General Purpose Software:

 General Purpose Software is any type of software that allows the user to
complete computer related task.
 A general purpose software is an application software design for users
who want to perform common task on a computer system. e.g. Ms
Office.
Advantages of GPS
 Usually cheap.
 Well tested.
 Does not any training to use.
 Provides a variety of options.
 Wide support.
Disadvantages of GPS
 Won’t do exactly what you need to do, whereas specialist software will
do exactly what you want it to do.

Specialist software:
 Unlike GPS, Specialist software can only be bought by some people,
because of this the price of specialist software is much higher than GPS.
 Example:
 CAD(Computer Aided Design).
 Computer Animation Applications.
 Music composition and editing Applications.
Advantages of SS
 More customer support.
 Does exactly what you need to do.
Disadvantages of SS
 Expensive
 Annual or monthly payment plan.

Tailor made software:

  Tailor made software is software made under the specifications of the
client or organization.
 It is also called as Customer Software.
 It usually very expensive as there will only be sold up to 10 or less
people.
 If the application is built to your requirements it saves time and money
when it comes to teaching other staff how to use it. 

Advantages of TS
 Can be made as per the specific requirements of the client.
 Well-trained users are using this software and therefore maximize
software utilization.
Disadvantages of TS
 Expensive.
 Development and maintenance cost is higher than the readymade
applications.

Networking and Internet

Data Communication:
 Data Communication refers to the exchange of data between a source
and a receiver.
 Source:- Device that transmits the data.
 Receiver:- Device that receives the data.

Transmission Modes
Simplex
  In this type of transmission mode data can be sent only through one
direction i.e. communication is Unidirectional.
 We can not send message back to the sender.
 Example:- Loudspeaker, television and remote, keyboard etc.
Half duplex mode
 In this type of transmission mode data can be send in both directions but
it is done one at a time that is when the sender is sending the data then
at that time receiver cant send any message to sender.
 Example:- Walkie – talkie
Full duplex mode
 In this type of transmission mode data can be send in both directions as
it is Bidirectional.
 Data can be send in both the directions simultaneously.
 Example:- Telephone network

BASIS FOR
SIMPLEX HALF DUPLEX FULL DUPLEX
COMPARISON

Direction of Communication is Communication is Communication is

Communication unidirectional. two-directional but, two directional and
one at a time. done
simultaneously.

Send/Receive A sender can send A sender can send A sender can send
data but, can not as well as receive as well as receive
receive. the data but one at the data
a time. simultaneously.

Performance The half duplex and The full duplex Full duplex has
full duplex yields mode yields higher better performance
better performance performance than as it doubles the
than the Simplex. half duplex. utilization of
bandwidth.
Example Keyboard and Walkie-Talkies. Telephone.
monitor.

Computer Networks
Computer network consists of two or more computers that are interconnected
with each other and share resources such as printer, server and hardware and
exchange the data in the form of files.

LAN (Local Area Network)

 A local area network or LAN, consists of computer network at a single
site, typically an individual office building.
 It is very useful for sharing resources, such as data storage and printers.
 It is inexpensive.
 The smallest LAN may only use two computers while larger LANs can
accommodate thousands of computers.
 LAN typically relies mostly on wired connections for increased speed and
security, wireless connections can also be a part of LAN.
 LANs are typically used for single sites where people need to share
resources among themselves but not with the rest of outside world.
 Example:- In office building where everybody should be able to access
files on a central server or be able to print a document to one or more
central printers.

WAN (Wide Area Network)

 A Wide area network or WAN, occupies a very large area, such as an
entire country or the entire world.
 A WAN can contain multiple smaller networks and best example is
Internet.
MAN (Metropolitan Area Network)
 A Metropolitan area network or MAN, consists of a computer network
across an entire city, college campus or small region.
 A MAN is larger than LAN.
 This type of network can cover an area from several miles to ten of
miles.
 A MAN is often used to connect several LANs together to form bigger
network.
 Also referred as CAN(Campus area network).

BASIS OF
LAN MAN WAN
COMPARISON

Expands to Local Area Metropolitan Wide Area

Network Area Network Network

Meaning A network that It covers It spans large

connects a group relatively large locality and
of computers in region such as connects countries
a small cities, towns. together. Example
geographical Internet.
area.

Ownership of Private Private or Public Private or Public

Network

Design and Easy Difficult Difficult

maintenance

Speed High (10, 100, Moderate (100 Low (1.5 mbps)

1000mbps) mbps)

Distance Upto 2miles Upto 100miles Usually 1000km

Used for College, School, Small towns, Country/Continent.

Hospital. City.
TCP/IP Model
 TCP/IP means Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol.
 It is the network model used in the current Internet architecture as well.
 Protocols are set of rules which govern every possible communication
over a network.
 These protocols describe the movement of data between the source and
destination or the internet. 

Application Layer:
 The Application Layer provides the user with the interface to
communication. This could be your web browser, e-mail, Outlook etc.
 The Application Layer is where your web browser, a telnet, ftp, e-mail
application runs. 
 The Application Layer sends to, and receives data from, the Transport
Layer.
 Application layer includes all the higher-level protocols like TELNET, FTP,
SMTP etc.
  TELNET is a two-way communication protocol which allows connecting
to a remote machine and run applications on it.
 FTP(File Transfer Protocol) is a protocol, that allows File transfer
amongst computer users connected over a network. It is reliable, simple
and efficient.
 SMTP(Simple Mail Transport Protocol) is a protocol, which is used to
transport electronic mail between a source and destination, directed via
a route.

Transport Layer:
 The Transport Layer provides the means for the transport of
data segments across the Internet Layer.
 The position of the Transport layer is between Application
layer and Internet layer.
 The purpose of Transport layer is to permit devices on the source and
destination hosts to carry on a conversation. 
 Transport layer adds header information to the data.
 Transport layer breaks the message (data) into small units so that they
are handled more efficiently by the network layer.

Internet Layer:
 Internet Layer is the second layer of the four layer TCP/IP model.
 The position of Internet layer is between Network Access
Layer and Transport layer.
 It is the layer which holds the whole architecture together.
 Order in which packets are received is different from the way they are
sent.
 Finds the shortest path to reach destination network.
 IP (Internet Protocol) is used in this layer.

Network access Layer:

 Lowest layer of the all.
 The Network Access Layer provides access to the physical network.
  Protocol is used to connect to the host, so that the packets can be sent
over it.
 Error checking done in this layer.
 The purpose of a network interface is to allow your computer to access
the wire, wireless or network infrastructure and send data to
other computers.

OSI model:
 The Open Systems Interconnection model (OSI) is a conceptual model
which was introduced to standardized the way data is transferred and
received on the network all over the world.
 When a data packet is being transferred and received over any network
various layers take part.
 Collection of all these layers is OSI model. 

Layer 7 – Application:
 The application layer is where the user inputs data.
 This layer is responsible for providing interface to the application user. 
 It provides various email services.
 Browsers are not the application layers.
 Applications like Skype or Yahoo Messenger are application layer.
Layer 6 – Presentation:
 The presentation layer is where the operating system lies.
 Every webpage has texts, images, videos, html files.
 Presentation layer recognizes these common formats and displays
them. 
  Presentation layer deals with all this different files. It converts this data
into a readable format for the destination.
 Ex:- If you don’t have audio driver and you try to play a song, the
presentation layer will tell you it can’t do so because of absence of audio
drivers.
Layer 5 – Session:
 The best way to remember a session is thinking of it as a Hangout or
Yahoo messenger chat.
 When two people start communicating a session is created, as soon as
one ends the chat or disconnects session is broken.
 So the time when our ships leaves our docks and till the time it reaches
the destination is one whole session, assuming there are no problems
during that interval. If your ships gets hijacked by pirates, session is
terminated.
 Session plays an important role in online transactions. In the very last
step, where you need to enter OTP or your secure password to authorize
the transaction, if you sit idle for more than 2-3 minutes without any
activity, the session will terminate itself and the transaction will be
unsuccessful.
Layer 4 – Transport:
 This is where http comes into the picture. A connection is established
with the recipient using the TCP protocol.
 Transport layer gives you the best route, security and safest path to
the destination. 
 Transport layer would be responsible for determining what and how
much information is transferred between the operating system and the
web server.
Layer 3 – Network:
 The network layer is the most critical layer of OSI model. 
  It also decides the protocol.
 Routers work in the Network Layer. A router is a hardware device that
forwards packets of information between computers on a network.
Layer 2 – Data link:
  The data link layer is where switches operate and provides a reliable link
between two directly connected nodes.
 Computers usually store the logical address of the recipient.
 Now the data it is about to send will be addressed to the logical
address but cannot be sent directly to it, because the logical address is
just for the understanding of the computer.
 We work with physical address. So, we need a device which translates
the logical address into physical address and this process takes place in
data-link layer with the help of Switches.

Layer 1 – Physical:
 The physical layer is literally the physical hardware that makes up the
network. 
 This layer deals with the physical connection between the two devices
which are trying to communicate.
 Which means the patch cable connecting two computers is the Physical
layer of the OSI model.
 The first thing while troubleshooting a network problem is to check for
physical layer connection. 95% of time this will solve your problem.

Telnet (TELecommunication NETwork):
 Telnet is the protocol which enables one computer to establish a
connection to another computer (LAN).
 The computer establishing the connection is referred to as the local
computer; the computer accepting the connection is referred to as the
remote, or host, computer. 
  The remote computer can be physically located in the next room, the
next town, or in another country. 
 This process is also referred to as remote login.
 Telnet also operates on the client / server principle.
 The local computer uses a telnet client program to establish the
connection and display data on the local computer’s monitor.
 The remote, or host, computer uses a telnet server program to accept
the connection and send responses to requests for information back to
the local computer.
 Telnet allows the user to access Internet resources on other computers
around the world.
 A variety of resources are available through telnet. Fro example,
databases, other Internet tools such as FTP, Gopher, and the World
Wide Web, etc.

WWW:
 WWW stands for 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).
 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.

FTP:
 File Transfer Protocol, FTP is the most common way of sending and
receiving files between two computers. 
 FTP is most commonly used to download a file from a server using the
Internet or to upload a file to a server 
Search engine:
 A search engine is a software program or script available through the
Internet that searches documents and files for keywords and returns
the results of any files containing those keywords.
 Today, there are thousands of different search engines available on the
Internet, each with their own abilities and features.
 The first search engine ever developed is considered Archie, which was
used to search for FTP files and the first text-based search engine is
considered Veronica.
 Today, the most popular and well-known search engine is Google.
 Other popular search engines include Ask.com, Bing and Yahoo.

TYPES OF SEARCH ENGINES:

 Crawling: Search engines crawl the whole web to fetch the web pages
available. Crawling is performed by a software, called a crawler or
a spider. 
 Indexing: Indexing is next step after crawling which is a process of
identifying the words and expressions that best describe the page.
 Calculating similarities: Search engine compares the search string in the
search request with the indexed pages from the database. Since it is
likely that more than one page contains the search string, search engine
starts calculating the similarities of each of the pages in its index with
the search string.
 Retrieving the Result: The last step in search engines’ activity
is retrieving the results. Basically, it is simply displaying them in the
browser

Gopher:
 Gopher is a protocol designed to search, retrieve, and display
documents from remote sites on the Internet.
 In addition to document display, document retrieval, it is possible to
initiate on-line connections with other systems via Gopher.
 Information accessible via Gopher is stored on many computers all over
the Internet called Gopher servers.
 Gopher works on the client / server model.
 Gopher pages are just lists of links either to other pages on same site or
pages on other site.
 Unlike the world wide web there is no hypertext , just the links.
 The gopher distributed database is essentially a hierarchical structure of
directories.
 Some entries point to other directories, some points to documents.
 Documents can be text, images or programs

 Two types of search engine are available in gopher-

Veronica
Jug head
 Veronica is popular of the two. Both work much like the web search
engine.
 It was designed as a response to the problem in gopher space.
 Veronica is simply accessed through a gopher client, which is already
known by gopher users.

GOPHER EFFICIENCY:
 The gopher does not retain any information about the client across
transactions.
 The server is only connected to the user long enough to serve a
particular request.
 It does not pay the high overhead cost of having hundreds or thousands
of users logged in at once.