Concept of Hardware and Software

The term hardware refers to mechanical device that makes up computer.

Software can be categorized into two types - System software & Application software

Hardware
The term hardware refers to mechanical device that makes up computer. Computer hardware consists
of interconnected electronic devices that we can use to control computer’s operation, input and output.
Examples of hardware are CPU, keyboard, mouse, hard disk, etc.

Hardware Components
Computer hardware is a collection of several components working together. Some parts are essential
and others are added advantages. Computer hardware is made up of CPU and peripherals as shown
in image below.

The Four Categories of Computer Hardware

 Input devices: For raw data input. Example: keyboard, mouse, scanner, barcode reader etc.
 Processing devices: To process raw data instructions into information. Ex. CPU or Central
Processing Unit
 Output devices: To disseminate data and information. Ex. Monitor, printer, speaker, LCD
Projectors
 Storage devices: For data and information retention. Ex. Hard disk Drive, CD/DVD, Flash drive
Software
A set of instructions that drives computer to do stipulated tasks is called a program. Software
instructions are programmed in a computer language, translated into machine language, and executed
by computer. Software can be categorized into two types −

 System software
 Application software

System Software

System software operates directly on hardware devices of computer. It provides a platform to run an
application. It provides and supports user functionality. Examples of system software include operating
systems such as Windows, Linux, Unix, etc.

Software - is the intangible part of a computer system.

Two types of softwares
1. System software
Example:
a. Operating System (OS)
 Microsoft Windows (win98, Win Me, Win 2000, WinXp, Win Vista,
Win 7)
 MAC OS
 DOS Disk Operating System
 Linux
 Unix
b. Programming Languages
Example: Turbo PASCAL, Clipper, COBOL,
FORTRAN, JAVA, Delphi, Visual Basic, QBASIC, C++,C#
etc.
Utility Software
Example: Anti Virus Programs (Avira, Avast, NODE 32
, Norton, MacAfe, AVG, etc

Application Software

An application software is designed for benefit of users to perform one or more tasks. Examples of
application software include Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Oracle, etc.
Application Software

a. Word Processing - MS-Word, notepad, wordpad

b. Spreadsheet software - MS-Excel
c. Presentation package - MS- PowerPoint
d. Database software - MS Access, FoxPro, Dbase,. SQL
e. Desktop Publishing Software - MS-Publisher, Adobe Page
Maker
f. Graphics software - Adobe photoshop, Corel draw,
Auto CAD
g. Audio and Video Editing software:
Movie Maker, Power Director, Penacle, ULEAD, Adobe after effects, Adobe
Premier, cyberlynx, mixcraft, Audiocity, Blender, Cool edit Pro, Virtual Dj, etc.
h. Browsers
internet explorer
Mozilla firefox
Opera
Google chrome
Differences between Software and Hardware are sorted out below −

No. Software Hardware

1 It is a collection of programs to bring It includes physical components of

computer hardware system into computer system.
operation.

2 It includes numbers, alphabets, It consists of electronic components like

alphanumeric symbols, identifiers, ICs, diodes, registers, crystals, boards,
keywords, etc. insulators, etc.

3 Software products evolve by adding Hardware design is based on architectural

new features to existing programs to decisions to make it work over a range of
support hardware. environmental conditions and time.

4 It will vary as per computer and its It is mostly constructed for all types of
built-in functions and programming computer systems.
language.

5 It is designed and developed by The hardware can understand only low-

experienced programmers in high-level level language or machine language.
language.
 6 The hardware works only on binary codes
1’s and 0’s.

It is represented in any high-level

language such as BASIC, COBOL, C,
C++, JAVA, etc.

7 The software is categorized as The hardware consists of input devices,

operating system, utilities, language output devices, memory, etc.
processor, application software, etc.

Capabilities and Limitations of Computers

The capabilities of a computer system are speed, reliability, adaptability, storage and
accuracy. Computers systems are well adjusted to perform repetitive tasks.
Computer cannot operate without the instructions given by humans. It is programmed to work
effectively, fast and accurately. Computer cannot think by itself and does not have common sense.

Data processing
Data processing is a process of converting raw facts or data into a meaningful information.

Stages of Data Processing

Data processing consists of following 6 stages −
Collection

Collection of data refers to gathering of data. The data gathered should be defined and accurate.

Preparation

Preparation is a process of constructing a dataset of data from different sources for future use in
processing step of cycle.

Input

Input refers to supply of data for processing. It can be fed into computer through any of input devices
like keyboard, scanner, mouse, etc.

Processing

The process refers to concept of an actual execution of instructions. In this stage, raw facts or data is
converted to meaningful information.

Output and Interpretation

In this process, output will be displayed to user in form of text, audio, video, etc. Interpretation of output
provides meaningful information to user.

Storage

In this process, we can store data, instruction and information in permanent memory for future
reference.
Internet
 Internet is a world-wide global system of interconnected computer networks.
 Internet uses the standard Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
 Every computer in internet is identified by a unique IP address.
 IP Address is a unique set of numbers (such as 110.22.33.114) which identifies a computer
location.
 A special computer DNS (Domain Name Server) is used to give name to the IP Address so that
user can locate a computer by a name.
 For example, a DNS server will resolve a name http://www.tutorialspoint.com to a particular
IP address to uniquely identify the computer on which this website is hosted.
 Internet is accessible to every user all over the world.

Internet Evoloution

The concept of Internet was originated in 1969 and has undergone several technological &
Infrastructural changes as discussed below:
 The origin of Internet devised from the concept of Advanced Research Project Agency
Network (ARPANET).
 ARPANET was developed by United States Department of Defense.
 Basic purpose of ARPANET was to provide communication among the various bodies of
government.
 Initially, there were only four nodes, formally called Hosts.
 In 1972, the ARPANET spread over the globe with 23 nodes located at different countries and
thus became known as Internet.
 By the time, with invention of new technologies such as TCP/IP protocols, DNS, WWW,
browsers, scripting languages etc.,Internet provided a medium to publish and access
information over the web.
Internet Advantages

Internet covers almost every aspect of life, one can think of. Here, we will discuss some of the
advantages of Internet:

Internet Disadvantages
Extranet
Extranet refers to network within an organization, using internet to connect to the outsiders in controlled
manner. It helps to connect businesses with their customers and suppliers and therefore allows
working in a collaborative manner.

Extranet Benefits

Extranet proves to be a successful model for all kind of businesses whether small or big. Here are
some of the advantages of extranet for employees, suppliers, business partners, and customers:
Extranet Issues

Apart for advantages there are also some issues associated with extranet. These issues are discussed
below:

Hosting

Where the extranet pages will be held i.e. who will host the extranet pages. In this context there are
two choices:
 Host it on your own server.
 Host it with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the same way as web pages.
But hosting extranet pages on your own server requires high bandwidth internet connection which is
very costly.

Security

Additional firewall security is required if you host extranet pages on your own server which result in a
complex security mechanism and increase work load.

Accessing Issues

Information can not be accessed without internet connection. However, information can be accessed
in Intranet without internet connection.

Decreased Interaction

It decreases the face to face interaction in the business which results in lack of communication among
customers, business partners and suppliers.

Extranet vs. Intranet

The following table shows differences between Extranet and Intranet:

Extranet Intranet

Internal network that can be accessed externally. Internal network that can not be
accessed externally.

Extranet is extension of company's Intranet. Only limited users of a company.

For limited external communication between customers, Only for communication within a
suppliers and business partners. company.
Domain Name System Architecture
The Domain name system comprises of Domain Names, Domain Name Space, Name Server that
have been described below:

Domain Names

Domain Name is a symbolic string associated with an IP address. There are several domain names
available; some of them are generic such as com, edu, gov, net etc, while some country level domain
names such as au, in, za, us etc.
The following table shows the Generic Top-Level Domain names:

Domain Name Meaning

Com Commercial business

Edu Education

Gov U.S. government agency

Int International entity

Mil U.S. military

Net Networking organization

Org Non profit organization

The following table shows the Country top-level domain names:

Domain Name Meaning

au Australia

in India

cl Chile

fr France

us United States

za South Africa
uk United Kingdom

jp Japan

es Spain

de Germany

ca Canada

ee Estonia

hk Hong Kong

Internet Services
Communication Services

There are various Communication Services available that offer exchange of information with
individuals or groups. The following table gives a brief introduction to these services:

No. Service Description

1 Electronic Mail
Used to send electronic message over the internet.

2 Telnet
Used to log on to a remote computer that is attached to internet.

3 Newsgroup
Offers a forum for people to discuss topics of common interests.

4 Internet Relay Chat (IRC)

Allows the people from all over the world to communicate in real time.

5 Mailing Lists
Used to organize group of internet users to share common information through e-mail.

6 Internet Telephony (VoIP)

Allows the internet users to talk across internet to any PC equipped to receive the call.

7 Instant Messaging
Offers real time chat between individuals and group of people. Eg. Yahoo messenger, MSN
messenger.
Web Services

Web services allow exchange of information between applications on the web. Using web services,
applications can easily interact with each other.
The web services are offered using concept of Utility Computing.

World Wide Web (WWW)

WWW is also known as W3. It offers a way to access documents spread over the several servers over
the internet. These documents may contain texts, graphics, audio, video, hyperlinks. The hyperlinks
allow the users to navigate between the documents.

Video Conferencing

Video conferencing or Video teleconferencing is a method of communicating by two-way video and

audio transmission with help of telecommunication technologies.
Modes of Video Conferencing
Point-to-Point
This mode of conferencing connects two locations only.

Multi-point
This mode of conferencing connects more than two locations through Multi-point Control Unit
(MCU).
Email
Email is a service which allows us to send the message in electronic mode over the internet. It offers
an efficient, inexpensive and real time mean of distributing information among people.

E-mail Operations

Creating Email Account

There are various email service provider available such as Gmail, hotmail, ymail, rediff mail etc.
Here we will learn how to create an account using Gmail.
 Open gmail.com and click create an account.
 Now a form will appear. Fill your details here and click Next Step.

 This step allows you to add your picture. If you don’t want to upload now, you can do it later.
Click Next Step.
 Now a welcome window appears. Click Continue to Gmail.
 Wow!! You are done with creating your email account with Gmail. It’s that easy. Isn’t it?
 Now you will see your Gmail account as shown in the following image:
Key Points:
 Gmail manages the mail into three categories namely Primary, Social and Promotions.
 Compose option is given at the right to compose an email message.
 Inbox, Starred, Sent mail, Drafts options are available on the left pane which allows you to
keep track of your emails.
Composing and Sending Email
Before sending an email, we need to compose a message. When we are composing an email
message, we specify the following things:
 Sender’s address in To field
 Cc (if required)
 Bcc (if required)
 Subject of email message
 Text
 Signature
You should specify the correct email address; otherwise it will send an error back to the sender.

Once you have specified all the above parameters, It’s time to send the email. The mailer program
provides a Send button to send email, when you click Send, it is sent to the mail server and a
message mail sent successfully is shown at the above.
Reading Email
Every email program offers you an interface to access email messages. Like in Gmail, emails are
stored under different tabs such as primary, social, and promotion. When you click one of tab, it
displays a list of emails under that tab.
In order to read an email, you just have to click on that email. Once you click a particular email, it gets
opened.
The opened email may have some file attached with it. The attachments are shown at the bottom of
the opened email with an option called download attachment.
Replying Email
After reading an email, you may have to reply that email. To reply an email, click Reply option shown
at the bottom of the opened email.
Once you click on Reply, it will automatically copy the sender’s address in to the To field. Below the
To field, there is a text box where you can type the message.
Once you are done with entering message, click Send button. It’s that easy. Your email is sent.
Forwarding Email
It is also possible to send a copy of the message that you have received along with your own comments
if you want. This can be done using forward button available in mail client software.
The difference between replying and forwarding an email is that when you reply a message to a person
who has send the mail but while forwarding you can send it to anyone.
When you receive a forwarded message, the message is marked with a > character in front of each
line and Subject: field is prefixed with Fw.
Deleting Email
If you don’t want to keep email into your inbox, you can delete it by simply selecting the message from
the message list and clicking delete or pressing the appropriate command.
Some mail clients offers the deleted mails to be stored in a folder called deleted items or trash from
where you can recover a deleted email.

E-mail Security

E-mail Hacking
Email hacking can be done in any of the following ways:
 Spam
 Virus
 Phishing
Spam
E-mail spamming is an act of sending Unsolicited Bulk E-mails (UBI) which one has not asked for.
Email spams are the junk mails sent by commercial companies as an advertisement of their products
and services.
Virus
Some emails may incorporate with files containing malicious script which when run on your computer
may lead to destroy your important data.
Phishing
Email phishing is an activity of sending emails to a user claiming to be a legitimate enterprise. Its main
purpose is to steal sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details.
Such emails contains link to websites that are infected with malware and direct the user to enter details
at a fake website whose look and feels are same to legitimate one.
E-mail Spamming and Junk Mails
Email spamming is an act of sending Unsolicited Bulk E-mails (UBI) which one has not asked for.
Email spams are the junk mails sent by commercial companies as an advertisement of their products
and services.
Spams may cause the following problems:
 It floods your e-mail account with unwanted e-mails, which may result in loss of important e-
mails if inbox is full.
 Time and energy is wasted in reviewing and deleting junk emails or spams.
 It consumes the bandwidth that slows the speed with which mails are delivered.
 Some unsolicited email may contain virus that can cause harm to your computer.
Blocking Spams
Following ways will help you to reduce spams:
 While posting letters to newsgroups or mailing list, use a separate e-mail address than the one
you used for your personal e-mails.
 Don’t give your email address on the websites as it can easily be spammed.
 Avoid replying to emails which you have received from unknown persons.
 Never buy anything in response to a spam that advertises a product.
E-mail Cleanup and Archiving
In order to have light weighted Inbox, it’s good to archive your inbox from time to time. Here I will
discuss the steps to clean up and archive your Outlook inbox.
 Select File tab on the mail pane.
 Select Cleanup Tools button on account information screen.
 Select Archive from cleanup tools drop down menu.
 Select Archive this folder and all subfolders option and then click on the folder that you want
to archive. Select the date from the Archive items older than: list. Click Browse to create
new .pst file name and location. Click OK.

E-mail Providers

There are several email service providers available in the market with their enabled features such as
sending, receiving, drafting, storing an email and much more.
The following table shows the popular email service providers:

N0. Service and Description

1. Gmail
Gmail is an email service that allows users to collect all the messages. It also offers approx 7
GB of free storage.

2. Hotmail
Hotmail offers free email and practically unlimited storage accessible on web.

3. Yahoo Mail
Yahoo Mail offers unlimited storage, SMS texting, social networking and instant messaging to
boot.

4. iCloud Mail
iCloud Mail offers ample storage, IMAP access, and an elegantly functional web application.

5. ATM Mail
ATM Mail is a free email service with good spam protection.

6. Mail.com and GMX Mail

Mail.com and GMX Mail offers reliable mail service with unlimited online storage.
 7. Shortmail
Shortmail offers easy and fast email service but with limited 500 characters per message.

8. Inbox.com
Inbox.com offers 5 GB of free online storage. IMAP is not supported by Inbox.com

9. Facebook Messages
Facebook Messages includes the message conversation.

10. My Way Mail

My Way Mail offers clean and fast free email service but lacks in secure messaging.

World Wide Web

A technical definition of the World Wide Web is : all the resources and users on the Internet that are
using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
A broader definition comes from the organization that Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee helped found,
the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
The World Wide Web is the universe of network-accessible information, an embodiment of human
knowledge.
In simple terms, The World Wide Web is a way of exchanging information between computers on the
Internet, tying them together into a vast collection of interactive multimedia resources.
Internet and Web is not the same thing: Web uses internet to pass over the information.
WWW Evolution

World Wide Web was created by Timothy Berners Lee in 1989 at CERN in Geneva. World Wide
Web came into existence as a proposal by him, to allow researchers to work together effectively and
efficiently at CERN. Eventually it became World Wide Web.
The following diagram briefly defines evolution of World Wide Web: