A comprehensive view of software in detail.
Software are a set of instructions or programs that are designed to put the computer hardware to work.
Information is stored using binary encoding which consists of the numbers 0 and 1. These numbers are called bits. A bit is the smallest unit of information that can be stored on a computer system. Therefore the computer only understand these sequence of bits once organized in a particular fashion.
Bytes are a series of 8 bits that are managed by an Encoding table called ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). Therefore 8 bits = 1Byte A Byte is a representation of a single character within the computer system eg. A is represented by 10010011 (fictional).
8 bits = 1 Byte 1024 B = 1 Kilobyte (Thousands) 1024 KB = 1 Megabytes (Millions) 1024 MB = 1 Gigabyte (Billions) 1024 GB = 1 Terabyte (Trillion) 1024 PB = 1 Petabyte (quadrillion)
These bits and Bytes are manipulated by the processor and done so by programmed instructions called software.
Software is divided into the following Categories: System Software Application Software Utility Software
System software is the name given to the software that controls the hardware and how all other software works. The most popular System software is the Operating System.
File Management saving, copying, renaming and deleting files Manage Programs adding and removing programs Provide a user interface (Graphical user interface / Command based interface) Multi tasking Running more than one programs simultaneously Multi user Allowing more than one user to access its system resources. Security Provide password protection, firewall and encryption Monitor Performance / Diagnose System (Trouble Shoot) Connect to a Local Area Network Connect to the Internet
This is the midpoint between the user and the computer system The user interacts with the user interface in order to manipulate the system. Operating Systems currently have two types of user interfaces: 1. Command Based Interface 2. GUI (Graphical User Interface)
Command Prompt
Name Platform Interface Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista PC GUI Mac OSX Apple Mac GUI Linux PC / Server GUI DOS (Disk Operating System) PC Command Based Unix Server Command Based Novell Netware Server Command Based Palm OS Hand Held GUI
Application Software; are programs designed to do a specific task. Applications fall in the following category: General-Purpose Custom Written Customization of General Purpose Specialized Software Packages
General Purpose Applications are used by a large number of people in a large number of areas; they are what you call off the shelf products ready to be installed. Here is what is categorized as the big five: Word Processing Spreadsheet Database Management Graphics Presentation Communication
Desktop Publishing CAD (Computer Aided Designing) CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) Video Presentation Gaming Applications Multimedia Players and Editors
These are software which are design for the maintenance of your Computer hardware and software. Consider your Operating system to be your household, think of the utility software as the plumber or the handyman.
Disk defragmenters Diagnosis Backup utility / System Profilers Virus Scanners (Antivirus) Malware / Adware removers Compression Utilities Encryption Utilities Binary/Hex/Text Editor
Programming Languages These are programs are designed to customize an application or any other types of software on your computer. They help programmers to create software for end users needs; every software was built by some type of programming language. Yes the language is very important. It s like learning French you have to know the vocabulary; in this case you have to know the codes in order to build your program. Each language is designed for their own purpose, here are a list of a few languages that exists. Java and JavaScript C and C++ Microsoft Visual basic Borland Delphi Q basic Perl Action Script PHP
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