My Learnings of the Week

For this weeks learning, there were many things about the computer that I have learned…And these are the following:

VIDEO CARD

A video card is a small, removable, expansion card with a printed circuit board, often red or green, with electronic components on its surface, as well as a fan, in some cases. It is usually sized about 6" long by 3.5" high, the size of a standard PCI card, though different sizes exist as well. A video card will always have at least one video output connector on its 1/4" wide metal face, with prongs on its bottom to interface with your machine by fitting into a slot inside the case, usually on the main motherboard.

Sometimes a video card is called a graphics card, a "V card" or "VC", display adapter, video adapter, gaming card, graphics adapter, and video display board. Nowadays, many refer to their video card simply by brand name or model.

A video card consists of a printed circuit board on which the components are mounted.

These include:

Graphics processing unit (GPU)

Video BIOS

Video memory

RAMDAC

Outputs and etc.

Two basic categories of Video mode:

Text Mode and Graphics Mode

EXPANSION CARD

Is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an expansion slot of a computer motherboard to add additional functionality to a computer system. One edge of the expansion card holds the contacts (the edge connector) that fit exactly into the slot. They establish the electrical contact between the electronics (mostly integrated circuits) on the card and on the motherboard.

The group of expansion cards that are used for external connectivity, such as a network, SAN or modem card, are commonly referred to as input/output cards (or I/O cards).

MODEM ( modulator-demodulator)

Is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data. Modems can be used over any means of transmitting analog signals, from driven diodes to radio.

A modem is a device or program that enables a computer to transmit data over, for example, telephone or cable lines. Computer information is stored digitally, whereas information transmitted over telephone lines is transmitted in the form of analog waves. A modem converts between these two forms.

POWER SUPPLY

Is the component that supplies power to a computer. More specifically, a power supply is typically designed to convert 100-120 V or 220-240 V AC power from the mains to usable low-voltage DC power for the internal components of the computer. Some power supplies have a switch to change between 230 V and 115 V. Other models have automatic sensors that switch input voltage automatically, or are able to accept any voltage between those limits.

POWER CABLE

Is an assembly of two or more electrical conductors, usually held together with an overall sheath. The assembly is used for transmission of electrical power. Power cables may be installed as permanent wiring within buildings, buried in the ground, run overhead, or exposed. Flexible power cables are used for portable devices, mobile tools and machinery.

OUTPUT DEVICES

An output device is any peripheral device that converts machine-readable information into people-readable form such as a monitor, printer, plotter and voice output device.

Examples are:

Computer speaker

Monitor

Printer

Printers are classified by their characteristics:

1. Quality of type

2. Speed

3. Impact and Non-impact

4. Graphics

INPUT DEVICES

An input device is any peripheral (piece of computer hardware (equipment) used to provide data and control signals to an information processing system (such as a computer).

Examples are:

Scanner

Keyboard

Mouse and etc.

My learnings of the Week
(August 4-8, 2008)


This week we tackled a lot of things about some parts of the system unit. We continue to discuss our topics we had last week.

VIDEO GRAPHICS
VIDEO CARD

The decision for determining what video card to get with a computer purchase is heavily dependent upon what the computer is going to be used for. I tend to find that there are four categories that people can be placed in when it comes to computer usage and video card needs: casual computing, graphic design, light gaming and serious gaming.
Before going into detail about the different categories, I will mention that it is possible to upgrade the video card on most computers. There are now two types of interfaces for the video card: AGP and PCI-Express.
AGP was the major standard for video cards in PC computers for many years and is still widely used. While it is fairly common, the industry has moved to the new PCI-Express and it is getting more difficult to find new model AGP cards.
PCI-Express is the new interface developed to help speed the interface between the CPU and interface cards. It has been quickly adopted by the industry and any new computer should feature this interface now. The reason for this being mentioned is to be sure to know which slot the computer comes with if you will be adding a video card after the purchase of the system.
VIDEPO MODES:
TEXT MODE – a monitor can display only ASCII characters.
GRAPHICS MODE – a monitor can display any bit-mapped image.
EXPANSION SLOTS
A connector in a computer into which an EXPANSION CARDS can be plugged. The connector supplies power to the card and connects it to the data bus, address bus and control signals of the motherboard.
Expansion card A circuit board which can be plugged into one of a computer's expansion slots to provide some optional extra facility such as additional RAM, disk controller, coprocessor, graphics accelerator, communication device or some special-purpose interface.Different computers have different standards for the cards they accept, e.g. PCI.(1998-06-26)
SPEAKER
Computer speakers, or multimedia speakers, are external speakers, commonly equipped with a low-power internal amplifier.
INTERNAL MODEM
A modem resides on an expansion board.
In order to connect to the internet you need some form of modem (Modulator/Demodulator).
Computers are digital in that the information is presented by codes of small currents. Standard telephone lines however, are analogue devices in that the information is directly represented by analogue waves. That is why we need MODEM to convert (modulators) the digital code into analogue waves and convert them back into digital (demodulator) at the other end.
POWER SUPPPLY
Power supply supplies fuel or power for the computer. It supplies power to the motherboard, the drives, and also normally, contains a fan that helps assist in the tasks of cooling the computer. Power supplies come in a variety of wattages, 200 watt and 250 watt, are probably the most commonly used power supply.

IDE AND RIBBON CABLE
IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) is a standard electronic interface used between a computer motherboard's data paths or bus and the computer's disk storage devices. The IDE interface is based on the IBM PC Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) 16-bit bus standard, but it is also used in computers that use other bus standards. Most computers sold today use an enhanced version of IDE called Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics (EIDE). In today's computers, the IDE controller is often built into the motherboard.
IDE was adopted as a standard by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in November, 1990. The ANSI name for IDE is Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA). The IDE (ATA) standard is one of several related standards maintained by the T10 Committee.

A ribbon cable (also known as multi-wire planar cable) is a cable with many conducting wires running parallel to each other on the same flat plane. As a result the cable is wide and flat. Its name comes from the resemblance of the cable to a piece of ribbon (which is likewise wide and flat).
Ribbon cables are commonly seen for internal peripherals in computers, such as hard drives, CD drives and floppy drives. On some older computer systems (such as the BBC Micro) they were commonly used for external connections as well. Unfortunately the ribbon-like shape makes them awkward to handle, especially when there are a lot of them, and so round cables have almost entirely replaced ribbon cables for external connections.
POWER CABLES
The power cable supplies power from the power supply to the drives. The power cables are red, yellow and black.
Red – 5 volts
Yellow – 12 volts
Black – ground wires

OUTPUT DEVICES
An output device is any peripheral devices that presents, displays, alters or record output after it has left a computer’s system unit. When a computer completes a computation, the resulting data is sent to an output device.
Output device data can appear in various form such as graphics, laser light, sounds or texts. Examples of output devices are monitor, speakers and printers

MONITOR
A computer display is also called a display screen or video display terminal (VDT). A monitor is a screen used to display the output of a computer. Images are represented on monitors by individual dots called pixels. A pixel is the smallest unit on the screen that can be turned on and off or made different shades. The density of the dots determines the clarity of the images, the resolution.
Screen resolution: This is the degree of sharpness of a displayed character or image. The screen resolution is usually expressed as the number of columns by the number rows. A 1024x768 resolution means that it has 1024 dots in a line and 768 lines. A smaller screen looks sharper on the same resolution. Another measure of display resolution is a dot pitch.
Interlaced/Non-interlaced: An interlaced technique refreshes the lines of the screen by exposing all odd lines first then all even lines next. A non-interlaced technology that is developed later refreshes all the lines on the screen form top to bottom. The non- interlaced method gives more stable video display than interlaced method. It also requires twice as much signal information as interlaced technology.
There are two forms of display: cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) and flat-panel display.

SPEAKERS
It converts output data into sounds

PRINTERS

A printer is an output device that produces a hard copy of data. The resolution of printer output is expressed as DPI. Printers can be classified into different types in several ways. First, the printers can be divided into three categories by the way they print.
Serial Printers: Also called a character printer. Print a single character at a time. They are usually inexpensive and slow.
Line Printers: Print a line at a time. They are expensive and very fast. Line printers use a band, a chain, etc.
Page Printers: Also called a laser printer. Print a page at a time. They usually use a laser to produce page images. Quality is best. This is a little bit expensive, but the price of the personal laser printer is decreasing. The price range of the personal laser printer is around $400, today.
Second, printers can be classified into two forms according to the use of a hammer.

Impact Printers: Hammer hits ribbons, papers or print head. Dot-matrix and daisy-wheel printers are the example. Noisy.
Nonimpact Printers: They do not have the hammer and do not hit. An example is an ink-jet and laser printer.
Another classification can be made by the way they form characters.
Bit-Mapped Printers: Images are formed from groups of dots and can be placed anywhere on the page. They have many printing options and good printing quality. They use PostScript as a standard language for instructing a microcomputer.
Character-based Printers: Printer print characters into the lines and columns of a page. These printers use predefined set of characters and are restricted in position of characters.
Microcomputers use five kinds of printers. They are daisy wheel printers, chain printers, dot-matrix printers, ink-jet printers, and laser printers.
Daisy-Wheel Printer
Daisy-Wheel is a printer mechanism that uses any kind of hub (wheel) having a set of spokes at the margin of the hub. The wheel can be removed to use a different character set. The end of each spoke is a raised image of a type character. When the wheel is turned and the required character is aligned to the print hammer, the character is then struck into a ribbon and onto a paper with the hammer.Daisy-Wheel Printer prints typewriter-like very high quality characters. However, they are slower and less reliable than dot-matrix printers. Microcomputer users seldom use this printer, because the better dot-matrix printers and inexpensive laser printers are available today.
Chain Printer
A chain printer uses a printing mechanism that uses character typefaces linked together in a chain. The chain spins horizontally around a set of hammers aligned with each position. When the required character is in front of the selected print position, hammer in that position hits the paper into the ribbon against the character in the chain.This printer is not commonly found around microcomputers, because it is a very expensive, high-speed machine designed originally for mainframes and minicomputers. Chain printers are very reliable and can speed up to 3000 lines per minute.
Dot-Matrix Printer
Dot-matrix printers are printers that write characters and form graphic images using one or two columns of tiny dots on a print head. The dot hammer moving serially across the paper strikes an inked-ribbon and creates images on paper.Dot matrix printers are popular printers used with microcomputers, because the printers are highly reliable and inexpensive. They are used for tasks where a high-quality image is not essential. Many users, however, move from dot printers to laser printers, because the price of laser printers is falling down. Several kinds of dot matrix printers are available with print heads that have 7, 9, 18, or 24 pins.
Ink-Jet Printer
Ink-jet is a printer mechanism that sprays one or more color of ink at high speed onto the paper and produces high-quality printing. This printer also produces color printing as well as high-quality image. That is, ink-jet printers can be used for variety of color printing at a relatively low cost. Ink-jet printing has two methods: Continuous stream method and drop-on- demand method.
Laser Printer
A laser printer is a printer that uses the electrophotograpic method used in a copy machine. The printer uses a laser beam light source to create images on a photographic drum. Then the images on the drum are treated with a magnetically charged toner and then are transferred onto a paper. A heat source is usually applied to make the images adhere.In 1984, Hewlett-Packard introduced the first desktop laser printer, called the LaserJet. The laser printer revolutionized personal computer printing and has spawned desktop publishing.The laser printer produces high-resolution letters and graphics quality images, so it is adopted in applications requiring high-quality output. Although a high-priced color laser printer is also available in the market, a less expensive, desktop gray scale laser printer is widely used. Recently, the laser printer is gaining its market share dramatically, mainly because the lowered price and the quality.
Plotters
A plotter is a special-purpose output device that draws images with ink pens. That is, the plotter is a graphics printer for making sophisticated graphs, charts, maps, and three-dimensional graphics as well as high-quality colored documents. It can also produce larger size of documents.Plotters require data in a vector graphics format that can produce images with a series of lines. There are two main types of plotters:
Drum Plotter: This is a plotter that has a drum. A paper wraps the drum that rotates to produce plots. Pens in a drum plotter move across the paper while the drum is turning. A drum plotter is usually used to produce smaller drawings.
Flatbed Plotter: This is a plotter that has a bed. This is also called a table plotter. The plotter draws graphics on the paper placed on the bed. There are several size of beds. This plotter is usually used for producing large drawings.


INPUT DEVICES

Microphone
A microphone, sometimes referred to as a mike or micis an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, tape recorders, hearing aids, motion picture production, live and recorded audio engineering, in radio and television broadcasting and in computers for recording voice, VoIP, and for non-acoustic purposes such as ultrasonic checking.
Examples of input devices:

KEYBOARD
Classified as:
Alphanumerical keys
punctuation keys
special keys

SPECIAL KEYS

control key
arrow key
shift keys
function keys
caps lock keys
alt keys

MOUSE

Invented by Douglas Engelbart in 1963. A device that controls the movement of the cursor or pointer on a display screen.

MICROPHONE

Allows the computer to retrieve and record sounds. Necessary for voice recognition software and any software that needs to record sounds.

SCANNER

Takes in an optical image and digitizes it into an electronic image represented as binary data.

DIGITAL CAMERAS

Takes pictures without film and stores your snapshots as digital files in its memory.


GRAPHIC TABLETS

Objects are drawn using a pen or puck. The puck is technically a tablet cursor, not a mouse.

JOY STICKS

A device consisting of a hand held sticks that puvots about one end and transmits its angle in two dimensions to a computer.

OTHER PERIPHERAL DEVICES

CD ROM drive
MODEM
External Drive unit

FIVE ELEMENTS OF COMPUTING PROCESS

HARDWARE
Consist of the components that can be physically handled. the function of these components is typically divided into three main categories: input, output and storage.

SOFTWARE
Also called as PROGRAM, is the instruction that tell the hardware what to do.

DATA

Are the raw facts that the computer can change into useful information.

PEOPLE

Also called as END USERS. Most computers need people to operate them.

PROCEDURES

Are the step s or directions that the end users need to follow in order to complete a certain task.


PROGRAMMING

Computer programming (often shortened to programming or coding), sometimes considered a branch of applied mathematics, is the process of writing, testing, debugging/troubleshooting, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in a programming language. The code may be a modification of an existing source or something completely new. The purpose of programming is to create a program that exhibits a certain desired behavior (customization). The process of writing source code requires expertise in many different subjects, including knowledge of the application domain, specialized algorithms and formal logic.
Programming languages
Different programming languages support different styles of programming (called programming paradigms). The choice of language used is subject to many considerations, such as company policy, suitability to task, availability of third-party packages, or individual preference. Ideally, the programming language best suited for the task at hand will be selected. Trade-offs from this ideal involve finding enough programmers who know the language to build a team, the availability of compilers for that language, and the efficiency with which programs written in a given language execute.
Allen Downey, in his book How To Think Like A Computer Scientist, writes:
The details look different in different languages, but a few basic instructions appear in just about every language: input: Get data from the keyboard, a file, or some other device. output: Display data on the screen or send data to a file or other device. math: Perform basic mathematical operations like addition and multiplication. conditional execution: Check for certain conditions and execute the appropriate sequence of statements. repetition: Perform some action repeatedly, usually with some variation.
Many computer languages provide a mechanism to call functions provided by libraries. Provided the functions in a library follow the appropriate runtime conventions (eg, method of passing arguments), then these functions may be written in any other language.
Modern programming
Quality requirements
Whatever the approach to software development may be, the final program must satisfy some fundamental properties. The following five properties are among the most relevant:
Efficiency: the amount of system resources a program consumes (processor time, memory space, slow devices, network bandwidth and to some extent even user interaction), the less the better.
Reliability: how often the results of a program are correct. This depends on prevention of error propagation resulting from data conversion and prevention of errors resulting from buffer overflows, underflows and zero division.
Robustness: how well a program anticipates situations of data type conflict and other incompatibilities that result in run time errors and program halts. The focus is mainly on user interaction and the handling of exceptions.
Usability: the clearity and intuitiveness of a programs output can make or break it's success. This involves a wide range of textual and graphical elements that makes a program easy and comfortable to use.
Portability: the range of hardware and OS platforms on which the source code of a program can be compiled and run. This depends mainly on the range of platform specific compilers for the language of the source code rather than anything having to do with the program directly.
Algorithmic complexity
The academic field and the engineering practice of computer programming are both largely concerned with discovering and implementing the most efficient algorithms for a given class of problem. For this purpose, algorithms are classified into orders using so-called Big O notation, O(n), which expresses resource use, such as execution time or memory consumption, in terms of the size of an input. Expert programmers are familiar with a variety of well-established algorithms and their respective complexities and use this knowledge to choose algorithms that are best suited to the circumstances.
Methodologies
The first step in most formal software development projects is requirements analysis, followed by modeling, implementation, and failure elimination (debugging). There exist a lot of differing approaches for each of those tasks. One approach popular for requirements analysis is Use Case analysis.
Popular modeling techniques include Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (OOAD) and Model-Driven Architecture (MDA). The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a notation used for both OOAD and MDA.
A similar technique used for database design is Entity-Relationship Modeling (ER Modeling).
Implementation techniques include imperative languages (object-oriented or procedural), functional languages, and logic languages.
Debugging is most often done with IDEs like Visual Studio, NetBeans, and Eclipse. Separate debuggers like gdb are also used.
Measuring language usage
It is very difficult to determine what are the most popular of modern programming languages. Some languages are very popular for particular kinds of applications (e.g., COBOL is still strong in the corporate data center, often on large mainframes, FORTRAN in engineering applications, and C in embedded applications), while some languages are regularly used to write many different kinds of applications.
Methods of measuring language popularity include: counting the number of job advertisements that mention the language[4], the number of books teaching the language that are sold (this overestimates the importance of newer languages), and estimates of the number of existing lines of code written in the language (this underestimates the number of users of business languages such as COBOL).
Debugging
Debugging is a very important task in the software development process, because an erroneous program can have significant consequences for its users. Some languages are more prone to some kinds of faults because their specification does not require compilers to perform as much checking as other languages. Use of a static analysis tool can help detect some possible problems.
Word processing is the ability to create documents using a word processor. It can also refer to advanced shorthand techniques, sometimes used in specialized contexts with a specially modified typewriter.
Word processor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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"Document preparation" redirects here. For the service of preparing legal instruments, see Legal document assistant.

A word processor (more formally known as document preparation system) is a computer application used for the production (including composition, editing, formatting, and possibly printing) of any sort of printable material.
Word processor may also refer to an obsolete type of stand-alone office machine, popular in the 1970s and 80s, combining the keyboard text-entry and printing functions of an electric typewriter with a dedicated computer for the editing of text. Although features and design varied between manufacturers and models, with new features added as technology advanced, word processors for several years usually featured a monochrome display and the ability to save documents on memory cards or diskettes. Later models introduced innovations such as spell-checking programs, increased formatting options, and dot-matrix printing. As the more versatile combination of a personal computer and separate printer became commonplace, the word processor disappeared.
Word processors are descended from early text formatting tools (sometimes called text justification tools, from their only real capability). Word processing was one of the earliest applications for the personal computer in office productivity.
Although early word processors used tag-based markup for document formatting, most modern word processors take advantage of a graphical user interface. Most are powerful systems consisting of one or more programs that can produce any arbitrary combination of images, graphics and text, the latter handled with type-setting capability.
Microsoft Word is the most widely used computer word processing system; Microsoft estimates over five hundred million people use the Office suite, which includes Word. There are also many other commercial word processing applications, such as WordPerfect, which dominated the market from the mid-1980s to early-1990s, particularly for machines running Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system. Open-source applications such as OpenOffice.org Writer and KWord are rapidly gaining in popularity.[citation needed] Online word processors such as Google Docs are a relatively new category.
Printing of documents was initially accomplished using IBM Selectric typewriters modified for ASCII-character input. These were later replaced by application-specific daisy wheel printers (Diablo, which became a Xerox company, and Qume -- both now defunct.) For quick "draft" printing, dot-matrix line printers were optional alternatives with some word processors.
With the rise of personal computers, and in particular the IBM PC and PC compatibles, software-based word processors running on general-purpose commodity hardware gradually displaced dedicated word processors, and the term came to refer to software rather than hardware. Some programs were modeled after particular dedicated WP hardware. MultiMate, for example, was written for an insurance company that had hundreds of typists using Wang systems, and spread from there to other Wang customers. To adapt to the smaller PC keyboard, MultiMate used stick-on labels and a large plastic clip-on template to remind users of its dozens of Wang-like functions, using the shift, alt and ctrl keys with the 10 IBM function keys and many of the alphabet keys.
Other early word-processing software required users to memorize semi-mnemonic key combinations rather than pressing keys labelled "copy" or "bold." (In fact, many early PCs lacked cursor keys; WordStar famously used the E-S-D-X-centered "diamond" for cursor navigation, and modern vi-like editors encourage use of hjkl for navigation.) However, the price differences between dedicated word processors and general-purpose PCs, and the value added to the latter by software such as VisiCalc, were so compelling that personal computers and word processing software soon became serious competition for the dedicated machines. Word Perfect, XyWrite, Microsoft Word and dozens of other word processing software brands competed in the 1980s. Development of higher-resolution monitors allowed them to provide limited WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get, to the extent that typographical features like bold and italics, indentation, justification and margins were approximated on screen.


A Brother WP-1400D hardware-type word processor from 1994.
The mid-to-late 1980s saw the spread of laser printers, a "typographic" approach to word processing, and of true WYSIWYG bitmap displays with multiple fonts (pioneered by the Xerox Alto computer and Bravo word processing program), Postscript, and graphical user interfaces (another Xerox PARC innovation, with the Gypsy word processor which was commercialised in the Xerox Star product range). Standalone word processors adapted by getting smaller and replacing their CRTs with small character-oriented LCD displays. Some models also had computer-like features such as floppy disk drives and the ability to output to an external printer. They also got a name change, now being called "electronic typewriters" and typically occupying a lower end of the market, selling for under $200 USD.
MacWrite, Microsoft Word and other word processing programs for the bit-mapped Apple Macintosh screen, introduced in 1984, were probably the first true WYSIWYG word processors to become known to many people until the introduction of Microsoft Windows. Dedicated word processors eventually became museum pieces.
Types and Programming LanguagesBenjamin C. PierceTable of Contents and Sample ChaptersA type system is a syntactic method for automatically checking the absence of certain erroneous behaviors by classifying program phrases according to the kinds of values they compute. The study of type systems--and of programming languages from a type-theoretic perspective—-has important applications in software engineering, language design, high-performance compilers, and security.This text provides a comprehensive introduction both to type systems in computer science and to the basic theory of programming languages. The approach is pragmatic and operational; each new concept is motivated by programming examples and the more theoretical sections are driven by the needs of implementations. Each chapter is accompanied by numerous exercises and solutions, as well as a running implementation, available via the Web. Dependencies between chapters are explicitly identified, allowing readers to choose a variety of paths through the material.The core topics include the untyped lambda-calculus, simple type systems, type reconstruction, universal and existential polymorphism, subtyping, bounded quantification, recursive types, kinds, and type operators. Extended case studies develop a variety of approaches to modeling the features of object-oriented languages.

Spreadsheets that are parts of suites
Budgie Office Spreadsheet - The spreadsheet from a small free office suite. Can open modern Excel spreadsheets
Gnumeric - Started as the Linux GNOME desktop spreadsheet, it is now a well developed product with Windows versions
KSpread - Part of the extensive KOffice Suite, still mainly for Linux.
OpenOffice.org Calc - stemmed from StarOffice and supported by Sun and Open-Source community.
NeoOffice An independent OpenOffice.org port to Aqua, instead of X11 windowing server, which, in theory, should make it more stable than the X11 port.
Simple Emacs Spreadsheet - part of Emacs.
Online spreadsheets
ajaxXLS – web-based spreadsheet viewer and editor (the latter in pre-release stage) using Ajax and XUL
EditGrid– access, collaborate and share spreadsheets online, with API support
Google Spreadsheets – as part of Google Docs & Spreadsheets
iRows[ – closed since 31 December 2006
i-spreadsheet – creates web spreadsheet applications
JotSpot Tracker[ – acquired by Google Inc.
KDCalc – converts spreadsheets into web applications
Num Sum]– one of the earliest Web 2.0 online spreadsheet services
Sheetster – publish calculated cells in R3S (Really Simple Spreadsheet Syndication)
ThinkFree Online Calc – as part of the ThinkFree Office online office suite, using Java
Xcellery – online collaboration using Microsoft Excel - acquired by Expresso spreadsheet
Worksheetserver – web-based data-entry and consolidation of Excel data with multi-user capability for enterprise users
Spreader - Free service that converts OpenOffice Excel spreadsheets into web .NET applications.

Learnings... A Glamorous One

Well... this weeks seemed to a glamorous week for me. It is because of many learnings that I have absorbed for the week. And these makes me more interesting with the subject.


VIDEO CARDS

A video card, also referred to as a graphics accelerator card, display adapter, graphics card, and numerous other terms, is an item of personal computer hardware whose function is to generate and output images to a display. It operates on similar principles as a sound card or other peripheral devices.

The term is usually used to refer to a separate, dedicated expansion card that is plugged into a slot on the computer's motherboard, as opposed to a graphics controller integrated into the motherboard chipset. An integrated graphics controller may be referred to as an "integrated graphics processor" (IGP).

Some video cards offer added functions, such as video capture, TV tuner adapter, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 decoding or even FireWire, mouse, light pen, joystick connectors, or even the ability to connect multiple monitors.

Video cards are not used exclusively in IBM type PCs; they have been used in devices such as Commodore Amiga (connected by the slots Zorro II and Zorro III), Apple II, Apple Macintosh, Atari Mega ST/TT (attached to the MegaBus or VME interface), Spectravideo SVI-328, MSX, and in video game consoles.

POWER SUPPLY

Power supply is a reference to a source of electrical power. A device or system that supplies electrical or other types of energy to an output load or group of loads is called a power supply unit or PSU. The term is most commonly applied to electrical energy supplies, less often to mechanical ones, and rarely to others.


EXPANSION CARDS

An expansion card (also expansion board, adapter card or accessory card) in computing is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an expansion slot of a computer motherboard to add additional functionality to a computer system. One edge of the expansion card holds the contacts (the edge connector) that fit exactly into the slot. They establish the electrical contact between the electronics (mostly integrated circuits) on the card and on the motherboard.

Connectors mounted on the bracket allow the connection of external devices to the card. Depending on the form factor of the motherboard and case, around one to seven expansion cards can be added to a computer system. There are also other factors involved in expansion card capacity. For example, some expansion cards need two slots like some NVidia GeForce FX and newer GeForce graphics cards and there is often a space left to aid cooling on some high-end cards.

Some cards are "low-profile" cards, meaning that they take up little physical space. (There is a "low profile PCI card" standard ^{[1] [2]} that specifies a much smaller bracket and board area). The group of expansion cards that are used for external connectivity, such as a network, SAN or modem card, are commonly referred to as input/output cards (or I/O cards).

Dimensions for the metal plate on the expansion card is 120mm wide, and 18mm high.

INPUT DEVICES

Camera - most cameras like this are used during live conversations. The camera transmits a picture from one computer to another, or can be used to record a short video.
Compact Disc (CD) - CDs store information. The CD can then be put into another computer, and the information can be opened and added or used on the second computer. Note: A CD-R or CD-RW can also be used as an OUTPUT device.
Keyboard - The keyboard is a way to input letters or numbers into different applications or programs. A keyboard also has special keys that help operate the computer.
Mouse - The mouse is used to open and close files, navigate web sites, and click on a lot of commands (to tell the computer what to do) when using different applications.
Digital Camera - A digital camera can be used to take pictures. It can be hooked up to a computer to transfer the pictures from the camera to the computer. Some digital cameras hold a floppy disk, and the floppy disk can be taken out of the camera and put directly into the computer.
Drawing Tablet - A drawing tablet is similar to a white board, except you use a special pen to write on it and it's connected to the computer. Then the word or image you draw can be saved on the computer.
Microphone - A microphone is used to record sound. The sound is then saved as a sound file on the computer.
Scanner - A scanner is used to copy pictures or other things and save them as files on the computer.
Disk Drive - A disk drive can hold a CD or a floppy disk. It reads the information on the disk so that the computer can use it.
Joystick - A joystick is used to move the cursor from place to place, and to click on various items in programs. A joystick is used mostly for computer games.
Touch Screen - A touch screen is a computer screen or other screen that you can touch with your finger to enter information. Examples of touch screens include a smart board, a microwave, a dishwasher, or an ATM at a bank.
Bar Code Scanner - A bar code scanner scans a little label that has a bar code on it. The information is then saved on the computer. Bar code scanners are used in libraries a lot.

OUTPUT DEVICES

Monitor - A monitor is the screen on which words, numbers, and graphics can be seem. The monitor is the most common output device.
Compact Disk - Some compact disks can be used to put information on. This is called burning information to a CD. NOTE: A CD can also be an input device.
Printer - A printer prints whatever is on the monitor onto paper. Printers can print words, numbers, or pictures.
Speaker - A speaker gives you sound output from your computer. Some speakers are built into the computer and some are separate.
Disk Drives - A disk drive is used to record information from the computer onto a floppy disk or CD.
Floppy Disk - A floppy disk is used to record information on. The information is stored on the floppy disk and can be used later or used on another computer.
Headphones - Headphones give sound output from the computer. They are similar to speakers, except they are worn on the ears so only one person can hear the output at a time.

As I had completed learning about the three fundamentals of computer; system unit, input devices and output devices, I learned that the body of knowledge of computer is really wide. And I can merely say that man is very intellectual and intelligent to discover this successful thing... computer.