(
Latest Revision:
Oct 29, 2006
)
Week Nine Notes
Announcements
- Monday: We'll go over technique for the second spreadsheet assignment
- Monday: I am handing back two graded assignments
- ASSIGNMENT DUE Wednesday, Nov 01: Second Spreadsheet assignment
- 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 & six this week.
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
- There is specialized accounting and financial managment software -
something like specialized spreadsheet software - like Intuit's Quicken -
keeps an audit trail - writes checks - does bill-paying and budgeting,
links to online financial services.
- Various online banking software exists - offered by banks through web
access
- Tax preparation software - like a spreadsheet prefabricated with
formulae. It fills in tax form for you.
- Mathematical software: factor polynomials, calculus problems,
trigonometry, linear algebra, 3D graphics
- Statistics software, data visualization software,
- Modelling software - CAD, games, flight simulators, architecture
- Computer simulations are used to reduce costs, save time, avoid danger -
in some cases making tests possible that could not have been done any
other way - testing car designs - projecting changes in population.
However simulations are not guaranteed to be completely faithful to what
they represent.
Chapter Six -- Graphics, Digital Media, and Multimedia
- Tim Berners-Lee invented the WWW: URL scheme, HTML, HTTP, a Browser. He
made everything freely available. Others added multimedia capability.
- With the right software users can control the look of each pixel in an
image. There is 8- 24- and 32-bit color. This kind of graphics is
called bit-mapped graphics.
- Resolution measured in dpi. Images can be stored at high resolution and
printed to look very realistic on paper. Painting programs are possible.
- Vector graphics have "infinite" resolution because they are equivalent to
formulas for the shapes.
- CAD/CAM
- Presentation Software for making slide presentations