Ebkust Ict Notes
Ebkust Ict Notes
Lecture notes1prepared
by: Mr Alie Conteh
Introduction to E-Commerce, Evolution of E-Commerce, Role of E-Commerce,
E-Commerce Framework, E-Commerce Categories
LECTURE TWO
UNIT NO TOPIC
Lecture notes2prepared
by: Mr Alie Conteh
LECTURE 1
LECTURE 1. Introduction to Computer Fundamentals
1.1 Introduction to Computer
Computer is an advanced electronic device that takes raw data as input from the user and processes it
under the control of set of instructions (called program), gives the result (output),and saves it for the
future use.
These lecture notes provide a general introduction to computers systems. A computer system is madeup
of hardware, software and liveware. Software is another term for computer program. Software controls
the computer and makes it do useful work. Without software a computer is useless. Hardware refers to
the physical components that make up a computer system that we can touch. Liveware refers to the user
of the computer system. The hardware include the computer's processor, memory, monitor, keyboard,
mouse, disk drive, printer and so on. In these lectures, we take a brief look at the functions of the different
hardware components. In addition, we describe the some of the essential software required for the
operation of a computer system.
1. Functionalities of a computer
Definition
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1.1.3 Advantages
Following list demonstrates the advantages of computers in today's arena.
1) High Speed
• Computer is a very fast device.
• It is capable of performing calculation of very large amount of data.
• The computer has units of speed in microsecond, nanosecond, and
even thepicosecond.
• It can perform millions of calculations in a few seconds as compared to man
who willspend many months for doing the same task.
2) Accuracy
• In addition to being very fast, computers are very accurate.
• The calculations are 100% error free.
• Computers perform all jobs with 100% accuracy provided that correct input has
beengiven.
3) Storage Capability
• Memory is a very important characteristic of computers.
• A computer has much more storage capacity than human beings.
• It can store large amount of data.
• It can store any type of data such as images, videos, text, audio and many others.
4) Diligence
• Unlike human beings, a computer is free from monotony, tiredness and
lack ofconcentration.
• It can work continuously without any error and boredom.
• It can do repeated work with same speed and accuracy.
5) Versatility
• A computer is a very versatile machine.
• A computer is very flexible in performing the jobs to be done.
• This machine can be used to solve the problems related to various fields.
• At one instance, it may be solving a complex scientific problem and the very
nextmoment it may be playing a card game.
6) Reliability
• A computer is a reliable machine.
• Modern electronic components have long lives.
• Computers are designed to make maintenance easy.
7) Automation
• Computer is an automatic machine.
• Automation means ability to perform the given task automatically.
• Once a program is given to computer i.e., stored in computer memory, the program and
instruction can control the program execution without human interaction.
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8) Reduction in Paper Work
• The use of computers for data processing in an organization leads to
reduction inpaper work and results in speeding up a process.
• As data in electronic files can be retrieved as and when required, the
problem ofmaintenance of large number of paper files gets reduced.
9) Reduction in Cost
• Though the initial investment for installing a computer is high but it
substantiallyreduces the cost of each of its transaction.
1.1.4 Disadvantages
Following list demonstrates the disadvantages of computers in today's arena
1) No I.Q
• A computer is a machine that has no intelligence to perform any task.
• Each instruction has to be given to computer.
• A computer cannot take any decision on its own.
2) Dependency
• It functions as per a user’s instruction, so it is fully dependent on human being
3) Environment
• The operating environment of computer should be dust free and suitable.
4) No Feeling
• Computers have no feelings or emotions.
• It cannot make judgement based on feeling, taste, experience, and knowledge
unlike ahuman being.
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Saving data and instructions so that they are available for
2 Store Data
processing as and when required.
3 Processing Data Performing arithmetic, and logical operations on data in
order toconvert them into useful information.
Output The process of producing useful information or results for the
4 Informatio
n user, such as a printed report or visual display.
Control
5 Directs the manner and sequence in which all of the above
the
workflow operations are performed.
1. Input Unit
This unit contains devices with the help of which we enter data into computer. This unit makes
link between user and computer. The input devices translate the information into theform
understandable by computer.
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1.2. CLASSIFICATION OF COMPUTERS
There are the different types of computers available these days. The function of each type of computer is to
process the data and provide some output to the users. However, the methods or techniques used by these
computers to process and handle the data may be different. We can classify the computer according to the
following three criteria:
1. Analog computers
The analog computers represent data in the form of continuous electrical signals having a specific magnitude.
These computers are very fast in their operations to be carried out at the same time. They are a powerful tool
to solve differ ential equations.
2. Digital Computers
The digital computer is also known as the digital information processing system, is a type of computer that
stores and processes data in the digital form. Therefore, each type of data is usually stored in these computers
in terms of 0s and 1s. The output produced by these computers is also in the digital form.
3. Hybrid Computers
The hybrid computer is a combination of analog computer and digital computer because it encompasses the
best features of both these computers. Therefore, the hardware components of hybrid computers are usually
the mixture of analog and digital components. The hybrid computer is also less expensive than the digital
computers.
2. BASED ON APPLICATION
Different computers are designed for a different purpose so that they can perform their tasks according to
their capabilities. On the basis of different applications or purpose, computers can be classified into the
following categories:
1. Microcomputers
A microcomputer is a small and cheap digital computer that is designed to be used by individuals. It is built
around a microprocessor, a storage unit, and an I/o channel. The microcomputers are generally in the form of
PCs, workstations and notebook computers.
2. Mini computers
A minicomputer was first introduced in the year 1960 by Digital Equipment Corporations(DEC). They were
called minicomputers because of their smaller size than the other computers of those time.
3. Mainframe computers
A mainframe computer is a very large computer that is employed by the large business organization for
handling major applications such as financial transaction processing.
4. Super computers
A super computer is the fastest type of computers that can perform complex operations at a very high speed.
The super computer was first presented in the year 1960s by Seymour Cray at Control Data Corporation (CDC).
They are more expansive than the other categories of computers.
1) PC (Personal Computer)
A PC can be defined as a small, relatively inexpensive computer designed for an individual user.
PCs are based on the microprocessor technology that enables manufacturers to put an entire CPU
on one chip. Businesses use personal computers for word processing, accounting, desktop
publishing, and for running spreadsheet and database management applications. At home, the
most popular use for personal computers is playing games and surfing Internet.
Although personal computers are designed as single-user systems, these systems are normally
linked together to form a network. In terms of power, now-a-days High-end models of the
Macintosh and PC offer the same computing power and graphics capability as low-end
workstations by Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell.
3) Minicomputer
It is a midsize multi-processing system capable of supporting up to 250 users simultaneously.
5) Supercomputer
Supercomputers are one of the fastest computers currently available. Supercomputers
are very expensive and are employed for specialized applications that require immense
amount of mathematical calculations (number crunching). For example, weather
forecasting, scientific simulations, (animated) graphics, fluid dynamic calculations,
nuclear energy research, electronic design, and analysis of geological data (e.g. in
petrochemical prospecting).
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1.3.COMPUTER SYSTEM HARDWARE
Hardware represents the physical and tangible components of a computer i.e. the components
that can be seen and touched.
Examples of Hardware are following:
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complimentary to each other.
1) StaticRAM (SRAM)
The word static indicates that the memory retains its contents as long as power is being
supplied. However, data is lost when the power gets down due to volatile nature. SRAMchips
use a matrix of 6-transistors and no capacitors. Transistors do not require power toprevent
leakage, so SRAM need not have to be refreshed on a regular basis.
Because of the extra space in the matrix, SRAM uses more chips than DRAM for the same
amount of storage space, thus making the manufacturing costs higher. So SRAM is used as
cache memory and has very fast access.
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Characteristic of the Static RAM
• It has long life
• There is no need to refresh
• Faster
• Used as cache memory
• Large size
• Expensive
• High power consumption
Advantages of ROM
The advantages of ROM are as follows:
• Non-volatile in nature
• These cannot be accidentally changed
• Cheaper than RAMs
• Easy to test
• More reliable than RAMs
• These are static and do not require refreshing
• Its contents are always known and can be verified
6. Input/Output Devices:
1. Input Devices
Following are few of the important input devices which are used in a computer:
1. Mouse
2. Joy Stick
3. Key board
4. Light pen
5. Track Ball
6. Scanner
7. Graphic Tablet
8. Microphone
9. Magnetic Ink Card Reader(MICR)
10. Optical Character Reader(OCR)
11. Bar Code Reader
12. Optical Mark Reader(OMR)
1)Keyboard
Keyboard is the most common and very popular input device which helps in inputting data to
the computer. The layout of the keyboard is like that of traditional typewriter, although there
are some additional keys provided for performing additional functions.
Keyboards are of two sizes 84 keys or 101/102 keys, but now keyboards with 104 keys or108
keys are also available for Windows and Internet.
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THE KEYS ON THE KEYBOARD ARE AS FOLLOWS:
2) Mouse
Mouse is most popular pointing device. It is a very famous cursor-control device having
a small palm size box with a round ball at its base which senses the movement of mouse
andsends corresponding signals to CPU when the mouse buttons are pressed.
Generally it has two buttons called left and right button and a wheel is present between
the buttons. Mouse can be used to control the position of cursor on screen, but it cannot
be usedto enter text into the computer.
Advantages
• Easy to use
• Not very expensive
• Moves the cursor faster than the arrow keys of keyboard.
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3) Joystick
Joystick is also a pointing device which is used to move cursor position on a monitor
screen.It is a stick having a spherical ball at its both lower and upper ends. The lower
spherical ball moves in a socket. The joystick can be moved in all four directions.
The function of joystick is similar to that of a mouse. It is mainly used in Computer
AidedDesigning(CAD) and playing computer games.
1) Light Pen
Light pen is a pointing device which is similar to a pen. It is used to select a displayed
menu item or draw pictures on the monitor screen. It consists of a photocell and an
optical system placed in a small tube. When the tip of a light pen is moved over the
monitor screen and penbutton is pressed, its photocell sensing element detects the screen
location and sends the corresponding signal to the CPU.
2) TrackBall
Track ball is an input device that is mostly used in notebook or laptop computer, instead
of a mouse. This is a ball which is half inserted and by moving fingers on ball, pointer
can be moved. Since the whole device is not moved, a track ball requires less space than
a mouse. Atrack ball comes in various shapes like a ball, a button and a square.
3) Scanner
Scanner is an input device which works more like a photocopy machine. It is used
when some information is available on a paper and it is to be transferred to the hard
disc of the computer for further manipulation. Scanner captures images from the
source which are thenconverted into the digital form that can be stored on the disc.
These images can be edited before they are printed.
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4) Digitizer
Digitizer is an input device which converts analog information into digital form.
Digitizer canconvert a signal from the television or camera into a series of numbers that
could be stored in a computer. They can be used by the computer to create a picture of
whatever the camera had been pointed at. Digitizer is also known as Tablet or Graphics
Tablet because it converts graphics and pictorial data into binary inputs. A graphic tablet
as digitizer is used for doing fine works of drawing and image manipulation applications.
5) Microphone
Microphone is an input
device to input sound that is then
stored in digital form. The
microphone is used for
various applications like adding sound to a multimedia presentation orfor mixing music.
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Optical Character Reader(OCR) OCR is an input device used to read a printed text.
OCR scans text optically character bycharacter, converts them into a machine readable
code and stores the text on the system memory.
1.
7) Bar Code Readers
Bar Code Reader is a device used for reading bar coded data (data in form of light and
dark lines). Bar coded data is generally used in labelling goods, numbering the books
etc. It may be a hand held scanner or may be embedded in a stationary scanner. Bar
Code Reader scans abar code image, converts it into an alphanumeric value which is
then fed to the computer to which bar code reader is connected.
• Large in Size
• High power consumption
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2) Flat-PanelDisplay Monitor
The flat-panel display refers to a class of video devices that have reduced volume,
weight andpower requirement in comparison to the CRT. You can hang them on walls
or wear them on your wrists. Current uses of flat-panel displays include calculators,
video games, monitors, laptop computer, graphics display.
The flat-panel display is divided into two categories:
• Emissive Displays - The emissive displays are devices that convert electrical energy
into light. Example are plasma panel and LED (Light-Emitting Diodes).
• Non-Emissive Displays - The Non-emissive displays use optical effects to convert
sunlight or light from some other source into graphics patterns. Example is LCD
(Liquid-Crystal Device)
1.6.4 Printers
Printer is an output device, which is used to print information on
1. Impact Printers
2. Non-Impact Printers
A) Impact Printers
The impact printers print the characters by striking them on the ribbon which is then
pressedon the paper.
Characteristics of Impact Printers are the following:
• Very low consumable costs
• Very noisy
• Useful for bulk printing due to low cost
• There is physical contact with the paper to produce an image
These printers are of two types
• Character printers
• Line printers
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Character Printers
Character printers are the printers which print one character at a time.
1) Daisy Wheel
Head is lying on a wheel and pins corresponding to characters are like petals of Daisy
(flowername) that is why it is called Daisy Wheel Printer. These printers are generally
used for
Word processing in offices which require a few letters to be sent here and there with
very nicequality.
Advantages
• More reliable than DMP
• Better quality
• The fonts of character can be easily changed
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Disadvantages
• Slower than DMP
• Noisy
• More expensive than DMP
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2) Line Printers
Line printers are the printers which print one line at a time.
These are of further two types
• Drum Printer
• Chain Printer
3) Drum Printer
This printer is like a drum in shape so it is called drum printer. The surface of drum is
dividedinto number of tracks. Total tracks are equal to size of paper i.e. for a paper width
of 132 characters, drum will have 132 tracks. A character set is embossed on track. The
different character sets available in the market are 48 character set, 64 and 96 characters
set. One rotation of drum prints one line. Drum printers are fast in speed and can print
300 to 2000 lines per minute.
Advantages
• Very high speed
Disadvantages
• Very expensive
• Characters fonts cannot be changed
4) Chain Printer
In this printer, chain of character sets are used so it is called Chain Printer. A standard
character set may have 48, 64, or 96 characters.
Advantages
• Character fonts can easily be changed.
• Different languages can be used with the same printer.
Disadvantages
• Noisy
B) Non-impact Printers
Non-impact printers print the characters without using ribbon. These printers print a
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completepage at a time so they are also called as Page Printers.
These printers are of two types
• Laser Printers
• Inkjet Printers
1) Laser Printers
These are non-impact page printers. They use laser lights to produce the dots needed to
formthe characters to be printed on a page.
Advantages
• Very high speed
• Very high quality output
• Give good graphics quality
• Support many fonts and different character size
Disadvantages
• Expensive.
• Cannot be used to produce multiple copies of a document in a single printing.
2) Inkjet Printers
Inkjet printers are non-impact character printers based on a relatively new technology.
Theyprint characters by spraying small drops of ink onto paper. Inkjet printers produce
high quality output with presentable features.
They make less noise because no hammering is done and these have many styles of
printing modes available. Colour printing is also possible. Some models of Inkjet
printers can producemultiple copies of printing also.
Advantages
• High quality printing
• More reliable
Disadvantages
• Expensive as cost per page is high
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• Slow as compared to laser printer
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1.7.Definition of computer virus
A computer virus is a program or piece of code that is loaded onto your computer without
your knowledge and runs against your wishes. Viruses can also replicate themselves. All
computer viruses are man-made. A simple virus that can make a copy of itself over and over
again is relatively easy to produce. Even such a simple virus is dangerous because it will
quickly use all available memory and bring the system to a halt. An even more dangerous
type of virus is one capable of transmitting itself across networks and bypassing security
systems.
In computers, a virus is a program or programming code that replicates by being copied or
initiating its copying to another program, computer boot sector or document.
A computer virus is a program designed to harm or cause harm on an infected computer. Itsspreads through
e-mail attachments, portable devices, websites containing malicious scripts and file downloads. A
computer virus attaches itself to the host files and always activate whenever you open the infected files.
The virus can replicate itself and then infect the other files on your computer causing more damage. Below
is a list of different types of computer viruses and what they do
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.
5. Overwrite Viruses
Virus of this kind is characterized by the fact that it deletes the information contained in thefiles that it
infects, rendering them partially or totally useless once they have been infected.
The only way to clean a file infected by an overwrite virus is to delete the file completely,thus losing
the original content.
Examples of this virus include: Way, Trj.Reboot, Trivial.88.D.
6. Boot Virus
This type of virus affects the boot sector of a floppy or hard disk. This is a crucial part of a disk, in which information
on the disk itself is stored together with a program that makes itpossible to boot (start) the computer from the disk.
The best way of avoiding boot viruses is to ensure that floppy disks are write-protected andnever start
your computer with an unknown floppy disk in the disk drive.
Examples of boot viruses include: Polyboot.B, AntiEXE.
7. Macro Virus
Macro viruses infect files that are created using certain applications or programs that containmacros.
These mini-programs make it possible to automate series of operations so that they are performed as a
single action, thereby saving the user from having to carry them out one by one.
Examples of macro viruses: Relax, Melissa.A, Bablas, O97M/Y2K.
8. Directory Virus
Directory viruses change the paths that indicate the location of a file. By executing a program(file with
the extension .EXE or .COM) which has been infected by a virus, you are unknowingly running the virus
program, while the original file and program have been previously moved by the virus. Once infected it
becomes impossible to locate the original files.
9. Polymorphic Virus
Polymorphic viruses encrypt or encode themselves in a different way (using differentalgorithms
and encryption keys) every time they infect a system.
This makes it impossible for anti-viruses to find them using string or signature searches (because
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they are different in each encryption) and also enables them to create a large numberof copies of
themselves.
Examples include: Elkern, Marburg, Satan Bug, and Tuareg.
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17. Spacefiller (Cavity) Viruses
Many viruses take the easy way out when infecting files; they simply attach themselves to theend
of the file and then change the start of the program so that it first points to the virus and then to the
actual program code. Many viruses that do this also implement some
stealth techniques so you don't see the increase in file length when the virus is active inmemory.
A spacefiller (cavity) virus, on the other hand, attempts to be clever. Some program files, for a variety
of reasons, have empty space inside of them. This empty space can be used to housevirus code. A
spacefiller virus attempts to install itself in this empty space while not damaging the actual program
itself. An advantage of this is that the virus then does not increase the length of the program and can
avoid the need for some stealth techniques. The Lehigh virus was an early example of a spacefiller virus.
1. FAT Virus
The file allocation table or FAT is the part of a disk used to connect information and is a vitalpart of the
normal functioning of the computer. This type of virus attack can be especially dangerous, by preventing
access to certain sectionsof the disk where important files are stored. Damage caused can result in
information losses from individual files or even entire directories.
2. Worms
A worm is technically not a virus, but a program very similar to a virus; it has the ability to self-
replicate, and can lead to negative effects on your system and most importantly they are detected and
eliminated by antiviruses.
Examples of worms include: PSWBugbear.B, Lovgate.F, Trile.C, Sobig.D, Mapson.
3. Trojans or Trojan Horses
Another unsavory breed of malicious code (not a virus as well) are Trojans or Trojan horses, which unlike
viruses do not reproduce by infecting other files, nor do they self-replicate like worms.
4. Logic Bombs
They are not considered viruses because they do not replicate. They are not even programs in their own
right but rather camouflaged segments of other programs.
Their objective is to destroy data on the computer once certain conditions have been met.Logic bombs
go undetected until launched, and the results can be destructive
1.7.2 Use of Antivirus software
Antivirus or anti-virus software (often abbreviated as AV), sometimes known as anti- malware
software, is computer software used to prevent, detect and remove malicious software. Antivirus (or
anti- virus) software is used to safeguard a computer from malware, includingviruses, computer
worms, and Trojan horses
Antivirus software may also remove or prevent spyware and adware, along with other forms of malicious
programs. Free antivirus software generally only searches your computer using signature-based detection
which involves looking for patterns of data that are known to be related to already-identified malware.
Paid antivirus software will usually also include heuristics to catch new, or zero-day threats, by either
using genetic signatures to identify newvariants of existing virus code or by running the file in a virtual
environment (also called a sandbox), and watching what it does to see if it has malicious intent. Virus
designers, however, usually test their malicious code against the major antivirus typesof malware,
specifically ransomware, use polymorphic code to make it difficult to be detected by antivirus software.
Besides using antivirus software to keep your computer safe and running smoothly, it is also always a
good idea to be proactive: make sure your web browser is updated to the latest version, use a firewall,
only download programs from websites you trust and always surf the web using a standard user account,
rather than your administrator one.
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2.1.Working With Windows Operating System The Desktop
The desktop is the main screen area that you see after you turn on your computer and log onto Windows.
When you open programs or folders, they appear on the desktop. You can alsoput things on the desktop,
such as files and folders, and arrange them as you want.
2I,c1o.2nWs aorreksimngalwpitichtudreesskthtoaptriecpornessentfiles,
folders, programs, and other items. When
Windows stacks icons in columns on the left side of the desktop. But you're not stuck with that
arrangement. You can move an icon by dragging it to a new place on the desktop.
You can also have Windows automatically arrange your icons. Right-click an empty area of the
desktop, click View, and then clickAuto arrange icons. Windows stacks your icons inthe upper-
left corner and locks them in place. To unlock the icons so that you can move them again, click Auto
arrange icons again, clearing the check mark next to it.
Windows Explorer:
Windows Explorer is the file management application in windows. Windows explorer can be used
to navigate your hard drive and display the contents of the folders and subfolders youuse to
organize your files on your hard drive. Windows Explorer is automatically launched any time you
open a folder in windows XP.
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To open the Start menu, click the Start button in the lower-left corner of your screen. Or, press the Windows logo
key on your keyboard.
The Start menu has three basic parts:
• The large left pane shows a short list of programs on your computer. Clicking AllPrograms
displays a complete list of programs.
• At the bottom of the left pane is the search box, which allows you to look forprograms
and files on your computer by typing in search terms.
• The right pane provides access to commonly used folders, files, settings, and features.It's
also where you go to log off from Windows or turn off your computer.
To use the search box, open the Start menu and start typing. You don't need to click insidethe
box first. As you type, the search results appear above the search box in the left pane ofthe
Start menu.
• Any word in its title matches or begins with your search term.
• Any text in the actual contents of the file matches or begins with your search term.
• Any word in a property of the file, such as the author, matches or begins with your search
term.
Click any search result to open it. Or, click the Clear button to clear the search results and return
to the main programs list. You can also click See more results to search your entire computer.
Search box also searches your Internet favorites and the history of websites you've visited. If
any of these webpages include the search term, they appear under a heading called "Files."
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Taskbar:
The taskbar is the long horizontal bar at the bottom of your screen. It has three main sections:
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The button shows an icon that represents the open program. In the picture below, two
programs are open—Calculator and Minesweeper—and each has its own button on the
taskbar. It also highlights the icon whose window is active. Click a taskbar button to
switch to that window
Menus, buttons, scroll bars, and check boxes are examples of controls that you operate
with your mouse or keyboard. These controls allow you to select commands, change
settings, orwork with windows.
Menus:
Most programs contain hundreds of commands that you use to work the program. Many
of these commands are organized under menus. A program menu shows you a list of
choices.To choose one of the commands listed in a menu, click it. Sometimes menus
show submenus.
Recognizing menus isn't always easy, because not all menu controls look same or even
appear on a menu bar. When you see an arrow next to a word or picture, you're probably
looking at a menu control.
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Scroll bars
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When a document, webpage, or picture exceeds the size of its window, scroll bars appear to
allow you to see the information that is currently out of
view. The following picture shows the parts of a scroll bar.To use
a scroll bar:
Command buttons
If a button changes into two parts when you point to it, you've
discovered a split button. Clicking the main part of the button performs a command, whereas
clicking the arrow opens a menu with more options.
Option buttons
Option buttons
allow you to make one choice among two or more options. They frequently
appear in dialog boxes. The following picture shows two option buttons. The
"Color" option is selected.
Check boxes
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Check boxes allow you to choose multiple options at the same time. Click an empty
checkbox to select that option
To use check boxes:
Sliders :
Text boxes:
Drop-down lists:
Drop-down lists are similar to menus. Instead of clicking a command, though, you
choose an option. When closed, a drop-down list shows only the currently selected option.
The other available options are hidden until you click the control, as shown below.
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List boxes:
A list box displays a list of options that you can choose from. Unlike a
drop-down list, some or all of the options are visible without having to
open the list.
To choose an option from the list, click it. If the option you wantisn't
visible, use the scroll bar to scroll the list up or down. If thelist box
has a text box above it, you can type the name or value ofthe option
instead.
Tabs :
In some dialog boxes, options are divided into two or more tabs. Only one tab, or set ofoptions,
can be viewed at a time. The currently selected tab appears in front of the other tabs.To switch to
a different tab, click the tab.
Whenever you open a program, file, or folder, it appears on your screen in a box or framecalled a
window.
Parts of a window
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• Borders and corners. You can drag these with your mouse pointer to change
the sizeof the window.
Changing the size of a window
Minimizing a window:
To minimize a window, click its Minimize button . The window disappears from
the desktop and is visible only as a button on the taskbar, the long horizontal bar at the
bottom of your screen.
To make a minimized window appear again on the desktop,
click its taskbar button. The window appears exactly as it did
before you minimized it.
Closing a window
Closing a window removes it from the desktop and taskbar. To close a window,
clickits Close button .
The taskbar provides a way to organize all of your
windows. Each window has a corresponding button
onthe taskbar. To switch to another window, just click
its taskbar button. The window appears in front of all
other windows, becoming the active window—the one
you're currently working in.
To easily identify a window, point to its taskbar button.
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When you point to a taskbar button, you'll see a thumbnail-sized preview of the window.
This preview is especially useful if you can't identify a window by its title alone.
Dialog boxes:
When you open a folder or library, you can change how the files look in the window.
Forexample, you might prefer larger (or smaller) icons or a
use the
You can also open Notepad first and then open the document from
Notepad’s File/Open command. Once the document is opened you can print it.
Advantage ofopening Notepad prior to locating file:
• Can apply page formatting before you print.
• Can add a header or footer.
• Can adjust the margins.
WordPad
WordPad is a simple word
processor.WordPad allows simple
formatting:
• Change fonts.
• Character level formatting.
• Margins can be changed/created.
• Insert bulleted charts/graphic and sound files.
Paragraphs:
Traditional English style paragraph includes a topic sentence, supporting sentences, and
aconcluding sentence. Indented by one tab.
A paragraph, in word processing terms, is all the text between paragraph marks (¶). It
can beone character, one page, or several pages of text.
To indent a paragraph you use the <Tab> key.
• Paint Window
The Paint window has many components, some are common to all windows programs,
othersare not.
1. Menu Bar – location of choices consistent:
2. Tool Box - is actually a toolbar that you select your drawing tools from.
Below the Tool Box is an area called the Tool Options box where the options available
forthe selected tool are displayed.
3. Color Box - contains the colors you can use in Paint. The foreground color is the
color youdraw with. The background color is the color of your drawing area.
4. Drawing area - is like a canvas and is the area where you draw. Default drawing
tool –pencil. Cursor assumes shape of selected drawing tool.
The Tools:
1. Free-Form Select – Selects a free form cutout in a drawing.
2. Select – Selects a rectangular cutout.
3. Erase/Color Eraser – Changes the foreground color to the background color.
4. Fill With Color – Fills a bordered area with the selected foreground color.
5. Pick Color – Picks a color in your drawing and uses it as your
foreground coloror background color.
E-mail can be distributed to lists of people as well as to individuals. A shared distribution list can be
managed by using an e-mail reflector. Some mailing lists allow you to subscribe by sending a request
to the mailing list administrator. A mailing list that is administered automatically is called a list server.
E-mail is one of the protocols included with the Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol(TCP/IP)
suite of protocols. A popular protocol for sending e-mail is Simple Mail Transfer
write in address bar www.gmail.com and you will get below image
Now click on "CREATE AN ACCOUNT", as shown in below (check the red arrow) .
Fill all the details, here the user name is the desired user ID which you want to
create.after felling all the details click on "Next step" Button (check the red arrow)
now click on "next step " button and you will get you inbox .
Enjoy your new Gmail account. You're finished! Click on "Continue to Gmail" to access
yourinbox, read your emails, and write new ones.
5. Use of Email
Email is one of the most important forms of communication in today's digital age. It's
the waythat millions (if not billions) of people stay in touch with each other. Luckily,
this form of near-instant communication is completely free. Make a free email account
today to start sending and receiving email immediately. Read on below the jump for
detailed instructions on registering a new email account with several of the internet's
most popular email providers.
Go to Gmail.com. The first step to creating an email account with Gmail, Google's free
email service, is to visit Gmail's main site. Type "gmail.com" into your browser's
navigation bar, or, alternatively, type "Gmail" into your search engine of choice and
click the relevant result.
The email is actually used to transfer messages between one to another. It is also used for :-
The structure and makeup of the Internet has adapted as the needs of its community
have changed. Today's Internet serves the largest and most diverse community of
network users inthe computing world. A brief chronology and summary of significant
components are provided in this chapter to set the stage for understanding the challenges
of interfacing the Internet and the steps to build scalable internetworks.
The Internet started as an experiment in the late 1960s by the Advanced Research Projects
Agency (ARPA, now called DARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense. DARPA
experimented with the connection of computer networks by giving grants to multiple
universities and private companies to get them involved in the research.
In December 1969, the experimental network went online with the connection of a four-
node network connected via 56 Kbps circuits. This new technology proved to be highly
reliable and led to the creation of two similar military networks, MILNET in the U.S. and
MINET in Europe. Thousands of hosts and users subsequently connected their private
networks (universities and government) to the ARPANET, thus creating the initial "ARPA
Internet." ARPANET had an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), which prohibited the use of the
Internet forcommercial use. ARPANET was decommissioned in 1989.
By 1985, the ARPANET was heavily used and congested. In response, the National Science
Foundation (NSF) initiated phase one development of the NSFNET. The NSFNET was
composed of multiple regional networks and peer networks (such as the NASA Science
Network) connected to a major backbone that constituted the core of the overall NSFNET.
In its earliest form, in 1986, the NSFNET created a three-tiered network architecture. The
architecture connected campuses and research organizations to regional networks, which in
turn connected to a main backbone linking six nationally funded super-computer centers.
Theoriginal links were 56 Kbps.
The links were upgraded in 1988 to faster T1 (1.544 Mbps) links as a result of the NSFNET
1987 competitive solicitation for a faster network service, awarded to Merit Network, Inc.
and its partners MCI, IBM, and the state of Michigan. The NSFNET T1 backbone
connected a total of 13 sites that included Merit, BARRNET, MIDnet, Westnet,
NorthWestNet, SESQUINET, SURANet, NCAR (National Center of Atmospheric
Research), and five NSF supercomputer centers.
In 1990, Merit, IBM, and MCI started a new organization known as Advanced Network
andServices (ANS). Merit Network's Internet engineering group provided a policy routing
database and routing consultation and management services for the NSFNET, whereas ANS
operated the backbone routers and a Network Operation Center (NOC).
The history of the Internet begins with the development of electronic computers in the
1950s. Initial concepts of packet networking originated in several computer science
laboratories in the United States, Great Britain, and France. The US Department of Defense
awarded contracts as early as the 1960s for packet network systems, including the
development of the ARPANET (which would become the first network to use the Internet
Protocol.) The first message was sent over the ARPANET from computer science Professor
Leonard Kleinrock's laboratory at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to the
second network node at Stanford Research Institute (SRI).
Packet switching networks such as ARPANET, Mark I at NPL in the UK, CYCLADES,
Merit Network, Tymnet, and Telenet, were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s
using a variety of communications protocols. The ARPANET in particular led to the
development
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of protocols for internetworking, in which multiple separate networks could be joined
into anetwork of networks.
Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation
(NSF) funded the Computer Science Network (CSNET). In 1982, the Internet protocol
suite (TCP/IP) was introduced as the standard networking protocol on the ARPANET.
In the early 1980s the NSF funded the establishment for national supercomputing
centers at several universities, and provided interconnectivity in 1986 with the NSFNET
project, which also created network access to the supercomputer sites in the United
States from research and education organizations. Commercial Internet service providers
(ISPs) began to emerge in thelate 1980s. The ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990.
Private connections to the Internet by commercial entities became widespread quickly,
and the NSFNET was decommissioned in 1995, removing the last restrictions on the
use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic.
Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has had a revolutionary impact on culture and
commerce, including the rise of near-instant communication by electronic mail, instant
messaging, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone calls, two-way interactive
video calls, and the World Wide Web with its discussion forums, blogs, social
networking, and online shopping sites.
The research and education community continues to develop and use advanced networks
such as NSF's very high speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS), Internet2, and
National LambdaRail. Increasing amounts of data are transmitted at higher and higher
speeds overfiber optic networks operating at 1-Gbit/s, 10-Gbit/s, or more. The Internet's
takeover of the global communication landscape was almost instant in historical terms:
it only communicated 1% of the information flowing through two-way
telecommunications networks in the year 1993, already 51% by 2000, and more than
97% of the telecommunicated information by 2007.[1] Today the Internet continues to
grow, driven by ever greater amounts of online information, commerce, entertainment,
and social networking.
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A large number of books, newspapers, magazines, encyclopedia, and other types of materialsare available
in electronic from on the Internet. We can find information or news on about almost any thing of the
world. We can also access latest information or news on any topic. It means that Internet is an ocean of
knowledge.In addition of finding information, we can communicate with other people around the world.
Due to Internet our world has become a "global village".
Working of the InternetThere is no particular organization that controls the Internet. Different
networks of private companies, government agencies, research organizations, universities etc. are
interconnected together. You can say that the Internet is a collection of millions of computers, all
linked together.
A personal computer can be linked to the Internet using a phone-line modem, DSL or cable modem. The
modem is used to communicate with the server of an Internet Server Provider (ISP). ISP is a company
that provides the Internet connections to the users. There are many ISP companies in each country of the
world. The user has to get an Internet connection fromany ISP company to connect to the Internet.
The user's computer connects to ISP's server makes its connection to larger ISP. The largest
ISPs maintain fiber-optic lines, under sea cables or satellite links. In this way, every computer
on the Internet is connected to every other computer on the Internet.
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2. Use of Internet:
Internet is today one of the most important part of our daily life. There are large numbers of things that can
be done using the internet and so it is very important. You can say that with the progress in the internet we
are progressing in every sphere of life as it not only makes ourtasks easier but also saves a lot of time.
Today internet is used for different purposes depending upon the requirement. Here in this very article we
have mentioned then ten best uses of the internet. Here goes the list.
Internet has been the most useful technology of the modern times which helps us not only in our daily lives, but
also our personal and professional lives developments. The internet helpsus achieve this in several different ways.
For the students and educational purposes the internet is widely used to gather information soas to do the
research or add to the knowledge of any sort of subject they have. Even the business personals and the
professions like doctors, access the internet to filter the necessary information for their use. The internet is
therefore the largest encyclopedia for everyone, in all age categories.
The internet has served to be more useful in maintaining contacts with friends and relatives who live abroad
permanently. The easiest communication means like the internet chatting systems and the emails are the
best and the most common for the maintaining contacts withthe people around the world.
Not to forget internet is useful in providing with most of the fun these days. May it be all the
games, and networking conferences or the online movies, songs, dramas and quizzes, internet
has provided the users with a great opportunity to eradicate the boredom from their lives.
Internet is also used to upgrade the internet and use special software to work on the projectsand
documentation works as the internet enables the user to download a myriad of different software
for a variety of different purposes, making it much easier than buying the costly software cds.
1. Communication
Easiest thing that can be done using the internet is that we can communicate with the people
living far away from us with extreme ease. Earlier the communication used to be a daunting
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task but all that chanced once internet came into the life of the common people. Now people
can not only chat but can also do the video conferencing. It has become extremely easy to
contact the loved ones who are in some other part of the world. Communication is the most
important gift that the internet has given to the common man. Email, social networking sites
are some of the prime example of it. This is one such gift of the internet which is cherished by
everyone and has made our life easier to much extent.
2. Research
Now the point that has been placed next is research. In order to do research you need to go
throughhundreds of books as well as the references and that was one of the most difficult
jobs to do earlier.Since the internet came into life, everything is available just a click away.
You just have to search for the concerned topic and you will get hundreds of references
that may be beneficial for your research. And since internet is here to make your research
public, you can then benefit a large amount of people from the research work that you have
done. Research is one such thing which has got lots of benefit from this evolution of
internet. Research process has now got wings and has gained the most due to the internet.
Education
The next point that we have in this list is education. Yes you read it right. Education is one ofthe best
things that the internet can provide. There are a number of books, reference books, online help centres,
expert’s views and other study oriented material on the internet that can make the learning process very
easier as well as a fun learning experience. There are lots and lots of websites which are related to
different topic. You can visit them and can gain endless amount of knowledge that you wish to have.
With the use of internet for education, you are non-longer dependent on some other person to come and
teach you. There are various number of tutorials available over the internet using which you can learn
so many thing very easily. There can’t be any excellent use of the internet other than education as it is
the key to achieve everything in life.
4. Financial Transaction
Mentioned here is financial transaction. Financial transaction is the term which is used when there is
exchange of money. With the use of internet in the financial transaction, your work has become a lot
easier. Now you don’t need to stand in the queue at the branch of your particular bank rather you can just
log in on to the bank website with the credential that has been provided to you by the bank and then can
do any transaction related to finance at your will. With the ability to do the financial transaction easily
over the internet you can purchase
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or sell items so easily. Financial transaction can be considered as one of the best uses
ofresource in the right direction.
Real time updates have been placed at the number fifth position here. This has been mentioned
here in regards to the news and other happenings that may be on-going in different parts of
the world but with the use of internet we come to know about it very easily and without any
difficulty. There are various websites on the internet which provides you with thereal time
updates in every field be it in business, sports, finance, politics, entertainment and others.
Many a time the decisions are taken on the real time updates that are happening in various
parts of the world and this is where internet is very essential and helpful.
The World Wide Web (WWW, W3) is an information system of interlinked hypertext
documents that are accessed via the Internet. It has also commonly become known simply as
the Web. Individual document pages on the World Wide Web are called web pages and are
accessed with a software application running on the user's computer, commonly called a web
browser. Web pages may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia components, as
well as web navigation features consisting of hyperlinks.
The "Web", short for "World Wide Web" (which gives us the acronym www), is the name
for one of the ways that the Internet lets people browse documents connected by hypertext
links.
The concept of the Web was perfected at CERN (Centre Européen de Recherche
Nucléaire) in 1991 by a group of researchers which included Tim-Berners Lee, the creator
of the hyperlink, who is today considered the father of the Web.
The principle of the Web is based on using hyperlinks to navigate between documents (called
"web pages") with a program called a browser. A web page is a simple text file written in a
markup language (called HTML) that encodes the layout of the document, graphical
elements, and links to other documents, all with the help of tags.
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Besides the links which connect formatted documents to one another, the web uses the HTTP
protocol to link documents hosted on distant computers (called web servers, as opposed to
theclient represented by the broswer). On the Internet, documents are identified with a unique
address, called a URL, which can be used to locate any resource on the Internet, no matter
which server may be hosting it.
• http:// indicates that we want browse the web using the HTTP protocol, the
defaultprotocol for browsing the Web. There are other protocols for other uses
of the Internet.
• www.commentcamarche.net corresponds to the address of the server that
hosts the web pages. By convention, web servers have a name that begins with
www., to make it clear that they are dedicated web servers and to make
memorising the address easier. This second part of the address is called the
domain name. A website can be hosted on several servers, each belonging to the
same name: www.commentcamarche.net www2.commentcamarche.net,
intranet.commentcamarche.net, etc.
• /www/www-intro.php3 indicates where the document is located on the
machine. In this case, it is the file www-intro.php3 situé located in the
directory www.
A search engine is a software system that 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 mix of web pages, images,
and other types of files. Some search engines also mine data available in databases or open
directories. Unlike web directories, which are maintained only by human editors, search
engines also maintain real-time information by running an algorithm on a web crawler.
1) Web Crawling
Matthew Gray’s World Wide Web Wanderer (1993) was one of the first efforts to automate
the discovery of web pages Gray’s web crawler would download a web page, examine it
forlinks to other pages, and continue downloading links it discovered until there were no
more links left to be discovered. This is how web crawlers, also called spiders, generally
operate today.
Because the Web is so large, search engines normally employ thousands of web crawlers
thatmeticulously scour the web day and night, downloading pages, looking for links to new
pages, and revisiting old pages that might have changed since they were visited last. Search
engines will often revisit pages based on their frequency of change in order to keep their
index fresh. This is necessary so search engine users can always find the most up-to-date
information on the Web.
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Maintaining an accurate "snap shot" of the Web is challenging, not only because of the size
of the Web and constantly changing content, but also because pages disappear at an alarming
rate (a problem commonly called linkrot). Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive,
estimates that web pages have an average life expectancy of only 100 days And some pages
cannot be found by web crawling. These are pages that are not linked to others, pages that
arepassword-protected or are generated dynamically when submitting a web form. These
pages reside in the deep Web, also called the hidden or invisible Web
Some website owners don’t want their pages indexed by search engines for any number of
reasons, so they use the Robots Exclusion Protocol (robots.txt) to tell web crawlers which
URLs are off-limits. Other website owners want to ensure certain web pages are indexed by
search engines, so they use the Sitemap Protocol, a method supported by all major search
engines, to provide a crawler with a list of URLs they want indexed Sitemaps are especially
useful in providing the crawler URLs it would be unable to find with web crawling.
Figure 1 below shows how a web crawler pulls from the Web and places downloaded web
resources into a local repository. The next section will examine how this repository of web
resources is then indexed and retrieved when you enter a query into a search engine.
Figure 1 - The Web is crawled and placed into a local repository where it is indexed
andretrieved when using a search engine.
cat > 2, 5
dog > 1, 5, 6
fish > 1, 2
bird > 4
So a query for dog would result in pages 1, 5, and 6. A query for cat dog would only result
inpage 5 since it is the only page that contains both search terms. Some search engines
provide advanced search capabilities, so a search for cat OR dog and NOT fish would be
entered which would result in pages 1, 5, and 6.
The search engine also maintains multiple weights for each term. The weight might
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correspond to any number of factors that determines how relevant the term is to its host web
page. Term frequency is one such weight which measures how often a term appears in a
web page. For example, if someone wanted to search the Web for pages about dogs, a web
page containing the term dog five times would likely be more relevant than a page containing
dog just once. However, term frequency is susceptible to spamming (or spamdexing), a
technique which some individuals use to artificially manipulate a web page’s ranking, so it
is only one of many factors which are used
Another weight that is given to a web page is based on the context in which the term appears
in the page. If the term appears in a large, bold font or in the title of the page, it may be given
more weight than to a term that appears in a regular font. A page might also be given more
weight if links pointing to the page use the term in its anchor text. In other words, a page that
is pointed to with the link text “see the dogs” is more likely about dogs since the term dogs
appears in the link. This functionality has left search engines susceptible to a practice known
as Google-bombing, where many individuals collude to produce the same anchor text to the
same web page for humorous effect. A popular Google bomb once promoted the White
House website to the first result when searching Google for “miserable failure”. Google has
recently implemented an algorithmic solution capable of diffusing most Google bombs
A final weight which most search engines will use is based on the web graph, the graph
which is created when viewing web pages as nodes and links as directed edges. Sergey Brin
and Larry Page were graduate students at Stanford University when they noted just how
important the web graph was in determining the relevancy of a web page. In 1998, they wrote
a research paper about how to measure the importance of a web page by examining a page’s
position in the web graph, in particular the page’s in-links (incoming links) and out-links
(outgoing links). Essentially, they viewed links like a citation. Good pages receive many
citations, and bad pages receive few. So pages that have in-links from many other pages are
probably more important and should rank higher than pages that few people link to. Weight
should also be given to pages based on who is pointing to them; an in-link from a highly cited
page is better than an in-link from a lowly cited page. Brin and Page named their ranking
algorithm PageRank, and it was instrumental in popularizing their new search engine called
Google. All search engines today take into account the web graph when ranking results.
Figure 2 shows an example of a web graph where web pages are nodes and links from one
page to another are directed edges. The size and color of the nodes indicate how much
PageRank the web pages have. Note that pages with high PageRank (red nodes) generally
have significantly more in-links than do pages with low PageRank (green nodes).
Figure 2 – Example web graph. Pages with higher PageRank are represented with large nodes.
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3) Rank Optimization
Search engines guard their weighting formulas as a trade secret since it differentiates their
service from other search engines, and they do not want content-producers (the public who
produces web pages) to “unfairly” manipulate their rankings. However, many companies rely
heavily on search engines for recommendations and customers, and their ranking on a search
engine results page (SERP) is very important. Most search engine users only examine the first
screen of results, and they view the first few results more often than the results at the bottom of
the page. This naturally pits content-producers in an adversarial role against search engines
since the producers have an economic incentive to rank highly in SERPs.
Competition for certain terms (e.g., Hawaii vacation and flight to New York) is particularly
fierce. Because of this, most search engines provide paid-inclusion or sponsored results along
with regular (organic) results. This allows companies to purchase space on a SERP forcertain
terms.
An industry based on search engine optimization (SEO) thrives on improving their customer’s
rankings by designing their pages to maximize the various weights discussed above and to
increase the number and quality of incoming links. Black hat SEOs may use a number of
questionable techniques like spamdexing and link farms, artificially created web pages
designed to bolster the PageRank of a particular set of web pages, to increase their ranking.
When detected, such behavior is often punished by search engines by removing the pages from
their index and embargoing the website for a period of time
Vertical Search
Search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing normally provide specialized types of websearch
called vertical search [. A few examples include:
1. Regular web search is the most popular type of search which searches the index
based on any type of web page. Other on-line textual resources like PDFs and
Microsoft Office formats are also available through regular web search.
2. News search will search only news-related websites. Typically the search results are
ordered based on age of the story.
3. Image search searches only images that were discovered when crawling the web.
Images are normally indexed by using the image’s filename and text surrounding the
image. Artificial intelligence techniques for trying to discover what is actually pictured
in the image are slowly emerging. For example, Google can now separate images of
faces and line drawing from other image types.
4. Video search searches the text accompanied by videos on the Web. Like image search,
there is heavy reliance on people to supply text which accurately describes thevideo.
Other specialty searches include blog search, newsgroup search, scholarly literature search, etc.
Search engines also occasionally mix various types of search results together onto the same
SERP. Figure 3 below shows how Ask.com displays news and images along with regular web
search results when searching for harding. The blending of results from differentvertical search
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offerings is usually called universal search .
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Figure 3 - Ask.com's universal search results.
Personalized Search
In order to provide the best possible set of search results for a searcher, many search
enginestoday are experimenting with techniques that take into account personal search
behavior.
When searching for leopard, a user who often queries for technical information is more
likelyto want to see results dealing with Leopard the operating system than leopard the
animal.
Research has also shown that one third of all queries are repeat queries, and most of the
time an individual will click on the same result they clicked on before [14]. Therefore a
search engine should ideally present the previously-selected result close to the top of
the SERP whenrecognizing the user has entered the same query before.
Figure 4 below shows a screen shot of personalized search results via Google's
SearchWiki[15], an experiment in search personalization that Google rolled-out in late
2008. The user was able to promote results higher in the list, remove poor results from
the list, and add comments to specific results. The comment and removal functions are
no longer available today, but Google does allow users to star results that they like, and
these starred results appear prominently when the user later searches for the same
content.
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Figure 4 – Example of Google's SearchWiki.
As smartphones have become increasingly popular, search engines have started
providing search results based on the user's location A location-aware search
engine recognizes that when a user searches for restaurants on their mobile
device, they are likely wanting to find restaurants in theirnear vicinity.
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• Video Games
1.3.2Downloading Files:
The term downloading is distinguished from the related concept of streaming, which indicates
the receiving of data that is used nearly immediately as it is received, while the transmission is
still in progress and which may not be stored long-term, whereas in a processdescribed using
the term downloading, this would imply that the data is only usable when it has been received
in its entirety.
Increasingly, websites that offer streaming media or media displayed in-browser, such as
YouTube, and which place restrictions on the ability of users to save these materials to their
computers after they have been received, say that downloading is not permitted. In this context,
download implies specifically "receive and save" instead of simply "receive".
However, it is also important to note that downloading is not the same as "transferring" (i.e.,
sending/receiving data between two storage devices would be a transferral of data, but receiving
data from the Internet would be considered a download).
Downloading is the transmission of a file from one computer system to another, usually smaller
computer system. From the Internet user's point-of-view, to download a file is to request it from
another computer (or from a Web page on another computer) and to receive it.
When you download a file, you transfer it from the Internet to your computer. The most commonly
downloaded files are programs, updates, or other kinds of files such as game demos, music and video
files, or documents. Downloading can also mean copying information from any source to a computer or
other device, such as copying your favorite songs to a portable music player.
To copy data (usually an entire file) from a main source to a peripheral device. The term is often used to
describe the process of copying a file from an online service or bulletin boardservice (BBS) to one's own
computer. Downloading can also refer to copying a file from a network file server to a computer on the
network.
In addition, the term is used to describe the process of loading a font into a laser printer. The
font is first copied from a disk to the printer's local memory. A font that has been downloaded
like this is called a soft font to distinguish it from the hard fontsthat are permanently in the
printer's memory.The opposite of download is upload, which means to copy a file from your
own computer to another computer.
1.2 Introduction to web browser
A web browser is a software application which enables a user to display and interact with text,
images, videos, music, and other information that could be on a website. Text and images on a
web page can contain hyperlinks to other web pages at the same or different website. Web
browsers allow a user to quickly and easily access information provided on many web pages at
many websites by traversing these links. Web browsers format HTML information for display
so the appearance of a web page many differ between browsers.
Purposes: Web browser is used to run the software application that allows retrieving, presenting
andtraversing the information from one place to another.
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-Web browser provides the resources using the WWW (World Wide Web) this can be
identified by URI (Uniform Resource Identifier).
-Web browser fetches the data like web page, image, video or other piece of content from the
server and displays it accordingly.
-Web browser uses hyperlinks to display the resources and allow the users to navigate their
browsers according to the resources.
-Web browser defines the application software that is designed for the user to access and
retrieve the documents using the Internet.
Web browsers communicated with web servers primarily using HTTP (hypertext transfer
protocol) to fetch web pages. HTTP allows web browsers to submit information to web servers
as well as fetch web pages from them. Pages are identified by means of a URL (uniform resource
locater), which is treated as an address, beginning with “http://” for HTTP access.
The file format for a web page is usually HTML (hyper-text markup language) and is identified
in the HTTP protocol. Most web browsers also support a variety of additional formats, such as
JPEG, PNG, and GIF image formats, and can be extended to support more through the use of
plugins. The combination of HTTP content type and URL protocol specification allows web page
designers to embed images, animations, video, sound, and streaming media into a web page, or
to make them accessible through the web page.
Popular Browsers
1)Firefox
Firefox is a very popular web browser. One of the great things about Firefox is that it is
supported on all different OSs. Firefox is also open source which makes its support group a
very large community of open source developers. Firefox is also known for its vast range of
plugins/add-ons that let the user customize in a variety of ways. Firefox is a product of the
Mozilla Foundation. The latest version of Firefox is Firefox 3.
Some of Firefox’s most prominant features include: tabbed browsing, a spell checker,
incremental find, live bookmarking, a download manager, and an integrated search system that
uses the user’s favorite search engine. Like mentioned before, one of the best things about Firefox
is its vast amount of plugins/add-ons. Some of the most popular include NoScript (script blocker),
FoxyTunes (controls music players), Adblock Plus (ad blocker), StumbleUpon (website
discovery), DownThemAll! (download functions), and Web Developer (web tools).
2) Internet Explorer
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Internet Explorer (IE - created by Microsoft) is a very prominant web browser for the
Windows OS. IE is the most popular web browser. It comes pre-installed on all Windows
computers. The latest version of IE is IE7 with IE8 in beta. IE was designed to view a
broad range of web pagesand to provide certain features within the OS.
IE almost fully supports HTML 4.01, CSS Level 1, XML 1.0, and DOM Level 1. It has
introduced a number of proprietary extensions to many of the standards. This has resulted
in a number of web pages that can only be viewed properly using IE. It has been subject
to many security vulnerabilities just like Windows has. Much of the spyware, adware, and
viruses acrossthe Internet are made possible by exploitable bugs and flaws in the security
architecture of IE. These are were drive-by downloads come into play (see computer
security lesson for more details on that).
3) Others
Safari (created by Apple) is a very popular web browser among Apple computers. Safari
is alsothe native browser on the iPhone and iPod touch. Safari is available for Windows,
but has not reached a very high level of Windows users since. In May 2008 Safari
controlled 6.25% of marketshare among all web browsers.
Opera (created by the Opera Software company) is another fairly popular web browser.
It handles common Internet-related tasks. Opera also includes features such as tabbed
browsing, page zooming, mouse gestures, and an integrated download manager. Its
security features include phishing and malware protection, strong encryption when
browsing secure web sites, and the ability to easily delete private data such as cookies
and browsing history. Opera runs onWindows, OS X, and Linux.
The browser's main functionality
The main function of a browser is to present the web resource you choose, by
requesting it from the server and displaying it in the browser window. The resource
is usually an HTML document, but may also be a PDF, image, or some other type of
content. The location of theresource is specified by the user using a URI (Uniform
Resource Identifier).
The way the browser interprets and displays HTML files is specified in the HTML and
CSS specifications. These specifications are maintained by the W3C (World Wide Web
Consortium) organization, which is the standards organization for the web. For years
browsers conformed to only a part of the specifications and developed their own
extensions. That causedserious compatibility issues for web authors. Today most of the
browsers more or less conform to the specifications.
Browser user interfaces have a lot in common with each other. Among the common
userinterface elements are:
Strangely enough, the browser's user interface is not specified in any formal specification, it just comes
from good practices shaped over years of experience and by browsers imitating each other. The HTML5
specification doesn't define UI elements a browser must have, but lists some common elements. Among
those are the address bar, status bar and tool bar. Thereare, of course, features unique to a specific
browser like Firefox's downloads manager.
1. The user interface: this includes the address bar, back/forward button, bookmarking menu, etc.
Every part of the browser display except the window where you see the requestedpage.
2. The browser engine: marshals actions between the UI and the rendering engine.
3. The rendering engine : responsible for displaying requested content. For example if the
requested content is HTML, the rendering engine parses HTML and CSS, and displays the parsed
content on the screen.
4. Networking: for network calls such as HTTP requests, using different
implementations for different platform behind a platform-independent interface.
5. UI backend: used for drawing basic widgets like combo boxes and windows. This backend
exposes a generic interface that is not platform specific. Underneath it uses operatingsystem user
interface methods.
6. JavaScript interpreter. Used to parse and execute JavaScript code.
7. Data storage. This is a persistence layer. The browser may need to save all sorts ofdata
locally, such as cookies. Browsers also support storage mechanisms such as localStorage, IndexedDB,
WebSQL and FileSystem.
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