Week 8-Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

Microsoft PowerPoint is the perfect application software to create eye-catching slides. Exciting new audio and visual capabilities help you tell a crisp, cinematic story that’s as easy to create as it is powerful to watch. Exciting new audio and visual capabilities help you tell a crisp, cinematic story that’s as easy to create as it is powerful to watch.

Here are the new features of Microsoft PowerPoint 2010.

• Embed and edit video from within PowerPoint. Now you can add fades, formatting effects, bookmark scenes, and trim videos to give your presentations a professional multimedia experience.

• Use new and improved picture editing tools—including versatile artistic effects and advanced correction, color, and cropping tools.
• Add dynamic 3-D slide transitions and more realistic animation effects to grab your audience’s attention.
• Compress video and audio in your presentation to reduce file size for easy sharing and improved playback performance.

• Use new co-authoring capabilities to edit the same presentation, at the same time, with people in different locations. You can even communicate as you work, directly from PowerPoint.

Week 7-Microsoft Excel 2010

Microsoft excel 2010 is designed to get the most productive results when carrying out spreadsheets and important calculations in this busy world. There are some special features in excel 2010 that makes it stand out from the rest of the versions.

• Improved ribbon: First introduced in Excel 2007, the ribbon makes it easy for you to find commands and features that were previously buried in complex menus and toolbars.

• Microsoft office backstage view: Click the File tab to open Backstage view, where you create new files, open existing files, save, send, protect, preview, and print files, set options for Excel, and more.

• Microsoft Excel web app: Excel Web App extends your Excel experience to the web browser, where you can work with workbooks directly on the site where the workbook is stored.

• Spark lines: Excel Web App extends your Excel experience to the web browser, where you can work with workbooks directly on the site where the workbook is stored.

• Slicers: Slicers are visual controls that let you quickly filter data in a PivotTable in an interactive, intuitive way. If you insert a slicer, you can use buttons to quickly segment and filter the data to display just what you need.

• Improved conditional formatting: Conditional formatting makes it easy to highlight interesting cells or ranges of cells, emphasize unusual values, and visualize data by using data bars, color scales, and icon sets.

• Improved filter capabilities: In addition to slicers, which are described earlier in this article, Excel 2010 comes with new features that make it easier to sort and filter data.

• More themes: In Excel 2010, there are more themes and styles than ever before. These elements can help you apply professional designs consistently across your workbooks and other Microsoft Office documents.

Week 6-Microsoft Word 2010

Eventhough there are many word processing softwares out there in the market, most of the people prefer to use Microsoft office word. The latest version Microsoft word 2010 is the most popular word processor now. People prefer it because of all the new features and benefits that have arrived with this version.

Here’s why many people prefer to use Microsoft word 2010.

To create visually appealing documents much easier than ever.

Microsoft word is now built with much advanced tools that make your important contents stand out by allowing you to,

• Add impressive formatting effects such as gradient fills and reflections.

• Use new and improved picture editing tools—including versatile artistic effects and advanced correction, color, and cropping tools

• Choose from more customizable Office themes to coordinate colors, fonts, and graphic formatting effects throughout your documents.

• Make a statement with a wide selection of Smart Art graphics— including many new layouts for organization charts and picture diagrams—to create impressive graphics as easily as typing a bulleted list.

To save time and simplify your work

In word 2010, you don’t have to spend a lot of time running your cursor around the window looking for tools. Everything is easily accessible and nothing is out of sight. Here are the ways how Microsoft word 2010 can save your time and simplify your work.

• Look for Improved Navigation Pane and Find tools. These new enhancements make it easier than ever to browse, search, and even reorganize document content right from a single, easy-to-use pane.

• Recover draft versions of files that you closed without saving. The version recovery feature is just one of many new features available from the new Microsoft Office Backstage™ view.

To make it easier to work with others

If you work with others on documents and projects, Word 2010 has the tools you need.

• Using new co-authoring capabilities, you can now edit the same document, at the same time, as other team members in other locations. You can even communicate instantly as you work, directly from Word.

Week 5-Anatomy of Windows7

Windows7 is the latest operating system released by Microsoft. It was released in 2009. Most of the PC users around the globe use Windows7 for its effectiveness and ease of access. Windows 7 uses up less memory and power. It is also much faster when recognizing USB drives. There are five main unique elements of windows 7.

• Aero view: Aero is an interface that makes your visual interactions with the desktop fun and easy. Through Aero peek, you can make your current windows transparent so that you can view your desktop. Aero snap is a quick way to resize your windows. Aero flip allows you to preview all your open windows from a central window in 3D view. Aero shake allows you to take your mouse and shake only the open window you want to focus on and the rest will disappear.

• Taskbar: The taskbar of windows7 is more convenient to use with larger views and easier access. Jump Lists allow you to right click on an icon in the taskbar and immediately access what you use on a regular basis. Pin allows you to place programs on the taskbar and rearrange the order of the icon as you wish. Action center allows you to control the alerts and pop-ups you receive regarding maintenance and security.

• Search: As soon as you start typing in the search bar of the start menu, you will instantly see a list of relevant options grouped by categories with highlighted keywords and text.

• Libraries: Allow you to organize your files in one place so they are easy to search and access

• Gadgets: You can select or download gadgets such as a slideshow, calendar or weather update to add to your desktop.

Windows7 remains to be popular since its time of release. No user has been able to find a fault with this operating system and I personally prefer windows7 more than any other operating system because of its ease of use. We can soon find what windows7 is not capable of doing once windows8 is released!

Week 4-Types of Network

Network is a group of computers that are connected to each other to share information or resources. The basic purpose of a network is to enable effective communication, share resources and facilitate centralized management of data. Networks are of different types and serve different purposes according to the users’ geographical boundaries. Here are the types of network that you can find these days……

LAN – Local Area network

LAN is a network that connects computers in the same physical area such as a room, a building or a campus. In this network, software applications and other resources are stored on a file server. The computers are connected to each other using Ethernet.



There are two types of LAN network;

• Intranet; A private LAN set up in an organization which normally consists of an internet e-mail system, a message board and one or more website portals that contain company news, forms and personal information about the organization.
  
• Extranet; A network that connects people within your company with people who are outside your company – all within a secure password protected network that can be accessed from anywhere. This is the network which helps you work from home without having to travel to the office.

WAN – Wide Area Network

This is the kind of network that’s used in a wide geographical area like across a country or even globally.



There four types of network that come under WAN.

• MAN – Metropolitan area network
• PAN – Public area network
• VAN – Value added network
• VPN – Virtual private network

Peer to Peer network

In peer to peer network, each computer is considered separate and equal in importance. They are formed just to share information or resources between each computer. This network is very inexpensive and is easy to set up. They are popular as home networks and as networks used in small companies. The maximum number of peers in this network is ten. The network won’t work well if the computers connected are more than ten.



Server Based Network

A server based network is set up where there is much concern about the security of data. Servers in this network require faster CPUs, more memory, larger disk drives, and extra peripherals such as tape drives. There is a centralized control over how the network is being used and why. This network is more expensive than the peer to peer network and require expert staff to handle complex server software.



Client/Server Network

In this network, the server’s only function is to respond to the requests of clients. The server contains file, print, application,security, and other services in a central computer that is continuously available to respond to client requests.



Networks simplify our lives in many ways. It saves our money by letting us share resources between many computers and it saves our time by not having to transfer files from one computer to another externally. It also allows us to work from home and not travel for hours to the workplace.

Week 3-session 2-Programming Languages

Programming language is a language for a programmer to communicate with the computer. A computer doesn’t understand the instructions given in English or any other language. So there is a separate set of words, abbreviations and symbols that enables a programmer to communicate instructions to a computer. You can create programs using programming language.



Lower-Level Language

This language is very tedious and time-consuming. Each instruction represents a single machine instruction. This language can only run in particular types of PCs. Here are the two types of lower-level language.

• Machine Language: Uses a series of binary digits or a combination of numbers and letters that represent binary digits.
• Assembly Language: Program is written using symbolic instruction codes called mnemonic. Assembly language must be converted into machine language before the computer can execute the program.

Higher-Level Language

This language is more user-friendly and is a machine-independent language. Each instruction usually represents a multiple machine instructions. This language is very understandable for the programmer.

Week 3-Session 1-Software Layers : Operating System, Drivers, System Software, Application programs

Categories of Software

Software is the intangible part of the computer. Something like the mind. Something you can feel exists but cannot touch or see. Software gives instructions to the computer as to what to do and how to do it. Software also drive the hardware.

Software can be of three types as listed below,

• System software: controls and maintains the operations of the computer and its devices. Example; Windows operating system. There are two types of software under system software. First is the operating system which is a set of programs that coordinates all the activities among computer hardware resources. The second is utility programs which allow the user to perform maintenance-type tasks concerning the computer, its devices and its programs.

• Application software: makes users more productive and assist them with their personal or official tasks like creating slides for a presentation, designing leaflets, doing calculations and recording data to be retrieved much easily later on. Example; Microsoft office package.

•  Programming language: enable people (programmers) to communicate instructions to a computer.

These are the basic types of software that are needed to run a computer. A computer with all the physical parts are not worth at all if there are no software installed into the machine.

Software Layers

These are the layers of software that stand in between the computer user and computer hardware. This is the process of how computers get things done once we give the command.



Here are the layers of software explained in detail…….

1. Application Program: This is the topmost software layer where the normal interaction between the computer and user occurs.These software are designed to be powerful but easy to use. Example; word processing, email, internet, and so on…
2. Operating system: this software receives orders from the user through application program. It has programs and routines that have control over and access to all hardware.
3. Device drivers: Device drivers are very low level instructions to a device like the printer or the hard drive. It can provide interface or communication directly with hardware devices. It also allows the operating system to directly access hardware recourses.
4. System software: It provides a small library for basic input/output functions used to operate and control the peripheral devices.

These are the layers of software and any of the software should come under any of these layers.
Whatever layer they belong to, they are equally important for a computer to run.