, while others that operate only on the user’s data do not.

Application software is a program or group of programs designed for end users. These programs are divided into two classes: system software and application software. While system software consists of low-level programs that interact with computers at a basic level, application software resides above system software and includes applications such as database programs, word processors and spreadsheets. Application software may be bundled with system software or published alone.

Application software may simply be referred to as an application.

Different types of application software include:

1. Application Suite

Has multiple applications bundled together. Related functions, features and user interfaces interact with each other.

2. Enterprise Software

Addresses an organization’s needs and data flow in a huge distributed environment.

3. Enterprise Infrastructure Software

Provides capabilities required to support enterprise software systems.

4. Information Worker Software

Addresses individual needs required to manage and create information for individual projects within departments.

5. Content Access Software

Used to access content and addresses a desire for published digital content and entertainment.

6. Educational Software

Provides content intended for use by students.

7. Media Development Software

Addresses individual needs to generate and print electronic media for others to consume.

Word Processor

A word processor is software or a device that allows users to create, edit, and print documents. It enables you to write text, store it electronically, display it on a screen, modify it by entering commands and characters from the keyboard, and print it.

Of all computer applications, word processing is the most common. Today, most word processors are delivered either as a cloud service or as software that users can install on a PC or mobile device.

Standard Features of Word Processors

Word processors vary considerably, but all word processors, whether cloud-based or installed on a system, support the following basic features:

(i) Insert text: Allows you to insert text anywhere in the document.

(ii) Delete text: Allows you to erase characters, words, lines, or pages.

(iii) Cut and Paste: Allows you to remove (cut) a section of text from one place in a document and insert (paste) it somewhere else.

(iv) Copy: Allows you to duplicate a section of text.

(v) Page Size and Margins: Allows you to define various page sizes and margins, and the word processor will automatically readjust the text so that it fits.

(vi) Search and Replace: Allows you to direct the word processor to search for a particular word or phrase. You can also direct the word processor to replace one group of characters with another everywhere that the first group appears.

(vii) Word Wrap: Automatically moves to the next line when you have filled one line with text, and it will readjust text if you change the margins.

(viii) Print: Allows you to send a document to a printer to get hard copy.

(ix) File management: Provides file management capabilities that allow you to create, delete, move, and search for files.

(x) Font Specifications: Allows you to change fonts within a document. For example, you can specify bold, italics, and underlining. Most word processors also let you change the font size and even the typeface.

(xi) Windows: Allows you to edit two or more documents at the same time. Each document appears in a separate window. This is particularly valuable when working on a large project that consists of several different files.

(xii) Spell Checking: Identifies words that don’t appear in a standard dictionary.

Spreadsheet

A spreadsheet or worksheet is a file made of rows and columns that help sort data, arrange data easily, and calculate numerical data. What makes a spreadsheet software program unique is its ability to calculate values using mathematical formulas and the data in cells. A good example of how a spreadsheet may be utilized is creating an overview of your bank’s balance.

A spreadsheet is a computer application for organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in cells of a table. Each cell may contain either numeric or text data, or the results of formulas that automatically calculate and display a value based on the contents of other cells. A spreadsheet may also refer to one such electronic document.

Spreadsheet users can adjust any stored value and observe the effects on calculated values. This makes the spreadsheet useful for “what-if” analysis since many cases can be rapidly investigated without manual recalculation. Modern spreadsheet software can have multiple interacting sheets, and can display data either as text and numerals, or in graphical form.

Besides performing basic arithmetic and mathematical functions, modern spreadsheets provide built-in functions for common financial and statistical operations. Such calculations as net present value or standard deviation can be applied to tabular data with a pre-programmed function in a formula. Spreadsheet programs also provide conditional expressions, functions to convert between text and numbers, and functions that operate on strings of text.

Spreadsheets have replaced paper-based systems throughout the business world. Although they were first developed for accounting or bookkeeping tasks, they now are used extensively in any context where tabular lists are built, sorted, and shared.

LANPAR, available in 1969, was the first electronic spreadsheet on mainframe and time sharing computers. LANPAR was an acronym: LANguage for Programming Arrays at Random. VisiCalc was the first electronic spreadsheet on a microcomputer, and it helped turn the Apple II computer into a popular and widely used system. Lotus 1-2-3 was the leading spreadsheet when DOS was the dominant operating system. Excel now has the largest market share on the Windows and Macintosh platforms. A spreadsheet program is a standard feature of an office productivity suite; since the advent of web apps, office suites now also exist in web app form. Web based spreadsheets are a relatively new category.

DBMS

A database management system (DBMS) is a software package designed to define, manipulate, retrieve and manage data in a database. A DBMS generally manipulates the data itself, the data format, field names, record structure and file structure. It also defines rules to validate and manipulate this data.

A DBMS relieves users of framing programs for data maintenance. Fourth-generation query languages, such as SQL, are used along with the DBMS package to interact with a database.

Some other DBMS examples include:

• MySQL
• SQL Server
• Oracle
• dBASE
• FoxPro

A database management system receives instruction from a database administrator (DBA) and accordingly instructs the system to make the necessary changes. These commands can be to load, retrieve or modify existing data from the system.

A DBMS always provides data independence. Any change in storage mechanism and formats are performed without modifying the entire application. There are four main types of database organization:

(i) Relational Database

Data is organized as logically independent tables. Relationships among tables are shown through shared data. The data in one table may reference similar data in other tables, which maintains the integrity of the links among them. This feature is referred to as referential integrity – an important concept in a relational database system. Operations such as “select” and “join” can be performed on these tables. This is the most widely used system of database organization.

(ii) Flat Database

Data is organized in a single kind of record with a fixed number of fields. This database type encounters more errors due to the repetitive nature of data.

(iii) Object-Oriented Database

Data is organized with similarity to object-oriented programming concepts. An object consists of data and methods, while classes group objects having similar data and methods.

(iv) Hierarchical Database

Data is organized with hierarchical relationships. It becomes a complex network if the one-to-many relationship is violated.

Presentation Graphics

Presentation graphics is any graphic used during a presentation in place of data. A good example is a graphic of a chart, rather than the actual data it represents.

Business graphics, charts and diagrams used in a presentation. Presentation graphics software provides predefined backgrounds and sample page layouts to assist in the creation of computer-driven slide shows, which, in combination with a data projector, made the 35mm slide presentation obsolete. Navigation from page to page (slide to slide) can be done manually or automatically every so many seconds. The most popular presentation software is Microsoft PowerPoint (see PowerPoint). Frames and Transitions The format is a series of horizontal frames (slides) with transitions between them. Images, text, audio and video are laid out on the frames, and speaker’s notes can be added. Like any page layout program, elements on a frame can be moved around and resized.

Web Browser

 A web browser (commonly referred to as a browser) is a software application for accessing information on the World Wide Web. When a user requests a particular website, the web browser retrieves the necessary content from a web server and then displays the resulting web page on the user’s device.

A web browser is not the same thing as a search engine, though the two are often confused. For a user, a search engine is just a website, such as Google Search, Bing, or DuckDuckGo, that stores searchable data about other websites. However, to connect to a website’s server and display its web pages, a user must have a web browser installed.

Web browsers are used on a range of devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. In 2019, an estimated 4.3 billion people used a browser. The most used browser is Google Chrome, with a 64% global market share on all devices, followed by Safari with 17%.

Personal information management (PIM)

Personal information management (PIM) is the activities people perform in order to acquire, organize, maintain, retrieve, and use personal information items such as documents (paper-based and digital), web pages, and email messages for everyday use to complete tasks (work-related or not) and fulfill a person’s various roles (as parent, employee, friend, member of community, etc.). More simply, PIM is the art of getting things done in our lives through information.

Practically, PIM is concerned with how people organize and maintain personal information collections, and methods that can help people in doing so. People may manage information in a variety of settings, for a variety of reasons, and with a variety of types of information. For example, an office worker might manage physical documents in a filing cabinet by placing them in folders organized alphabetically by project name, or might manage digital documents in folders in a hierarchical file system. A parent might collect and organize photographs of their children into a photo album using a temporal organization scheme, or might tag digital photos with the names of the children.

PIM considers not only the methods used to store and organize information, but also is concerned with how people retrieve information from their collections for re-use. For example, the office worker might re-locate a physical document by remembering the name of the project and then finding the appropriate folder by an alphabetical search. On a computer system with a hierarchical file system, a person might need to remember the top-level folder in which a document is located, and then browse through the folder contents to navigate to the desired document. Email systems often support additional methods for re-finding such as fielded search (e.g., search by sender, subject, date). The characteristics of the document types, the data that can be used to describe them (meta-data), and features of the systems used to store and organize them (e.g. fielded search) are all components that may influence how users accomplish personal information management.

Studying, understanding, and practicing PIM can help individuals and organizations work more effectively and efficiently, can help people deal with “information overload”, and can highlight useful strategies for archiving, organizing, and facilitating access to saved information.

Rashumon was a multilingual graphical word processor developed for the Amiga computer by an Israel-based company called HarmonySoft (founded by Michael Haephrati in 1989) and was sold until after the demise of Commodore in 1994 (a lower-priced “student” version was released in 1995). Rashumon had particular support for Hebrew, Arabic and Russian as well as English, and it could send its text to speech synthesis in English.

Rashumon was the only word processor for the Amiga having the ability to create and edit multilingual documents Rashumon printed using Type 1 PostScript fonts and it also supported Intellifont.

Notable Features

• Discontinuous selections: the user can select multiple parts of the text – even if these parts are separated from each other – and perform clipboard manipulations on them (e.g. selecting the first paragraph and the last paragraph of a document at the same time, and copying both of them to the clipboard).
• A Table generator, allowing the creation and editing of tables.
• Multiple key map support, up to 5 simultaneously, allowing for the use of multiple languages simultaneously.
• Search and replace including color, style and font filters. For example, end users could search for the word “Apple” only in green (ignoring this word in other colors) and replace each occurrence with the word “Banana” in yellow.
• Multilingual string gadgets (the Amiga equivalent to text boxes) for creating and renaming files, drawers, etc.
• Import and export multilingual ASCII files to and from PC and Macintosh.
• Fast screen updating and scrolling.
• Interchange File Format (IFF) graphics support (import and export).
• Direct access to 255 characters of each font, similar to inserting “symbols” or “special characters” in modern wordprocessors.

Data Communication System

Data communication refers to the exchange of data between a source and a receiver via form of transmission media such as a wire cable. Data communication is said to be local if communicating devices are in the same building or a similarly restricted geographical area.

The meanings of source and receiver are very simple. The device that transmits the data is known as source and the device that receives the transmitted data is known as receiver. Data communication aims at the transfer of data and maintenance of the data during the process but not the actual generation of the information at the source and receiver.

Datum mean the facts information statistics or the like derived by calculation or experimentation. The facts and information so gathered are processed in accordance with defined systems of procedure. Data can exist in a variety of forms such as numbers, text, bits and bytes. The Figure is an illustration of a simple data communication system.

The term data used to describe information, under whatever form of words you will be using.

A data communication system may collect data from remote locations through data transmission circuits, and then outputs processed results to remote locations. Figure provides a broader view of data communication networks. The different data communication techniques which are presently in widespread use evolved gradually either to improve the data communication techniques already existing or to replace the same with better options and features. Then, there are data communication jargons to contend with such as baud rate, modems, routers, LAN, WAN, TCP/IP, ISDN, during the selection of communication systems. Hence, it becomes necessary to review and understand these terms and gradual development of data communication methods.

Components of data communication system

A Communication system has following components:

1. Message

It is the information or data to be communicated. It can consist of text, numbers, pictures, sound or video or any combination of these.

2. Sender

It is the device/computer that generates and sends that message.

3. Receiver

It is the device or computer that receives the message. The location of receiver computer is generally different from the sender computer. The distance between sender and receiver depends upon the types of network used in between.

4. Medium

It is the channel or physical path through which the message is carried from sender to the receiver. The medium can be wired like twisted pair wire, coaxial cable, fiber-optic cable or wireless like laser, radio waves, and microwaves.

5. Protocol

It is a set of rules that govern the communication between the devices. Both sender and receiver follow same protocols to communicate with each other.

A protocol performs the following functions:

1. Data sequencing

It refers to breaking a long message into smaller packets of fixed size. Data sequencing rules define the method of numbering packets to detect loss or duplication of packets, and to correctly identify packets, which belong to same message.

2. Data routing

Data routing defines the most efficient path between the source and destination.

3. Data formatting

Data formatting rules define which group of bits or characters within packet constitute data, control, addressing, or other information.

4. Flow control

A communication protocol also prevents a fast sender from overwhelming a slow receiver. It ensures resource sharing and protection against traffic congestion by regulating the flow of data on communication lines.

5. Error control

These rules are designed to detect errors in messages and to ensure transmission of correct messages. The most common method is to retransmit erroneous message block. In such a case, a block having error is discarded by the receiver and is retransmitted by the sender.

6. Precedence and order of transmission

These rules ensure that all the nodes get a chance to use the communication lines and other resources of the network based on the priorities assigned to them.

7. Connection establishment and termination

These rules define how connections are established, maintained and terminated when two nodes of a network want to communicate with each other.

8. Data security

Providing data security and privacy is also built into most communication software packages. It prevents access of data by unauthorized users.

9. Log information

Several communication software are designed to develop log information, which consists of all jobs and data communications tasks that have taken place. Such information may be used for charging the users of the network based on their usage of the network resources.

Data transmission refers to the process of transferring data between two or more digital devices. Data is transmitted from one device to another in analog or digital format. Basically, data transmission enables devices or components within devices to speak to each other.

How does data transmission work between digital devices?

Data is transferred in the form of bits between two or more digital devices. There are two methods used to transmit data between digital devices: serial transmission and parallel transmission. Serial data transmission sends data bits one after another over a single channel. Parallel data transmission sends multiple data bits at the same time over multiple channels.

Serial transmission

When data is sent or received using serial data transmission, the data bits are organized in a specific order, since they can only be sent one after another. The order of the data bits is important as it dictates how the transmission is organized when it is received. It is viewed as a reliable data transmission method because a data bit is only sent if the previous data bit has already been received.

Example of Serial Data Transmission

Serial transmission has two classifications: asynchronous and synchronous.

1. Asynchronous Serial Transmission

Data bits can be sent at any point in time. Stop bits and start bits are used between data bytes to synchronize the transmitter and receiver and to ensure that the data is transmitted correctly. The time between sending and receiving data bits is not constant, so gaps are used to provide time between transmissions.

The advantage of using the asynchronous method is that no synchronization is required between the transmitter and receiver devices. It is also a more cost effective method. A disadvantage is that data transmission can be slower, but this is not always the case.

2. Synchronous Serial Transmission

Data bits are transmitted as a continuous stream in time with a master clock. The data transmitter and receiver both operate using a synchronized clock frequency; therefore, start bits, stop bits, and gaps are not used. This means that data moves faster and timing errors are less frequent because the transmitter and receiver time is synced. However, data accuracy is highly dependent on timing being synced correctly between devices. In comparison with asynchronous serial transmission, this method is usually more expensive.

When is serial transmission used to send data?

Serial transmission is normally used for long-distance data transfer. It is also used in cases where the amount of data being sent is relatively small. It ensures that data integrity is maintained as it transmits the data bits in a specific order, one after another. In this way, data bits are received in-sync with one another.

What is parallel transmission?

When data is sent using parallel data transmission, multiple data bits are transmitted over multiple channels at the same time. This means that data can be sent much faster than using serial transmission methods.

Example of Parallel Data Transmission

Given that multiple bits are sent over multiple channels at the same time, the order in which a bit string is received can depend on various conditions, such as proximity to the data source, user location, and bandwidth availability. Two examples of parallel interfaces can be seen below. In the first parallel interface, the data is sent and received in the correct order. In the second parallel interface, the data is sent in the correct order, but some bits were received faster than others.

Example of Parallel Transmission: Data Received Correctly.

Example of Parallel Transmission: Data Received Incorrectly.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Parallel Data Transmission

The main advantages of parallel transmission over serial transmission are:

• It is easier to program;
• Data is sent faster.

Although parallel transmission can transfer data faster, it requires more transmission channels than serial transmission. This means that data bits can be out of sync, depending on transfer distance and how fast each bit loads. A simple of example of where this can be seen is with a voice over IP (VOIP) call when distortion or interference is noticeable. It can also be seen when there is skipping or interference on a video stream.

When is parallel transmission used to send data?

Parallel transmission is used when:

• A large amount of data is being sent;
• The data being sent is time-sensitive;
• The data needs to be sent quickly.

A scenario where parallel transmission is used to send data is video streaming. When a video is streamed to a viewer, bits need to be received quickly to prevent a video pausing or buffering. Video streaming also requires the transmission of large volumes of data. The data being sent is also time-sensitive as slow data streams result in poor viewer experience.

E-Mail

Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages (“mail”) between people using electronic devices. Invented by Ray Tomlinson, email first entered limited use in the 1960s and by the mid-1970s had taken the form now recognized as email. Email operates across computer networks, which today is primarily the Internet. Some early email systems required the author and the recipient to both be online at the same time, in common with instant messaging. Today’s email systems are based on a store-and-forward model. Email servers accept, forward, deliver, and store messages. Neither the users nor their computers are required to be online simultaneously; they need to connect only briefly, typically to a mail server or a webmail interface for as long as it takes to send or receive messages or to download it.

Originally an ASCII text-only communications medium, Internet email was extended by Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) to carry text in other character sets and multimedia content attachments. International email, with internationalized email addresses using UTF-8, has been standardized, but as of 2017 it has not been widely adopted.

The history of modern Internet email services reaches back to the early ARPANET, with standards for encoding email messages published as early as 1973. An email message sent in the early 1970s looks very similar to a basic email sent today.

FAX

Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device. The original document is scanned with a fax machine (or a telecopier), which processes the contents (text or images) as a single fixed graphic image, converting it into a bitmap, and then transmitting it through the telephone system in the form of audio-frequency tones. The receiving fax machine interprets the tones and reconstructs the image, printing a paper copy. Early systems used direct conversions of image darkness to audio tone in a continuous or analog manner. Since the 1980s, most machines modulate the transmitted audio frequencies using a digital representation of the page which is compressed to quickly transmit areas which are all-white or all-black.

Fax in the 21st century

Although businesses usually maintain some kind of fax capability, the technology has faced increasing competition from Internet-based alternatives. In some countries, because electronic signatures on contracts are not yet recognized by law, while faxed contracts with copies of signatures are, fax machines enjoy continuing support in business. In Japan, faxes are still used extensively for cultural and graphemic reasons and are available for sending to both domestic and international recipients from over 81% of all convenience stores nationwide. Convenience-store fax machines commonly print the slightly re-sized content of the sent fax in the electronic confirmation-slip, in A4 paper size.

In many corporate environments, freestanding fax machines have been replaced by fax servers and other computerized systems capable of receiving and storing incoming faxes electronically, and then routing them to users on paper or via an email. Such systems have the advantage of reducing costs by eliminating unnecessary printouts and reducing the number of inbound analog phone lines needed by an office.

The once ubiquitous fax machine has also begun to disappear from the small office and home office environments. Remotely hosted fax-server services are widely available from VoIP and e-mail providers allowing users to send and receive faxes using their existing e-mail accounts without the need for any hardware or dedicated fax lines. Personal computers have also long been able to handle incoming and outgoing faxes using analog modems or ISDN, eliminating the need for a stand-alone fax machine. These solutions are often ideally suited for users who only very occasionally need to use fax services. In July 2017 the United Kingdom’s National Health Service was said to be the world’s largest purchaser of fax machines because the digital revolution has largely bypassed it. In June 2018 the Labour Party said that the NHS had at least 11,620 fax machines in operation and in December the Department of Health and Social Care said that no more fax machines could be bought from 2019 and that the existing ones must be replaced by secure email by 31 March 2020.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, generally viewed as digitally advanced in the NHS, was engaged in a process of removing its fax machines in early 2019. This involved quite a lot of e-fax solutions because of the need to communicate with pharmacies and nursing homes which may not have access to the NHS email system and may need something in their paper records.

In 2018 two-thirds of Canadian doctors reported that they primarily used fax machines to communicate with other doctors. Faxes are still seen as safer and more secure and electronic systems are often unable to communicate with each other.

Voice Message

A voice message is a message containing audio of a person’s voice. Voice itself could be ‘packaged’ and sent through the IP backbone so that it reaches its marked ‘address’. In a technical sense, the process of sending ‘voice packets’ is a semi passive way of communication. However, given the speed at which it could be delivered can make the communication sound seamless.

Video Message

Communicating visually with another person via computer. Video chat may refer to video calling or video messaging. For example, Facebook’s Skype and Apple’s FaceTime video calling services are sometimes called video chat. However, true video chat is more like text chat, whereby one party sends a message and waits for a reply. See chat, video calling, video instant messaging, videoconferencing and Glide.

Video Conferencing

Video conferencing is a technology that allows users in different locations to hold face-to-face meetings without having to move to a single location together. This technology is particularly convenient for business users in different cities or even different countries because it saves time, expense, and hassle associated with business travel. Uses for video conferencing include holding routine meetings, negotiating business deals, and interviewing job candidates.

How Video Conferencing Works?

Video conferencing’s main advantage over teleconferencing is that users can see each other, which allows them to develop stronger relationships. When a video conference is held for informal purposes, it is called a video call or video chat.

There are a variety of ways video conferencing can be conducted. Individuals may use web cameras connected to our built into laptop, tablet, or desktop computers. Smartphones equipped with cameras may also be used to connect for video conferences. In such instances, a software-based platform typically is used to transmit the communication over Internet protocols.

Some businesses use dedicated video conferencing rooms that have been equipped with high-grade cameras and screens to ensure the conversation is clear and with limited technical faults. Third-party providers often install and assemble the hardware needed to conduct the video conference.

Uses of Video Conferencing

Companies with multiple offices might establish direct video communications between their locations in order to allow their teams to work more collaboratively.

Video conferencing can also be used as a medium for conducting training, with the instructor teaching a remote class from almost anywhere. This can be done in a corporate context, especially for getting workers the knowledge they need to better perform their jobs. The academic world can also make use of video conferencing to connect a traditional classroom setting with students who are based a considerable distance from the school.

A video conference may also be used to conduct regular meetings with a company staff or to confer with shareholders about the latest activities at the business. It may be used to announce significant changes at a company, such as introducing a new CEO or to present information in an interactive way that allows all participants to engage in discussion about what they see on screen.

Hotels and conference centers sometimes make video conferencing services available to guests who require such services. This may be offered in suites or conference rooms that have been equipped for this purpose.