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Introduction to Computers

1. INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTERS
(Dr. S. Albert Rabara, Prof. S. Surya)

1.1. Computer- An Introduction

Computer is an electronic device that is designed to work with Information. The term
computer is derived from the Latin term computare, which means to calculate. Computer
cannot do anything without a Program. It represents the decimal numbers through a string of
binary digits. The word 'Computer' usually refers to the Center Processor Unit plus Internal
memory.

Figure 1.1 Personal Computer and its parts

Computer is an advanced electronic device that takes raw data as input from the user and
processes these data under the control of set of instructions (called program) and gives the result
(output) and saves output for the future use. It can process both numerical and non-numerical
(arithmetic and logical) calculations.

The functional components of a modern digital computer are: Input Device, Output
Device, Central Processor. A Typical modern computer uses LSI Chips. The physical parts that
make up a computer (the central processing unit, input, output, and memory) are called
hardware. Programs that tell a computer what to do are called software. A set of instructions
that perform a particular task is called a program, software program, or software.

Peripherals are any hardware device connected to a computer, any part of the computer
outside the CPU and working memory. Some examples of peripherals are keyboards, the mouse,
monitors, printers, scanners, disk and tape drives, microphones, speakers, joysticks, plotters, and
cameras.

Four Functions about computer are:

Accepts data Input


Processes data Processing
Produces output Output
Stores results Storage

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Input (Data)
Input is the raw information entered into a computer from the input devices. It is the
collection of letters, numbers, images etc.

Process
Process is the operation of data as per given instruction. It is totally an internal process of
the computer system.

Output
Output is the processed data given by computer after data processing. Output is also
called Result. We can save these results in the storage devices for the future use.

1.2. History of computers

In 1833, Prof. Charles Babbage, the father of the computer, developed a machine called
Analytical Engine which was the base for the modern digital computer. It uses read-only
memory in the form of punch cards.
First Calculating Device: Abacus
The first fully electronic computers, introduced in the 1940s, were huge machines that
required teams of peoples to operate. Compared to those early machines, todays computers are
amazing. Not only are they thousands of times faster, but they can fit on your desk, on your lap,
or even in your packet.

1.3. Evolution of Computer

I Generation (1949-1955) Vacuum Tubes (to control flow of electronic signals)


Storage Device - Acoustic lines, Magnetic drums, 1 kb Memory
Software - Machine and Assembly language
Application - Scientific and simple Business systems
II Generation (1956-1965) Transistors
Storage Devices - Magnetic core memory, tapes, disk, 100kb memory
Software - FORTRAN, COBOL, Batch operating system
Applications -Extensive Business applications, engineering design, scientific research
III Generation (1966-1974) Integrated Circuits (ICs)
Storage Devices - High speed magnetic cores, large disk, 1 MB memory
Software - FORTRAN- IV, COBOL 68, Time shared operating system
Applications - Data base management system, On-line system
IV Generation (1975-1991) Large scale Integrated Circuit Microprocessor
Storage Devices - Semiconductor Memory, 1000 MB disks
Software - FORTRAN - 77, PASCAL, COBOL 74
Applications - Personal computers, distributed system, real time control, graphics
oriented system, integrated CAD/CAM
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V Generation (1991- till date) ULSI (Ultra-Large Scale Integration) chips (Artificial
Intelligence)
Millions of transistors are placed in a single IC in ULSI chips.
64 bit microprocessors have been developed during this period.
Fifth generation digital computer will be Artificial intelligence.

1.4. Organization of Computer System

A computer can process data, pictures, sound and graphics. They can solve highly
complicated problems quickly and accurately. A computer as shown in Figure (1.2), performs
basically five major computer operations or functions irrespective of its size and make. These
are:
1) It accepts data or instructions by way of input,
2) It stores data,
3) It can process data as required by the user,
4) It gives results in the form of output, and
5) It controls all operations inside a computer.

Figure 1.2 Basic Computer Operations

A computer is designed using four basic units. They are


1) Input Unit: Computers need to receive data and instructions in order to solve any problem.
Therefore we need to put the data and instructions into the computer. The input unit consists of
one or more input device. The keyboard and mouse of a computer are the most commonly used
input devices.
2) Central Processing Unit (CPU): It is the main part of a computer system like the heart of a
human being. It interprets the instructions in the program and executes one by one. It consists of
three major units.
Control Unit (CU): It controls and directs the transfer of program instructions
and data among various units.
Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU): Arithmetic operations like (+,-,*,^,/), logical
operations like (AND, OR, NOT) and relational operations like (<,>,<=,>=) are
being carried out in this Unit.

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Registers: They are used to store instructions and data for further use.
The ALU and the CU of a computer system are jointly known as the Central Processing
Unit.
3) Memory Unit: It is used to store the Programs and data.
4) Output Unit: It is used to print/display the results, which are stored in the memory unit.

Note:
! Secondary storage devices refer to floppy disks, magnetic disks, magnetic disks,
magnetic tapes, hard disks, compact disks etc., which are used to store huge information for
future use.
!! The input unit, output unit and secondary storage devices are together known as
Peripheral devices.

1.4.1. Input Devices & Usage

Key Board, Mouse, Touch Screen, Pen-based input, Magnetic ink character
recognition (MICR), Optical character recognition (OCR), Bar code, Digital
Scanners, Voice data input, Sensors.

Keyboard: The keyboard is the most popular input device for a


computer. It translates numbers, letters, symbols and control keys into
signals that can be interpreted by the PC. The latest windows keyboard
is available with 104 keys. It contains function keys, numeric keys,
toggle keys (Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll Lock) and so on. Multimedia, gaming and virtual
keyboards all have extra keys.

Mouse: A Mouse is used to manipulate objects and text on the computer


screen. This device can be plugged to the computer, the back of the
keyboard, or can even be cordless. Mouse is non keyboard input device
used to manipulate objects on the screen.

Touchpad: Touchpads were originally known as track pads. Some


touchpads can have multiple mouse buttons by either tapping in a special
corner of the pad, or by tapping with two or more fingers.

Pointing Stick: A Pointing stick resembles a pencil eraser and is


commonly located in between keys on a laptop keyboard. To control the
pointer on your computer with a pointing stick you use your finger to
bend the stick in the direction you would like the pointer to move.

Touch Screen: By using the touch of a finger on a computer screen, the


computer is able to receive input from the movement of your finger to
control operations of the computer. The finger transfers electrical currents
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Introduction to Computers

to the computer. Touch Screens are commonly used on ATM machines. The screen is covered
with a plastic layer.

Stylus (Pen): A Stylus (which is Latin for stake or pointed object) is a small
pen like device used to enter data by reacting to a touch-sensitive screen or
film. Styli allow a user to input handwriting specific pieces of information
like signatures. Many artists also utilize styli with the use of a tablet.

Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR): It is an input technology that


translates characters written in magnetic ink into digital codes for processing.

Optical Mark Recognition (OMR): OMR stands for Optical Mark


Recognition. OMR scans a printed form or paper and reads the predefined
places and makes record of where marks are made on the form.

Digital Scanner: This input device translates images such as pictures or


documents into digital form for processing.

Voice Data Input: This is an input technology that converts the spoken
word into digital form for processing.

Sensor: It is a device that collects data directly from the environment for input
to a computer.

1.4.2. Output Devices & Usage

Monitor, Printer, Plotter, Voice output devices, Speaker

Monitor: A Monitor is a display device. The size of commonly used color


monitor is 15inches. Electronic circuit board is used to display text/ picture.

Printer: A Printer is an output device used to prepare permanent Output


devices on paper. A Laser printer shoots a laser beam onto rotating drum that
picks up toner where the laser hits, and rolls that toner onto paper, which can
then be heated. A Dot Matrix printer consists of printer heads and pins used to
generate characters on paper, similar to a typewriter. An Inkjet printer prints on A4 sheets. It
carries ink cartridges to store printing ink.

Plotter: It is an output device that uses multicolored pens to draw high quality
graphic documents. The plotter is a computer printer for printing vector
graphics. Plotters are used to print designs of ships and machines, plans for
buildings and so on.

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Speaker: Computer speakers, or multimedia speakers, are speakers external


to a computer that disable the lower fidelity built-in speaker. They often have
a low-power internal amplifier.

1.4.3. Storage Devices & Usage

Floppy Disk, Hard Disk, Compact Disk, USB Flash Drive

Floppy Disk: A Floppy Disk is used to store data permanently. It has a flexible
disk coated with magnetic material and is enclosed in a plastic cover. Floppy
disks of 3.5 inch diameter having a storage capacity of 1.44MB are commonly
available.

Hard Disk: A Hard disk drive is non-volatile device used for storage that is
located inside the computer case. Like the Floppy drive, it holds its data on
rotating platters with a magnetic upper exterior which are changed or read by
electromagnetic tipped arms that move over the disk as it spins. Hard disks come
in various speeds. An IDE hard disk spins at 4200rpm.

Compact Disk: A Compact disk (CD) is an optical disk used to store data
permanently. It is the more reliable storage media available today. Data stored on
compact disk cannot be erased. The CD drives commonly available are read only.
Read / Write CD drives are also available but are expensive. Storage capacity of a
CD is 700MB.

DVD: Digital optical disk storage format, was invented and developed by Philips,
Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than
compact discs while having the same dimensions. Storage capacity of a DVD is
4.7 GB (single-sided, single-layer common), 8.58.7 GB (single-sided, double-
layer), 9.4 GB (double-sided, single-layer), 17.08 GB (double-sided, double-layer rare)

USB Flash Drive: A USB flash drive is a data storage device that includes flash
memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface. USB flash drives
are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than an optical
disc. Most weigh less than 30 grams.

1.5. Classification of Computers

Computers differ based on their data processing abilities. They are classified according to
purpose, data handling and functionality. According to purpose, computers are either for

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Introduction to Computers

general purpose or specific purpose. General purpose computers are designed to perform a range
of tasks.

According to data handling, computers are


1. Analog Computer
2. Digital Computer
3. Hybrid Computer

1. Analog Computer
An analog computer (spelt analogue in British English) is a form of computer that uses
continuous physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model
the problem being solved

2. Digital Computer
It is a computer that performs calculations and logical operations with quantities
represented as digits, usually in the binary number system. Such computers process data into a
digital value (in 0s and 1s). They give the results with more accuracy and at a faster rate.

3. Hybrid Computer (Analog + Digital)


It refers to a combination of computers which are capable of inputting and outputting in
both digital and analog signals. A hybrid computer system setup offers a cost effective method of
performing complex simulations.
On the basis of Size:
1. Micro Computer or Personal Computer
2. Mini Computer
3. Supermini Computer
4. Mainframe Computer
5. Super Computer

1. Micro computers or Personal Computer Microcomputers were first developed and


introduced by IBM in the early 80s with the Intel processors.Ex: IBM PC
Desktop Computer: a personal or micro-mini computer sufficient to fit on a desk.
Laptop Computer: a portable computer complete with an integrated screen and
keyboard. It is generally smaller in size than a desktop computer and larger than a
notebook computer.
Palmtop Computer/Digital Diary /Notebook /PDAs: a hand-sized computer. Palmtops
have no keyboard but the screen serves both as an input and output device.
2. Mini Computers A midsized computer. These are larger in size, faster and more powerful
than Microcomputers. They have the capacity of processing one million instructions per second.
Ex: PDP 11/70, HCL, HORIZON

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3. Supermini Computers These are the top ends of mini computers. These machines have
greater processing capabilities and also they support more memory. Ex: ND 570, VAX 8400
4. Mainframe Computers This is the first commercial computer. They have tremendous
memory and support both multi user and multi-tasking capabilities. Ex: VAX 8800, UNIVAC
11/60
5. Super Computers Super computers are more powerful than mainframe computers. Their
processing speed lies in the rage of 1 billion or more instructions per second. Ex: CRAY-XMP14,
NEC-SUPER

Workstations It is a terminal or desktop computer in a network. In this context, workstation is


just a generic term for a user's machine (client machine) in contrast to a "server" or
"mainframe."

Client A client is a piece of computer hardware or software that accesses a service made
available by a server.

Server A server is a system (software and suitable computer hardware) that responds to
requests across a computer network to provide, or help to provide, a network service.

Network A network is a group of two or more computer systems linked together.

1.6. How Computer Represents Data Binary Digit (bit) Electronic Charge Electronic State

For information to flow through a computer system and be in a


form suitable for processing, all symbols, pictures or words must be
reduced to a string of binary digits. A binary digit is called a bit
and represents either a 0 or 1. The two digits represent the two off
and on states.

Units of data storage


BIT
The value of BIT is either 1 or 0.
BYTE
Group of 8 BITS is called BYTE.
Byte represents one CHARACTER.
NIBBLE
4 BITS (Half Byte) = NIBBLE.
ONE KILOBYTE (KB)
1 Kilo Byte (KB) = 1024 Bytes.
ONE MEGABYTE (MB)
1 Mega Byte (MB) = 1024 Kilo Bytes.
ONE GIGABYTE (GB)
1 Giga Byte (GB) = 1024 Mega Bytes.
ONE TERA BYTE (TB)
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Introduction to Computers

1 Tera Byte (TB) = 1024 Giga bytes.


Short answer questions

1. List out the input devices and explain them.


2. List out the output devices and explain them.
3. List out the storage devices and explain them.

Long answer questions

1. Explain Computer and its functions.


2. Explain the generations of Computers.
3. Explain the organization of the computer system.
4. Explain the classification of computers.
5. Explain how computer represents data.

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2. APPLICATION OF COMPUTER
(Prof. D. S. Ravi, Prof. K. Maheswaran)
2.1. Introduction
To meet todays challenges of the modern business world, computers play a vital
role. Information technology is a strategic tool to face the business requirement. Computers
eliminate drudgery of workers by doing monotonous, repetitive and complicated jobs efficiently
at considerable speed. Computers were widely used almost in all the fields namely business,
education, research etc., its applications are enormous. In this chapter, we will discuss a variety
of applications of computers like
Business
Communication
Education
Banking
Home
Engineering
Law Enforcement
Medical diagnosis
Government Organizations
Defence
Entertainment
Sports
Computers have also proliferated into areas like investments, stock trading, accounting,
ticket reservation, military operations, meteorological predictions, social networking, police
department, video conferencing, book publishing, web newspapers, and information sharing.

Figure 2.1 Applications of computer

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Application of Computer

2.2. Business Applications


In an age of booming technology, running a business without computers is like trying to
breathe without lungs. Computer is mainly used in the following departments: Sales,
Production, Marketing, Finance, Advertisements. Furthermore, computers help businesses to
predict their future sales, profit, costs etc., making companies more accurate in their
accounts. Computers may also play a vital role in aiding thousands of organizations to make
judgmental and hard-provoking decisions concerning financial problems and prospective
trends. In Business, E-Commerce has now become a key component of many organizations
in the daily running process.
Benefits:
Global reach
Cost reduction
Supply chain improvements
Customization
Improved customer relations
2.3. Communication
Present day need for computer communications arises from a convergence between two
different worlds. The World Wide Web, Internet and email revolutionized the way individuals
communicate with each other. Rather than waiting for days or weeks to get information, we can
now view all information at the speed of light. Email has fundamentally transformed people to
share information and conduct business based on the speed and flexibility it offers. Computers
can process data at approximately 20 million bytes per second. So it is easy for them to
download and instantly display almost any text email.
E-Mail is a system that allows messages to be sent and received by computers. E-mail is
the most common form of electronic communication. E-mail
messages are text-based, but other types of file can also be sent
as attachments. An e-mail message usually has the following
parts: To send and receive e-mail, you need to have an e-mail
address. An address is made up of two parts: a username and
an e-mail provider, with a '@' symbol in the middle.

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To The address(es) of the person who the message is for


Subject A short sentence describing what the message is about
Message The text of the message. This can be as long as you like

Video-conferencing is a system that allows people to


have conversations and meetings with other people in different locations, but without leaving
their office. A video-conference involves people sitting in front of a camera and a microphone,
whilst watching other people on a screen and listening to them through loudspeakers.

The

system uses the following hardware:


Video camera
Monitor
Microphone
Loudspeakers
High-speed network / Internet connection
Video conferencing is very popular as it means:
No travel costs
No time wasted while travelling to other cities / countries

2.4. Education
Computer technology has had a deep impact on the education sector. Imparting education
has become easier and much more interesting than before. They enable quick processing of data
with very less or no chances of errors in processing. Storing documents on computers in the form
of soft copies instead of hard ones, helps save paper.
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Application of Computer

Computer teaching plays a key role in the modern education system. Students find it
easier to refer to the Internet than searching for
information in fat books. The process of learning has
gone beyond learning from prescribed textbooks.
Internet is a much larger and easier-to-access
storehouse of information.
Most good schools in the world have
computers available for use in the classroom. It has
been proved that learning with computers has been more successful and this is why numerous
forms of new teaching methods have been introduced. This enhances the knowledge of the
student at a much faster pace than the old traditional methods. Likewise, colleges and various
universities have extended the use of computers as many educators prefer the 'learning by doing'
method - an approach uniquely suited to the computer. The computer and its related technologies
are now such an integral part of everyday life that it must be an ingredient in educating the
present and future society.
Uses:
o Teaching and instruction purpose
o curriculum development
o educational administration and management
o Research work.
o Examination purpose for preparing results.
o Audio-visual aids in teaching.

o Quick communication among students, teachers and parents.

2.5. Banking

Computers in the banking sector have enhanced customer service and productivity
regarding account management, while streamlining back-office activities. In banking, activities
start with automating a customer account, which allows personnel to create, update and maintain
customer records. Banking hardware and software have enhanced the accuracy of accounts that
tellers and other banking personnel process. Banking software performs customer transactions

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through a centralized data record system. Account management is the genesis and backbone of
all banking information systems.

Internet Banking enables a customer to do banking transactions through the banks


website on the Internet. It is a system of accessing accounts and general information on bank
products and services through a computer while sitting in office or home. This is also called
virtual banking. It is more or less bringing the bank to your computer. In traditional banking one
has to approach the branch in person, to withdraw cash or deposit a cheque or request a statement
of accounts etc. but internet banking has changed the way of banking. Now one can operate
all these types of transactions on his computer through website of bank. All such
transactions are encrypted, using sophisticated multilayered security architecture, including
firewalls and filters. One can rest assured that ones transactions are secure and confidential.

Mobile Banking facility is an extension of internet banking. The bank in association with
the cellular service providers offers this service. For
this service, mobile phone should either be SMS or
WAP enabled. These facilities are available even to
those customers with only credit card accounts with
the bank.
Any where Banking It is now possible to
obtain financial details from the bank from remote
locations. Basic transaction can be effected from far away places. Automated Teller Machines
are playing an important role in providing remote services to the customers. Withdrawals from
other stations have been possible due to inter-station connectivity of ATMs.

2.6. Home
Computers have now become an integral part of home equipments. At home, people use
computers to play games, to maintain the home accounts, for communicating with friends and
relatives via Internet, for paying bills, for education and learning, etc. Microprocessors are
embedded in house hold utilities like, washing machines, TVs, food processors, home theatres,
security devices, etc.,

2.7. Engineering
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Engineers use computers for performing complex scientific calculations, for designing
and making drawings (CAD/CAM applications) and also for simulating and testing the designs.

Computers are used for storing the complex data, performing complex calculations and
for visualizing 3-dimensional objects. Complex scientific applications like the launch of rockets,
space exploration, etc., are not possible without the computers.

Architects use computer animated graphics to


experiment with possible exteriors and to give clients
a visual walk-through of their proposed buildings.
The computers provide architects with numerous
amounts of facilities to create different buildings with
greater accuracy, better designing and editing tools
and the work is done at the fastest speed possible.
Finally, a new kind of artist has emerged, one who
uses computers to express his or her creativity.

2.8. Law Enforcement


The use of computers in law enforcement has changed and developed rapidly, especially
in recent years. Computers are used to hold databases of information, to run sophisticated
software that can recognize faces or identify fingerprints and to connect to the Web, an avenue
for communication and a rich source of intelligence. Computer technology allows law
enforcement services to store and retrieve vast amounts of data. This information can include
details of incident reports, criminals' descriptions, fingerprints and other identifying marks. It can
also include descriptions and registrations of vehicles involved in criminal activity.

Maintaining criminal records


Information Sharing between departments
Controlling law and order using Unmanned aircraft

2.9. Medical Diagnosis

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Computers help doctors in controlling operation theatre machines. Computers help in


doing a number of medical tests. Medical researchers and practitioners use computers to access
information about the advances in medical research or to take opinion of doctors globally. The
medical history of patients is stored in the computers. Computers are also an integral part of
various kinds of sophisticated medical equipments like ultrasound machine, CAT scan machine,
MRI scan machine, etc. Computers also provide assistance to the medical surgeons during
critical surgery like laparoscopic operations, etc.,

The following are some of the applications of computers in medical diagnosis:


To maintain the nursing records of patients.
To record admission and discharge details of patients.
To keep the data such as laboratory finding, medication.
To maintain the dietary plan of patient.
To record all data for future references.
To facilitate continuity of care of patient

2.10. Government
The government uses computers to manage its own operations and also for e-governance.
The websites of the different government departments provide information to the users.
Computers are used for filing of income tax return, paying taxes, online submission of water and
electricity bills, for the access of land record details, etc. The police department uses computers
to search for criminals using fingerprint matching, etc.

Use of computer in Government Administration:

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o Budgeting and monitoring of finances


o To prepare and maintain Aadhaar cards.
o Maintaining statistics
o Preparation of payroll
o Online Tax payment
2.11. Defence
Computers help in launching of missiles in defence. Computers help in keeping records
of criminals. Computers help in constructing weapons and controlling their functions. Computers
help in establishing communication links between the soldiers and their commanders through
satellites.
Air force : All fighter planes are equipped with computer system for targeting and
navigation. With the help of computer only, PREDATOR an unmanned fighter could be
controlled.
Army: Computerized ROBOT is used in the battle field. Tanks are also installed with
computers.
Navy : Today all submarines use computers for navigation and targeting.

2.12. Entertainment
Computers are used for playing games, listening to music
and watching movies. Computers are used for making cartoon
movies and animation films. Computers are used for making
drawings and they enable us to play games with them.

2.13. Sports
Computers influence sports in the compilation of statistics, in scouting and coaching, and
with sports training. Such statistics as runs created in baseball allow managers to make smarter
personnel decisions. Scouts use computers to compare players in
a draft or their team's minor league prospects.
Computer programs allow football coaches to make better
play calls. For athletes, new sports training technology has
permitted their training results and body motions to be put into a
computer program. The program can track an athlete's results and show where he needs to
improve in his training. Hawk-eye is the name of a computer and camera system which traces a
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ball's trajectory. It is being used in international cricket and tennis, and many other sports are also
for making use of this technology.
In Tennis tournaments for a line review system to be in place, players are given power to review
contentious line calls. It is powered by the Hawk-Eye ball tracking system.
As for Basketball the NBA uses replay vision to review 'last touch' decisions in the final two
minutes of games, and also to determine whether players release the ball before the shot clock
expires.
Cricket has been driven by advances in the TV coverage. Things that were once extra
information provided by the TV networks are now being incorporated into the decision referral
system (DRS), such as hawk-eye and hot spot.

Short answer questions


1. List out the various fields that are using computer.
2. Mention the benefits of computers in Business.
3. What are the advantages of computers in Medical fields?
4. How are the computers used at home?
5. List out the uses of computers in Education.
6. How does E-mail help Communication?
7. How does computer become helpful for Entertainment?

Long answer questions


1. Explain how the computers are used for Communication.
2. Explain the various applications of computers in Education.
3. Write a short note on the following :
Applications of computers in i) Government ii) Defence
4. Explain the various applications of computers in Medical diagnosis.
5. Describe the various Business applications of computers.
6. Explain how the computer helps the banking sector?
7. Write a short note on the following :
Applications of computers in i) Engineering ii) Law Enforcement

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Microsoft Excel

3. SOFTWARE
(Dr. L. Arockiam, Prof. C. Balakrishnan and Prof. T. Kokilavani)

Computer Software is a collection of programs. A program consists of a set of


instructions that direct a computer to perform specific operations. The Programming Languages
are used to write these instructions.

3.1 Programming Languages


In general, the human-languages are used for communication. Similarly for Computers
we need a language to facilitate the communication between the user and the hardware. A
language that is used for this purpose is called Programming Language. It provides the rules and
structures for writing instructions to tell a computer how to perform a specific task.

There are three categories of Programming Languages. They are Machine Language,
Assembly Language and High-level Language.

Machine Language
The only language understandable by computers is the machine language which is in
binary form. The disadvantage is that human beings find it difficult to write programs in machine
language. For example, instructions may look as follows,
0010 1011 0011 1001 1010 0110
Assembly Language
These types of languages use Mnemonics to write instructions and programs for
computers. Human beings find it easier than machine language to write programs. But the
programs written in assembly language must be translated into binary form by assembler before
execution. For example, the Mnemonics to add two values and store the result into another
variable may be as follows,
ADD A, B STA C
High-level Language
High-level languages are written in human readable form, which mostly resembles the
English language. Since they are understandable by human being, it became popular and all
programmers use this language to instruct the computer to perform a specific task. Compiler is
used to translate high-level language programs into machine language. For instance to add two
values and store the result into another variable, the High-level language instruction will be as
follows,
C=A+B
Some of the popular high-level languages are:
BASIC
FORTRAN
COBOL
C
C++
C#
JAVA

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VISUAL BASIC
BASIC
It is a simple high-level language developed in 1964. It stands for Beginners All-purpose
Symbolic Instruction Code. It is a general purpose language.

FORTRAN
FORTRAN stands for FORmula TRANslation and it is widely used by the scientific and
engineering communities. It was first developed by IBM in 1957 for execution on IBM 704
computer.
COBOL
COBOL stands for Common Business Oriented Language. It is widely used for business
applications. Its first version was released in 1960. It is an English like programming language.

C
C is a general purpose language developed in 1972. It is widely used by the programmers
because of its simplicity and rich features available for effective and efficient programming. The
C language is also popularly used for systems programming.

C++
C++ is an extension to C language with added object oriented features. It is used for
developing business, scientific and system application software. The object oriented
programming has many advantages like simplicity, reusability and portability.

C#
C# is a new language specifically built to program the Microsoft .NET framework.
The .NET framework consists of a runtime environment and a set of class libraries, which
provide a rich development platform that, can be exploited by a variety of programming
languages and tools.

JAVA
JAVA is a general purpose object oriented programming language developed in 1991.
Java was designed for development of software for consumer electronic devices like TVs, VCRs,
Toasters and other such machines. JAVA is the first application language used for designing
World Wide Web. It is a simple, reliable, portable, platform independent and powerful language.

Visual Basic
Visual Basic is an easy and powerful tool for developing windows application in Basic.
VB supports event driven programming. It supports Graphical User Interface (GUI). It was
introduced by Microsoft in 1991. It contains built-in interpreter with extensive tools for sensing
and debugging code errors. It also contains a built-in compiler that makes compiling both quick
and easy.

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Microsoft Excel

3.2 Classification of Software


Software can be broadly classified into System Software, Utility Software and
Application Software.

3.2.1. System Software


It is used to manage, control and coordinate the hardware components of a computer. It
acts as an interface between the computer hardware and the user applications. Without the
System Software, a computer cannot do complex tasks. Operating Systems, Device drivers,
Assemblers, Interpreters, Compilers, Linkers and Loaders are some of the examples of System
Software.

Assembler
In the first generation computers, programs are written in Assembly language. But
computers understand only machine language. Therefore, to run a program written in assembly
language, it has to be translated into the machine language before executing it. Assembler is the
software which is used to translate a program written in assembly language to machine language.

Interpreter
Interpreter is the software that is used to convert high-level language programs into
machine language instructions. Interpreter converts the program line by line before executing it.

Compiler
The compiler translates a high-level language program into machine language completely
before execution. The difference between compiler and interpreter is that a compiler translates
the whole program at a time whereas interpreter translates the program line by line.

Linker
Linker is the software that combines a group of related independently generated machine
language programs into a single executable file. Linking process is done after the compilation
process.

Loader
This is the software which is responsible for copying a program from secondary storage
space into main memory. In addition to loading a program, it does all the preparatory steps to run
a program.

Device Driver
Device drivers are programs that control input and output devices. They are
responsible for communication between the devices and the operating system.

3.2.2. Utility Software


The software which provides some services to the computer system like password
protection, file compression and virus protection is termed as utility software.

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Computer Literacy

3.2.3. Application Software


It is the software that makes the user of the system to perform a useful task. Some
examples of application software are accounting, billing, graphics, media player, games and so
on.

3.3 Operating System


Operating System (OS) is an important component of a computer system. Without OS a
computer with hardware is called a bare machine. Operating System acts as an intermediary
between the computer user and computer hardware. It provides a basis for application programs.
A user cannot directly communicate with operating system. Using application programs a user
makes a system call to use the features of operating system. The components of a computer and
the interaction among them are shown in figure 3.1.
User 1 User 2

Compiler Assembler

Hardware

Operating System
User 3 User 4

Figure 3.1 User View of Operating System


From the system point of view, an operating system is a collection of programs that
manages computer hardware resources and provides services to user programs. OS Manages all
resources (CPU time, memory space, storage space, I/O and so on). It solves any conflicting
Text Editor usage. It controls
requests for efficient and fair resource System programs
the execution of programs to prevent
errors and improper use of the computer. Hence, Operating System is also called a resource
manager. Some popular operating systems in use are DOS, Windows, Mac and Unix.

3.3.1 Types of Operating System


Operating systems can be classified based on the number of users, number of tasks and
applications. Some of the operating systems existing in usage are:

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Microsoft Excel

Multi User OS
Multi Tasking OS
Real Time OS
Distributed OS
Embedded OS
A multi user operating system allows multiple users to access the computer at the same time.
Internet servers are the best examples of multi user OS. In a single user operating system, only
one user can run their program at a time. A multi tasking operating system allows more than one
program to be executed at the same time. It follows the concept of time sharing to execute
multiple tasks simultaneously. A real time operating system is a multi tasking OS that executes
real-time applications. A distributed operating system manages a group of computers in a
network. An embedded OS is embedded within a computer system and it operates on small
machines.

3.3.2 Functions of an Operating System


The main functions of an operating system are:
Process management
Memory management
File management
Device management

Process Management
A process is a name given to a program that has been loaded into memory and managed
by the operating system. OS maintains a data structure for each process to store process
information like process state (ready or waiting), address of next instruction, CPU registers and
scheduling priority.

Memory Management
The activities of memory management include allocating memory, re-allocating memory,
freeing memory and keeping track of the memory usage.

File Management
The functions of file management such as creating and deleting files and directories,
providing access to files, allocating space for files, keeping back-up for files and securing files.

Device Management
The tasks done by device management include opening and closing device drivers,
communicating, controlling and monitoring the devices through device drivers.

3.4 Database Management System (DBMS)


The information is the vital resource of the computer systems. The concept of file system
that was used in earlier days to manage the information had the issues like, inconsistency,
duplication, etc., Hence, to manage and maintain the information in an effective and efficient
way, the concept of Database was introduced. Database is a group of data organized in a logical
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Computer Literacy

way. A collection of programs that enables us to store, modify and extract information from
a Database is termed as Database Management System (DBMS). The data are typically
organized to model relevant aspects of reality in a way that supports processes requiring this
information. Modeling the availability of rooms in hotels, to find a hotel with vacancies is an
example application that uses the database to find the information.
There are many types of DBMSs, ranging from small systems that run on personal
computers to huge systems that run on mainframes. The following are some of the examples
of database applications:
Computerized library systems
Automated teller machines
All kinds of reservation systems
Assisting the Billing software and many more

The list of well-known DBMSs include MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Microsoft SQL-
Server, Oracle, SAP, dBASE, FoxPro, IBM DB2, LibreOffice Base and FileMaker Pro.

Short answer questions


1. Define Software.
2. What are the types of Software?
3. What is meant by a Compiler?
4. What is the use of a loader?
5. Define Device driver.
6. What is an Operating System?
7. List the types of Operating System.
8. Define Database.
9. What is meant by a Database Management System?
10. What is the purpose of DBMS?
11. List any four popular Database Management Systems.

Long answer questions

1. Describe the categories of programming languages.


2. Explain the characteristics of any five High-level programming languages.
3. Elaborate on the classification of Software.
4. Explain the various system software and their usages.
5. Describe the functions of Operating System.

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HTML

4. HTML
(Prof. K. Bhuvaneswari, Prof. S. Thulasi Bharathi)

4.1 Introduction

What is HTML?
HTML is a language for describing web pages. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup
Language. HTML is not a programming language, it is a markup language. A markup language
is a set of markup tags. HTML uses markup tags to describe web pages.
IBM wanted to set documentation system in which the developers can mark the title,
headings, paragraphs and font type selections in the 1980s. They came out with a set of mark up
system called General Markup Language (GML). In 1986, International Standardizing
organization (ISO) took up this concept and standardized it as Standard Generalized Markup
Language (SGML). In 1989 Tim Berners Lee and his team in the European Laboratory for
particle Physics (CERN) designed the present form of the documentation language and called it
HTML.

HTML Generations
The oldest version of HTML is HTML 0. HTML 1 is up gradation of HTML 0. It has new
tags for highlighting a text and displaying images. In HTML 2, edit boxes, list boxes and buttons
were introduced. In HTML 3, flexible figure handling procedures were included. It also supports
mathematical equations, formulas, and a banner area and has several interesting features. HTML
4 supports more multimedia options, scripting languages, style sheets, better printing facilities,
and documents that are more accessible to users with disabilities. Now the present version is
HTML5.

HTML Tags
HTML markup tags are usually called HTML tags.
HTML tags are keywords surrounded by angle brackets like <html>.
HTML tags normally come in pairs like <b> and </b>.
The first tag in a pair is the start tag, the second tag is the end tag.
Start and end tags are also called opening tags and closing tags.

HTML Documents (Web Pages)


HTML documents describe web pages.
HTML documents contain HTML tags and plain text.
HTML documents are also called web pages.

The purpose of a web browser (like Internet Explorer or Firefox) is to read HTML
documents and display them as web pages. The browser does not display the HTML tags, but
uses the tags to interpret the content of the page. Using HTML, we can create static web pages.

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Computer Literacy

Every HTML document has two sections.


Head
Body

The general form of an HTML document is


<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>
Text that forms the document title
</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
Body of the document appeared here
</BODY>
</HTML>
Example 4.1
<html>
<body>
<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph</p>
</body>
</html>

The text between <html> and </html> describes the web page.
The text between <body> and </body> is the visible page content.
The text between <h1> and </h1> is displayed as a heading.
The text between <p> and </p> is displayed as a paragraph.

HTM or HTML Extension


When you save an HTML file, you can use either the .htm or the .html extension. It is a
habit from the past, when the software only allowed three letters in file extensions. With new
software it is perfectly safe to use .html.
Type the following in a notepad or word pad and save it as example1.html. Open an
Internet Browser like Internet Explorer or Mozilla or Google chrome and open the file.
4.2 Headings
Headings are defined with the <h1> to <h6> tags. <h1> defines the largest heading. <h6>
defines the smallest heading. Browsers automatically add an empty line before and after
headings. Headings are important. Use HTML headings for headings only. Don't use headings to
make text BIG or bold. Search engines use your headings to index the structure and content of
your web pages. Since users may skim your pages by its headings, it is important to use headings
to show the document structure.
Consider the following HTML document
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HTML

<HTML>
<BODY>
<h1> DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY <h1>
<h2> DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY <h2>
<h3> DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY <h3>
<h4> DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY <h4>
<h5> DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY <h5>
<h6> DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY <h6>
</BODY>
</HTML>
The output is shown below.

4.3 Paragraphs
HTML paragraphs are defined with the <p> tag. We can mark the beginning and the end
of a paragraph by <p> and </p> respectively. When a paragraph ends, a blank line is left. It is
possible to align a paragraph left, right, center or justified.

Example 1.1
<HTML>
<BODY>
<p align = left> Internet Concepts, WAP and XML, HTML, Java Script,
VB Script, PHP, CORBA,....
</p>
<p align = right> Internet Concepts, WAP and XML, HTML, Java Script,
VB Script, PHP, CORBA,....
</p>
<p align = center> Internet Concepts, WAP and XML, HTML, Java
Script, VB Script, PHP, CORBA,....
</p>
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Computer Literacy

</BODY>
</HTML>

Output:

4.4 Comments
Comments can be inserted in the HTML code to make it more readable and
understandable. Comments are ignored by the browser and are not displayed. There is an
exclamation point after the opening bracket, but not before the closing bracket.

Comments are written like this:

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HTML

Example 1.2

<!-- This is a comment -->


4.5 Line Breaks
Use the <br /> tag if you want a line break (a new line) without starting a new paragraph:
The <br /> element is an empty HTML element. It has no end tag.
Example 1.3
<p>This is<br />a para<br />graph with line breaks</p>

4.6 HTML Formatting Tags


HTML uses tags like <b> and <i> for formatting output, like bold or italic text. These
HTML tags are called formatting tags.

Text Formatting Tags


Tag Description
<b> Defines bold text
<big> Defines big text
<i> Defines italic text
<small> Defines small text
<strong> Defines strong text
<sub> Defines subscripted text
<sup> Defines superscripted text
<strike> Deprecated. Use <del> instead
<u> Deprecated. Use styles instead
4.7 Font Tag
The <FONT> tag is used to set specific font and size. It usually has two attributes,
namely face and size.
Example 2.1
<FONT FACE=VERDANA SIZE=35>
Web technologies by David Hunter
</FONT>
4.8 Hyperlinks, Anchors, and Links
In web terms, a hyperlink is a reference (an address) to a resource on the web. Hyperlinks
can point to any resource on the web: an HTML page, an image, a sound file, a movie, etc. An
anchor is a term used to define a hyperlink destination inside a document.
The HTML anchor element <a> is used to define both hyperlinks and anchors.
We will use the term HTML link when the <a> element points to a resource, and the term
HTML anchor when the <a> elements defines an address inside a document..
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Computer Literacy

An HTML Link
Link syntax:
<a href="url">Link text</a>
The start tag contains attributes about the link. The element content (Link text) defines
the part to be displayed. The element content doesn't have to be text. You can link from an image
or any other HTML element.
The href attribute defines the link "address".

Example 4.2:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE> HTML page with anchor is shown below </title>
</HEAD>
<BODY TEXT=CYAN>
<FONT SIZE=10pt>
<P>Click here to go to
<A HREF=demo2.html> The Next Page </A>
</P>
</FONT>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Your Hyper Link is displayed like this :

4.4 Images
. Using Images and pictures in Web Page
A picture or an image in the web page can be inserted using the <IMG> tag. The <IMG>
tag has several attributes to inform the source of the picture, height of the picture, width of the
picture, alignment etc. the following are some of its important attributes.
Src
Height
Width
Align
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HTML

Alt
The src attributes specifies the source of the picture. It gives the path and the file name of
the picture file. The height and width are expressed in terms of pixels. The pictures are
generally in jpg, gif and png formats.

Example 4.3
<IMG SRC=cup.gif ALT=cup with steam HEIGHT=100 WIDTH=120 ALIGN=left>
The align attribute is used to align the picture and the alt attributes is specified with a text
and it is displayed as an alternative if the specified picture is not found or cant be displayed.

4.5 Lists
Incorporating Lists in Web pages.
You can create plain, numbered or bulleted lists. You can as well nest one list into
another. All lists are formed by code that specifies what sort of list you want to create,
<OL> for Ordered List and
<UL> for Unordered List.
<li> for list item.

4.5.1 Ordered Lists


An ordered list starts with the <ol> tag and ends with </ol> tag. Each list item starts with the <li>
tag.

Example 4.4 Ordered lists


<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE> players listing ordered </TITLe></HEAD>
<BODY>
<P> <H1 align=center> players selected </H1>
<FONT SIZE=15pt>
<OL type=1>
<LI> Mike Owen
<LI> Wayne Rooney
<LI> David Beckham
</OL>
</FONT>
</P> </BODY> </HTML>

Output:

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Computer Literacy

4.5.2 Unordered Lists.


The unordered list is represented by <UL> and </UL> tags. <UL> is given at the beginning
and </UL> tag is given at the end. Each list item is given using <LI> tag. In the unordered list,
every list item has a circle or square as its bullet. The bullet can be any one of the following
symbols.
Disc
Circle
Square

The symbol that we want to include can be chosen using type attribute of <UL> tag. For
example suppose we use <UL type=square> we shall get square symbol. If we use <UL
type=circle> we shall get circle symbol.

Example 4.5 Unordered list


<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE> players listing unordered </TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY>
<P><H1 align=center> Players selected </H1>
<FONT SIZE=15pt>
<UL TYPE=square>
<LI> Mike Owen
<LI> Wayne Rooney
<LI> David Beckham
</UL></FONT>
</P></BODY>
</HTML>
Output:

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HTML

4.6 Tables
Tables are frequently used to organize data into rows and columns. Tables are defined
with <table>element. The border attribute specifies the tables border width in pixels.
To create a table with out border set the border attribute to 0. You can also set the
attribute width with the value for example 40% and the table will be displayed in 40percent of
the browsers width. You can also set attribute width to a specified number of pixels.
The caption element describes the tables content and helps text based browsers interpret
the table data. Text inside the <CAPTION> tag is rendered above the table by most browsers.
A table has the following distinct sections-head and body .The head section is defined
with a head element, which contains header information such as column names. Each <TR>
element defines an individual table row. The columns in the head section are defined with the
<TH> elements.
The body section or table body contains the tables primary data. The table body is
defined in body element. In the body, each <TR> element specifies one row. Data cells contain
individual pieces of data and are defined with <TD> (table data) elements within each row.
Example 4.6 Tables
Tables in HTML
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE> Simple HTML table </TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<TABLE BORDER=5 WIDTH=40 %>
<CAPTION><STRONG>Players and Teams </STRONG></CAPTION>
<TH><TR>
<TD> First Name </td> <td> Second Name </td> <td>
Team </TD>
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Computer Literacy

</TR>
</TH>
<BODY>
<TR> <TD> Glenn
</TD> <TD> Megrath </TD> <TD> Austraila </TD> </TR>
<TR> <TD> Irfan </TD><TD> Pathan </TD><TD> India </TD> </TR>
</TBODY>
</TABLE>
</FONT>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Output

4.7 Frames
Frames allow a web developer to display more than one HTML document in a browser
simultaneously. A document that defines a frameset normally consists of an html element that
contains a head element and a frameset element.
The <FRAMESET> tag informs the browser that the page contains frames. The
frameset element contains attributes cols and rows. The cols attribute specifies the framesets
column layout. The value of cols gives the width of each frame, either in pixels or as a
percentage of the browser width. Similarly, attribute rows can be used to specify the number of
rows and the size of each row in a frameset.
The attribute name identifies a frame, enabling hyperlinks in a frameset to specify the
target frame in which a linked document should display when the user clicks a link.
Example 4.7
<a href=links.html target=main>
Loads the file links.html in the frame whose name is main

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HTML

Nested Framesets
The frameset element is used to create more complex layouts in a web page by nesting
framesets.

Example 4.8- Frames and Framesets


<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE> FRAMES </TITLE></HEAD>
<FRAMESET rows="33%,*">
<FRAME name="f1" src="example3-3.html">
<FRAMESET cols="50%,*">
<FRAME name "f2" src="example4-3.html">
<FRAME name="f3" src="example4-2.html">
</FRAMESET>
</FRAMESET>
</HTML>

Screen Shot:

4.8 FORMS
Getting User Input with HTML forms
One of the most powerful parts of the web page is the form. Forms let you collect
information from the user. When browsing web sites, users often need to provide such
information as search key words, e-mail addresses and zip codes. You can use HTML forms, for
collecting such data from user.
Data that users enter in a web page normally is sent to a web server that provides access
to site on the same machine as the web server or on a machine that the web server can access
through the network. When a browser requests web page or file that is located on a server, the
server processes the request and returns the requested resource.
In HTML a form is designed with <form> tag and </form> tag. The form tag has two
important attributes. They are
Action
Method

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Computer Literacy

The Action attribute


The forms are used to get the input from the user. The user input is submitted to the
server. The action attribute informs the browser the location of the server program to which the
form input has to be submitted. The server program may be a CGI-perl script, a java applet or
any other server program like JSP, ASP etc.

The Method Attribute


The method attribute has only two choices of values. They are
Method = get
Method =post
The method post appends form data to the browser request, which contains the protocol
and the requested resource URI. The other possible value, get method appends the form data
directly to the end of the URL.

4.8.1 Form Elements


You can include form elements like text-box, text-area, radio button, check box, password
box and buttons in your web page using the form elements. The important part of a form element
is the concept of the name/value pairs. When the information is sent to the server, it is sent in two
parts: first an identifier, or name, and then the actual data. For example, in a text box with a name
like Firstname where the user has typed John, the data will be sent to the server as
Firstname=John.
Form elements can be created using the <INPUT> tag. For example to create a text box
you have to do the following:

To create a text box :


1. Inside the FORM area of your HTML document type the <INPUT TYPE=text
2. Give the text box a name by adding NAME=name. When the data is sent to the server, the
information entered into this text box will be identified by the name.
3. If desired define the size of the box using SIZE=n, (default value of n is20 characters).
4. Finish the definition of the text box by typing >

Example 4.9- HTML forms (with a text box, password, radio button and a button)
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE> Banking Page form demo </TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY text=black>
<FORM method=get action=demoone.html>
<T><B><H2> Deutsche Bank </H2></B></I>
<LABEL> <H2>A/C NO.</H2> </LABEL>
<INPUT type=text name=acno><BR>
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HTML

<LABEL> <H2>PIN</H2> </LABEL>


<INPUT type=password name=pin> <BR>
<LABEL> <H2>BALANCE ENQUIRY</H2> </LABEL>
<INPUT type =radio name=enq> <BR>
<LABEL> <H2>TRANSACTION STATEMENT </H2></LABEL>
<INPUT type =radio name=statement><BR>
<INPUT type=BUTTON value=Submit><BR>
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Screen shot

Summary:
HTML is a markup language created for documentation using text formatting.
HTML programs are written using tags.
Text formatting can be done using physical and logical layout, using tags like <BOLD>,
<ITALIC>, <STRONG>, <EM>, <H1>,etc.
Tags contain keywords and attributes.
Links to other pages can be created using <A> tag and images can be inserted in your
document using <IMG> tag. Two types of lists available are Ordered and Unordered lists.
Tables can be used to display information in an ordered manner.
Forms can be used to get information from the user.
The Frame element allows more than one page to be displayed.

EXERCISE:
1. Hyper Text Markup Language.
2. Body tag.
3. Anchor <a> tag.
4. <B>,<I>,<STRONG>, <SUP>.
5. <Img> tag.

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Computer Literacy

6. Design a HTML page to display your resume.


7. Design a HTML page that contains details of all your friends.
8. Design a HTML personal home for you along with your photograph.
9. Design a page having hyper links from which the user can navigate from your home page
to your resume page and friends page.
10. Ordered and Unordered lists.
11. Headings.
12. METHOD- get and post.
13. Frame and Frameset.
14. Design a HTML document that lists your favorite sports personalities.
15. Create a cricket scorecard using HTML tables.
16. Design a HTML form for a user to input information to create an e-mail account.
17. Use frames and frameset element to divide your web page to display 3 documents.

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WML

5. WML
(Prof. T. Lucia Agnes Beena, Prof. J. Amutha)

5.1OVERVIEW
Wireless Markup Language (WML) is a markup language used for describing the
structure of documents to be delivered to wireless devices. WML was created to address the
display, bandwidth and memory limitations of mobile and wireless devices such as cellular
phones and wireless hand-held computers.
WML is an application of XML, which is defined in a document-type definition.
WML is similar to HTML(Hyper Text Markup Language). Both of them use tags and are
written in plain text format.
WML files have the extension ".wml". The MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extension) type of WML is "text/vnd.wap.wml".
WML supports client-side scripting and the scripting language is called WMLScript.
WML is case-sensitive.
Latest version of WML is 2.0 and it is created for backward compatibility purposes.
5.2 FUNCTIONALITY

The various functions supported by Wireless Markup Language are:

Text Presentation and Layout: WML supports line breaks, text formatting and alignment.
Images: WML supports Wireless Bitmap (WBMP), a graphic format created by the WAP Forum
which is optimized for mobile devices.
User Input: WML supports choice lists, multilevel choice lists, text entry and task controls.
Card and Deck Organisation : User interactions are divided into cards , and navigation occurs
between cards. A WML file can contain multiple cards and they form a deck.
Navigation: WML allows navigation between cards in a deck, between decks, or other resources
on the network through anchored links.
State and Context Management: To maximize network resources, WAP allows variables to be
passed between HTML files. It is also possible to pass variables between different cards in the
same deck.

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Computer Literacy

5.3 TOOLS
Notepad : The WML code can be typed in a simple text editor such as Microsoft Notepad and the file
can be saved with the extension .wml.
Emulator : Emulators are designed to imitate the specific behaviour and functionality of mobile devices.
Emulators can be used to browse WAP sites with the desktop computers and can be useful when network
coverage is unreliable or if the devices are too expensive for the personal testing use. The emulator used
here to illustrate the example is WAP Proof 2008 Pro.
WAP Proof 2008 Pro :

Install WAP Proof 2008 Pro.


Open the WAP Proof 2008 Pro.
Using File Open menu option, Open the WML file, to view the output.
5.4 WML PROGRAM STRUCTURE
The WAP device displays only one card at a time and the card contains both
content and navigational controls. A WML program is divided into two parts: the
header and the body
5.4.1 The Header

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.2//EN"


"http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml12.dtd">

The first two lines of code are the XML declarations. The first line states that this is an
XML document and the version number used. The next line selects the document type and gives
the URL of the Document Type Definition (DTD), which gives the full XML definition of WML.
5.4.2 The Body
The body is enclosed within a <wml>...</wml> tags. Cards appear in between these tags. The body
of a WML document consists of one or more of the following:

Deck
Card
Content to be shown
Navigation instructions
The card itself is defined with a <card> tag and is terminated with a </card> tag and all card
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WML

contents must be placed in between these tags. In WML, text cannot be placed in a card directly;
paragraphs must be placed in cards, and the text goes inside of paragraphs. The tags used for this
purpose is <p> and </p>.
Example:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.2//EN"
"http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml12.dtd">
<wml>
<card id="one" title="First Card">
<p>
Welcome to St.Joseph's College
</p>
</card>
<card id="two" title="Second Card">
<p>
Department of Information Technology Welcomes you.
</p>
</card>
</wml>

5.5 WML RULES

Most tags have opening and closing components. Some tags namely <access>, <br\>, <img>,
<meta> etc, doesnt include a slash at the end of the tag, signifying that the tag is singular.
The language is case sensitive, so all closing tags must match the capitalization of the
opening tags. For example, <B> specifies bold, but </b> will not have the desired result.
All tag parameter values must be enclosed within quotes. For example, <p mode="nowrap">.
All text must be enclosed in a tag.
There are some elements that must appear in a certain order. For example, within an element,
the following must appear in order: <onevent>, <timer>, <do>.

5.6 WML DECKS AND CARDS


A WML file can contain multiple cards and they form a deck. Each card in a deck must be
uniquely named using the <card> tag's id attribute, and id values may contain text and numbers but no
special characters.
Example:

<card id="one" title="First Card">


In this, the id attribute gives a unique ID for this card within the deck and the title

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attribute gives the name of the card to be presented to the user.


When a deck is loaded the browser processes and stores all the contained cards and then
determines which card to display :

If a specific card id was requested and that id is present, that card is displayed.
If no card id is specified, or the requested id does not exist, the first card in the deck is displayed.

5.7 WML COMMANDS


5.7.1 TEXT FORMATTING
The tags defined for formatting text includes paragraphs, line wrapping, displaying different
styles of plain text.

The <p> Element:


This tag mark a section of text as a paragraph element. It must be enclosed in <p> </p> tags.
More than one paragraph can be placed inside a card.
The <p> tag has attributes like mode and align. The align attribute can be assigned left, right or
center and the mode attributes are wrap or nowrap.

The mode attribute is used to specify whether the browser should automatically wrap lines when
it gets to the end of the screen. If the mode is set to nowrap, then the paragraph is set to turn off
wrapping.
Example:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.2//EN"
"http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml12.dtd">
<wml>
<card id="one" title="First Card">
<p align="center">
St.Joseph's College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli-620002.Nationally Accredited at A Grade (3rd Cycle)
by NAAC
</p>
</card>
</wml>

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WML

The <br> Element:


A <br/> tag forcibly inserts a like break into the text. If wrapping is turned off, the text can be
broken by inserting breaks using the <br/> tag.

Example:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.2//EN"
"http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml12.dtd">
<wml>
<card id="one" title="First Card">
<p align=center>
St.Joseph's College <br/> (Autonomous) <br/> Nationally Accredited at A Grade (3rd
Cycle) by NAAC <br/> Tiruchirappalli-620002.
</p>
</card>
</wml>

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5.7.2 STYLES
The styles defined by the WML specification are:

Style Tag Description


Bold <b> </b> Makes something stand out more
Italic <i> </i> Use slanted text
Underline <u> </u> Draw a line under the text
Emphasise the text in some way, the choice is left
Emphasis <em> </em>
to the device in this case.
Similar to emphasis, device may apply a style to
Strong <strong></strong>
indicate the text is significant.
Big <big></big> Increases the size of the text
Small <small> </small> Reduces the size of the text

Example:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.2//EN"
"http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml12.dtd">
<wml>
<card id="one" title="First Card">
<p align=center>
<b> St.Joseph's College </b> <br/> (Autonomous) <br/> <i>Nationally Accredited at
A Grade (3rd Cycle) by NAAC </i><br/> <strong> Tiruchirappalli-620002.</strong>
</p>
</card>
</wml>

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5.7.3 SPECIAL CHARACTERS


All tags are encased in < and > characters. If one of these characters needs to be
displayed on the screen of a WAP device, it is possible to enter the character using its ASCII
number, in the form of &# number. For example, > can be represened as &#62; and &gt;.
Another character that has a special meaning in WML is the ampersand (&) character; if it is to
be displayed, it can use &#38.

The following table shows some commonly used characters, and the names by which we refer to
them within the WML code:

Character WML Name


Quote quot
Apostrophe apos
Ampersand amp
Less than lt
Greater than gt
Soft hypen shy
Non-breaking space nbsp
The following example displays the less than and greater than characters that have ASCII codes
60 and 62

<?xml version="1.0"?>
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<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.2//EN"


"http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml12.dtd">
<wml>
<card id="main" title="Maths facts">
<p align=center>
1 &#60; 2 = True <br/>
1 &#62; 2 = False <br/>
</p>
</card>
</wml>

5.7.4 NAVIGATION
Anchor Links
An anchor link is a part of the display that, when the user selects it, takes the user to a
new location within the current application or another application together. The concept of
anchor link is used all over the Web to provide links from one resource (page content) to another.
In order to specify the resource location, WAP has adopted the familiar Uniform Resource
Locator (URL). A URL takes the form:
protocol://domain/filepath/filename#offset?variable1=value&variable2=value
Protocol The protocol being used is normally HTTP.
Domain The location of the matching that is being accessed.
Filepath The location of the file on the machine.

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Offset Specifies the card to be displayed.


Attaching a variable to the end of a URL is a good way to send data back to the server
where WML decks reside. It is however, very unusual to manually add variables to the end of a
URL.
The <a> Element:
This tag is used to link two different cards. The <a> element is an abbreviated form of the
<anchor> element that only provides for hyperlinking. The <a> element is not supported inside
the <do> element. When <do> command is used in the code, <go> tag is used instead of the <a>
tag to create a hyperlink. The <a> tag is specified with the href attribute to specify the location to
which control is to be transferred.
Example:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.2//EN"
"http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml12.dtd">

<wml>
<card id="main" title="First Card">
<p align="center">
<b> St.Joseph's College </b> <br/> (Autonomous) <br/> <i>Nationally Accredited at
A Grade (3rd Cycle) by NAAC </i><br/> <strong> Tiruchirappalli-620002.</strong>
</p>
<p>
To learn more join us in the
<a href="#link"> SJC website </a>
</p>
</card>
<card id="link" title="Motto">
<p>
<b> Pro Bono et Vero </b>
</p>
</card>
</wml>

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Before selection After selection

Any one particular card can be referenced within a deck by specifying it by a hash (#)
followed by the card's ID.
The <anchor> Element:
Anchor is a method specifying navigation between cards. The <anchor> tag defines the
text that appears as a hyperlink. The <anchor> tag can be located at any place within the text
flow and can be modified by its attributes as:
<anchor
title = VDATA
accesskey = VDATA
>
<br> | <img> | <go> | <prev> | <refresh>
</anchor>

The title attribute specifies a short text string which identifies the hyperlink. The
accesskey attribute allows the user to initiate an action by using any single key or button on the
device. The key will depend on the particular device; for most phones the keys will range from 0
to 9 and include the # and * keys. In the following example, the devices button 1 is set to
hyperlink directly to the St.Josephs College website.

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WML

Example:
<anchor title = website accesskey = 1
<go href = http://www.sjctni.edu
<p> St.Josephs College
</p>
/>
</anchor>

The <prev> Element:

WML has a tag defined to allow the user to return to the previous card, namely <prev/>.
Whenever the user follows a link in a WAP browser, the browser keeps a list of the cards that
have been visited. When the <prev/> tag is used, the browser will look up the last card that has
been visited, and returned to it. The <prev/> tag has to be placed within the <anchor> and
</anchor> element with the link text.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.2//EN"
"http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml12.dtd">
<wml>
<card id="main" title="First Card">
<p align="center">
<b> St.Joseph's College </b> <br/> (Autonomous) <br/> <i>Nationally Accredited at
A Grade (3rd Cycle) by NAAC </i><br/> <strong> Tiruchirappalli-620002.</strong>
</p>
<p>
To learn more join us in the
<a href="#link"> SJC website </a>
</p>
</card>
<card id="link" title="Motto">
<p>
<b> Pro Bono et Vero </b> <br/>
<anchor> <prev/> Go back </anchor>
</p>
</card>
</wml>

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Before selection After selection

5.8 ADVANCED DISPLAY FEATURES


The advanced display features provided by the WML specification are :
1. Tables
2. Images
5.8.1 TABLES
WML tables organize output into aligned rows and columns on the display by using
<table> </table> tags. A table uses the <tr> element to define rows and the <td> element to
define cells of output. A table cannot be nested within another table. There is no <th> tag. The
number and the alignment of the columns are specified as an attribute inside the <table> tag.
<table columns=2 align= LR>
The align attribute is assigned with letters for each column. L denotes left alignment, R denotes
right alignment and C denotes center alignment. It is also possible to alter the style of the table
using all the style tags introduced earlier.

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Example:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.2//EN"
"http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml12.dtd">
<wml>
<card id="courses" title="UG and PG">
<p align="center">
<small> School of Computing Sciences </small> <br/>
</p>
<p align="left">
<table columns="3" align="LCC">
<tr><td><b>Dept.</b></td> <td><b>UG</b></td> <td><b>PG</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>CS</td> <td>B.Sc.</td> <td>M.C.A.</td></tr>
<tr><td>IT</td> <td>B.C.A.</td> <td>M.Sc.</td></tr>
<tr><td>Statistics</td> <td>B.Sc.</td> <td>M.Sc.</td></tr>
</table>
</p>
</card>
</wml>

5.8.2 IMAGES
The WAP standards define a brand new image format, the Wireless Bitmap which is
most commonly referred by a acronym WBMP. This is a very simple picture format with no
compression, which only supports Black and White images.

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The <img/> tag is used to insert the image into the card. This tag has two notable
attributes src and alt. The src attribute gives the location of the image. If the device is not
capable of displaying the image pointed by the src attribute, it may instead display the text
assigned using the alt attribute.
Attributes of the WML <img> element:
alt = vdata (required) : This attribute specifies an alternative textual representation for the
image.
src = HREF (required): This attribute specifies the URL for the image.
localsrc = vdata (optional): This attribute specifies an alternative internal representation
for the image.
vspace = length and hspace = length (both optional): These attributes specify the amount
of space to be inserted above and below (vspace) and to the left and right (hspace) of the
image. The default value of this attribute is 0, indicating that no white space should be
inserted.
align = (top | middle | bottom) (optional) : This attribute specifies image alignment within
the text flow and with respect to the current insertion point. Align has three possible
values:
o bottom Indicates that the bottom of the image should be vertically aligned
with the current baseline. This is the default value.
o middle Indicates that the center of the image should be vertically aligned
with
the center of the current text line.
o Top Indicates that the top of the image should be vertically aligned with
the top of the current text line.
height = length and width = length (both optional): These attributes give user agents an
idea of the size of an image or object so that they can reserve space for it and continue
rendering the card while waiting for the image data.

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Example:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.2//EN"
"http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml12.dtd">
<wml>
<card id="one" title="First Card">
<p align="center">
<img src="welcome.wbmp" alt="IT"/>
<br/><br/><br/>welcome <br/>to <br/>School of Computing Sciences
</p>
</card>
</wml>

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6. VRML
(Prof. V. Jude Nirmal, Prof. George Gabriel Richard Roy)

6.1 Objectives

Virtual Reality is made up of two words


virtual and reality, where virtual means that not
physically existing as such but made by software to
appear to do so and reality is defined as the state of
things as they actually exist. Virtual Reality creates
the illusion of reality through computer based
techniques. Virtual reality means that the user is fully
immersed in a world or artificial environment that the
computer has generated.

Environments which are generated today using virtual reality are displayed on computer
screens or through special 3 dimensional displays. Some of the Virtual Reality simulations are
more advanced and it gives feedback through a number of sensors that makes the user feel that
the simulation is almost real. E.g. 5D cinemas not only have a 3D screen but they have simulated
rain/snow and physical rumbles.

In practice, it is currently very difficult to create a high-fidelity virtual reality experience,


due largely to technical limitations on processing power, image resolution, and communication
bandwidth; however, the technology's proponents hope that such limitations will be overcome as
processor, imaging, and data communication technologies become more powerful and cost-
effective over time.

6.2 VRML

The Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) is the standard file format for
describing 3D objects and interactive scenes that can viewed and explored on the World-Wide
Web. VRML is pronounced as either "V-R-M-L" or "ver-mal". VRML file names are given the
extension, .wrl, short for world.

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VRML

6.2.1 Background of VRML

VRML has its origin in Silicon Graphics Inc.'s (SGI) Open Inventor 3D graphics
programming language. The various versions of VRML are given below:

VRML 1.0

The first version of VRML was developed between 1994 and 1995. The need for a three
dimensional equivalent of HTML was established at the First International Conference on the
World-Wide Web in the Spring of 1994. It was here that the name VRML (originally Virtual
Reality Markup Language) was first coined.The first version of VRML should be based on one
of the 3D modelling languages already in existence. The first version of VRML would only
describe static worlds.

The VRML 1.0 specification allowed the following:


Virtual 3D worlds created from primitive shapes, such as cubes, cones, spheres
and text, or with custom defined shapes
Material properties including texture maps to be applied to these shapes
Initial viewpoints and the ability for the user to examine or move freely through a
scene
Objects that are clickable hyperlinks to other VRML worlds or documents
Multiple light sources
Inline objects, where the geometry is defined in a separate VRML file
Objects with different levels of detail
Object definitions named and reused

VRML 2.0

By the end of 1995, a number of companies, including Silicon Graphics and Microsoft
were already developing replacements for VRML 1.0. Therefore, VRML Architecture Group
(VAG) decided that to avoid a fragmentation of the standard, they would issue a request for

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proposals and allow the VRML community to choose the best candidate for VRML 2.0 in a
process similar to the development of VRML 1.0.

The new features introduced in VRML 2.0 include:


Enhanced Static Worlds.
Interaction and Animation.
Prototyping New VRML Objects.
.
VRML97

VRML97 is now the current version of VRML. In fact there is no real difference in
functionality between VRML 2.0 and VRML97. Changes were made only to the wording and
layout of the specification document, to ensure that it satisfied the ISO requirements. In this
report, the name VRML 2.0 is generally used instead of VRML97, for consistency.

6.2.2 Features of VRML

They are written in a plain text format.


A VRML document can be created with an ordinary text editor.
Multi-platform.
Not dependent on any particular hardware or operating system.
Hyperlinking.
VRML contain links to other documents or resources located anywhere on the
Web
Inclusion of multimedia elements.
VRML can use images, video, sound and program script files. A VRML world can
also include other VRML files.
Open standards.
VRML is an ISO international standard
6.2.3 Browsers

In order to view and interact with a VRML 2.0, a special VRML browser program (Plug-
in)is required. The Web browser will automatically start an installed VRML browser when a

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.wrl file is loaded. A number of different VRML browsers are currently available for Windows,
Macintosh and UNIX computer systems. Following are six different VRML 2.0 browsers:

Fraunhofer Institute's CASUS Presenter


Sony's Community Place
Silicon Graphics' Cosmo Player
SIM's VRMLview
IICMsVRwave
Intervista's WorldView.

Plug-ins and Helper Applications

Most VRML browsers operate as a plug-in, where the 3D scene and user interface
controls are actually displayed within the main Web browser window. This allows a VRML scene
to be embedded within a HTML document. However, some VRML browsers display the VRML
world independently of the Web browser. They need to be set up as a helper application in order
to work in conjunction with the web browser.

Navigation and Interaction

VRML browsers usually offer the user more than one way of examining or moving
through the VRML scene. Although the methods of interaction are implemented differently on
each browser, they are typically based on examine, fly, walk and click-and-seek themes. In
examine mode, the user can rotate an object or move it in relation to the viewpoint. A fly mode
simulates moving through the scene, with mouse or keyboard input controlling speed and
direction. Walk mode is similar to fly mode except the user's viewpoint will follow the terrain.
Finally, some browsers implement a seek mode, where the user can click on a object with the
mouse pointer and the viewpoint will move automatically towards it. VRML browsers also
usually allow the user to switch between the viewpoints defined within the VRML file.
Two other features found in all VRML browsers are an optional "headlamp" to illuminate
the scene immediately in front of the viewpoint and a method to allow the user to select an
object, usually by clicking on it with the mouse pointer, in order to follow a hyperlink or to
activate a sensor.
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6.3 VRML Tools

There are many, many tools which will help you to learn how to createnice VRML
worlds. Many of these tools are available as a "30 day demo" so that you may see how they
operate and determine if that program might meet your needs.

Authoring Tools

To produce simple worlds, a text editor and knowledge of the VRML specification is all
that is required. However, as worlds become more complex, there are additional tools which can
help. These fall into two categories, modelers or 'world builders' and conversion or translation
programs.

Modellers
A VRML modeller is a 3-D drawing application which can be used to create VRML worlds.
Some examples include:
Cosmo Worlds (http://cosmosoftware.com/), a
standalone tool which can use existing
programs, such as Photoshop, to incorporate
additional functionality.
Simply 3D
(http://www.micrografx.com/simply3d/) from
Micrografx. A 3D modeler which can save as
VRML 2.0. Available for Windows 95 or NT, it
comes with a large library of 3D objects.
Caligari's trueSpace4 (www.caligari.com) is a full 3D authoring tool which includes
support for VRML 2.0 output and as in built VRML browser.

Conversion programs

Conversion programs take output from other packages and convert it to VRML. Common
formats which can be converted to VRML 1.0 and/or 2.0 include:
AutoDeskAutoCad
SoftImage
3D Studio
POV Ray
Pixar Renderman
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VRML

Mathematica 3D graphics

6.4 Advantages of VRML

More freedom. A VRML world, on the other hand, presents infinite ways to view the
animation
Control. Users can view the scene from any angle, so they aren't stuck viewing the same
image every time.
Ability to obscure items. By using the third dimension, items can be hidden behind other
items, not possible on HTML.All items are placed in the middle and moved to different
locations in order to create a scene.
Realism. Moving a user through an architectural structure gives them a much better
feeling of spatial relationships for the building than pictures do.

6.5 Disadvantages of VRML

Trying to manipulate a 3D model in 2D. Input devices like the mouse are two-
dimensional, so moving them in 3D can be difficult.
Computing time involved. The processors have to work really hard to calculate how the
scene looks as the users move. The more complex the scene, the more it taxes the
processor. Because of the huge calculations involved, the details of VRML worlds are
purposely kept simple.
Features not supported: features like gravitational force, collision, weight etc are not
supported by VRML.

Example A Yellow Box

Example 1, viewed with WorldView

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The above figure shows a simple VRML world, consisting of a single yellow box shape.
The VRML file that describes this scene is listed below. Because a VRML file is written in plain
text, any ordinary text editor (such as WordPad or vi) can be used to create it. Simply save the
file with a .wrl extension, then open the file again with a VRML browser in order to view the
model in three-dimensions.

#VRML V2.0 utf8


# example1.wrl - a yellow box
Shape {
geometry Box { }
appearanceAppearance {
materialMaterial {
diffuseColor 1.0 1.0 0.0 # red, green, blue
}
}
}

The VRML 2.0 Header and Comments

The first line of the VRML file contains the header #VRML V2.0 utf. This identifies it as
a VRML 2.0 file, as opposed to a VRML 1.0 file, for example. All VRML files must start with
this header. The utfkeyword refers to the UTF-8 international character set used in the file.
The second line starts with the `#' symbol. This indicates that all the text with follows it,
until the end of the line is a comment, and should be ignored by the VRML software. In the
example, the comment describes the contents of the scene.

Nodes and the Scene Graph


The rest of a VRML file consists of a list of nodes, each of which contain part of the
information that describes the whole scene, for example, it may define a shape or light source or
particular properties of an object, such as its colour or coordinates. Each node consists of a name
that indicates the node's type, followed by a set a curly braces containing zero or more fields that
define the attributes of that node. A field statement consists of the field name followed by one or
more values. Fields can be written in any order. Node type names start with a capital letter, field
names begin with a lower case letter.
In the example, the nodes used are Shape, Box, Appearance and Material.
The Shape node contains two fields, geometry and appearance, each of which require other

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VRML

nodes as their values. Thegeometry field contains the Box node and the appearance field takes
the Appearance node as its value. The Appearance node then in turn contains another node,
called Material. This hierarchical structure of nodes contained within other nodes is called
the scene graph.

The Box node, Fields and Field Values


The Box node has a single field called size, which sets the dimensions of the box shape
that is to be drawn. The field name is followed by three values that define the lengths of the
sides, parallel to the X, Y and Z axes respectively, with the centre of the box at the origin. For
example, the following node defines a box shape 3 units wide, 2 units high and 5 units deep.
Box {
size 3.0 2.0 5.0
}

VRML Units and Coordinate System


The VRML specification recommends that metres are used as units of distance. Using a
common unit of measurement makes it easier to share models. However, using metres may not
always be convenient. Time is always defined in seconds and angles in radians.
VRML uses a right-handed coordinate system. By default, the viewer is on the Z-axis
looking towards the origin with the X-axis to the right and Y-axis upwards.

Appearance and Material


Having defined the object's geometry through the Box node, it is now necessary to
describe the object's colour and surface properties using the Appearance node. The Appearance
node has three fieldsvizmaterial, texture and textureTransform. The last two fields are used
when applying textures to an object, this is described in more detail later. The material field
takes the Material node as its value. If the Appearance node is left undefined the object will be
rendered as pure white. The Material node specifies the colour and reflective properties of an
object with six fields.
The diffuseColor field defines the base colour of the object that is reflected in all directions
when it is illuminated. The colour is specified using three floating point numbers ranging
between 0.0 and 1.0 and representing the amounts of red, green and blue. The default value is 0.8
0.8 0.8, which is a grey colour.
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The specularColor field defines the colour of the shiny highlights on the object. By
default this is 0.0 0.0 0.0 (black).
The emissiveColor field specifies the colour given off by objects, independent of any
light sources. The default value is 0.0 0.0 0.0 (black).
The shininess value controls the sharpness of the specular highlight. Increasing this value
will make the object appear as increased shininess and the default value is 0.2.
The transparency field specifies how "clear" the object is. A value of 0.0 (default)
indicates an opaque object, 1.0 indicates full transparency.
The ambientIntensity value is used to simulate ambient (indirect) lighting of the object.
the default value is 0.2. In the first example, only the diffuseColor field is required to
define a basic yellow colour for the box shape. The next example will show how the other
fields can be used to create different effects.

6.6 Applications of VRML


VRML in Manufacturing
Various systems like Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) and Computer Aided
Manufacturing (CAM) are widely integrated by the industries. VRML is used in the industry in
Design Phase, Prototype Making, Prototype Simulation, Testing, Visualization and
Manufacturing

VRML in Education
VRML provides opportunities for students to explore complex concepts in science and
the humanities. It is fast becoming a real possibility.

Virtual Tour
Simulation of an existing location usually composed of a sequence of video or still
images. It may also use other multimedia elements such as sound effects, music, narration, and
text. It is an effect of tele-tourism.

Other Areas
Gaming
Health Sector
Engineering Application
Telecommunication

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Short answer questions

1. What is Virtual Reality?


2. How many versions of VRML have been created? List them.
3. Name any two browser plugins for using VRML.
4. Expand VAG.
5. What is the purpose of a VRML modeller?

Long answer questions

1. What is VRML? Give the history of VRML.


2. Explain Features of VRML
3. List the Advantages and Disadvantages of VRML.
4. List and explain the browser plugins for using VRML.
5. Give a brief note of the applications of VRML.

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7. MULTIMEDIA
(Dr S. Britto Ramesh Kumar, Prof. A.Vimal Jerald )

7.1 Introduction
The term Multimedia is more prevalent and itplays a major role in todays information
technology. The word Multimedia is used exclusively to describe multiple forms of media and
content. In other words, multimedia is the combination of text, pictures, video and sound into a
single form. Multimedia is different from the term media, which only use traditional forms of
printed or hand produced material. This chapter discusses the categories, tools and applications
of multimedia

7.2 Elements of Multimedia


Text : Text is an important element for any medium. In multimedia, text is used to specify titles
and dialogues with animations and sound effects. Text can be designed as graphic images.

Audio: Sound with special effects which adds embellishment to any multimedia presentation or
movie. In multimedia, audio helps to create an ambience of a mood in tune with the visual.

Images: Images in multimedia are represented in the form of pictures, diagrams, paintings, still
images and photographs.

Videos: The motion pictures with real time sound and with other visual effects can be used in
multimedia presentation.

Animations: Animation is an element of multimedia which brings life to a multimedia content.


It creates an illusion of movement of different objects in multimedia.

7.3 Categories of Multimedia

Multimedia may be broadly divided into two categories.


i) linear Multimedia : Linear multimedia content is without any navigational control
for the viewer such as a cinema.
ii) Non-linear Multimedia: Non Linear multimedia content facilitates the user
interactivity to control the various functions as used with a computer game

Multimedia presentations can be live or recorded. Hypermedia is an example of non-


linear content, which is non sequential in nature. A recorded presentation may allow
interactivity via a navigation system. A live multimedia presentation may allow interactivity
through an interaction with the presenter or performer.

7.4 Multimedia Hardware and software Tools


As it is furnished the term multimedia refers to an electronically delivered combination of
media including video, still images, audio, text in such a way that can be accessed interactively.
It is necessary to have access to all the forms rather than mediums for which the multimedia
content developers may employ certain hardware as well as multimedia software.
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Some computers which were marketed after 1990s were called "multimedia" computers
because they incorporated a CD-ROM drive, which facilitated the delivery of several hundred
megabytes of video, picture, and audio data.

Multimedia Hardware (I/O Devices):

Following are some of the popularly known multimedia input devices

Keyboards
Mousses
Touch Screen monitors
Web Cameras
Scanners
Finger print scanners
Microphone
joy sticks
Barcode Readers
Magnetic card readers
Voice recognizing system
Digital cameras.

Multimedia enabled Output Devices:


Video devices
Monitor
Projector
Communication devices,
Modem,
Printers
Fax machines,
Audio devices

All the above input and output devices facilitate the multimedia process and functioning by
way of transferring various forms of data i.e., text, pictures and video
Multimedia Software:

There are several software employed for processing multimedia. MS Power Point is an example
of multimedia software. Because it includes text, audio, video in animated form.

List of Multimedia Software Tools:

Text Editing and Word Processing Tools:


- Microsoft Office Word
- OCR (Optical Character Recognition) Software
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Web publishing Tools:


- Macromedia Dream weaver
- Microsoft Front Page Express
- Fusion
- HotMetal
Painting and Drawing Tools :
- Fireworks
- Painter
- Corel Draw
- Auto CAD(Engineering drawing tool)
- FreeHand
- Illustrator
Image Editing Tools
- Photoshop
- iPhoto
- Microsoft Photo Story 3 for Windows
2-D and 3-D Modeling and Animation Tools:
- Flash
- Maya,
- Cool 3D,
- Combustion
Video editing Tools:
- Movie Maker
- Ulead video studio
- Adobe Premier Pro
- Pinnacle Video Studio
- Adobe After Effects
- Sony Vegas
-
Sound Editing Tools
- Sound Forge
- Audacity
- MP3 Audio Editor
- Wavosaur
- Power Sound Editor

The reader may find a good number of software available in the internet.
Advanced software in multimedia has occupied the current market. It dominates both in
the entertainment media and in business.

7.5 Processes of Multimedia Projects


Most multimedia projects are carried out in four stages. Some stages should be completed
before other stage begins.

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1. Planning and costing: A multimedia project should always begin with an idea or concept
that refines by outlining its messages and objectives called as planning.

2. Designing and producing: Designing involves the implementation of planning by giving


a sketch. Designing performs each of the planned tasks to create a finished product.

3. Testing: The objective of testing programs is to make sure that they meet the objectives of
the project, whether they work properly on the intended delivery platforms.

4. Delivering: This is the final stage in which, the multimedia product is delivered to the end
user.

7.6 Multimedia Team


A multimedia team is the one which consists of animators, art directors, composers /
musicians, content developers, creative directors, digital special effects engineers, editors,
photographers, researchers, videographers, programmers and others.

Project Manager is responsible for overall development and implementation of a project and as
well as day to day operations.

Multimedia Designer is the one who deals with graphic design, animation and image processing
of the visuals.

Interface Designer is the person who develops an interface that provides control to the
multimedia users.

Writer Multimedia writers do necessary work for linear media. They create character, action and
point of view.

Video Specialists is the person responsible for an entire team of videographers.

Audio Specialists Audio specialists are the wizards who make a multimedia program come alive
by designing and producing music.

Multimedia programmer integrates all the multimedia elements of a project into a seamless
whole using an authoring system or a programming language.
7.7 Advancement of Multimedia
Multimedia has given birth to a creative invention called Virtual Reality. Virtual Reality
is a computer simulated environment which enables the user with the experience of physical
presence of real or imaginary things by using hardware and software. VR provides a unique way
to access and see information in a more dynamic way. For example, in video games, player
experiences a virtual environment which provides the user with not only visual effects but also
audio and other senses of moving forward or backward and rotation.

Virtual Reality is supported with a Virtual Environment (VE) which is created with the
help of specific hardware and software. Special gloves, earphones, goggles and helmets are
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needed for creating VE. Virtual Environment includes visual displays that immerse the user in
virtual world, a graphics rendering system, tracking system of positions of objects and sound
system with high quality directional sounds. Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) is
the language for describing Virtual Reality by describing 3D image sequences with user
interactions.

7.8 Applications of Multimedia


Multimedia is applied in all the possible fields to make things efficient. Multimedia
applications are many. The major applications are emphasized here.

1. CREATIVE Industry Creative industries use multimedia for a variety of purposes ranging
from fine arts, entertainment, commercial art, journalism, and media. Cinema industry
uses multimedia for special effects and animation. There are exclusively animations
movies and channels which fully broadcast animation related programmes. Creative
advertisement involves multimedia animations. Multimedia games occupy a significant
place in the industry.

2. EDUCATION In Education, multimedia is used to produce computer-based training


courses and reference books like encyclopedia. Learning theory in the past decade has
expanded dramatically because of the introduction of multimedia. Multimedia contents as
tutorials for various learning process occupy a vast area in internet. It enables the learner
to involve actively in the process of learning. Many E-contents are available in the form
of multimedia to facilitate the user with effective learning.

3. ENGINEERING Software engineers may use multimedia in Computer Simulations.


Multimedia is used to even design simulations of different engineering tools and
automobiles. Multimedia for software interfaces are often done as collaboration between
creative professionals and software engineers. Multimedia tools are used to bring out the
pictorial drawings of the civil constructions.

4. BUSINESS In the business sector, multimedia is used as a way to help present


information to shareholders, superiors and co-workers. Multimedia is also helpful for
providing employee training, advertising and selling products all over the world via
virtually unlimited web-based technologies.

5. SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH In scientific research, multimedia is mainly used for modeling


and simulation. For example, a scientist can look at a molecular model of a particular
substance and manipulate it to arrive at a new substance. Likewise for any research work
modeling and simulation can be carried out using multimedia.

6. MEDICINE In Medicine, doctors can get trained by looking at a virtual surgery or they
can simulate how the human body is affected by diseases spread by viruses and bacteria
and then develop techniques to prevent it. There are a good number of multimedia tools
used for surgery as aids to monitor the progress of the patient.

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7.9 Conclusion
As it is discussed, multimedia is very important and it is inseparable from the recent
trends and technologies. So the readers are encouraged to get to know more on multimedia. Also
the readers can learn a few multimedia tools which will be definitely useful in course of
academic endeavors such as projects and modeling. Several placement opportunities are open in
the multimedia industry which provides sky high salary. The student readers may equip
themselves in multimedia taking this chapter as a guideline.

Short Answer questions

1. List down the elements of multimedia.


2. What are the categories of multimedia?
3. Write the process of multimedia project.
4. What is multimedia team?
5. Write a note on Virtual Reality.

Long answer questions

1. List and explain the Multimedia I/O Devices.


2. Explicate the various multimedia tools.
3. Discuss the applications of multimedia elaborately.

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8. NETWORKING AND INTERNET


(Prof. S. Charles, Prof. B. Rex Cyril )

8.1 Networking Fundamentals


A network is simply two or more computers that are linked together. The most common
types of networks are: Local Area Networks (LANS) and Wide Area Networks (WANS).The
primary difference between the two is that a LAN is generally confined to a limited geographical
area, whereas a WAN covers a large geographical area. Most WANs are made up of several
connected LANs.

8.1.1 Parts of a network


There are five basic components of a network: clients, servers, channels, interface
devices and operating systems.

Servers: Sometimes called host computers, servers are powerful computers that store data or
applications and connect to resources that are shared by the users of a network.

Clients: These computers are used by the users of the network to access the servers and shared
resources.

Channels: Also called the network circuit, the channel is the pathway over which information
travels between the different computers that comprise the network.

Interface devices: These are hardware devices that connect clients and servers to the channel.
Examples include modems and network interface cards.

Operating Systems: The network operating system is the software on the network. It serves the
purpose that the operating system serves in a stand-alone computer.

8.2 Types of Networks


Local Area Network (LAN) is a network that spans a small area such as a building or an
office designed for hardware, Software applications and other resources stored on a file server
and Print servers enable multiple users to share the same printer.

Wide Area Network (WAN) a network that spans a wide geographical area; there are
several types of WANS

Metropolitan area network (MAN)


Public access network (PAN)
Value added network (VAN)
Virtual private network (VPN)
Intranet An intranet is a private LAN designed for use by everyone within an
organization. An intranet might consist of an internal e-mail system, a message board and one or

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more Web site portals that contain company news, forums, and personnel information. Access to
an intranet web site is restricted by a firewall.

Extranet a network that connects people within your company with people who are
outside your company--all within a secure, password-protected network that can be accessed
from anywhere.

8.3 Benefits of a Network

Information sharing: Authorized users can use other computers on the network to access and
share information and data. This could include special group projects, databases, etc.

Hardware sharing: One device connected to a network, such as a printer or scanner, can be
shared by many users.

Software sharing: Instead of purchasing and installing a software program on each computer, it
can be installed on the server. All the users can then access the program from a single location.

Collaborative environment: Users can work together on group projects by combining the
power and capabilities of diverse equipment.

8.4 Communications Media

8.4.1 Communications Channel

To transfer data from one computer to another requires some type of link through which the data
can be transmitted. This link is known as the communications channel.

To send data through the channel, it requires some type of transmission media, which may be
either physical or wireless.

8.4.2 Physical Media

Twisted-pair cable consists of two independently insulated wires twisted around each other

(The least expensive type of cablethe kind that is used in many telephone systems)

Coaxial cable consists of an insulated center wire grounded by a shield of braided wire (the
primary type of cabling used by the cable television industry; it is more expensive than twisted
pair)

Fiber-optic cable contains hundreds of clear fiberglass or plastic fibers (threads) (made from
thin, flexible glass tubing; bandwidth is greater, so it can carry more data; it is lighter than metal
wires and is less susceptible to interference; it is fragile and expensive)

ISDN line a special digital telephone line that transmits and receives information at very high
speed
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8.4.3 Wireless Media


Microwave system transmits data via high-frequency radio signals through the atmosphere
Satellite system receives transmitted signals, amplifies them, and then transmits the signals to
the appropriate locations
Cellular technology uses antenna resembling telephone towers to pick up radio signals within
a specific area (cell)
Infrared technology transmits data as infrared light waves from one device to another,
providing wireless links between PCs and peripherals
How are networks categorized?
Networks are usually classified using three properties:
1. Topology
2. Protocol
3. Architecture
8.5 Types of Topologies
Topology is associated with channel access. The way how the computers are connected
with the channel. Each method of channel access, therefore, requires a particular topology.

Network Topology (or layout) refers to the way computers and peripherals are
configured to form networks

Figure 8.1 Network Topology

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8.5.1 Star topology


Star topology is the most popular network topology in businesses today. It consists of
nodes connected to a central switch or hub. If you have a home network, you are probably using
the star topology.

Figure 8.2 Star Topology


8.5.2 Bus topology
Bus topology is one which consists of all the workstations connected to a single cable.
This topology is frequently in coax, or 10Base2, networks. The bus network has a terminator at
each end of the network. If a terminator is not present or if there is a problem in the line (e.g.
NIC card failure, network disconnected from PC), all workstations on that line lose connectivity.

Figure 8.3 Bus Topology


8.5.3 Mesh topology
Mesh topology is one which has all the workstations connected to each other. This
topology is typically only used when high availability is a requirement. It is expensive to
maintain and troubleshoot.

Figure 8.4 Mesh Topology

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8.5.4 Ring topology


Ring topology is one through which all the computers are connected in a loop and data is
passed from one workstation to another. Each computer or workstation is connected to two
other computers, with the entire network forming a circle. This is very common in a token ring
environment where a "token" is sent with data from one node to another until it finds its
destination.

Figure 8.5 Ring Topology

8.6 Network/Communication Protocols


A protocol is simply an agreed-on set of rules and procedures for transmitting data
between two or more devices. Most networks use Ethernet, but some network may use IBMs
Token Ring protocol.On the Internet, the major protocol is TCP/IP (an acronym for
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol).

8.6.1 Ethernet Bus


Ethernet LAN is using a bus topology. All stations are connected to a single long cable.
Any station can send a signal along the cable, which all other stations will receive. Unlike ring
topologies, the cable doesn't close a loop.

Figure 8.6 Ethernet Bus

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8.6.2 Token Ring Network


A token passing ring LAN is a group of computers connected in a loop. The group uses a
token passing access mechanism. A computer wishing to send data should first receive
permission. When it gets control of the network it may transmit a frame. Each frame transmitted
on the ring is transmitted from one computer to the next, until it ultimately returns to the initiator
of the transmission.

Figure 8.7 Token Ring Network

8.7 Internet Protocol

8.8 Networking Hardware and Software

Hub electronic device (with a number of ports) used in a LAN to link groups of
computers .

Repeaters (also called amplifiers) electronic devices that receive signals and amplify
and send them along the network.

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Routers - electronic devices used to ensure that messages are sent to their intended
destinations.

Gateway consists of hardware and/or software that allows communications between


dissimilar networks

Bridge consists of hardware and/or software that allows communication between two
similar networks.

8.8.1 Hubs

The original Ethernet LANs relied on certain physical characteristics of the cable
carrying the network data (usually coaxial cable). New Ethernet technologies introduced new
cable types that are unable to fulfill the original physical requirements. New devices - hubs -
were introduced to simulate those characteristics. Simply put, the hub's major function is to
replicate data it receives from one device attached to it to all others.

8.8.2 Repeaters
A common problem in the networking world is that of weakening electrical signals.
Electrical signals travelling through wires (such as copper wires used in most networks), get
weakened due to the wire's electrical resistance. This effect limits the lengths of the cable that
can be used.

A repeater will overcome this limit, when there is a need to connect two computers at a
larger distance.

A repeater is connected to two cable segments. Any electrical signal reaching the
repeater from one segment, will be amplified and retransmitted to the other segment.

Figure 8.8 An illustration of a repeater at work

The electrical signal entering the repeater at one end is weakened. The repeater amplifies
the electrical signals and resends the data.

8.8.3 Routers
Routers connect two or more networks and forward data packets among them. When
data arrives from one of the segments, the router decides, according to it's routing table, to which
segment to forward that data.
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Figure 8.9 Routers

8.8.4. Gateway
"Gateway" is a term that was once used to refer to a routing device. Today, in the TCP/IP
world, the term "router" is used to describe such a device. The term gateway now refers to
special-purpose devices that perform protocol conversions. Gateways implement application
layer convergence of information received from various protocols.

Examples of gateways found in today's markets are:

1. VocalTec Gateway: A gateway that converts human speech travelling on analog phone
lines into local area network protocol data, and vice-versa.

2. RadVision Gateway: Converts video from digital phone lines into local area network
protocol data, and vice-versa.

Figure 8.10 Gateway

8.8.5. Modem
A modem is a device that converts digital data originating from a terminal or computer, to
analog signals used by voice communication networks such as the telephone system. At one end,
modems convert the digital pulses to audible tones and convert audio tones back to digital pulses
at the other. The word "Modem" stands for "MOdulator-DEModulator".

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Figure 8.11 An illustration of data sent using a modem and a regular telephone line.

8.8.5.1 Transmission speed


Modems are available in different transmission speeds, which are measured in BPS
(bits per second) also called BAUD rate. Standard modems speeds: 9600 baud, 14400 baud,
28800 baud, 33600 baud, 56800 baud.

8.8.5.2 Internal/External
Internal modems are electronic cards. An internal modem is installed in one of the
computer's expansion slots. External modems are fully functioning external devices. The external
modem is connected to a computer using a serial cable to one of the computer's serial ports, and
draws power from an external power source.

8.9 Firewall

Firewalls are systems that establish access control policies among networks. They can
block information from entering a network or from getting out of that network. They can permit
different users to perform different kinds of operations, according to the user's authorizations.

Figure 8.12 Firewall

8.10 Network Architecture

Network architecture refers to the way a network is designed and built. The two major types
are:

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Peer-to-peer architecture - Computers connect with each other in a workgroup to share files,
printers, and Internet access. This is used to connect a small number of computers.

Client/server architecture sends information from a client computer to a server, which then
relays the information back to the client computer or to other computers on the network

8.11 Communication Protocols

File transfer protocol (FTP) used to transmit files.


Simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) used to transmit email messages.
Post office protocol (POP) allows the recipient to retrieve messages.
Wireless application protocol enables wireless devices to access and use the
Internet using a client/server network.
802.11 protocol for wireless LAN technology

8.12 Data Transmission Characteristics

Bandwidth (rate of transmission)


Analog or Digital (type of signal)
Analog transmission takes the form of continuous waves transmitted over a
medium at a certain frequency rage
Digital transmission sends data in the form of bits
Serial or Parallel (order of bits)
Serial transmission all the data bits are transmitted, one bit after another in a
continuous line
Parallel transmission data bits are sent at the same time along multiple paths

8.13 Communications Software

Email Software It is used to send and receive electronic messages using the Internet
Web Browser It allows users to access and view Web pages
Groupware It allows groups of people on a network to share information and to
collaborate on various projects
8.14 Internet

The internet in simple terms is a network of the interlinked computer networking


worldwide, which is accessible to the general public. The internet is a Network of computers, all
over the world, interconnected to each other and available to any individual. The Internet is used
for many different activities including shopping, communicating, learning, and distributing
information.

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The Internet is a network of interconnected networks. The Internet uses high-speed data
lines, called backbones, to carry data. Smaller networks connect to the backbone, enabling any
user on any network to exchange data with any other user.

Figure 8.13 Internet

8.15 History of internet

ARPANET was the network that became the basis for the Internet. Based on a concept
first published in 1967, ARPANET was developed under the direction of the U.S. Advanced
Research Projects Agency (ARPA).

In 1969, the idea became a modest reality with the interconnection of four university
computers. The initial purpose was to communicate with and share computer resources among
mainly scientific users at the connected institutions.

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Some Basic Internet Definition

ARPANet - The precursor to the Internet.


ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange. The de facto world wide
standard code for alphanumeric characters.

Blacklist It describes inappropriate advertisers on Usenet newsgroups and via junk


E-mail.

Browser - A program that is specifically used to look at various WWW resources.

Client - Any computer that makes use of services available from other computers.

Domain Name - A unique name that identifies an Internet site. The name always has two
or more parts separated by a dot. The last part of the name identifies the site ( i.e. gov for
government, edu for education, com for commercial, or net for network). An electronic
street address.

E-mail - Messages, usually text, sent from one person to another via a computer.

8.16 Firewall - A combination of hardware and software that separates a LAN into two or more
parts for security purposes.
Host - A computer or software package which provides a specific kind of service to other
computers. One that is seen by other computers on the Internet.
LAN - Local Area Network. Several computers located in the same physical location are
connected together in order to share information and services.
Modem - A device that allows a computer to use a phone line to communicate with
another computer.
Protocol - The rules of conduct which enable a computer to communicate with another
computer.
PPP - A protocol that allows a computer to use a telephone line and a modem to make
TCP/IP connections.
Server - Any computer that makes services available to other computers.
TCP/IP - Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. This is the protocol which
defines the Internet.
URL - Uniform Resource Locator. A unique name that identifies an Internet site.
WWW - World Wide Web. The universe of hypertext servers.

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8.17 How the Internet Works?


Most computers don't connect directly to the Internet. Instead, they connect to a smaller
network that is connected to the Internet backbone. The Internet includes thousands of host
computers (servers), which provide data and services as requested by client systems. When you
use the Internet, your PC (a client) requests data from a host system.

The request and data are broken into packets and travel across multiple networks before
being reassembled at their destination.

Figure 8.14 Routing Traffic Across the Internet

8.18 Domain Name

In addition to an IP address, most Internet hosts or servers have a Domain Name System
(DNS) address, which uses words. A domain name identifies the type of institution that owns the
computer. An Internet server owned by IBM might have the domain name ibm.com. Some
enterprises have multiple servers, and identify them with sub domains, such as
products.ibm.com.

Table 8.1: Internet Domains

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Major Features of the Internet

The World Wide Web

Email

News

Telnet

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

Internet Relay Chat (IRC)

8.19 The World Wide Web


The World Wide Web is a part of the Internet, which supports hypertext documents,
allowing users to view and navigate different types of data. A Web page is a document encoded
with hypertext markup language (HTML) tags. HTML allows designers to link content together
via hyperlinks. Every Web page has an address, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
The World Wide Web (The Web) is only a portion of what makes up the internet, but it
is the fastest growing part of the internet. The Web lets people, organizations and companies
publish information for other people to see. This makes the Web a very useful tool for finding
information on any topic.

8.20 Email
Electronic mail (e-mail) is the most popular reason for people to use the Internet. To
create, send, and receive e-mail messages, you need an e-mail program and an account on an
Internet mail server with a domain name. To use e-mail, a user must have an e-mail address,
which you create by adding your user name to the e-mail server's domain name. Example:
jsmith@aol.com.

8.21 News
One Internet-based service, called news, includes tens of thousands of newsgroups. Each
newsgroup hosts discussions on a specific topic. A newsgroup's name indicates its users' special
topic of interest, such as ALT, food, cake. To participate in a newsgroup, you need a newsreader
program that lets you read articles that have been posted on a news server. You can post articles
for others to read and respond to.

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8.22 Usenet

Table 8.2: Usenet

8.23 Telnet
Telnet is a specialized service that lets you use one computer to access the contents of
another computer a Telnet host. A Telnet program creates a "window" into the host so you can
access files, issue commands, and exchange data. Telnet is widely used by libraries, to allow
visitors to look up for information, find articles, and so on.

8.24 File Transfer Protocol (FTP)


File transfer protocol (FTP) is the Internet tool used to copy files from one computer to
another. Using a special FTP program or a Web browser, you can log into an FTP host computer
over the Internet and copy files onto your computer. FTP is handy for finding and copying
software files, articles, and other types of data. Universities and software companies use FTP
servers to provide visitors with access to data.

8.25 Internet Relay Chat (IRC)


Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a service that allows users to communicate in real time by
typing text in a special window. Like news, there are hundreds of IRC "channels," each devoted
to a subject or user group. You can use a special IRC program to participate in chat room
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discussions, but many chart rooms are set up in Web sites, enabling visitors to chat directly in
their browser window.

8.26 Tools

8.26.1 IP Address
Its a unique, numeric identifier used to specify a particular host computer on a particular
network and is part of a global, standardized scheme for identifying machines that are connected
to the internet. IP addresses consist of four numbers between 0 and 255 separated by periods and
the unique numbers consist of four parts separated by dots, sometimes called a dotted quad.
Eg.198.204.112.1. Every internet has an IP address and most computers also are assigned one or
more domain names that are easier to remember than the dotted quad.

Figure 8.15 IP Address

8.26.2 ISP-Internet Service Provider


The ISP, short for 'Internet Service Provider', is the company that connects your personal
computer, notebook, net book, PDA, mobile device, game station, etc. to the Internet. Another
name for ISP is IAP, or Internet Access Provider.

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Figure 8.16 Internet Service Provider

8.26.4 Internet access technologies


The connection between your Internet enabled device and the global network is executed
through a specific digital data transmission technology. It represents the transfer of information
packets through an Internet Protocol route. According to the method of data transmission, the
Internet access that ISPs provide to users can be divided into several types, the most popular of
which are:

8.26.5 Dial-up Internet access

This is the oldest method of providing access to the Internet. It uses a telephone line to
perform a modem-to-modem connection. For that purpose, the user's computer is attached to a
telephone line enabled modem device, which dials into the node of the ISP and starts transferring
data between the servers that store websites the user wants to see and their Internet connected
device. The dial-up Internet is today considered outdated in most Internet societies due to the
slow connection speed it ensures (about 40-50 kbit/s.). However, the wide availability of
telephone access makes this type of Internet access the only alternative for remote areas that
remain off the broadband network. It is also the least expensive Internet access service and is
preferred by users on a tight budget.

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Figure 8.17 Dial-up Internet access

8.26.6 DSL
DSL, short for 'digital subscriber loop' or 'digital subscriber line', is an advanced version
of the dial-up Internet access method. In contrast to dial-up, DSL uses high frequency to execute
a connection over the local telephone network. This allows the Internet and the phone
connections to be run on one and the same telephone line. The digital subscriber line technology
ensures an Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), where the upload speed is lower than
the download speed, and a Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line (SDSL), offering equal upload and
download speeds. Of them both, ADSL is much more popular and is even known as just DSL to
users.

8.26.7 Cable Internet


The cable Internet is among the most preferred methods for providing residential Internet
access. Technically speaking, it represents a broadband Internet access method, using the high-
bandwidth cable television network to transmit data between the global network and the
households. To use cable Internet you will need a cable modem at home that will be connected
with the CMTS (Cable Modem Termination System) of your cable ISP. The cable Internet access
can be offered together with a cable television subscription and separately, for customers'
convenience.

8.26.8 Wireless Broadband (WiBB)


This is a new-generation broadband Internet access technology, allowing the delivery of
high-speed wireless Internet within a large area. Wireless broadband ISPs (WISPs) ensures
connection speeds that come close to the wired broadband speeds provided by DSL and cable
ISPs. To get wireless broadband you need to place a specific dish on your house roof or

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apartment balcony and point it to the transmitter of your WISP. This type of Internet access is
used as an alternative to the wired broadband connection in remote areas.

8.26.9 Wi-Fi Internet


Wi-Fi (from Wireless Fidelity) has become one of the most widely distributed Internet
access methods, with the growing usage of portable computers and Internet enabled mobile
devices, such as smart phones, PDAs, game consoles, etc. In this sense, it is the most mobile
Internet access method, since you are able to use it everywhere as long as you are located within
the scope of coverage, i.e. within the range of an Internet connected wireless network. Due to its
ability to serve mobile devices, Wi-Fi is used in public places such as airports, hotels and
restaurants to provide Internet access to customers. There are also specialized Wi-Fi hotspots
where the service is either free or paid. Some of the largest cities in the world are in the process
of building Wi-Fi networks that cover all the public places in the central areas.

8.26.10 ISDN
Another online data transmission method worth considering is ISDN or the Integrated
Services Digital Network. ISDN represents a telephone system network, integrating a high-
quality digital transmission of voice and data over the ordinary phone line. Ensuring a much
better data transmission over the phone line than an analog line could allow, the ISDN offers a
fast upstream/downstream Internet connection speed of 128 kbit/s. This speed level can be
considered as a broadband speed as opposed to the narrowband speed of standard analog 56k
telephone lines.

8.26.11 Ethernet
Another Internet access type worth mentioning is an Ethernet - the most widespread
wired LAN (local area network) technology, also used in wireless LANs. The Ethernet
technology may ensure various speed levels and can thus be divided into several types: regular
Ethernet, providing transmission speeds of up to 10 mbits/s, fast Ethernet, offering up to
100mbits/s, gigabit Ethernet, supporting 1 gbit/s and 10-Gbit Ethernet, coming at up to 10
gbits/s.

8.26.12 Web Pages


The Web is a large number of computer documents or "Web pages" that are stored on
computers around the world and are connected to one another using hyperlinks.

8.26.13 Web Site


A group of Web pages that follow the same theme and are connected together with
hyperlinks is called a "Web site." Web sites and Web pages are written in a coding language that
makes it possible to add pictures, sound and interactivity to plain old text, making people's
reading experience more exciting.

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8.26.14 Web Browsers


These Web pages can be seen by anyone through their computer's "Web Browser,"
which is the program you are using now. Web browsers are programs used to explore the
Internet. There are many Web browser programs available including Netscape Navigator,
Internet Explorer and Opera. Internet Explorer is the Internet browser made by Microsoft and
comes with Windows operating system.

8.26.15 HTML
Hyper Text Markup Language was designed by Tim Berners Lee in 1990.HTML is a set
of standard codes or tags that have been derived from SGML (Standard Generalized Markup
Language). HTML defines and describes the structure of a web page and is used to prepare
documents for the World Wide Web.

8.26.16 Search Engine


A Web Search Engine is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web.
The search results are generally presented in a line of results often referred to as search engine
results pages (SERPs). The information may be a specialist in web pages, images, information
and other types of files.

8.26.17 Google
It is the most popular search engine in the world and a multinational, publicly-traded
organization built around the company's hugely popular search engine. The user can search for
any information by writing what he is looking for in the search text box. Google can view the
searched for information as web pages, pictures and there is a part for Maps, YouTube, and news.
Google has its own E-Mail Application called Gmail.

8.26.18 Email
Email, sometimes written as email, is simply the shortened form of electronic mail, a
system for receiving, sending, and storing electronic messages. It has gained nearly universal
popularity around the world with the spread of the Internet. In many cases, email has become the
preferred method for both personal and business communication.

Short answer questions


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1. What is Internet? How does the internet work?


2. List out the various features of Internet.
3. What is network? Explain the parts of Network.
4. What are the benefits of Network?
5. What are intranet and Extranet?

Long answer questions

1. Explain the Tools of Internet.


2. Explain the following terms
i) Domain name ii) Firewall iii) Wi-Fi internet iv) Wireless broad band.
3. Explain the following terms
i) Physical media ii) Communication media iii) wireless media
4. Explain the types of Topology.
5. Explain networking hardware and software.

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9. SMART DEVICES
(Prof. S.T.Rajan, Prof. B. Gerald Marvin )

9.1 Introduction
One of the fastest growing fields in information and communication technology over the
last few years has been smart device technology incorporated in mobile phones, tablets, cameras,
and TVs. Smart devices have evolved in design and usage with increased processing power,
improved accessibility, a multitude of diverse applications and better connection to the internet.

Any device that has built-in internet connection is called a smart device. A smart device is
performing its own dedicated function. Those devices are expected to perform more function
than its intended purpose. Devices manage to perform all of these various functions because they
can connect to other devices and to the Internet. Such devices are Smart phones and tablet PCs,
Smart and internet-enabled TVs, Network-attached printers, Network-attached storage, Network-
enabled household appliances etc.

9.2 What is Smart Device?


A smart device is any phone or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or any electronic device with an
open operating system. It is an intelligent device that has its own computing capabilities and
capable of communicating with other devices. The device is generally connected to other
devices or networks via Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G etc. that can operate to some extent interactively
and autonomously.
These smart devices, which offered advanced computing ability and connectivity, typically
combine the functions of a PDA, mobile phone, portable media players and camera phones with
high-resolution touch screens, e-book readers, Global positioning System (GPS) navigation.

9.3 What is Smart Phone?


It is a mobile phone, built with mobile operating systems to perform general purpose
applications. Such applications are Make task or to-do lists, Save contact information, Send or
receive e-mail, Get information (news, entertainment, stock quotes) from the Internet, Integrate
other devices such as PDAs, MP3 players and GPS receivers, Take pictures, Record voice
messages, Record videos, and Transfer and receive files using Bluetooth or GPRS. In the year
1992, the first smart phone named IBM Simon was launched. It was sold by Bellsouth and was
available to the consumers in the year 1993. This phone had many advanced features such as
address book, world clock, calendar, e-mail client, notepad and games along with a touch screen
instead of physical buttons to dial numbers.

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Figure 9.1 Early Smart Phones

The term Smartphone was introduced into the market by Ericsson in 1997, when it used
the word to describe its GS 88 Penelope concept as a Smartphone.

Figure 9.2 An Example for a Smart Phone

Difference between a Cell Phone and a Smart Phone

Table 9.1: Differences between Cell and Smart Phones


Sl.
Cell Phone Smart Phone
No.
1. A cell phone is a phone that supports A Smartphone is a phone has computing
basic calling features and internet capabilities and is powered by an operating
capabilities. system.
2. A cell phone is used mainly by common A Smartphone is mainly used by technical and
people that only require telephony business people
services.
3. A cell phone has the primary purpose of A Smartphone has more additional features,
only calling and sending text messages such as Internet, Games, GPS, etc.
4. A cell phone includes simple features Smartphone supports Wi-Fi and other
such as calendar, alarm, games, technically advanced features.
monophonic ringtones etc.

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9.4 Types of Smart Phones


9.4.1 Tablet PC
A Tablet PC is a portable computer with LCD touch screen, equipped with sensors,
camera, microphone etc., in a single unit with finger or stylus gestures replacing computer mouse
and keyboard. This is a new type of internet enabled computer, first became mass-market product
in 2010 with the launch of the very first tablet PC Apple iPad.

Figure9.3 A Tablet PC

Difference between tablet pc and smart phone


Tablets are a cross product of smart phones and laptops, have a bigger screen than
Smartphone and provide a better multimedia experience. Smartphone are mobiles that have
capabilities like mini handheld computers.

9.4.2 Smart TV
A smart TV is either a television set with integrated Internet capabilities or a set-top box
for television that offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity. Smart TVs may be
thought of as an information appliance or the computer system from a handheld computer
integrated within a television set unit. Smart TV allows the user to install and run plug-n-play
applications based on a specific platform. Smart TVs run complete operating system or mobile
operating system software providing a platform for application developers.

Fig9.4 A Smart TV with Browser

Functions of a Smart TV: Smart TV is powered by Android OS allows us to use the


functions such as YouTube, video on demand, and even browse the web.

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9.3.4 Smart Camera


A smart camera or intelligent camera is a vision system with image capture circuitry. It is
capable of extracting application-specific information from the captured images, along with
generating event descriptions or making decisions that are used in an intelligent and automated
system. A smart camera is a self-contained, standalone vision system with built-in image sensor
in the housing of an industrial video camera.

Figure 9.5 A Smart Camera

It is powered by Android OS, giving users the ability to not only to snap a picture, but to
share their photos on Facebook.

Components
- Image sensor (matrix or linear, CCD (charge-coupled device)- or CMOS
(complementary metal oxide semiconductor))
- Image digitization circuitry
- Image memory
- Processor (DSP (Digital Signal Processor) processor)
- Program- and data memory (RAM (Random Access memory) , nonvolatile FLASH)
- Communication interface (RS232, Ethernet)
- I/O lines (often opt isolated)
- Lens holder or built in lens (usually C, CS or M-mount)
- Built in illumination device (usually LED)
- Purpose developed real-time operating system (For example VCRT)

A video output (e.g. VGA or SVGA) may be an option for a Smart Camera.

9.3.5 Smart Watch


A smart watch is a computerized wristwatch with functionality that is enhanced beyond
timekeeping, and is often comparable to a personal digital assistant (PDA) device. While early
models can perform basic tasks, such as calculations, translations, and game-playing, modern
smart watches are effectively wearable computers. Many smart watches run mobile apps, while a
smaller number of models run a mobile operating system and function as portable media players,
offering playback of FM radio, audio, and video files to the user via a Bluetooth headset.

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Figure 9.6 A Smart Watch

It is a latest generation device that interacts with the Smartphone allowing us to have
calls, text messages, e-mails, notifications, music, agenda, weather, photos and any application
could be needed by user directly on wrist. A Smart watch that can communicate with the user
phone using Bluetooth technology in it.

9.3.6 Smart Oven


It is used to View recipes, watch food network videos, and stay connected in the kitchen.
Built-in Android OS technology allows users to enter what theyre cooking and have an alert sent
to their phone when the food is done. The smart oven also has the ability to self-diagnose
maintenance issues and will alert the user to call a repairman when problem occurs.

Figure 9.7 A Smart Oven

9.4 Different Types Operating Systems for Smart Phones

9.4 .1 Apple iOS


An Operating System is the system that all other programs Operate in. In the term
iOS, the "i" stands for Internet and the "OS" stand for Operating System. It is the worlds most
advanced mobile Operating system. The term "iOS" was originally known as "iPhone OS" and
was introduced in 2007 along with the first iPhone hardware device Apple released. It was the
term used to describe the software that would operate the iPhone and is derived from the term
"OS X", which is how Apple describes its "operating system" for its Macintosh computers. The
"X" stands for 10 which is the newest version of the computer software Apple created to operate
the desktop and laptop computers they design. The "iOS" platform is a mobile-device-based
software system that works like a computer system, but on mobile devices like portable phones.
It is designed to be smaller, faster and use less power. It also has a "touch" friendly user interface
so it works better when a finger is used to interface with the system instead of a mouse or stylus
that has been used in the past to interact with operating systems. The iPhone has run on iOS since
its release in 2007.

9.4 .2 Android
One of the most widely used mobile OS these days is ANDROID. Android does a
software bunch comprise not only operating system but also middleware and key applications.
Android Inc was founded in Palo Alto of California, U.S. by Andy Rubin, Rich miner, Nick sears

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and Chris White in 2003. Later Android Inc. was acquired by Google in 2005. After original
release there have been number of updates in the original version of Android.

Features of Android OS
Android is a powerful Operating System supporting a large number of applications in
Smart Phones. These applications make life more comfortable and advanced for the users.
Hardwares that support Android are mainly based on ARM (Advanced RISC Machines)
architecture platform.

9.4.3 Windows 8
Windows 8 Mobile is one of the major Smartphone platforms and until recently the only
touch-enabled Smartphone platform. Windows Mobile actually has two distinct editions
- Windows Mobile Standard
- Windows Mobile Professional.

The main difference between the editions is that Windows Mobile Professional supports
touch screen and handwriting recognition.

Windows Mobile is a product created by Microsoft but as the company does not produce
any phones itself, it licenses the platform to hardware manufacturers.

In 2011 Nokia announced it has chosen Windows Phone as the OS for all its future smart
phones providing a solid backing for the fledgling OS and in the same time betting all of its
mobile phone business on its success.

In October 2012 Windows 8 introduced much awaited features such as multi-core


processor and multiple screen resolution support, removable memory card support, USB Mass
storage mode, DivX/XviD video playback support, NFC support, Bluetooth file transfers, Kid's
Corner, etc.

The Windows Mobile Standard edition was known as Windows Mobile for Smartphone,
while the Professional edition was referred to as Windows Mobile for Pocket PC

9.4.4 BlackBerry
BlackBerry Limited, formerly known as Research In Motion Limited (RIM), is a
Canadian telecommunication and wireless equipment company best known as the developer of
the BlackBerry brand of smartphones and tablets. The company is headquartered in Waterloo,
Ontario, Canada. The BlackBerry OS is the proprietary mobile platform developed by RIM
(Research in Motion), exclusively for its BlackBerry smartphones and mobile devices. RIM uses
this OS for supporting specialized functions, especially the trademark trackball, trackwheel,
trackpad and the touchscreen. The BlackBerry OS offers native support for corporate mail via
MIDP, which enables effortless wireless sync with Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino and
email, contacts, calendar, notes and so on, while used along with the BlackBerry Enterprise
Server.

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9.4.5 Symbian
Symbian is an open-source (ECL) mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform
designed for smart phones and currently maintained by Accenture.[5] Symbian was originally
developed by Symbian Ltd. Symbian was used by many major mobile phone brands, like
Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and above all by Nokia. It was the most popular Smartphone
OS on a worldwide average until the end of 2010, when it was overtaken by Android.

9.4.6 Bada
It is an operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. It
is developed by Samsung Electronics. Its name is derived from the word Bada meaning "ocean"
or "sea" in Korean. It ranges from mid- to high-end smartphones.

Bada is a quiet user friendly and efficient operating system, much like Android but
unfortunately Samsung did not use Bada on a large scale for unknown reasons. The latest version
Bada 2.0.5 was released on March 15th 2012. There are only 3 phones which are operating on
Bada. These three smartphones are Samsung Wave, Samsung Wave 2 and Samsung Wave 3.

9.5 The Benefits of Smartphones

Because greater functionality is built-in, smart phones can do things much more quickly than
their standard mobile phone and PDA precursors.

Keeping you organised - smartphone handsets can function as personal organisers, with
electronic diaries, contact lists, and automatic reminders.
Flexible working - as with a PDA, you can use your smartphone to take notes, review and
edit your appointments, contacts and documents, all while you're on the move.

Information at your fingertips - more and more services are being made available on
smartphones, from access to maps, satnav and directions to television transmissions with
news coverage or weather reports to traffic information and scheduling alerts - which
means your business, can always stay one step ahead of what's going on.

Examples of products and companies included in this guide do not in any way imply
endorsement or recommendation. Bear in mind that prices quoted are indicative at the time it was
published. Smartphones combine the functionality of PDAs, wireless PCs, phones, and even
digital cameras in one handset, making them a powerful business tool.

Never out of touch - you can connect to the internet for e-mail and web access 'on the
move', or connect to your computer network to access relevant data, wherever you are,
making it easier for remote workers, or a mobile workforce to stay in touch with the
business.
Better information sharing - considerably more data can be received and transmitted via a
smartphone, such as large e-mail attachments or data files from websites. Previous
mobiles could only manage small e-mails without attachments.

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Greater functionality - many models offer built-in digital cameras with immediate snap
and send functionality, so remote workers or offsite staff can instantly photograph and
send images or videos of anything from supplier's goods to site inspections or damaged
warehouse machinery. Smartphones could offer you a new way of marketing to
customers, Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS) lets you include animation, graphics
and music in a message.

Faster communication - web access is quicker than in previously available mobiles,


making it easier to access e-mail and information from the Net. Some models and carriers
offer an 'always-on' internet access service making connection easier

9.6 Downloading Applications for Smart Devices


A mobile application is a software application designed to run on smartphones, tablet
computers and other mobile devices. They are usually available through application distribution
platforms, which are typically operated by the owner of the mobile operating system, such as the
Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store, and BlackBerry App World. Applications
can be downloaded in smart phones using two popular tools, such as:
- Google play store is used in android phones
- Apple Store is used in Apple iOS phones

9.6.1Google Play for Android Phones


Google Play is a digital distribution platform for apps on Android and an online
electronics and digital media store developed and maintained by Google. Google Play services
are used to update Google applications. This component provides core functionality like
authentication to Google services, synchronized contacts, and access to all the latest user privacy
settings, and higher quality, lower-powered location based services. Google Play services also
enhances user application experience. It speeds up offline searches, provides more immersive
maps, and improves gaming experiences.

Google Play is a digital distribution platform for applications for the Android operating
system and an online electronics and digital media store, operated by Google.

Applications are available through Google Play either free of charge or at a cost. They
can be downloaded directly to an Android or Google TV device through the Play Store mobile
app, or by deploying the application to a device from the Google Play website. It is a digital
application distribution platform and digital media store for Android developed and maintained
by Google. The service allows users to browse and download music, books, magazines, movies,
television programs, and applications from Google Play

9.6.2 Apple Store for Apple iOS phones


The Apple Store is an online store for purchasing and downloading software applications
and mobile apps for Apple computers and devices. The Application Store initially debuted as an
online app store for mobile devices powered by Apple's iOS mobile operating store such as the
iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The Apple Store serves as the only way to download native iOS
applications. Apps can also be shared across multiple iOS devices.

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Software developers can release their own mobile apps for the Apple App Store with the
Software Development Kit for iPhone OS. These apps can be freely downloaded or purchased
by users, with revenues for the latter shared between Apple (30 percent) and the software
developer (70 percent).

Conclusion

Smart devices have had a profound impact on the way consumers engage with merchants
and financial institutions, effectively becoming the focal point of an integrated customer
experience before, during and after a transaction. A smart device strategy planned in the context
of a larger Universal Commerce engagement program will provide merchants and financial
services providers with the technology plan they need to optimize the customer experience.

With respect to smart phone Operating system Androids market coverage is currently
witnessing a mushroom growth and it has already threatened the growth of iOS. Android being
on Java stack and open source, attracts large number of developer community to build
applications over it.

Short answer question

1. What is Smart device?


2. Define Smart phone.
3. Differentiate Cell Phone and Smart phone.
4. How tablet differs from smart phones?

Long answer question

1. Discuss the various types of Smart Phone OS and their special features.
2. Explain the Role of Android OS in various smart devices.
3. Explain about uses of Google play in detail.
4. Explain the features of Apple store and its uses.
5. What are the benefits of Smartphones?

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10. E-COMMERCE
(Prof. A. Charles, Prof. A.H. Amalorpava Akila, Prof. N. Vijayaraj )

10.1 Introduction
Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce.
E-Commerce is the purchasing, selling and exchanging goods and services over
computer networks (internet) through which transactions or terms of sale are performed
electronically.
From a communications perspective, e-commerce is the delivery of information,
products/services or payments via telephone lines, Fax, computer networks or any other means.
From an online perspective, e-commerce provides the capability of buying and selling products
and information on the internet and other online services.
It refers to a wide range of online business activities for products and services. Any
form of business transaction in which the parties interact electronically rather than by physical
exchanges or direct physical contact.

10.2 Difference between E-Commerce & E-Business


E-commerce covers online processes that touch customers, suppliers and external
partners, including sales, marketing, order taking, delivery, customer service,
purchasing of raw materials and supplies for production.
More sophisticated system such as flight and hotel reservation system.
E-Commerce breaks into two components:
Online Shopping - the scope of information and activities that provide the customer
with the information they need to conduct business with you and make an informed
buying decision.
Online Purchasing - the technology infrastructure for the exchange of data and
the purchase of a product over the Internet. Online purchasing is a metaphor used in
business-to-business e-Commerce for providing customers with an online method of
placing an order, submitting a purchase order, or requesting a quotation.
E-Business is a super-set of E-Commerce.
E-business includes e-commerce but also covers internal processes such as production,
inventory management, product development, risk management, finance, and human
resources.
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E-business includes electronic mechanism to distribute information not directly related


to buying and selling of goods.
10.3 History of E-Commerce
The term e-commerce was originally conceived to describe the process of conducting
business transactions electronically using technology from the Electronic Data Interchange
(EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).

These technologies, which first appeared in the late 1970s, allowed for the exchange of
information and the execution of electronic transactions between businesses, typically in the
form of electronic purchase orders and invoices.

The Boston Computer Exchange, a marketplace for used computer equipment started in
1982, was one of the first known examples of e-commerce. Throughout the 1980s, the
proliferation of credit cards, ATM machines and telephone banking were the next steps in the
evolution of electronic commerce.

The birth of companies such as eBay and Amazon (launched in 1994) really began to
lead the way in e-commerce.

10.4 Types

1. B2B( Business to Business E-commerce)


2. B2C( Business to Consumer E-commerce)
3. C2B( Consumer to Business E-commerce)
4. C2C( Consumer to Consumer E-commerce)
5. Intra-organizational E-commerce
6. Business to Government E-Commerce

10.4.1 B2B (Business-to-Business) or inter-organizational Ecommerce


It refers to companies doing business with each other such as manufacturers selling to
distributors and wholesalers selling to retailers. Pricing is based on quantity of order and is
often negotiable. B2B is used to improve business relationship among organizations. (Invoices,
cheques, purchase orders, financial reports).
For Example: Logistic companies

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Benefits
Supplier Management (reduces no. of suppliers, processing cost, and cycle time)
Inventory Management (list of items/product, eliminate out of stock items)
Distribution Management (list of ships cargo, purchase orders etc)
Channel Management (reduces labour, time saving)
Payment Management (electronic payment reduces clerical errors, lower
transaction fee and cost)

10.4.2 B2C Business to Consumer


In B2C seller is a business organization, buyer is consumer. In this case costumer
directly interacts with company, i.e. books and cds buy online and internet is used as a medium
for transaction. Newspapers reading and weather forecasting are used as a B2C E-commerce.
This type of e-commerce improves the flow of information between firm and customers.
Examples are ebay.com, and amazon.com.

10.4.3 C2B Consumer to Business


A consumer posts his project with a set budget online and within hours companies
review the consumer's requirements and bid on the project. The consumer reviews the bids and
selects the company that will complete the project. Elance empowers consumers around the
world by providing the meeting ground and platform for such transactions.

10.4.4 C2C (Consumer-to-Consumer)


In this type both seller and buyers are consumers. There are many sites offering free
classifieds, auctions and forums where individuals can buy and sell.
For Example: Olx.com auction service is a great example where in person-to-person
transactions take place every day.

10.4.5 Intra-organizational E-Commerce


The purpose of Intra-organizational applications is to help a company maintain the
relationships that are critical to delivering superior customer value by paying close attention to
various functions in the organization.
Benefits
Workgroup communications
Electronic Publishing
Sales force Productivity
10.4.6 Business to Government E-Commerce

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A platform for businesses to bid on government opportunities. It refers to the use of the
Internet for public procurement, licensing procedures, and other government-related operations.
It reduces the risk of irregularities in Income Tax Department, Excise and Taxation Department.

Advantages of e-commerce for businesses


Reduction of costs in the business
E-commerce serves as an equalizer. It enables start-up and small- and medium-sized
enterprises to reach the global market.
E-commerce makes mass customization possible. E-commerce applications in this
area include easy-to-use ordering systems that allow customers to choose and order
products according to their personal and unique specifications.
E-commerce allows network production. This refers to the parcelling out of the
production process to contractors who are geographically dispersed but who are
connected to each other via computer networks.

10.5 M-COMMERCE

M-Commerce is also known as Mobile Commerce. M-Commerce is the buying and


selling of goods and services through wireless handheld devices. It is the process of paying for
services using a mobile phone or personal organizer.

M-Commerce is the ability to conduct Commerce using a mobile device such as Mobile
Phone, Personal Digital Assistant(PDA), Smart Phone etc. M-Commerce is the use of a
terminal(telephone, PDA, PC device) and public mobile network to access information and
conduct transactions that result in the transfer of value in exchange of information, services or
goods. Mobile commerce refers to any transaction with monetary value that is conducted via a
mobile communications network.

10.5.1 History of M-Commerce


Mobile Commerce Services were first delivered in 1997, when the first two mobile-
phones enabled Coca Cola vending machines were installed in the Helsinki area in Finland.
The M-Commerce server was developed in 1997 by Kevin Duffey at Logica. Since the launch
of the iPhone, mobile Commerce has moved away from SMS systems and into actual
applications.
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10.5.2 Mobile Commerce from the Customer s point of view


The customer wants to access information, goods and services any time and in any
place on his mobile device. He can use his mobile device to purchase tickets for events or
public transport, pay for parking, download content and even order books and CDs. He should
be offered appropriate payment methods.

10.5.3 Mobile Commerce from the Provider`s point of view


The future development of the mobile telecommunication sector is heading more and
more towards value-added services. Analysts forecast that soon half of mobile operators
revenue will be earned through mobile Commerce. Innovative service scenarios will be
needed that meet the customers expectations and business models that satisfy all partners
involved.

10.5.4 Applications of M-Commerce

1. Mobile ticketing
2. Mobile Money Transfer,
3. Mobile banking
4. Mobile marketing and advertising

10.6 MOBILE TICKETING

Mobile Ticketing is the process where the customers can order, pay for, obtain and
validate tickets from any location and at any time using Mobile phones .

Tickets can be booked and cancelled on the mobile device with the help of simple
application downloads.

Delivery of tickets to mobile phones can be done in the form of a SMS or by a MMS.
Mobile Tickets can be purchased in a variety of ways including online, via text messaging or
in a secure mobile application.

Mobile Ticketing is used in many applications like:

Airline ticketing
Cinema ticketing
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Railway & Bus ticketing


Concert/Event ticketing
Consumer voucher distribution

Benefits to the ticket buyer

Instant delivery of mobile tickets at the time of purchase.


Individual mobile tickets can be forwarded to a friend.
Quicker entry with no waiting in lines.

Benefits to the Event organizer

Reduced call lines and staffing.


Guaranteed security, only one entry per barcode.
Event is 'greener' with reduced paper waste.

MOBILE MONEY TRANSFER


Mobile Money Transfer refers to payment services which are performed by using a
mobile phone. By using this service we can transfer money from one person to other by using a
mobile phone. Mobile content purchase and delivery mainly consist of the sale of ring-tones,
wallpapers, and games for mobile phones. The convergence of mobile phones, portable audio
players, and video players into a single device is increasing the purchase and delivery of full-
length music tracks and video.

MOBILE BANKING
Mobile banking is a system that allows customers of a financial institution to conduct a
number of financial transactions through a mobile device such as a mobile phone or personal
digital assistant.
Mobile Banking Services are:

Mini-statements and checking of account history


Checking the balance
Recent transactions
PIN provision, Change of PIN and reminder over the Internet
Cash-in, cash-out transactions on an ATM

MOBILE-MARKETING AND ADVERTISING

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Mobile marketing is a highly responsive sort of marketing campaign, especially from


brands experience point of view. Corporations are now using M-Commerce to expand
everything from services to marketing and advertisement.
Types are
Mobile Web Poster
SMS advertising
MMS advertising
Mobile games
Mobile videos
Audio Advertisements
Mobile vouchers, coupons and loyalty cards
The voucher or coupon or loyalty card is represented by a virtual token that is sent
to the mobile phone. Presenting a mobile phone with one of these tokens at the
point of sale allows the customer to receive the same benefits as another customer
who has a loyalty card or other paper coupon/voucher.

PAYMENT METHODS

Consumers can use many forms of payment in mobile Commerce. They are:
1. Premium Rate Telephone
Numbers
2. Direct Mobile Billing
3. Macro payment and Micro
payment Services
4. Mobile Wallet
Premium Rate Telephone Numbers
Premium-rate telephone numbers are telephone numbers for telephone
calls during which certain services are provided, and for which prices higher than
normal are charged.
Unlike a normal call, part of the call charge is paid to the service provider, thus
enabling businesses to be funded via the calls.
These telephone numbers are easily distinguished from other numbers.
Direct Mobile Billing
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Direct mobile billing, also called direct to bill, is a method of paying for
merchandise by charging the purchase to a mobile phone account.
At the time of checkout, the customer selects the mobile billing option on a
smart phone and follows a two-factor authentication procedure.
After the authentication, which usually involves a PIN(personal identification
number) and one-time password, the consumer's mobile account is charged for
the amount of the purchase, plus applicable taxes and, in some cases, a
processing fee.
Direct mobile billing does not require any previous registration, and it does not
involve any other sources of funding such as credit cards or bank accounts.

Macro and Micro Payment Services

Macro payments
This kind of payments is used by traditional electronic Commerce and they
usually involve amounts more than US $10.00.
Payment by credit card is the most common method for Macro payments.
Micro Payments
These usually involve amounts less than US $10.00, which are too small to be
economically processed by credit cards.
The amounts are usually charged to users phone bills.

Mobile Wallets

A mobile wallet based payment strategy deals with how, where and when the
payments can be accepted and processed using the users wallet accounts.
A mobile wallet payment option includes the following:
Prepaid Here the users top up their mobile wallet accounts upfront and such
mobile wallet accounts are used to make the payments in context of the mobile
sales transactions.
Post-paid In this case, a users mobile wallet account is linked to his or her
carrier billing account. The mobile sales transactions are paid with the users
mobile wallet account, which in turn is charged to the associated mobile billing
account that is usually paid on a monthly or quarterly basis.
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Card linked mobile wallets In this mobile wallet strategy, the mobile wallet
accounts are linked to users debit or credit cards. In a mobile sales transaction,
with card linked mobile wallet payment, the final payment is made from the wallet
account that is linked to users cards.

Advantages of M-Commerce
Portability
Instant connectivity
Mobility
Personalization

Disadvantages of M-Commerce
Small screens of most devices still limit types of file and data transfer
Use of graphics is limited.
User interface is often difficult to learn how to use Speed Limited storage capacity of
devices.

Short answer questions:

1) What is E-Commerce?
2) Write the difference between E-Commerce and E-Business.
3) What are the benefits of E-Commerce?
4) What is M-Commerce?
5) What are the benefits of M-Commerce?
6) Write the disadvantages of M-Commerce.

Long answer questions:

1) Explain the types of E-Commerce.


2) Explain the applications of M-Commerce.
3) Explain the payment methods in M-Commerce.

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Social Networking and Cyber Law

12. SOCIAL NETWORKING AND CYBER LAW


(Prof. D.P Jeyapalan, Prof. S. Josephine Theresa, Prof. A. Jenifer Jothi Mary )

INTRODUCTION
A Network is used to connect socially to share, interact and keeping in touch with family
and friends from across the world and also with others. The term social network was coined in
1954 by J. A. Barnes. Its used for social purposes, business purposes or both. It is also
represented as relationships and flows among people, groups, organizations, computer
information or knowledge. This makes it easier for people to identify and communicate with
everyone who is accessing in the networks.

Wikipedia definition - A social network is a social structure made of individuals (or


organizations) called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of
interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, financial exchange, dislike or relationships of
beliefs, knowledge or prestige

HISTORY

Social networking began in 1978 with the Bulletin Board System (or BBS) and was
hosted on personal computers. Geocities was the first social networking site and was launched in
1994. It allows users to create their own websites. In 1995, TheGlobe.com was launched,
offering users to interact with people who had the same interests and published their own
content.

Two years later, in


1997, AOL Instant
Messenger and
SixDegrees.com were
launched. This year only
the instant messaging
became popular and it was
the first time internet users
were able to create their own profile and friendship with each other.

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In the year 2013, social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ had millions of
users,

Websites Viewers/Users

YouTube 4 billion (per day)

Facebook 1.11 billion

Google+ 343 million

LinkedIn 225 million

Twitter 200 million

Tumblr 170 million

Dropbox 100 million

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES


When social networking comes to online, websites are commonly used. These websites
are known as social sites. Social Networking Sites (SNS) enable the users to create public profiles
in the Web site and form relationships with other users who access their profile. It can be used to
describe group based Web sites, online discussions forums, chatrooms and other online
community of internet users.

When the users want to use a social


networking website, they need to provide
their email address to verify the identity.
This automatically creates a profile page. A
profile page always allow to post quotes,
images, videos, interests, general
information, and comments of friends and
even play games like Scrabble and Chess online. Social network service is a medium for
establishing social networks of people who share interests and/or activities. These are web based
and they provide means for users to interact in various ways like e-mail and instant messaging.
CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITES
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There are five basic characteristics that differentiate a social network from a regular website.
They are as follows.
1. Openness: The social networking services are open to provide feedback and
participation. It encourages posting likes, comments and the sharing of information. There
are some barriers to access and making use of other information and password-protected
content.
2. User-based: Online social networks are created and directed by users. Without the
users, the network is an empty forum, application, and chat room. The direction of the
content is determined by anyone who takes part in the conversation.

3. Interactive: Websites like Facebook, Twitter are filled with network-based gaming
applications. These social networks are becoming a pastime rather than watching
television. Because it's an entertainment and also a way to connect with friends.

4. Community-driven: It is used to form communities or social groups around the


world with common beliefs or hobbies and also form sub-communities of people who
share commonalities, such as alumni of a college/school, or an animal welfare group.
This provides an opportunity to reconnect with old friends.

5. Relationships: In social network, the information is passed on/ posted to large


number of people within a short time.

EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SERVICES

Facebook
Facebook allows people to communicate with their friends and exchange information.
The platform provides an outline for designers to create applications that interact with primary
Facebook features.

Orkut
It is a free social networking website, where we can design a profile, connect with
friends, maintain an online scrapbook and use site features and applications to share our interests
and meet others. The requirement for logging on to Orkut is that the user must be over 18 years.

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LinkedIn
This online social network for business professionals is designed specifically for
professional networking, to help them find a job, discover sales leads, and connect with potential
business partners.

MySpace
MySpace offers interactive, individual profiles, blogs and groups, commonly used for
sharing photos, music and videos.

Twitter
Twitter is a micro-blogging service, which is used in a variety of ways including sharing
information with users and providing support for peers.

Zorpia
Zorpia.com is a social network that has a large international community. Its features
include profile changes, networking features and a detailed search. You can make a Majestic
Membership for extra networking options like adfree profile, extra profile design features and
unlimited messaging.

ADVANTAGES
The objective is to get a wide audience, making it a useful and effective connecting tool.
It's cheaper to use for both personal and business.
It enables open communication, enriched information discovery and delivery.
It helps the students to work together to create their own ideas in work atmospheres,
social perspectives and academic subjects.
Allows people who are all in same working platform to deliberate ideas, post news, ask
questions and share links.
Offers an opportunity to extend business contacts.
Improves business name and client base with minimal use of publicity.
Through Free Advertising a non-profit organization can spread its message to millions of
people 24*7.

DISADVANTAGES

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It is full of time waster spending valuable time on games, chats, or other non-related
activities.
It eliminates the effective face-to-face communication.
Students are distracted from doing their works; it tends to make them fail in their
academic activities because of wrong way of using social media.
There is a possibility for attackers to make fraud and launch spam and virus attacks.
These sites provide privacy options but users are generally unaware or ignorant.
It increases the risk of peoples data or identity theft.
It possibly results in lost productivity, especially if employees are busy updating profiles.
Ones personal information can be accessed by everyone that leads to data insecurity and
also Incorrect Utilization of data.

HOW TO STAY OUT OF TROUBLE FROM SOCIAL NETWORK


1. Sprites are those people who post mean, harmful words or pictures on the internet.
2. Keep and add only friends you know in real life.
3. Share profile and photos only with friends
4. Ignore irritating or rude comments
5. Keep personal information to be private.

CONCLUSION
With the rapid growth and popularity of social networks, most of the teenagers use these
websites to make new friends and share their activities. All must be aware about the kind of data
and information which is posted on the websites. It may create problems for an individual, while
everything is public, even if the data inside the user's private section is not safe and secure.

By being aware of virtual surroundings and whom you are talking to, you should be able
to securely enjoy social networking online. But you will not get a clear idea until you meet the
person.

CYBER LAW

INTRODUCTION

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We live in a technology driven world. The world that technology has created is a world of
machines - computers, computer systems and computer Network. This world is unique in the
sense that it creates a beautiful interface between hardware and software.
There are many disturbing things happening in cyberspace. Due to the unknown nature of
the Internet, it is possible to engage in a wide variety of criminal activities with pollution and
people with intelligence have been grossly misusing this portion of the Internet to bring about the
criminal activities in cyberspace. Due to this reason was introduced the concept called Cyber
law. This will offer security to our computer, hardware, software devices and protect the
Systems. Hence the need for cyber law in India. The virtual globe of internet is known as
cyberspace and the laws leading this area are known as Cyber laws.

EVOLUTION AND HISTORICAL EVENTS IN CYBER LAW:

India does not have any law by the name of Cyber Law nor any law called The Data
Protection Act. India has one law encompassing IT related crimes, Data Protection related law
and Internet related law and that is called The IT Act, 2000.Technology has developed a lot to
bring new methods to the society. But certain kinds of cyber offences and other loopholes posed
hurdles in the effective enforcement of the IT Act, 2000.This led to Information Technology
(Amendment) Act, 2008 which was made effective from 27 October 2009. With the growth of
advanced technology, cyber crimes have been increasing in various ways. Social networking is
the center of digital globe in the cyber law. Instances of misuse of information, and criminal
activities such as theft, and unwarranted activities are going in the Social network. Social
networking platforms and social media drastically attract the people. It is ensured that there will
be a number of legal challenges that the Cyber law jurisprudence will have to tackle. All this
activities come under the section Act 66 cyber law.

Articles taken from Times of India and Economic Times:


1. In May this year, two Air India cabin crew members, Mayank Mohan Sharma and KVJ
Rao, were arrested by the cyber-crime cell of the Mumbai police for Facebook posts
alleged to be offensive to politicians. Like the Palghar case, they too were charged under
Section 66A of the Information Technology Act.

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2. In April, Kolkata professor Ambikesh Mahapatra was arrested for forwarding a cartoon of
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.These are the good examples for Cyber
law.

CYBER LAW
Cyber law is also known as Internet law. The term Cyber is used to describe a human
being, thing, or idea as part of the computer. It encapsulates the legal issues related to use of the
Internet. It is a different field of law than intellectual property or agreement law, as it is a part
covering many areas of law and policy.

Building Blocks of Cyber Law


Cyber law is a new branch of law and is growing very fast in the society. There are three
basic building blocks of cyber laws, namely:
1. Netizens
A Netizen is an inhabitant of the worldwide world, a man, who inhabits the Net
and uses it as an extension of his day-to-day physical world. E.g who are they? Which
country they belong to? Do they have any fundamental rights? There is no end to what a
netizen can do.
2. Cyberspace
Cyber law is for cyberspace. Cyberspace is a key building block of cyber law.
cyber law is to act as a bridge between the physical space and the cyberspace, in order to
regulate interface between man and machine.
3. Technology

Cyber laws are technology intensive laws. They revolve around technology and
its applications. Cyber laws establish norms of accepted human behaviour in cyberspace.
Let us see how the cyber law is related to cyber crimes.

CYBER LAW ENCOMPASSES LAWS RELATING TO


1. Cyber Crimes
2. Electronic and Digital Signatures
3. Intellectual Property
4. Data Protection and Privacy
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Cyber crimes
These are illegal acts where the computer is used either as a tool or a target or both. The
massive growth in electronic commerce (e-commerce) and online share trading has led to a
unique burst in incidents of cyber crime.
Electronic signature
This is used to validate electronic records. Digital signatures are one type of electronic
signature. Digital signatures satisfy three major legal requirements signer confirmation,
message confirmation and message reliability. The technology and efficiency of digital
signatures make them more responsible than hand written signatures.
Intellectual property
It refers to creations of the human mind .Example for intellectual property is a narrative,
a song, an image, a plan etc. The facets of intellectual property that relate to cyber space are
covered by cyber law.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
The concept of electronic transactions and communications has transformed the world as
one impossible without law. When we manage the data manually or record a file, it is not only a
tedious job but also it causes a lot of discrepancies to arise. The data can be corrupted,
manipulated or stolen by anyone who is expert in programming. By doing this, many clients and
company, organizations can suffer to a great extent. That is why the government has formulated
cyber laws to ensure that such crimes are not encountered in India.

ISSUES IN CYBER LAW

Today the world is working with network .Most of the companies compete with each
other. Different information is to be compared and managed effectively, but the advantages of
cyber space become more visible .so the hacker found different ways to break into the system.

Another issue faced today is cyber terrorism, which is the act of engaging in terrorist
activities through the use of cyber space. For example showing videos of kidnapped via internet.
The IP address of the computer is manipulating in such a way that police cant trace the culprit.

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Another common issue includes invading of personal information for harassment causes
like hacking, individual private accounts such as Face book, Hotmail, Gmail or a forum where
private information of an individual is given to easily attack the clients.

MERITS OF CYBER LAW:

1. Protection against cyber bullies


A lot of people especially the youth were victims of cyber bullies. The most common way
of doing this attack is via social networking sites. This kind of attack has been minimized
today because any one who is proved guilty, will surely stay for years in jail.
2. Protection against cyber squatters
Cyber squatters mean informal settlers. This will stay on the Internet. They will buy the
domains of a company or park it or use it to promote themselves or to discredit the company.
3. Protection against child pornography
This is probably one of the best advantages of this law. A lot of children are victims of
pornography. Such illegal and inhumane things are violating rights of these children in the
society.

DEMERITS OF CYBER LAW


1. Freedom of speech is compromised
In cyber law freedom of speech of the Internet is prohibited.
2. Intrusion of privacy
Any person is under investigation. The authorities are allowed to log and check every
online activity that he or she is doing. Therefore the person will lose her or his privacy.
3. Liking, sharing, tweeting or re-tweeting posts are unfounded
If a person avoid fans before a face book fan page or twitter account or some false
content or if the person is tempted to share, re-tweet, the poster will also be penalized. People
have different understandings or interpretations in terms of false comment.
4. Ability to take down websites without warning
These kinds of things are alarming. Personnel property of the individuals in the internet is
blogs, websites. If anyone tries to post anything it will be considered as illegal. Law enforces can
immediately shut down the blogs and websites and restrict access to it without prior notice or
warning to the website owner.

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DOS AND DONTS IN CYBER LAW

Dos:

Block the lawbreaker from your Messenger or an address list.


Alert your friends and families everyone on your address book to block your current
address as your account has been hacked.
Inform the mail service providers about the abuse of your account.
It is easy to upload a lot of videos on social network. It gives popularity in the society.
Inform the lawbreakers that you will take legal action if they dont stop even after
warnings.
Using a public network and a web based mail system (yahoo,hotmail,gmail)always be
sure to logout.
Don'ts:
Dont interact with strangers through online. We will never know what might go wrong.
Be cautious in disclosing your email ID anywhere on the Internet.
Do not use a code word that also happens to be the answer to your secret question.
Do not release your password to anyone, not even to your friends and relatives.

Certain websites are blocked to ensure people are unaware of how to open it.(copyright)

Dont respond to Spam (UNWANTED EMAILS).


Dont upload your personal Information like phone numbers, address, photos, and
relatives pictures in social network.

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Open Source Software

13. Open Source Software


(Dr. A. Aloysius, Prof. N. Veeraragavan )

Introduction
Open Source doesnt just mean something is free of charge, as there is a common
misconception about it. Rather it is software available under a software license that makes source
code available to the general public with relaxed or non-existent copyright restrictions.
Programmers can charge money for the Open Source software they create or to which they
contribute. But because most Open Source licenses require them to release their source code
when they sell software to others, many Open Source software programmers find it more
lucrative to charge users for software services and support rather than for the software itself. This
way, their software remains free of charge and they make money helping others install, use, and
troubleshoot it.

Brief Open Source Software History


Long before the term Open Source was used, software was developed by loose
associations of programmers and freely exchanged. Starting in the early 1950's, organizations
such as SHARE and DECUS developed much of the software that computer hardware
companies bundled with their hardware offerings. At that time computer companies were in the
hardware business; anything that reduced software cost and made more programs available made
the hardware companies more competitive.

This model changed in the 1960's. In 1965 ADR (Applied Data Research) developed the
first licensed software product independent of a hardware company. ADR was competing against
a free IBM package originally developed by IBM customers. ADR patented their software in
1968. To stop sharing of their program, they provided it under an equipment lease in which
payment was spread over the lifetime of the product. ADR thus retained ownership and could
control resale and reuse.

In 1969 the US Department of Justice charged IBM with destroying businesses by


bundling free software with IBM hardware. As a result of this suit, IBM unbundled its software;
that is, software became independent products separate from hardware.

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In 1968 Informatics introduced the first commercial killer-app and rapidly established the
concept of the software product, the Software Company, and very high rates of return.
Informatics developed the perpetual license which is now standard throughout the computer
industry, wherein ownership is never transferred to the customer.

Foundation of the Open Source Initiative


In 1997, Eric Raymond published The Cathedral and the Bazaar, a reflective analysis of
the hacker community and free software principles. The paper received significant attention in
early 1998, and was one factor in motivating Netscape Communications Corporation to release
their popular Netscape Communicator Internet suite as free software. This code is today better
known as Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird.

Netscape's act prompted Raymond and others to look into how to bring the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) free software ideas and perceived benefits to the commercial software
industry. They concluded that FSF's social activism was not appealing to companies like
Netscape, and looked for a way to rebrand the free software movement to emphasize the business
potential of sharing and collaborating on software source code. The new name they chose was
"Open Source", and quickly Bruce Perens, publisher Tim O'Reilly, Linus Torvalds, and others
signed on to the rebranding. The Open Source Initiative was founded in February 1998 to
encourage use of the new term and evangelize open-source principles.

While the Open Source Initiative sought to encourage the use of the new term and
evangelize the principles it adhered to, commercial software vendors found themselves
increasingly threatened by the concept of freely distributed software and universal access to an
application's source code. IBM, Oracle, Google and State Farm are just a few of the companies
with a serious public stake in today's competitive open-source market. There has been a
significant shift in the corporate philosophy concerning the development of Free and Open-
Source Software (FOSS).

The Open Source label came out of a strategy session held on April 7, 1998 in Palo Alto
in reaction to Netscape's January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator (as
Mozilla). A group of individuals at the session included Tim O'Reilly, Linus Torvalds, Tom
Paquin, Jamie Zawinski, Larry Wall, Brian Behlendorf, Sameer Parekh, Eric Allman, Greg

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Olson, Paul Vixie, John Ousterhout, Guido van Rossum, Philip Zimmermann, John Gilmore and
Eric S. Raymond.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF), started in 1985, intended the word "free" to mean
freedom to distribute (or "free as in free speech") and not freedom from cost (or "free as in free
beer"). Since a great deal of free software already was (and still is) free of charge, such free
software became associated with zero cost, which seemed anti-commercial.

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) was formed in February 1998 by Eric S. Raymond and
Bruce Perens. With at least 20 years of evidence from case histories of closed software
development versus open development already provided by the Internet developer community,
the OSI presented the "Open Source" case to commercial businesses, like Netscape. The OSI
hoped that the usage of the label "Open Source", a term suggested by Peterson of the Foresight
Institute at the strategy session, would eliminate ambiguity, particularly for individuals who
perceive "free software" as anti-commercial. They sought to bring a higher profile to the
practical benefits of freely available source code, and they wanted to bring major software
businesses and other high-tech industries into Open Source.

What is Open Source?


The term "Open Source" refers to something that can be modified because its design is
publicly accessible. In general, Open Source projects, products, or initiatives are those that
embrace and celebrate open exchange, collaborative participation, rapid prototyping,
transparency, meritocracy, and community development.

What is Open Source Software?


Open Source software is software whose source code is available for modification or
enhancement by anyone."Source code" is the part of software that most computer users don't
ever see; it's the code computer programmers can use to change how a piece of software works.
Programmers who have access to a computer program's source code can improve that program
by adding features to it or fixing parts that don't always work correctly.

Definition of Open Source


A defined set of requirements for Open Source software from the Open Source Initiative
(OSI). The Open Source Definition (OSD) specifies not only access to the source code, but also

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integrity of the code, its free redistribution, a technology-neutral provision, as well as specific
anti-discrimination rules.
Open Source refers to any program whose source code is made available for use or
modification as users or other developers see fit. Open Source software is usually developed as a
public collaboration and made freely available.

Open Source Software (OSS) refers to applications developed in which the user can
access and alter the "source" code itself.

The principles of Open Source Software (OSS)


Open Source doesn't just mean access to the source code. Instead, the distribution terms
of open- source software must fulfill the following criteria:
1. Free Redistribution: The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the
software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several
different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.
2. Source Code: The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source
code as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with source
code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a
reasonable reproduction cost preferably, downloading via the Internet without charge. The
source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program.
Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a
preprocessor or translator are not allowed.
3. Derived Works: The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow
them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.
4. Integrity of the Author's Source Code: The license may restrict source-code from being
distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the
source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly
permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived
works to carry a different name or version number from the original software.
5. No Discrimination against Persons / Groups: The license must not discriminate against any
person / group of persons.
6. No Discrimination against Fields of Endeavor: The license must not restrict anyone from

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making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the
program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
7. Distribution of License: The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the
program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.
8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product: The rights attached to the program must not
depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is
extracted from that distribution and used or distributed with in the terms of the program's license,
all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are
granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.
9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software: The license must not place restrictions on other
software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not
insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.
10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral: No provision of the license may be predicated on
any individual technology or style of interface.

Need for Open Source Software


A few reasons why we need an Open Source Strategy are:
1. Reduce dependency on closed source vendors. Stop being dragged through constant product
upgrades that you are forced to do to stay on a supported version of the product.
2. Annual budget does not keep up with increases in software maintenance costs and
increased costs of employee health care. Our budget remains flat, we bought five new tools
last year with new annual costs in the range of 18-20% of the original purchase price for "gold
support", and your employees' health care costs shot up 25% again.
3. More access to tools. We can get your hands a variety of development and testing tools,
project and portfolio management tools, network monitoring, security, content management, etc.
without having to ask the boss man for a few hundred thousand green backs.
4. Try before you buy. Are you getting ready to invest in SOA, BPM, or ECM? Why not do a
prototype without spending huge sums of money? First of all, it allows you to get familiar with
the tools so you can be educated when you go through the vendor evaluation process. Second of
all, you might find that the tool can do the job and you don't need to lock yourself in to another
vendor.

5. Great support and a 24/7 online community that responds quickly. Despite the myths that

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you can't get support for Open Source software, the leading communities provide support far
superior to most closed source vendors. Most communities have a great knowledgebase or wiki
for self service support. You can also post a question and one of the hundreds of community
members throughout the world will most likely respond in minutes. Make sure you chose
software with strong community backing.
6. Access to source code and the ability to customize if you desire. You can see the code,
change the code, and even submit your enhancements and/or fixes back to the community to be
peer reviewed and possibly added to the next build. No longer do you need to wait for a vendor
roadmap that doesn't have the feature you need until their Excalibur release in the fall of 2009.
7. Great negotiating power when dealing with closed source vendors. Tired of vendors
pushing you around because you don't have options? I wonder if companies like Microsoft
would be more willing to be flexible with their pricing if you have 20 desktops running Ubuntu
as an alternative desktop pilot initiative.
8. Feature set is not bloated and is driven by collaboration amongst the community. Tired of
products that consume huge amounts of memory and CPU power for the 2000 eye candy features
that you will never use? With Open Source software, most features are driven by community
demand. Closed vendors have to create one more feature than their competitors to get the edge in
the marketplace.
9. Bug fixes are implemented faster then closed source vendors. Actually, many bugs are
fixed by the community before they are even reported by the users.

Advantages of using Open Source Software


Below are some of the advantages that Open Source offers:
1. Core software is free: If you're just getting started in online business, cost can be a major
factor. Using Open Source software can really cut down on your initial capital outlay. It's also
my firm belief that the Open Source community has helped to rein in prices on commercial
software over the years.
2. Evolving software: As mentioned, some Open Source software projects can have huge
communities of programmers involved, allowing for the rapid implementation of new features
and security fixes. The communities of users and programmers are also invaluable resources for
asking questions relating to troubleshooting and suggesting enhancements.
3. Encourages hands on: When you're short on cash, you are more than likely to want to make
modifications to software yourself.
4. Not tied to a single vendor: If you purchase a commercial application, you can then become

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reliant on a single company to solve your problems and maintain the software which can also
be very expensive. Some commercial software companies may only provide support and
upgrades for a limited time before you need to work out for any further enhancements or
assistance.
5. Greater Security & Quality: Open Source software is available publicly. A large amount of
developers globally contribute and analyze the code making it more secure and constantly
increasing the quality. The peer review process drive has excellence in design.

Disadvantages of using Open Source Software


There's a flip side to everything, and in the case of Open Source software it all
boils down to the old saying of "there's no such thing as a free lunch". Most of the disadvantages
only apply if you're not somewhat code-savvy and willing to get your hands dirty:
Mostly used commercial applications.
Projects can die.
Support issues.

Open Source Software vs. Closed Source Software


Closed Source projects ("CS") tend to collaborate either only to a limited or peripheral
degree with third parties (other than project co-members), or under non-disclosure agreements.
Corporate development is usually run by teams or structured groups, with workload, agendas,
intended results, and deadlines, centrally agreed and use paid developers to achieve these goals
as required.

Open Source projects ("OS") by contrast usually embrace third party involvement with
enthusiasm. Project involvement tends to be voluntary for many of those involved and harnesses
the enthusiasm of participants who are usually given in return, freedom to do what they feel best
suited to, and allowed to become involved, committed, or (in many cases) learn as they do so.
New code is developed and reviewed in a less formal process by many people in some cases
hundreds of thousands, or millions and since many of these are intimately familiar with the
system concerned, the quality of review and final writing tends to be extremely high on such
projects and the speed of development can be very fast.

CS and OS projects tend to view their priorities as different. CS projects tend to work to
deadlines, the date at which (for corporate, market or investor purposes) a new product or update

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must be released, or a new feature made available. OS projects, lacking investor pressure, tend to
be more actively interested in how to do a job well, as well as produce it quickly, and in
producing work to a high standard.

Microsoft Windows, a closed source, is the world's most common operating system and a
de facto standard in the computer world. Wikipedia is Open Source, both its software
(mediawiki) and the actual content, are collaborative.

Open Source Softwares


In the contemporary, OSS has found its way in various fields shown below:
Accounting
Content Management Systems
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Desktop Environments/ Shell replacements
Email Clients
Encoding, Conversion & Ripping Tools
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Filesharing & File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
Graphics-Design & Modeling Tools
Messengers & Communication Clients
Project Management
Reporting Tools
RSS feeds
Web Browsers

A few Open Source Software and freeware listed under different categories are given below.

I. Office Software
OpenOffice - is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite compatible with all other major
office suites. The product is free to download, use, and distribute. OpenOffice includes the most
important desktop applications, such as word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager and
drawing program. The user interface and features are similar to other office suites. OpenOffice
works with a variety of file formats, including those of Microsoft Office, and the Open
Document standard from OASIS.
Thunderbird It is an e-mail application that helps you to organize your electronic mail.
Thunderbird lets you prioritize and find your important email with tags, and the find bar helps
you locate content within your email faster. The spelling checker supports many languages that
can be downloaded individually.
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Sunbird Calendar is a cross-platform calendar application developed by the Mozilla team. The
program has a customizable graphical display, and allows association of notes and reminders for
any event.
Adobe Reader lets you read and print a document created as an Adobe Portable Document
Format (PDF) file. PDF files preserve the original appearance of a document, and they are
compact and can be shared, viewed, navigated, and printed in the format that the author intended.
CutePDF Writer creates professional quality PDF files from almost any printable document.
Free for personal, commercial, government, or educational use. Supports 64-bit Windows. It
creates a PDF document by using the "print" function of any application and selecting CutePDF
as the printer.
EditPad Lite - A general-purpose text editor, with many nice features. EditPad Lite is free for
non-commercial use.

II. System Utilities

Avira Antivirus Personal - Free Antivirus basic protection. It protects your computer against
dangerous viruses, worms, Trojans and costly dialers. It includes basic anti-spyware.
TightVNC is a free remote control software package. With TightVNC, you can see the desktop
of a remote machine and control it with your local mouse and keyboard, just like you would do it
sitting in the front of that computer.
Spybot - Search & Destroy is a program to remove spyware and other kinds of malware from
your computer. Spybot has an immunizing function that works with the browser to prevent
tracking cookies from entering your system. A scan function looks for spyware on the computer
and produces a report that allows you to remove the spyware.
Eraser is a security tool for Windows which completely removes sensitive data from a hard
drive by overwriting it several times with patterns that remove magnetic remnants from the hard
drive. The program also has a secure move function that clears the area where a file was
previously stored.
WinMerge is a compare and merge tool for Windows. WinMerge can compare folders or files. It
presents differences in a visual format that is easy to understand and manipulate. The program is
very useful for identifying the differences between two versions of a computer program or a text
file.

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WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Microsoft Windows. The
graphical interface represents each file as a colored rectangle, the area of which is proportional to
the file's size. The color of a rectangle indicates the type of the file, as shown in the extension
list.
7-Zip is an Open Source file archiver that supports several different types of data compression
and encryption. This utility program is able to pack and unpack 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR,
and it is able to unpack ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI,
NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z.
Java Runtime Environment - The Java programming language was developed at Sun
Corporation as a way of running programs under any operating system. This technology is the
basis of Open Office and many other useful applications.

III. Media Tools

Miro Player is an Internet television application supported on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X,


and Linux. The program plays most known video files and offers sound and video, some in HD
quality. Miro can automatically download videos from RSS-based channels, manage them and
play them. Miro can download Torrent reeds, YouTube videos, and help to organize your video
collection.
VLC media player is a free and Open Source cross-platform multimedia player and framework,
that plays most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming
protocols. VLC media player plays files, discs and streams without the need for codec packs. It is
available for Windows, Linux, Mac, and Unix.
InfraRecorder is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. InfraRecorder can
be used to create custom data, audio and mixed-mode projects and record them to physical discs
as well as disc images. The program supports recording to dual-layer DVDs and can create disc
copies.

IV. Free Web Sites

Google Sites - It allows you to start a free web site from scratch or from a template for a
company intranet or a family website with 10 GB of storage.
Tripod.com - It provides ad-supported web sites of 20MB and 5 web pages.

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Free Blogs - It can be created on WordPress.com and on Blogger.com. The structure of the web
pages is controlled by themes so that you can concentrate on the content of your site.

V. Web Tools

Firefox Web Browser - This is a fast and secure browser that can be fully customized through
add-ons. The features include tabbed browsing, spell checking, incremental find, live
bookmarking, a download manager, private browsing, and an integrated search system.
Tor Browser This software protects you by bouncing your communications around a
distributed network of relays. Tor prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from
learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical
location.
Arachnophilia It is a great HTML editor with customizable user interface and built-in spelling
checker. And it supports several types of character encoding, including UTF-8.
KompoZer is a web authoring system for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh with easy-to-use
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web page editing features similar to expensive
products like FrontPage and Dreamweaver. KompoZer makes it possible to create web pages and
manage a website with little technical expertise or knowledge of HTML.
FileZilla is a cross-platform graphical FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with a lot of features. It runs
under Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
Yawcam is a free webcam application for Windows written in Java. Some of the features of
Yawcam are video streaming, image snapshots, built-in webserver, motion detection, FTP
upload, text and image overlays and password protection.
Site Meter provides an easy way to add a web counter to your web page. It can display the
number of visitors to your web site and keeps statistics on the number of visits each hour and
each day.
Apache Web Server is an open-source HTTP server for UNIX and Windows NT. It is an
essential tool for developing and testing CGI scripts before publishing them on the Internet.
WordPress is a publishing platform for web pages and blogs with an easy-to-use interface. Some
plugins change the appearance of a blog and other plugins support useful functions:

VI. Graphics

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IrfanView - This is a versatile image viewer and editor that can be used as the default viewer for
many types of graphics. The program comes with a thumbnail viewer that provides many
functions, such as batch resizing of images, generation of thumbnails, and generation of web
pages with customizable headers and navigation.
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for
such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many
operating systems, in many languages. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert
quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image
renderer, and an image format converter.
DeskScan allows you to capture a full-screen desktop or a selected area as well as input from
your Twain device (scanner, camera, etc.) The captures can be saved as BMP, JPG, JPEG2000,
MNG, WMF, GIF, PCX, PNG, PDF and TIFF.
Virtual Magnifying Glass is a free, Open Source, screen magnification program for Windows,
Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X.
WhatColor identifies the color of a pixel on the screen of your PC and provides the name of the
color. This program is a fully functional evaluation Shareware copy.
HTML Color Picker picks color from the screen, in RGB and HTML code formats, easily and
quickly.

VII. Communications

PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with
an xterm terminal emulator. This is an indispensable tool for working on a remote computer.

VIII. Programming

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl provides


powerful string-processing and hashing functions that facilitate the manipulation of text files.
Perl is also used for graphics programming, system administration, network programming, and
CGI programming on the Web.
Java SE Development Kit (JDK) - This JDK includes the Java Runtime Environment (JRE)
and command-line development tools that are useful for developing applets and applications.
Java SWING is a toolkit for developing software with graphical interfaces for many operating
environments.
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NetBeans is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that can run on Windows, Mac,
Linux, and Solaris. The NetBeans platform enables developers to create web, enterprise, desktop,
and mobile applications for Java, PHP, JavaScript, Ajax, Ruby, and C/C++.
PHP Language - PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially
suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML to produce dynamic web pages.
PHP is frequently used in conjunction with MySQL databases to support a wide array of
applications such as blogs, content management system (CMS), and web sites with powerful
online applications.
Eclipse - Eclipse is a multi-language Integrated development environment (IDE) comprising a
base workspace and an extensible plug-in system for customizing the environment.

IX. Database

MySQL Community Server is a freely downloadable version of one of the most popular Open
Source databases. It is supported by an active community of Open Source developers. Databases
can be designed and managed with the MySQL Workbench (GUI Tool).
phpMyAdmin is a free software tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of
MySQL databases over the World Wide Web. phpMyAdmin supports a wide range of operations
with MySQL such as managing databases, tables, fields, relations, indexes, users, permissions,
etc. The interface also has the ability to directly execute any SQL statement.
X. Nutrition

CRON-O-Meter is a nutrition analysis program that keeps track of your daily macronutrients
(proteins, fats, carbohydrates), as well as your vitamins and minerals. CRON-o-Meter is an
excellent tool for any dieter who is interested in getting proper nutrition.
Broad Classes of License for Open Source Software
Open Source licenses are licenses that comply with the Open Source Definition in
brief, they allow software to be freely used, modified, and shared. To be approved by the Open
Source Initiative (also known as the OSI), a license must go through the Open Source Initiative's
license review process.
The widely used classes of license are listed below:
GNU General Public License (GPL)
Most popular
Very restrictive
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Not suited for commercial projects


GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)
Less restrictive than GPL
Allows integration into proprietary software
Berkeley Software Distribution License (BSD)
Very permissive
Allows reuse of the code
Other Open Source Licenses
PHP License
Apache License 2.0
Eclipse Public License
Mozilla Public License 2.0
MIT License

LINUX: Introduction

What is Linux?
Linux is a UNIX-based operating system originally developed for Intel-compatible PC's.
It is now available for most types of hardware platforms, ranging from PDAs (and
according to some reports, a wristwatch) to mainframes. Linux is a "modern operating system",
meaning it has such features as virtual memory, memory protection and preemptive
multitasking.

Reasons to Install Linux


1. Configurability: Linux distributions give the user full access to configure just about any
aspect of their system. Options range from the simple and straightforward (for
instance, changing the background image) to the more esoteric (for instance, making
the "Caps Lock" key behave like "Control"). Almost any aspect of the user experience
can be configured.
2. Convenience: While Linux takes some effort to get set up, once it is set up, it is
surprisingly low- maintenance. Package management can simply be a matter of
running two commands in the shell. Linux also offers complete remote access. This
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allows the user to act exactly as if he/she is sitting at that computers desk, potentially
across town or on the other side of the world.
3. Stability: Linux is based on the UNIX kernel. It provides preemptive multitasking and
protected memory. Preemptive multitasking prevents any application from permanently
stealing the CPU and locking up the machine. Protected memory prevents applications
from interfering with and crashing one-another.
4. Community: Linux is part of the greater open-source community. This consists of
thousands of developers and many more users world-wide who support open
software. This user and developer base is also a support base.
5. Freedom: Linux is free. This means more than just costing nothing. This means that
you are allowed to do whatever you want to with the software. This is why Redhat,
Mandrake, and Suse are all allowed to sell their own distributions of Linux. The only
restriction placed on Linux is that, if you distribute Linux, you must grant all the
privileges to the code that you had, including providing the source. This prevents a
corporation from using the Linux kernel as the basis for their proprietary operating
system.
Conclusion
Open Source software has natural strengths which benefit individual users. The
Open Source aims to eliminate subscription fees and licensing restrictions. OSS is a movement
that seeks to achieve a culture that engages in collective freedom via freedom of expression, free
public access to knowledge and information, full demonstration of creativity and innovation in
various arenas and promotion of citizen liberties. Let us become part of it.

Short answer questions


1. What is Open Source Software?
2. Define Open Source.
3. What are the advantages of Open Source Software?
4. List out the disadvantages of Open Source Software.
5. Distinguish between Open Source Software and Closed Source Software.
6. List out the applications of Open Source Software.
7. Write a note on broad classes of License for Open Source Software.
8. What are the advantages of Linux?

Long answer questions


1. Explain the history of Open Source Software.

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2. Write about the role of Open Source Initiative.


3. Describe the Principles of Open Source Software.
4. List the Need for Open Source Software. Explain them.
5. Explain different categories of Open Source Software.
6. Give a detailed account on Linux.

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Practical Exercise

PRACTICAL EXERCISE

MS-Word

1. Creation of Documents (Letters, Bio-data, etc)


2. Creation of Tables, Formatting Tables (Time table, Calendar, etc)
3. Working with Mail Merge (Circular letters)

MS-Excel

4. Creation of Worksheet (Mark Sheet, Pay Slip, PF Contribution list, etc.)


5. Excel Function (Date, Time, Statistical, Mathematical, Financial Functions)
6. Creating Charts (Line, Pie, Bar, etc)

MS-Power Point

7. Creation of Presentations (Duplicate and New slides, Layouts, View, Slide Show, etc)
8. Working with Objects (Movie, Sound, Word, Excel, etc)
9. Working with Transition and Animation effects (Text, Objects, Pictures)

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