Barcodes

October 11, 2011 Leave a comment

US engineers Joe Woodland and Bernard Silver devised the barcode in 1949 as a way of automating the checkout process at grocery stores – and the system is still going strong today.  It’s estimated that Universal Product Code (UPC) symbols are scanned more than five billion times a day.  The System now enables self-checkout and even live price comparison via smartphones.  Quite an achievement for a collection of boring black and white lines.

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Databases

October 8, 2011 Leave a comment

A collection of data that is often organized in roms and columns to make searching and sorting easy to do.

The original database could be said to have originated in the libraries of ancient Greece, the first society to gather knowledge methodically in one accessible place.  These days, databases are digital and pervasive, driving a range of applications.  They can take the form of simple repositories of data about individuals or provide the building blocks and content for some of the world’s most popular websites.

Some common database:

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Blogs

October 7, 2011 Leave a comment

When does a fad become a force to be reckoned with?  Maybe it was when The Huffington Post received $5 million of Investment in 2006, Perez Hilton was given a TV show, or when Gizmodo’s leaked iPhone provoked the ire of the world’s biggest technology company.  Blogs used to be personal, but now they’re global powerhouses that challenge traditional media as well as governments – and they’re here to stay.

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Start your own blog?

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Electronic calculator

October 6, 2011 Leave a comment

Once upon a time, kids were drilled in their times tables and complex mathematics required a slide rule and an agile mind.  The electronic calculator changed all that: suddenly anybody could perform advanced calculations instantly.  It has liberated engineers and scientists from mathematical drudge work and freed them to focus on new application.  Some might say it’s also given the man in the street one more excuse to think less.

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eBay

October 4, 2011 Leave a comment

Along with Amazon, eBay was one of the pioneers of online shopping.  It now boasts sales of $60 billion a year, more from professional retailers than clutterclearers.  During its heyday, eBay drove people online with tales of outrageous made perfect marketing.  Issues with fraud and false feedback failed to spop the company’s progress.

eBay – www.ebay.com

Getting started on eBay – http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/gettingstarted.html

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E-Mail

October 3, 2011 Leave a comment

E-mail stand for “Electronic mail”

A system of world-wide electronic communication in which a computer user can compose a message at one terminal that can be regenerated at the recipient’s terminal when the recipient logs in;  however, “you cannot send packages by E- mail”

Like it or not, email changed the world.  Not only has it revolutionised the workplace, it was one of the main forces that let to the creation of the internet.  Originally invented in the early 1960s for people logged into a single system, it wasn’t until 1970 that Ray Tomilinson sent the first email across a network using the “@” symbol to specify an address.

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BASIC – a program language for very beginner

October 2, 2011 Leave a comment

Developed as a teaching language in the mid-1960s, BASIC ignited the careers of a whole generation.  In fact, it’s one of the few programming languages to have been taught in schools, most having neglected coding in favour of spreadsheets and word processing.  Providing a version of BASIC in 1974 gave Micro-Soft (sic) its big break, and Visual Basic 3 put programming into the hands of the masses.

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ASCII

October 1, 2011 Leave a comment

ASCII stand for “American Standard Code for Information Interchange”

Established in 1963, the American Standard Code for information interchange was the first standard system for encoding alphanumeric character.  ASCII made it easy to move data between systems, but, being American, it didn’t originally support accented letters, nor any currency symbols other than the dollar.  International computer manufacturers had to make do with fudges until the more advanced Unicode system was established in 1991.

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Desktop

January 14, 2011 Leave a comment

Screen that appears soon after you switch on your computer. It shows icons that you can move about with a mouse, like papers on a real desk.

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Data processing

January 13, 2011 Leave a comment

Handling, storing and organizing data to produce useful information.

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