Image Editors

Image editors are sophisticated versions of paint programs that are used to edit and transform-but not create-complex bit-mapped images, such as photographs. They also enable skilled users to doctor photographs in ways that leave few traces behind. After using imaging editors to improve your photos, you can share them with friends and family over the internet. Professional design studios have used image editors such as Adobe Photoshop for years, but image editors may soon capture a wider market due to the booming market for digital cameras. Programs such as Adobe’s Photo Deluxe are designed for beginners who want to perform the most common image enhancement tasks quickly and easily and then print their pictures on a color printer. Photo Deluxe can be used to remove red-eye from flash snapshots and adjust a picture’s overall color cast.

Animation Programs

When you see a movie at a theater, you’re actually looking at still images shown at a frame rate (images per second) that is sufficiently high to trick the eye into seeing continuous motion. Like a movie, an animation consists of the same thing: images that appear to move. Animators create each of the still images separately. In computer animation, the computer provides tools for creating the animation as well as for running it. It’s easy to create a simple animation using the GIF file format, which enables programs to store more than one image in a GIF file. The file also stores a brief script that tells the applications to pay the images in a certain sequence and to display each image for a set period of time.

Computer Posture: Are You Sitting Comfortably?

Ergonomics, or the study of workplace design, is more a case of common sense than hard science. When arranging your workstation, there are two main considerations: comfort and safety. By comfort, we mean that you shouldn’t have to crick your neck to see the monitor, prop yourself up on cushions to use the keyboard or crawl under the desk to reach your computer’s CD drive. By safety, however, we must consider the dangers of using a computer for prolonged periods. Chief amongst the hazards is Repetitive Strain Injury, or RSI, involving such unpleasant complaints as tenosynovitis, tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome. Regular breaks and stretching exercises are advisable during a long session at desk but equally important is adopting a sensible posture. Above all, any discomfort is a sign of stress, so respect your body’s signals and take action before it is too late. RSI is a debilitating and often agonizing condition.

Resolution

The term resolution generally refers to the sharpness of an image. Video adapters conform to standard resolutions that are expressed by the number of dots (pixels) that can be displayed horizontally, followed by an “x” and the number of lines that can be displayed vertically (for example, 1024 × 768). For color graphic displays, Video Graphics Array (VGA) is the lowest-resolution standard (640 × 480). Most of today’s monitors are equipped with at least Super VGA (1,024 × 768). The newest models sport Super and Ultra extended Graphics Array video adapters allowing for an amazing 1,600 pixels per line and 1,200 lines of pixels per screen.

Read Only Memory (ROM)

If everything in RAM is erased when the power is turned off, how does the computer start up again? The answer is read-only memory as you seen on the topic (ROM), a type of memory on which instructions have been prerecorded. The instructions to start the computer are stored in read-only memory chips. ROM only allows these instructions to be read; they cannot be erased. In contrast with RAM, ROM retains information even when the power is switched off.

Memory

The CPU needs to interact with multiple input/output requests at the same time. That’s the job of the computer’s memory. Memory refers to the computer’s memory. Memory refers to the chips that enable the computer to retain information. Memory chips store program instructions and data so that the CPU can access them quickly. The computer’s motherboard contains several different types of memory, each optimized for its intended use.

The Motherboard

The motherboard is a large printed circuit board (PCB), flat piece of plastic or fiber- glass that contains thousand of electrical circuits etched onto the board’s surface. The circuits connect numerous plug-in receptacles, which accommodate the computer’s most important components (such as the microprocessor). The motherboard provides the centralized physical and electrical connection point for the computer’s most important components. Most of the components on the motherboard are integrated circuits. An integrated circuit (IC), also called a chip, carries an electrical current and contains millions of transistors. A transistor is an electronic switch (or gate) that controls the flow of electrical signals to the circuit.

Computer Science

The computer science (CS) discipline uses scientific and engineering research to improve computing. In general, CS departments emphasize the theoretical rather than the practical aspects of computing, focusing on cutting-edge technologies and fundamental principles rather than teaching marketable skills. At most colleges and universities, CS programs grew out of mathematics programs are often housed in the engineering school. CS training is highly technical and usually involves several semesters of higher mathematics, such as calculus, as well as training in several programming language structure, advanced computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and relational database design. Qualified CS graduates find that their theoretical and analytical skills make them good candidates for job in cutting-edge software development firms. The skills of these graduates may also needed by IS departments that are working with advanced technologies or developing software in-house.