Input & Output



An ergonomic keyboard is one designed to make typing more comfortable by conforming more closely to the shape of human hands, making the keys closer to the finger tips than a traditional keyboard. See how an ergonomic keyboard can help the health of human hands in the long run with information from a certified computer technician in this free video on computers.



In computing, a technique that enables special characters printed in magnetic ink to be read and input rapidly to a computer. MICR is used extensively in banking because magnetic-ink characters can be machine-read with much greater accuracy than human reading or other optical character recognition (OCR) systems, and are therefore ideal for marking and identifying the account and sort code numbers on cheques.

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. A typical ink-jet printer provides a resolution of 300 dots per inch, although some newer models offer higher resolutions.

A type of printer that utilizes a laser beam to produce an image on a drum. The light of the laser alters the electrical charge on the drum wherever it hits. The drum is then rolled through a reservoir of toner, which is picked up by the charged portions of the drum. Finally, the toner is transferred to the paper through a combination of heat and pressure. This is also the way copy machines work.

OCR (optical character recognition) is the recognition of printed or written text characters by a computer. This involves photoscanning of the text character-by-character, analysis of the scanned-in image, and then translation of the character image into character codes, such as ASCII, commonly used in data processing

Optical Mark Recognition lets you define check box regions on scanned images. OMR is very fast and can be used for a variety of applications

Basic and Specialized Application Software

GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE

1. A computer programme that enables a person to communicate with the computer through the symbols , visual metaphor and pointing devices .
   
2. Graphical user interface , such as Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows uses following basic components ;
   

Pointer : A symbol that appears on display screen and the one that we move to select applications on the screen .

Pointing device : A device such as mouse or trackball that enables you to use to select objects on the screen .

Icons : A small picture that represents commands , file or windows . The files will execute or converts into a window once you press the mouse button on the file you wanted to open .

Desktop : The place where icons is grouped and these icons represents the real objects from a real desktop .

Windows : You can run a different programme by dividing or opening 2 applications at the same time adn do 2 works or more at 1 time . 

Menus : Lets you execute commands by selecting a choice from the menus . 

Word Processor 

A programme or computer that enables you to perform word processing functions . 

for example ; microsoft word , notes , e.g

Spread sheet

A table of values arranged in rows and columns. Each value can have a predefined relationship to the other values. If you change one value, therefore, you may need to change other values as well.

Spreadsheet applications (sometimes referred to simply as spreadsheets) are computer programmes 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 one another. The relationships between cells are called formulas, and the names of the cells are called labels.

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. 

DBMS

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

 Utility Suites 
A program that performs a very specific task, usually related to managing system resource. 
Operating system contain a number of utilities for managing disk drives, printers, and other device.




Audio Editing Software

The process of manipulating video images. Once the province of expensive machines called video editors, video editing software is now available for personal computers and workstations . Video editing includes cutting segments (trimming), re-sequencing clips, and adding transitions and other special effects.

This is actully a mixer for professionals in editing music .

Bitmap

Short for "Bitmap." It can be pronounced as "bump," "B-M-P," or simply a "bitmap image." The BMP format is a commonly used raster graphic format for saving image files. It was introduced on the Windows platform, but is now recognized by many programs on both Macs and PCs.



The BMP format stores color data for each pixel in the image without any compression. For example, a 10x10 pixel BMP image will include color data for 100 pixels. This method of storing image information allows for crisp, high-quality graphics, but also produces large file sizes. The JPEG and GIF formats are also bitmaps, but use image compression algorithms that can significantly decrease their file size. For this reason, JPEG and GIF images are used on the Web, while BMP images are often used for printable images.

Desktop publishing programme 

iStudio

Desktop publishing software is a tool for graphic desginers

and non-desginers to create visual for communications for professionals or desktop

printing as well as for online or on-screen electronic publishing .

HTML editor

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

Image editor

 a piece of software that allows a user to edit, change or create abit-map image

Multimedia

An extension of hypertext allowing the provision of audio and video material cross-referenced to a computer text

Vector Image

An example of a vector image .

Vector graphics formats are complementary to raster graphic, which is the representation of images as an array of pixel , as is typically used for the representation of photographic images. There are instances when working with vector tools and formats is the best practice, and instances when working with raster tools and formats is the best practice. There are times when both formats come together. An understanding of the advantages and limitations of each technology and the relationship between them is most likely to result in efficient and effective use of tool

Web Authoring

Refers to the use of HTML and other Web-based scripts for the construction of Web pages and sites

The internet , Web & Electronic Commerce .

URL
Abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator, the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web . 
The first part of the address is called protocol which identifies which protocol to use . Second  is the resource name which identifies the ip address and the fomain name . 

HTML

Short for HyperText Markup Language, the authoring language used to create documents  on the World wide web. HTML is similar to SGML, although it is not a strict subset.

HTML defines the structure and layout of a Web document by using a variety of tags and attributes . The correct structure for an HTML document starts with <HTML><HEAD>(enter here what document is about)<BODY> and ends with </BODY></HTML>. All the information you'd like to include in your Web page fits in between the <BODY> and </BODY> tags.

Applets

A programme designed to be executed from within another application. Unlike an application, applets cannot be executed directly from the operating system. With the growing popularity of OLE(object linking and embedding), applets are becoming more prevalent. A well-designed applet can be invoked from many different applications.

Web browsers, which are often equipped with Java virtual machines, can interpret applets from Web servers. Because applets are small in files size, cross-platform compatible, and highly secure (can't be used to access users' hard drives), they are ideal for small Internet applications accessible from a browser.

BLOGS

Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author

WIKIS

Similar to a blog in structure and logic, a wiki allows anyone to edit, delete or modify content that has been placed on the Web site using a browesinterface, including the work of previous authors. In contrast, a blog, typically authored by an individual, does not allow visitors to change the original posted material, only add comments to the original content.

                                                              

Wiki wiki means "quick" in Hawaiian. The first wiki was created by Ward Cunnigham in 1995

FTP

A method for downloading public files using the File Transfer Protocol ( FTP ) . Anonymous FTP is called anonymousbecause you don't need to identify yourself before accessing files. In general, you enter the word anonymous or ftp when the host prompts you for a username; you can enter anything for the password, such as your e-mail address or simply the word "guest". In many cases, when you access an anonymous FTP site, you won't even be prompted for your name and password.

Many FTP sites are protected. Unlike anonymous FTP sites, these restricted FTP sites can only be accessed by individuals who enter a valid username and password.

PLUG-IN

A hardware or software module that adds a specific feature  or service to a larger system. The idea is that the new component simply plugs in to the existing system. For example, there are number of plug-ins for the  Netscape Navigator Browser  that enable it to display different types of audio or video messages. Navigator plug-ins are based on MIME file types.

FILTER 

A program that accepts a certain type of data as input , transforms it in some manner, and then outputs the transformed data. For example, a program that sorts names is a filter because it accepts the names in unsorted order, sorts them, and then outputs the sorted names.

INTERNET SECURITY

Internet security helps you protect your browser from viruses . For example , Kasperskey , Norton , AVG and others .