Input and Output

Magnetic Ink Character Recognition

This technology is mainly used in the banking industry. It's sole purpose is to read information, for instances, account numbers, off of printed documents. MIRC characters are printed with a special magnectic ink or toner. This ink is usually contained with iron oxide. When a machine decodes a MIRC text, it firsts magnetizes the ink in the plane of the paper. Then the paper are passed over a MIRC read head. As each character passes over the head, it creates a waveform that is easily identified by the system which allows the characters to be read.

Optical-Character Recognition

OCR is the mechanical or electronic translation of an image of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into a machine-editable text. OCR is basically a field of research of pattern recognition, artificial intelligence and computer vision. However, the focus of OCR has shifted to implementations of techniques that have been proven. OCR term has been broadened to include digital image processing as well due to the scarcity of applications that survived true optical techniques.

Optical-Mark Recognition

Optical-Mark Recognition or, more famously known by the students as, OMR is the process of capturing human-marked data from a document form such as surveys or tests. Most traditional OMR machines work with a scanner that shines a beam of light onto the form paper. The reflectivity at predetermined positions is then used to detect the marked areas because they reflect less light than blank paper. OMR is commonly applied in examinations where the lecturer need to mark a large number of students. This will increase the lecturer's effectiveness in getting the papers marked faster. There are also other applications such as community surveys, consumer surveys, evaluations and so on.

Dot Matrix Printer

Dot Matrix Printers are printers used by computers that has a print head that runs back and forth or up and down. It creates an impact on the paper, striking an ink-soaked cloth ribbon on the paper. This application is similiar to that of a typewriter. Each character is made of a matrix of dots. The advantage of this is that it enables the end user to print out numerous fonts and arbitrary graphics. Due to the mechanical pressure, the second advantage of this is that it can print out carbon copies and carbonless copies.

Plotters

Plotters are vector graphics printing devices for computers that print graphical plot. There are two basic types of plotters, which are the pen plotters and electrostatic plotters. The pen plotter print by moving a pen across the surface of a paper. This means that this type of plotter is restricted to line graphics, rather than raster graphics as with other printers. The primary purpose of plotters were to print out texts because it is fairly easy to control and it doesn't require a lot of time. However, now pen plotters have become obsolete and have been replaced by large-format inkjet printers and LED toner based printers. Although they are raster devices, these printers still oftenly known as plotters.

Photo Printer

A photo printer is an inkjet printer that is specifically designed to produce high quality digital photos on photo paper. These printers are known to have high number of nozzles and are capable of printing droplets as small as 1 picoliter. These printers have increased in popularity, in conjuction with the increased use of digital cameras. Before the rise of digital cameras, photo printers were used only by professionals. What basically sets photo printers apart from standard inkjet printers is their use of additional cartridges, either speciality photo inks or just variations on the standard color cartridges.

Portable Printer

A portable printer is basically a printer for travellers. It is small in size and much more easier to carry around for frequent travellers who loves to go for long trips. Some of these adventurers would want to print some documents or information along the way and this is where the portable printer come in. A portable printer does not produce better quality than a standard printer, however, given the circumstances, a portable printer does have its advantages.

Fax Machine

Fax machines are telecommunication technology that is used to transfer copies of documents, using affordable devices operating over the telephone network. In terms of sending documents, it has the advantage over snail mail due to the speed that the reciever recieves the document. However, the lack of quality of the documents automatically delegates it to below e-mails. A standard fax machine usually consists of an image scanner, a modem, and a printer.

Multifunctional Devices

A multifunctional device or MFD is an office machine which combines the functionality of several office machines into one, in order to have a smaller footprint or a small business setting, or to provide centralized document management,distribution or production in a large-office setting. Today, MFD are available from any printer manufacturers. They are designed for all sorts of uses such as home uses, small business and so on. Naturally, the costs of the MFD varies according to various case uses. However, they all generally have the same functions which are print, scan, fax and photocopy.

Internet Telephones

An Internet phone service uses the Internet, instead of old-fashioned phone lines, to send voice projections. In most cases, you just have to plug your current telephone into a small box that your Internet phone company provides to you. Then the box plugs into your broadband connection. Just as with regular telephone service, you pick up the phone to get a dial tone and press numbers on the keypad to call the person you want to talk with. And as with a regular telephone, you can call anybody in the world who has a phone. Alternatively, some services have softphones: your computer becomes your telephone, and you talk through a handset or a headset plugged into USB ports.

Telephony

Telephony emcompasses the general use of equipment to provide voice communication over distances, specifically by connecting telephones to one another. Originally, telephones were connected directly together in pairs. Each user had separate telephones wired to the various places he might wish to communicate with. This is severly inconvenient when people wanted to talk to many other telephones, thus, the telephone exchange was invented. Each telephone could then be connected to other local ones, thus inventing the local loop and the telephone call. Soon, nearby exchanges were connected by trunk lines, and eventually distant ones were as well.

System Unit

Expansion card

Also known as an add-on card, internal card or interface adapter, an expansion card is an electronic board or card added in a desktop computer or other non-portable computer to give that computer a new ability, such as the ability to connect to another computer using a network cable. Such examples of expansion cards are Interface cards, modem and MPEG decoder.

Network Interface Card

A network interface card (NIC) is a computer circuit board or card that is installed in a computer so that it can be connected to a network. Personal computers and workstations on a local area network (LAN) typically contain a network interface card specifically designed for the LAN transmission technology, such as Ethernet or Token Ring. Network interface cards provide a dedicated, full-time connection to a network. Most home and portable computers connect to the Internet through as-needed dial-up connection. The modem provides the connection interface to the Internet service provider.

Plug & Play

Plug and Play (PnP) is a capability developed by Microsoft for Windows 95 and later operating systems that which gives the users the ability to plug a device into a computer and have the computer recognize that the device is there. The user doesn't have to tell the computer. In many earlier computer systems, the user was required to explicitly tell the operating system when a new device had been added. Microsoft made Plug and Play a selling point for its Windows operating systems. However, a similar capability had long been built into Macintosh computers.

Sockets

It is a small piece of plastic or metal contacts that are made for each pin in the CPU. The purpose of the socket is to provide physical protection for the CPU. Another purpose of the socket is also to connect all the electrical currents and circuits between the pins and the sockets inside the CPU.

Chips

It is a small electrity-powered circuit, which is also known as the intergrated circuit. It is one of the basic components needed for an electrical device to function, especially the computer. Computer chips are made of semiconductors that are made of silicons and other component such as the transistors. In the current day, a computer chip can contain millions of transistors and is abled to help computers become smaller and more powerful.

Slots

Slots have another name in the computing world, which is the Expansion Slot. These slots are basically the small and thin hole where external devices can be connected to the computer. These devices are more commonly known as expansion boards. Some examples of slots are the USB slot.

Bus Lines

Bus Lines are the communicating electronic lines that connect various parts of the CPU to other parts. It also connects to the computer's system board. Data flows in the form of 'bit' in a bus line. Bus lines are, basically, the electronic pathways that decide the rate of transfer of data. The greater the bus lines, the better the computer's efficiency.

Serial Port

A serial port is a serial communication physical interface through which data can only be transferred out a bit at a time. A standard serial port can be used to connect many different devices such as a modem, printer, mouse, monitor and so on. Through the serial ports, data is transferred to connected devices in the computer.

Parallel Port

A parallel port is a type of interface found on computers which are normally used to connect a printer to a PC. Because of its popular use of connecting printers, it is also known as the printer port. Another name for parallel port is parallel interface. Other than printers, parallel ports can be used to connect devices that needs a higher bandwidth such as joysticks and external hard disks.

Universal Serial Bus

Universal Serias Buses or, more commonly known as USB, is used to set up a communication between the computers and the peripheral devices. USB's sole purpose is actually to replace serial ports and parallel ports. Now, for most external devices, the USB has become the standard connection method. And it has grown from only for personal computers to PDA and other similar electronical devices.

Firewire Port

As a multi-platform serial bus, the firewire port has the capability to communicate with a number of different devices. For example, a firewire connection can provide an ideal way to connect a scanner to a computer system. As the transfer rate of a firewire port can reach up to 400 Mbps, the data transfer is relatively fast and also results in excellent quality.

Careers in IT

As the lecturer speaks in front of the class, I am starting on the task given. Information technology is a vast and everchanging field. It never stops changing, it never stops evolving. Thus, there are many careers involved in this field.

The first career I would like to write about is the Webmaster. According to TechTerms.com, a webmaster is a person who is in charge of maintaining a Web site. Tasks included in this job is writing HTML for Web pages, organizing the Web site's structure and format, responding to e-mails regarding the Web site, and keeping the site up-to-date. However, the tasks could vary between companies. In a smaller company, a Webmaster typically does all the jobs whereas in a bigger company, a Webmaster is usually a person with either a writing and/or graphics design background who has acquired Web site creation skills or a more technical person with ideal programming skills.

The second career that I would like to touch on is the Computer Support Specialist. Based on the definition supplied by StateUniversity.com, a Computer Support Specialist is a person who helps people with computer problems. Helping people fix the problems is the base of the job. However, there are several differences. Some specialists are help-desks technicians, others are technical support which supply support services to people in the information processing department of a company, and at the same time, there are some who specialize in setting up our computer systems when delivered to our homes. All computer support positions require strong analytical thinking and problem- solving abilities. Support specialists must write technical reports about the problems they encounter. This shows just how arduous the job can be.

The third career is the Technical Writer. The Technical Writer is the person responsible for writing hardware and software documentation, online help, technical definitions and technical product descriptions on Web sites. Quite frequently, the technical writer is given the task of documenting an application at the last minute, allowing very little time for a thorough understanding of all the options, let alone time for others to read and edit the material before it is published. Although technical writing is a skill that takes years to learn, and while some companies do appreciate it, most do not. Technical writers are regularly given less attention than other professionals in the field. In many enterprises, technical writing is considered a necessary evil. Thus, almost all of the documentation we read could be better, and much of it is downright illegible. It is not a wonder that most people including other Technical Writers avoid reading manuals.

The next career is the Software Engineer. According to PCMag.com, a Software Engineer is a person who designs and programs system-level softwares, such as OS, DBMS and embedded systems. The title is often used for programmers in the software field who create commercial software packages, whether they be system level or application level. A Software Engineer is often mistaken as a programmer but in reality, the differences is irrefutably vast.
While a programmer creates the codes that make a program run, a Software Engineer creates the designs the programmer implements. According to the U.S. law, no person may use the title "engineer" (of any type) unless the person holds a professional engineering license from a state licensing board and are in good standing. A software engineer is also held accountable to a specific code of ethics.

The fifth career that I have to write about is the Programmer. A programmer is a person who writes the step-by-step instructions that direct computers to process information. These instructions, or in other words, programs, tell the computer what to do in a series of coherent steps. A majority of programmers are involved in applications programming. They work on specific tasks that have a direct application, such as designing accounting procedures among others. There are two main types of programmers which are the application programmer and the system programmer. Both have individual tasks and different roles to play in the programming community.

The following career is the Network Administrator. According to StateUniversity.com, a network administrator oversees computer networks to ensure that they function smoothly. A network consists of a combination of computers that communicate with each other or a central computer known as a server, on which computer files, programs, and other information are stored. A network may be as small as two or three computers or as large as the Internet which is the world's largest computer network. A network administrator differs from network techinician and engineer in the sense that, a network administrator usually configures and maintains an existing network. One task of a network administrator is creating a firewall which is a set of security measures created with the sole purposes of preventing others from gaining uncertified access to the system. Another task is to monitor the network to see who is using it and how are they using it. As usual, the responsibility of this job varies on the size of the organisation as a larger company includes a larger responsibility.

Next, is the Database Administrator. According to Prospects.com, a database administrator is in charge for the performance, reliability and security of a database. A database administrator's subsequent role requirements are likely to include planning, development and troubleshooting. The work of a database administrator differs according to the nature of the employing organisation and the level of responsibility related with the post. The work may be pure maintenance or it may also involve specialising in database development. Typical responsibilities are establishing the needs of users and monitoring user access and security, controlling access permissions and privileges and communicating regularly with technical, applications and operational staff to ensure database integrity and security.

And finally, is the System Analyst. According to TechTerms.com, a system analyst is the person who selects and configures computer systems for an organization or business. His or her job typically begins with determining the intended purpose of the computers. Thus, the analyst must understand the general objectives of the business, as well as what each individual user's job requires. Once the system analyst has determined the general and specific needs of the business, he can choose appropriate systems that will help accomplish the goals of the business.