Peer to Peer Network (P2PN)

In a peer-to-peer network (P2PN), all of the computers on the network are equals, or peers—that’s where the term peer-to-peer comes from—and there’s no fil server. But there is file sharing, in which each computer user decides which, if any, files will be accessible to other users on the network. Users also may choose to share entire directories or even entire disks. They also can choose to share peripherals, such as printers and scanners. Peer-to-peer network are easy to set up; people who aren’t networking experts do it all the time, generally to share an expensive laser printer or to provide Internet access to all of the workstations on the LAN. Peer-to-peer networks tend to slow down as the number of users increases, and keeping track of all of the shared files and peripherals can quickly become confusing. For this reason, peer-to-peer LAN’s aren’t suitable for networks that connect more than one or two dozen computers.

UNIX

Developed at AT&T’s Bell Laboratories, UNIX is a pioneering operating system that continues to define what an operating system should do and how it should work. UNIX (pronounced “you-nix”) was the first operating system with pre-emptive multi-tasking, and it was designed to work efficiently in a secure computer network. If UNIX is so great, why didn’t it take over the computer world? One reason is the lack of compatibility among the many different versions of UNIX. Another reason is that it’s difficult to use. UNIX, like DOS, defaults to a command-line user interface, which is challenging for new computer users. In the past few years, a number of GUI interfaces have been developed for UNIX, improving its usability.

Integrated Programs

Integrated programs offer all of the functions of the leading productivity programs in a single easy-to-use program. Integrated programs such as Microsoft Works are generally aimed at beginning users. They offer easy-to-learn and easy-to-use versions of basic productivity software. All of the functions, called modules, share the same interface, and you can switch between them quickly. The individual modules, however, may be short on features compared with standalone programs or office suites. The lack of features may make these easy programs seem more difficult when you start exploring the program’s more advanced capabilities. Microsoft Works contains a word processor that is very similar a Word, a spreadsheet program that is very similar to Excel, a database program, a calendar, and other productivity tools. The modules of an integrated program are not available as standalone programs-you cannot purchase the spreadsheet program in Works as a standalone product.

Note: Microsoft Works is a discontinued office suite by Microsoft. Works is smaller, was less expensive, and has fewer features than Microsoft Office or other major office suites. (2014)

Standalone Programs

A standalone program is a program that is fully self-contained. Microsoft Word and Excel are examples of standalone programs. You can purchase and install them separately, and they functions perfectly well all by themselves. However, standalone programs require a lot of storage space. For example, if you purchase Word and install it and then purchase Excel and install it, neither program would know about other, nor would they share any resources, such as menus, drivers, graphics libraries, or tools. Obviously, this is a very inefficient way to install and use software when the programs have so many resources they could share.

Multimedia Authoring Systems

Authoring tools are used to create multimedia presentations. These tools enable you to specify which multimedia objects to use (such as text, pictures, videos, or animations), how to display them in relation to each other, how long to display them, and how to enable the user to interact with the presentation. To take full advantage of an authoring tool’s capabilities, it’s often necessary to learn a scripting language (a simple programming language). A leading authoring package is Macromedia Director. Commercial authoring tools such as Macromedia Director save output in proprietary file formats. To view Macromedia presentations on a Web site, it’s necessary to download and install a plug-in program (software that extends a browser’s capabilities). Some users do not like to download viewers, so the Web’s standards setting body, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), recently approved the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL), a simple multimedia scripting language designed for Web pages. Once SMIL, is supported by Web browsers, Internet users will be able to enjoy enhanced multimedia without having to download plug-in programs.

Video Editors

Video Editors are programs that enable you to modify digitized videos. With a video editor, you can cut segments, re-sequence frames, add transitions, compress a file, and determine a video’s frame rate (the number of still images displayed per second). Video editors also enable you to save video files to some or all of the following video file formats:

Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG): A family of video file formats and lossy compression standards for full-motion video.

QuickTime: A video file format developed by Apple Computer. It is widely used in multimedia

Video for Windows: The native (or original format a program uses internally) video file format for Microsoft Windows. Often called AVI because these files use the .avi file extension, this format is inadequate for full-screen, broadcast-quality video.

Because a huge amount of data must be stored to create realistic-looking video on a computer, all video file formats use codec techniques. For the best playback, special video adapters are required. These adapters have hardware that decodes videos at high speed. To make video available on the Internet, streaming video formats have been developed. These formats enable the video picture to start playing almost immediately after the user clicks the video.