Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Microsoft Software
Personal computers are becoming increasingly
powerful, versatile and popular among organizations
and individuals alike not because of reduction in their
cost and increase in memory size but primarily due to
the tremendous power and variety of software
available.
In fact, it is the software that makes a computer
useful as well as user-friendly. Although there are a
number of software vendors in the market, the main
driving force behind the software revolution is the
Microsoft Corporation.
Microsoft Software
The first major software project of Microsoft
Corporation was the development of an operating
system known as Disk Operation Systems (DOS) for
the original IBM personal computer in the year 1980.
Although originally seen as a supplier of operating
systems, Microsoft went on to develop a variety of
successful application packages, thus becoming a
leading software company in the world. Microsoft
today has a suite of software packages that would
meet many of the standard applications requirements
of most organizations. This software suite, popularly
known as Microsoft Office, includes the following
application packages:
Microsoft Software
Microsoft Word: Developed in 1983, it provides
powerful tools for creating and manipulating word
processing documents.
Microsoft Excel: Developed in 1985, it enables to
create detailed spreadsheets for viewing and
collaboration.
Microsoft PowerPoint: Developed in 1988, it
provides a complete set of tools for creating
presentations.
Microsoft Publisher: Developed in 1991, it helps in
publishing materials, such as news letters, brochures
and catalogs
Microsoft Access: Developed in 1912, it gives
powerful tools for creating and managing databases.
MS Word System
MS Word is an application software that can be used
to create, edit, save and print personal as well as
professional documents in a very simple and efficient
manner. It is mainly designed for word processing,
so it is also referred as the word processing program.
MS Word is not the only word processing program
available in the market. There are many other word
processing applications available, such as Open
Office Writer and Google Docs.
For working in MS Word, we need to install MS Office
in a computer system. After installing MS Office, we
can start MS Word using Start menu.
MS Word System
Major components on the GUI of MS Word:
Title bar: It is a horizontal bar at the top of the window that
displays the name of the currently opened MS Word document.
By default, MS Word assigns names to new documents as
Document1, Document2, Document3 and so on. However, we
can also save our document with some other name of our
choice.
Menu bar: It is located right below the title bar. The Menu bar
is used to house a set of commands that can be used to
perform various operations such as opening a file, closing a file
and creating a table.
Creating a document
Saving a document
Editing a document
Formatting a document
Printing a document
MS Excel System
MS Excel is an application program that allows us to create
spreadsheets, which are represented in the form of a table
containing rows and columns.
LAN
Wide Area Network (WAN)
WAN is a group of computers that are connected in a large area
such as continent, country, etc. WAN is generally used for
connecting two or more LANs through some medium such as
leased telephone lines, microwaves, etc. In WAN, data is
transferred at slow rate.
LAN LAN
WAN
LAN LAN
Metropolitan Area
Network (MAN)
MAN is a network of computers that covers a large area like a city. The
size of the MAN generally lies between that of LAN and WAN, typically
covering a distance of 5Km to 50 Km.
The geographical area covered by MAN is comparatively larger than
LAN but smaller than WAN. MAN is generally owned by private
organizations.
MAN is generally connected with the help of optical fibres, copper wires
etc. One of the most common example of MAN is cable television
network within a city. A network device known as router is used to
connect the LANs together. The router directs the information packets
to the desired destination.
LAN LAN
Router
Router Router
Hierarchical topology
Bus topology
Star topology
Ring topology
Mesh topology
Hybrid topology
Hierarchical Topology
The hierarchical topology is also
known as tree topology, which
is divided into different levels. Top level
This type of topology is
arranged in the form of a tree
structure in which top level Second level
contains parent node (root
node), which is connected with
the child nodes in the second
level of hierarchy with the point-
Third level
to-point link.
The second level nodes are
connected to the third level
nodes, which in turn are
connected to the fourth level
nodes and so on.
Except the top-level node, each
level node has a parent node.
Linear Bus Topology
In the linear bus topology, all
the nodes are connected to the Cable end
single backbone or bus with
some medium.
When a node wants to
communicate with the other
nodes in the network, it simply
sends a message to the
common bus. All the nodes in
the network then receive the
message but the nodes for
which it was actually sent only
processes it. The other nodes Cable end
discard the message.
Star Topology
In the star topology, all the
nodes are connected to a
common device known as hub.
When a node wants to send a
message to the other nodes, it
first sends the message to the
hub, which in turn forwards the Hub
message to the intended node.
Each node in the network is
connected with a point-to-point
line to the centralized hub. The
task of hub is to detect the
faulty node present in the
network. On the other hand, it
also manages the overall data
transmission in the network.
Ring Topology
In the ring topology, the nodes
are connected in the form of a
ring. Each node is connected
directly to the other two nodes
in the network.
The node, which want s to send
a message, first passes the
message to its consecutive node
in the network.
Data is transmitted in the clock
wise direction form one node to
another.
Each node incorporates a
repeater, which passes the
message to next node when the
message is intended for another
node.
Mesh Topology
In mesh topology, each
computer is connected to every
other computer in point-to-point
mode.
For example, if we have four
computers, we must have six
links. If we have n computers,
we must have n(n-1)/2 links.
A message can take several
possible paths to reach a
destination.
Hybrid Topology
The hybrid topology is the combination of multiple topologies, used
for constructing a single large topology.
The hybrid topology is created when two different network topologies
are interconnected. If two ring topologies are connected then the
resultant topology is not the hybrid topology.
On the other hand, if the ring topology is connected to the bus
topology then the resulting topology is called the hybrid topology.
This topology generally combines the features of the two topologies
and is therefore more effective and efficient than the individual
topologies.
Network Media
Network media refers to the physical media used to connect the
computer nodes together. There are many types of transmission
media, the most popular ones are: