Friday, January 29, 2010

PC Software

microsoft office 2000
In today’s computing scenario you can’t even think of carrying out a task without using software. They play a useful role in our everyday activities, such as Microsoft Word for creating and editing word documents, play your favorite games using the gaming software, payroll software for maintaining salary records and much more.
Computer software is a collection of computer programs to carry out some task for which it is developed. For instance, Windows operating system is computer software, which provides an interface between the computer user and the computer hardware. It offers a platform for the other software to run properly. You may have used some form of chat process which is again computer software which allows different users to communicate with each other by sending instant messages, videos and audios.
In layman’s language software is nothing but a kind of utility which makes a task easier and quicker. Software gives direction to the computer to perform a task.
Types of Software
Software can be categorized in to three categories on the basis of their role like:
1. System software
2. Application software
3. Programming software

System software is required to run the computer hardware and other system. It consists of a set of computer programs, which are needed to make the system operational. Operating systems, device drivers, servers are all included in this category of software.
The software required to carry out a specific task are known as application software. Databases, payroll software, medical software are some of the application software.
Programming software are helpful in creating other software using computer programming languages and includes interpreter, compilers and text editors.
Computer Software plays a major role in several areas like: business, education, medicine, space, computing, and many others.Online education and training tutorials for Microsoft Office and other desktop applications for end users and developers.

Browser Software

mozilla firefox 2.0
We all have used Internet to search images, videos and information on several topics. But do you know how you are able to see the text, images and other multimedia content form Internet? We get this information with the use of web browsers.
A web browser is a software application used for retrieving, traversing, and presenting the information resources from the World Wide Web to the user. Every information resource on Internet is assigned a unique Uniform resource locator (URL), which in turn is used to identify the resource from the wide variety of available resources.
The web browser contains an area known as address bar for entering the URL of any website for finding the content. So, when a user enters a URL into the address bar of the web browser, then the web browser navigates to the specified web page and presents it to the user. The type of content presented by the web browser is based on the type of web browser used.
There are basically two types of web browsers:
1. Graphical user interface (GUI) based browser
2. Text-based browser
The GUI based browser from the name itself denotes the browser, which is used to display the text without formatting, whereas the graphical user interface based browsers displays all the multimedia contents in the output result along with the text.
Let us highlight the names of some of the most commonly used web browsers like:
1. Internet Explorer
2. Safari
3. Opera
4. Mozilla Firefox
5. Google Chrome
6. Netscape Navigator
7. Netscape Communicator
Earlier used web browsers offer less number of functionalities and features. But the latest web browsers carry more advanced features and functionalities as compared to the previous versions of web browsers like enhanced password management feature, store web history, bookmark your favorite sites.

PC Firewall Guide

ca firewall
Firewall can be a part of computer system or network, which is intended for blocking unauthorized access. It can be a device or a collection of devices for permitting, denying, encrypting, decrypting all computer traffic for maintaining security.
Firewall can be implemented through many techniques, packet filter, application-level gateway, circuit-level gateway and proxy server. It can be implemented in hardware or software or can be a combination of both. You can utilize personal firewall if you want to maintain security of your important data.
An application, which is able to check incoming and outgoing traffic of a computer system on the basis of security policies, can be named as personal firewall. Some of its features are as follows:
Personal firewall is able to hide the computer from port scans because it will not respond to unwanted network traffic. It alerts the user about outgoing connection attempts. This application can monitor those applications which are listening for incoming connections.
Personal firewall offers the information about those applications which makes connection attempt. It is able to monitor and regulate all incoming and outgoing Internet users. Along with many advantages, it has some disadvantages like it consumes system resources. This firewall can interact with the operating system at kernel mode level which can introduce security issues and software bugs.

BitDefender provides user a firewall that will protect your computer, and you need to set BitDefender firewall on Windows 7.

Antivirus Software

ca antivirus
Internet has been a most widely used mode of communication worldwide. leading organizations make use of e-mail for carrying out communication with the customers. It has been one of the cheapest medium of communication. But this cost-effective and most suitable medium of communication is turned into a more dangerous medium for infecting the computer systems with the latest virus, worms, and other infections. It is used for spreading of the malicious codes like the Trojans for stealing the privacy of the individual or the business, worms and viruses for making the PC paralyzed and slow performing. As a result of this the need of protecting the PC from the most dangerous malicious codes has become a point of concern. This gave rise to the antivirus software.
The software market is flooded with a variety of antivirus software. Some companies are offering their free version of the antivirus software for allowing the customers to use the software for some fixed period of time and then shift to its paid version for the more enhanced protection.
Also, privacy has been a prior concern for the computer users, especially when their computer systems are connected to Internet. TWide spread spams and unsolicited e-mails violate the privacy of computer users. There are various unsolicited e-mails, which redirects the users to the websites that contains malicious code and certain other harmful threats. Some antivirus software has a built-in e-mail scanner, which examines the e-mail messages before the user attempts to open the message for the presence of any kind of threat and categories the message to be spam or harmful based on the findings.CounterSpy offers the best spyware protection available today.
It is strongly recommended that you should install antivirus software on your PC to protect it from threats.