SoftWare
Programming languages
Operating Systems
Modes of operation
Types of applications software
Controls the backing store and peripherals such as scanners and printers
Deals with the transfer of programs in and out of memory
Organises the use of memory between programs
Organises processing time between programs and users
Maintains security and access rights of users
Deals with errors and user instructions
Allows the user to save files to a backing store
Batch processing
Interactive processing
Multi-programming
Multi-tasking
Multi-access or multi-user
Integrated
Specific
Generic
Utility programs
Bespoke
code used for writing applications
2 types
High level
Low level
similar to human language
1s and 0s
User interfaces
method by which the user and the computer exchange information and instructions
3 types
menu driven
graphical user interface
command-line
Word processing
All word processing applications allow you to
save
enter and edit text
cut/copy/paste
check your spelling
Text formatting
underline text
italicise text
bold text
change the alignment of text
change font type and size
create bulleted or numbered lists
Other features
Headers and footers
clip art
import graphics
find and replace
Mail merge
Advantages
Disadvantages
The letter can be personalised
It’s a very fast way to produce
One standard letter can be written and sent to all customers without having to manually add each name and address
The database that provides the information for the mail merge letter must be kept up to date if it is going to be useful
Letters can lack the personal touch
Desktop publishing
lots of graphics
newspapers
magazines
newsletters
leaflets
Graphics software
Painting packages
freehand drawing and colouring
a palette from which the user can choose colours :
freehand pens and brushes offering different styles and line thickness
a range of standard shape tools such as rectangles and circles
colour fill tools
spray cans and eraser tools
cut, copy and paste
zoom (to work in finer detail)
Drawing packages
Vector graphics
Photo editing
Computer Aided Design
pixels
edit and adjust photographs
3D professional software
Presentation software
Slides that can contain any mixture of text, images, video, animations, links and sound.
HTML
Hyper Text Markup Language
language for building web pages
generated in two ways
WYSIWYG editor
Plain text editor