COMPUTER HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE
A computer is an electronic machine made up of hardware and software that work
together to do a task.
A computer is an electronic machine made up of hardware and software that work together to do a task. It is a device that processes data according to a set of instructions.
A hardware is computer parts or device that you can see or touch. Each hardware performs a specific function. It could be as an Input Device or as an Output Device.
Each hardware performs a specific function. It could be as an Input Device or as an
Output Device.
A software refers to a program or application installed into a computer to do a specific task. The examples are word processing program and presentation program.
COMPUTER APPLICATIONS SOFTWARE
Application Software is a program or group of programs designed for end users that allows end
users to accomplish one or more specific (non-computer related) tasks.
Examples of Computer Application Software:
Some examples of computer application software are: word processor; spreadsheet; presentation software; database management system; desktop publisher; graphics editor and web browser.
- Word processing software – Creates, edits, saves, and prints documents. Examples: MS Word, WordPerfect, Ami Pro, MacWrite.
- Spreadsheet software – An electronic spreadsheet consisting of rows and columns are used to present and analyze data. Examples: MS Excel, Lotus 123, Quattro Pro.
- Presentation Software -A presentation program is a software program that helps create a slideshow that addresses a topic. It is often used in businesses and schools
for discussing a topic or for teaching. Examples are Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe Persuasion, Hypercard, OpenOffice Impress and Scala Multimedia.
- Database management software – Used to structure a database, a large collection of computer programs. Data is organized as fields and records for easy retrieval. Examples: MS Access, dBase, FoxPro, Oracle.
- Graphic software – Graphics programs display results of data manipulation for easier analysis and presentation. Examples: Macromedia Flash, Harvard Graphics, 3D Studio Max, Adobe Photoshop.
- Desktop Publishing Software – This is used to produce high-quality printed documents such as magazine, greeting card, posters, etc. and allows you to use different typefaces, specify various margins and justifications, and embed illustrations and graphs directly into the text. Desktop Publishing software examples are Adobe InDesign, QuarkXPress and MS Publisher
- Web Browser – is a software application used to locate and display Web pages. Examples are: Internet Explorer (IE), Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome.
Web Browser and World Wide Web
Web Browsers are software installed on your PC. On the Web, when you navigate through pages of information, this is commonly known as web browsing or web surfing.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a British computer scientist. He invented the World Wide Web in October 1990. He wrote the first web page editor/browser which is World Wide Web.app and the first server which httpd. The first web page was served on the open internet by the end of 1990.
It was in the year 1993 that CERN, a European Organization for Nuclear Research, where Sir Tim was working, to announced the global wave of creativity, collaboration and innovation.
In 1994, Sir Tim moved to Massachusetts Institute of Technology to found the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international community devoted to developing open web standards. He remains the Director of W3C to this day.
Parts of Web browser:
HyperText Markup Language (HTML) – This is the markup or format language for the web.
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) – A kind of “address” that is unique and used to identify to
each resource on the web. It is also commonly called a URL.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) – Allows for the retrieval of linked resources from across the
web.
Web Browser Types
Internet Explorer (IE) is a product from software giant Microsoft. This is the most commonly used browser in the universe. This was introduced in 1995 along with Windows 95 launch and it has passed Netscape popularity in 1998.
Google Chrome-This web browser is developed by Google and its beta version was first released on September 2, 2008 for Microsoft Windows. Today, chrome is known to be one of the most popular web browser with its global share of more than 50%.
Mozilla Firefox
Firefox is a new browser derived from Mozilla. It was released in 2004 and has grown to be the second most popular browser on the Internet.
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included in Mac OS X. It was first released as a public beta in January 2003. Safari has very good support for latest technologies like XHTML, CSS2 etc.
Opera is smaller and faster than most other browsers, yet it is full- featured. Fast, user-friendly, with keyboard interface, multiple windows, zoom functions, and more.
What’s More
