Chapter 1 Digital Planet

Creating community on the living web
-MySpace creates a online community experience for young people
-Flickr joins people to share pictures


Living in a non digital world
-computers are no llonger a luxuryvbut a commodity
- computers and their applications are involved in all aspects of our daily life


Computers in perspective
-every computer follows the basic plan by Lady Locelace and Charles Babbage
-all computers take in input and take out output

The computers versatility is built upon its:
Hardware: the physical part
software: the information which tells how to do work


The first real computers
1939 by Conrad Zuse
-at about the same time the British government was assembling a top secret team of mathematicians and engineers to crack military codes
-1943
-the team lead by mathematician Alan Turning and others completed colossus, considered to many to be the 1st at electronic digital computer
-1939:iowa state university professor John Atanasoff developed what could have been the first electronic digital computer, the ABC (Atansoff-Berry Computer)
-1944 Thanks to a 1 million grant from IBM Jarvard professor Howard Aken developed tje Mark 1

-John Mauchly and J presper Eckert helped the US effort in world war one by constructing a machine to calculate trajectory tables for new guns
--> ENAC electronic numerical integrator and computer
-after the war, Mauchy and Eckert started a Private company called Sperry and created UNIVAC the first general purpose commercial computer
-vacuum tubes were used in the early computers
-transistors replaced the vacuums tubes starting in 1956
-by the mid 1960s transistors were replaced by integrated circuits



Integrated circuits brought:
-increased reliability
-smaller size
-higher speed
-higher effincey
-lower cost

1971 the first microprocessor was invented by Intel engineers
-the personal compiter revolution began in 1970:
-apple
-commodore
-Tandy


Desktop computers havnt completly replaced big computers, which hace also evolved
Embedded Computers
-special purpose computers: dedicated computers that preform specific tasts
--->monetering your heart rate
-->monetering your house security system
-->controlling the temperature and humidity



The program is etched on silicon so it cant be altered

Personal computer:
PCs serve as a single user at a time
common applications include
-word processing
-gaming
-media

Workstations
-High end desktop computers with massive computing power used for high end interactive power
Portable computers: machines not tied to desktops
-handheld computers (PDAs)
-notebooks (laptops)


Servers
Computers designed to provide sofware and other resources to other computers over a network

Mainframers:
-used by huge organizations, such as banks and airlines for big computing jobs
-communicate with mainframe terminals
-multiple communications at one time through process of timesharing



Supercomputers:
for power users who need acess to the fastest most poweful computers made


The emergence of networks
-connect devices together
-1960 internet developed with backing of the US government

The internet explosion- over a billion of people with internet acess by the end of 2005
-electronic mail
-email software


World Wide Web
-led the internets transformation from a test only enviorment into a multimedia landscape incorporating pictures, animation, sounds and video

Web browsers
--> programs that in effect serve at navigable windows into the web


Hypertest links
--> millions of web pages tied together created by different authors

Internet supports varied activities
-eBay used to make international transactions

In the history of our society we have had:
an agricultural age
an industrial age

Chapter 4 last part

Interface

interfaces will be built around emerging develpoment technologies such as:

-end of applications

-natural language interfaces

-agents

-virtual realities



File managament

-data madagment can be difficult

--> solution: organize data files logically

-Both Windows and Macs have folder systems such as:

-My Documents

-My Pictures

-My music



File Management Utilities

-view, rename, copy, paste, cut, move, and delete files and folders

-hierarchies help with organization

-help with locating files

-get size, file time and modification dates



Managing files from applications

-operations: open, save as, save, and close



Defragmentation

-eliminates fragements in a file by changing the assignemt of clousters to files



Software piracy

definition: illigeal duplication of copyrighted software

Intellectual property and the law

-includes tje results of intellectual activiteis in the arts, science and industry.
-the information age requires tje outdated and inconsistent intellectual property laws to be changed and adapted

The WIMP (windows, icons, menus, and pointing devices)
interface is easier to learn and use then earlier character baed interface

The SILK
interface incorporated many important emerging user interfaces software technologies such as:
speecha dn language
image
knowledge