Week Eight Notes

Announcements

• Monday: We'll go over technique for the second spreadsheet assignment
• Monday: I am handing back the article reviews.
• ASSIGNMENT DUE Monday, Oct 23: Computer System Request Project
• We are doing 'self-service' roll call today. Please mark the appropriate box with an 'X'. Please tell me if your name is missing from the sheet.
• We are reading chapter five this week.
• I will be away on jury duty October 25 and 27. Professor Robert Silverman will take the class on wednesday, and Mr. Joe Cash will take the lab on friday.

Chapter Five -- Basic Productivity Applications

• In 1950 Doug Englebart begins work on what will become 'personal computing.' In 1968 he demonstrates his 'Augment System' which introduced:
  • the computer mouse
  • video-display editing (forerunner to word processing)
  • mixed text and graphics
  • windowing
  • outlining
  • shared-screen video conferencing
  • computer conferencing
  • groupware, and
  • hypermedia
• Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston invented the first spreadsheet program - VisiCalc.
• Word processing involves:
  • entering text
  • editing text
  • formatting
  • proofreading
  • saving document as file
  • printing
  Modern WYSIWYG word processors allow these activities to be intermixed at will.
• Other tools related to word-processing:
  • Outliner
  • Dictionary
  • Thesaurus
  • Spell Checker - homonyms and errors in the dictionary are problems.
  • Grammar and Style Checkers (OK, but not sophisticated)
  • Mail merge (personalized form letters and mailing labels)
  • Groupware & Version Tracking
  • Handwriting Recognition - training required
  • Speech Recognition - training required - slow speaker - limited vocabulary BUT the technology is improving and shows great promise.
  • Page Layout software - QuarkXPress, Adobe PageMaker or InDesign ...
• Advantages of Desktop Publishing:
  • Saves money
  • Saves time
  • Easier quality control (in-house)
  • Publishing becomes easier for ordinary people
• Books are not going away ... but e-mail is more popular now than "snail mail" and CD-ROM encyclopedias outsell printed ones.
• The WWW has made it very easy for people to 'publish' materials -- however, we have a problem of judging quality of content.
• "Easy on the eyes ebooks" are likely to be prevalent soon - instead of buying books - download them.
• Electronic paper is under development
• Spreadsheet Technology
  • Replication (fill)
  • Recalculation
  • Predefined Functions
  • Macros
  • Formula validation
  • "What if" analysis
  • Charts