BASIC APPLICATIONS OF COMPUTER

Computers are used to help in many areas such as business, research, education, communication,
security, war, production, accounting, etc. Some of the common areas where computers are being
frequently used are discussed below-
1. Education: The computers are frequently used in all levels of education. They are used for
both teaching and learning. They are not only used to teach computer related subjects but also
to teach various other subjects. They are used for fee collection, student record, employee record
and other record maintenance. Now-a-days, students are exposed to the internet and it helps them
to improve the quality of their academic research. One revolution in education is the advent of
distance learning. This offers a variety of internet and video-based online courses.
2. Business: Computers are used in businesses to prepare letters, bills, income/expense sheets etc. They
are used for all accounting purposes because each and every business requires arithmetic and logical
operations. Now a days businesses run on internet to improve the productivity or profitability of a
business. This is called e-business.
3. Health and Medicine: Computers are used to maintain the records of doctors and patients in
the hospital. These days, knowledge on medicines and research reports are available online. The
medical reports can be sent via e-mail for instant feedback from the doctors. Computers help us to
keep track of all the medical history of the patients, drug action, sales and purchases of medicines
and medical equipments, personal information of patients and doctors and more
4. Science, Research and Engineering: Computers are used for research and experiment
purposes. Various complex calculations are being done using computers. Weather
forecasting, automobile designing, nuclear weapon designing and testing, space research,
aircraft simulation designing and much more scientific research areas are there, where
computers (super and mainframe computers) are being used. Computer Aided Designing
(CAD) and Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) are few tools used in to assist in the creation,
modification, optimization of a 2D and 3D design and to analyze the robustness and
performance of components and assemblies/products.
5. Communication: Computers are proving a very big means of communication these days
with integration of Internet. Along with e-mail service, text, voice and video chatting are very
popular way of communication now-a-days.

Do these question and answers.

1. Write the uses of computer in the education field.
2. Write the uses of computer in the science, research and engineering field.
3. Write the uses of computer in the communication field.
4. Write the uses of computer in the banks.
5. Explain Input device:
Keyboard, mouse, joystick, scanner, microphone,OCR,MICR,Ligth pen, bat code reader,
web camera
6. Explain output device:
Monitor,Printer,Plotter,Speakers

UNITS OF MEMORY
All digital computers store the data (number, character or other) in the form of binary digits i.e. 'O' or
'1'. These are called bits. Each bit can take value of either O or 1. A bit is the smallest unit of data in a
computer. A group of 4 bits is called a nibble and a group of8 bits is called a byte.
Memory measurement Units in Computer

Name (Symbol) Equal to

Bit 8 Bits 1 Byte
Byte 1024 Bytes 1 Kilobyte
Kilobyte (KB) 1024 Kilobytes (KB) 1 Megabyte
Megabyte (MB) 1024 Megabytes (MB) 1 Gigabyte
Gigabyte (GB) 1024 Gigabytes (GB) 1 Terabyte
 Terabyte (TB) 1024 Terabytes (TB) 1 Petabyte
Petabyte (PB) 1024 Petabytes (PB) 1 Exabyte
Exabyte (EB) 1024 Exabytes (EB) 1 Zettabyte
Zettabyte (ZB) 1024 Zettabytes (ZB) 1 Yottabyte

INTERNET
The Internet, sometimes called 'the Net' is a worldwide network of
computer networks, which is accessible to the general public. Internet is
such a huge network of different interlinked networks related to the
business, academics, government, and other networks; therefore internet
is known as the network of networks. Internet is used for various important
functions which include the several means of communications like the
online chat, file transfer, electronic mail, sharing of data and websites on
the www.
ARPANET is commonly thought of as the predecessor to the Internet and
created by the US Department of Defenses Advanced Research Projects
Agency (ARPA) in 1960s-1970s

Uses of lnternet
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 provides many
things to us.
1. E-mail and Chatting- You can send and receive instant messages (e-mails) using internet.
Various things such as pictures, videos, songs, e-cards can be added along with email messages.
Your messages are delivered instantly to people anywhere in the world, unlike traditional mail that
takes a lot of time. E- mail is now an essential communication tools in business. It is also excellent
way of keeping in touch with family and friends. The advantages to email is that it is free (no charge
per use) when compared to telephone, fax and postal services. We can chat with our friends using
'chat room' and stay in touch with the friends.
2. News and Information- The internet provides facility to read different newspapers online and get
the information regarding various topics of our interest such as science, technology, sports, education
etc. It also keeps us updated on current events. The Internet is a virtual treasure trove of information.
Any kind of information on any topic under the sun is available on the Internet.
3. Services- Many services are now provided on the internet such as online banking, job seeking
and applications, and hotel reservations, railway and air tickets booking etc. Often these services
are not available off-line or cost more.
4. Online Shopping- The internet is a very effective way to buy and sell products all over the world.
Along with getting information on the Internet, you can also shop online. There are many online
stores and sites that can be used to look for products as well as buy them using your credit card.
You do not need to leave your house and can do all your shopping from the convenience of your
home.
5. Communities- Communities of all types have sprung up on the internet. It's a great way to meet
up with people of similar interest and discuss common issues.
6. Software Downloading- You can download free games, videos, software, educational
information and music from internet.

Basic Requirements for an Internet Connection

To connect your computer to the Internet, you need the following things:
➢ A Computer
➢ A Modem and Network Interface Card
➢ An account with Internet Service Provider
➢ An Internet Connection
➢ An Internet Browser
 MULTIMEDIA
Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video and interactivity
content forms. Multimedia applications that allow users to actively participate instead of just sitting by
as passive recipients of information are called Interactive Multimedia.
Applications of Multimedia
1. Commercial: Exciting presentations are used to grab and keep attention in advertising.
Industrial, business to business, and interoffice communications are often developed by creative
services firms for advanced multimedia presentations beyond simple slide shows to sell ideas or
liven-up training.
2. Entertainment and Fine Arts: Multimedia is heavily used in the entertainment industry,
especially to develop special effects in movies and animations. Multimedia games are a popular
pastime and are software programs available either as CD-RO Ms or online. Some video games also
use multimedia features.
.
3. Education: In Education, multimedia is used to produce computer-based training courses
(popularly called CBTs) and reference books like encyclopaedia and almanacs.
4. Engineering: Software engineers may use multimedia in Computer Simulations for anything
from entertainment to training such as military or industrial training.
5. Industry: In the Industrial sector, multimedia is used as a way to help present information to
shareholders, superiors and co-workers.
6. Mathematical and Scientific Research: In Mathematical and Scientific Research, multimedia
is mainly used for modelling and simulation.
7. Medicine: In Medicine, doctors can get trained by looking at a virtual surgery or they can simulate how
the human body is affected by diseases spread by viruses and bacteria and then develop techniques to
prevent it.

Picture/Image Files
Pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (picture element) is the smallest piece of information in an image. Pixels
are normally arranged in a regular 2-dimensional grid, and are often represented using dots, squares
or rectangles. Each pixel is a sample of an original image, where more samples typically provide a
more accurate representation of the original. The intensity of each pixel is variable; in color systems,
each pixel has typically three or four components such as red, green, and blue, or cyan, magenta,
yellow and black.

CODEC
A codec is a device or program capable of encoding and/or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word
codec may be a combination of any of the following: 'compress or decompressor', 'coder-decoder',

GIF
GIF stands for Graphic Interchange Format and it is a standard format for images that was developed
by CompuServe to be a device-independent method of storing pictures. GIF allows high-quality, high
resolution graphics to be displayed on a variety of graphics hardware and is intended as an exchange
and display mechanism for graphic images.
JPEG
JPEG is a standardised image compression mechanism. JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the
original name of the committee that wrote the standard. JPEG is designed for compressing either full-color or gray-
scale images of natural, real-world scenes. It works well on photographs, naturalistic artwork and similar
material; not so well on lettering, simple cartoons or line drawings

PNG
PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics. One version of the format, PNG-8, is similar to the GIF
format. It can be saved with a maximum of 256 colors and supports 1-bit transparency. File sizes
will be noticeably smaller than the GIF counterpart, as PNGs save their color data more efficiently.
 BMP
BMP files are Windows Bitmap files. They are usually 8-bit color images (256 colors) and can be
viewed by many programs including Windows Paintbrush. BMP files can be used as backgrounds
for the Windows desktop.

Audio File Formats

• wav: Standard audio file format used mainly in Windows PCs.
• mp3: The MPEG Layer-3 format is the most popular format for downloading and storing music.

ANIMATION
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in
order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of
persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways. The most common
method of presenting animation is as a motion picture or video program, although several other forms
of presenting animation also exist.
2D and 3D Animation
2D animation, true to its name, is rendered in a two-dimensional space. 3D animation, however, is
rendered in a virtual three-dimensional space, using polygons captured by various virtual "cameras"
to "film" the animation. 3D animation has a variety of applications, from video games to animated
films. Most commonly, 3D animation is used to render many of the special effects seen in live-action
films, removing the need for scale model sets or staged stunts.
While both types of computer animation can be accomplished by either frame-by-frame animation
or by mathematical interpolation between key frames, the initial steps prior to animating are
drastically different; the two separate processes also require different software packages.

CLOUD COMPUTING
Cloud computing is a technology that uses the Internet to access and maintain data and applications.
It allows us to create, configure and customize the application online.
The term cloud refers to a Network or Internet. Cloud computing provides facilities to the user to
store and access the data, as The concept of cloud computing came into existence in the year 1950.
application. The goal of cloud computing is to provide easy access of resources.

Characteristics of Cloud Computing

• On demand self-service: Computer services such as email, applications, network or server,
service can be provided without requiring human intervention with each service provider. Cloud
service providers providing on demand self-services include Amazon Web Services (AWS),
Microsoft, Google, IBM and Salesforce.com. New York Times and NASDAQ are examples of
companies using AWS (NIST). Gartner described this characteristic as service based.
• Ubiquitous access: Ubiquitous access represents the ability for a cloud service to be widely
accessible. Establishing ubiquitous access for a cloud service can require support for a range of
devices, transport
protocols, interfaces and security technologies. To enable this level of access generally requires
that the cloud service architecture be tailored to the particular needs of different cloud service
consumers.
• Measured usage: The measured usage characteristic represents the ability of a cloud platform to
keep track of the usage of its IT resources, primarily by cloud consumers. Based on what is
measured, the cloud provider can charge a cloud consumer only for the IT resources
actually used and/or for the timeframe during which access to the IT resources was granted.
Measured usage is not limited to tracking the statistics for billing purposes. It also covers
the general monitoring of IT resources and related usage reporting (for both cloud provider
and cloud consumers). Therefore, measured usage is also relevant to clouds that do not charge
for usage.
• Sharing of data: Data and applications stored using cloud computing can be shared and
accessed with other people.
Types of Clouds
There are four types of clouds available as given below:
Public Cloud
In this type of cloud, data and information are easily accessible to general public over Internet.
Private Cloud
In this type of cloud, data and information are
accessible by a single organization. It is more secure Public Cloud Private Cloud
and reliable because of its private nature.

Hybrid Cloud Community Cloud